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| Orebro, Sweden |
Stockholm continued to be beautiful. Kelly deemed it the prettiest place we’ve been, and indeed we were both content just to walk around and take in the buildings, which is a good thing because we couldn’t have afforded anything else. I liked the clouds. Due to a goodly wind, they were hurtling through the sky, producing a very cool effect. Also due to the wind, and overall temperature drops, I purchased a sweater. It’s nice.
Kelly and I ate at McDonalds again in Stockholm. I’m not proud of it. It’s just so easy. While there, we spotted two adorable little Swedish girls with their father. They were happily eating their happy meals, which contained the standard issue tiny hamburger and...what’s this?...CARROTS! In lieu of a bag of fries, these girls were munching away on plastic baggies of carrots. They didn’t seem to mind at all. So I don’t know what’s happening in the States, but Mcee D’s in Sweden is serving up carrots as an option. I should mention, however, that the carrots were flash fried in beef tallow. No they weren’t.
I finally found an internet cafe with a firewire port, and was able to plug in my iPod and create some more playlists...most importantly a list of songs I haven’t rated yet. iPod lets you rate each song between 1 and 5 stars...the organizer in me leapt all over this. Something about tracking which songs I like the best (and worst) is incredibly appealing. Given my enormous collection of music (around 7,000 songs total), I can create hours-long playlists of only my most cherished songs (and skip the crap ones). As an aside, iPod’s (and others’) database organization of music will almost surely (eventually) dethrone the album as the primary organizing entity of music (just as Tivo is dethroning the television network as the primary organizing entity of TV). Already, through the iTunes store, people can purchase only those individual songs they want, which will probably spawn a whole new generation of one hit wonders.
This internet cafe we found in Stockholm was by far the best on our trip. The connection was fast, and the computers were incredibly fast. They were tricked out for gaming, which always entails the fastest hardware. Dozens of young men would crowd in day and night to play Unreal Tournament, which is a military shoot-em-up game playable over a network. The Swedes crowded in to play by day, and were somewhat loud and disturbing. The Middle Easterners crowded in to play by night, and were excruciatingly loud and disturbing. The cafe encompassed several rooms, and not only would they shout and cheer victory and defeat, but would shout to communicate with others in the other rooms. One guy even did that celebratory high pitched war cry “loo loo loo loo loo”, except with much more tongue. I mean these guys were *passionate*. As politically incorrect as this stereotype is, I could not help but wonder if there is something in the Middle Easterners’ genetics or culture that makes them more fiercely passionate, and if that could be related to the large amount of uprisings, violence, and extremism that take place in the Middle East (though I deplore the action, in my opinion there is no passion stronger than that which you are willing to blow yourself up for). Some may say I am making an inappropriate comparison, but I had a control group. While both the Swedes and Middle Easterners got excited and loud, the level of passion and sheer noise was night and day (literally and figuratively).
So, armed with my horribly un-scientific conclusion, I propose a solution to radical Islamic terrorism (my jumps in logic are now insulting, but come on, it’s just a blog): blanket the region with free Xboxes, televisions, and networkable war games. Direct the passion into something meaningless and sedentary, you know, like America’s youth does. I believe men have a natural urge to compete and dominate, and if that urge is not given a proper outlet, it is available for misdirection by corrupt influences. There will be less real-world violence if the male populous is instead obsessed with confirming their alpha-male status by hearing their television grumble “Running Riot!” (reference for Halo players only). It’s either that or a slow re-education of the next generation through diplomacy and the expansion of freedom (boooooring).
For the past three days, Kelly and I have been staying at the Orebro apartment of our friends Pierre and Sara. We met them while traveling in Croatia, and they graciously invited us to visit them. They have a very nice, large one bedroom apartment, and were so kind as to let us sleep in their bed while we are staying here. And it’s no ordinary bed. It is made by a company called Hasten (which means “horse” in Swedish), whose beds Pierre also sells. The model they have retails for around $12,000. It consists of two separate twin-sized beds pushed together to form one gigantic bed (larger than a California King). Each side offers full reclining adjustability...you can elevate both the back and legs to the perfect height for reading, sleeping, or watching TV (Pierre has installed a projector television in the room). The bed also offers full-body massaging vibration. The mattressing consists of three layers, the topmost of which is filled with real horse hair (shaved from the mane and tail). The bed is $12,000 of sleeping bliss. Perhaps I will buy one someday, or rent a horse and make one myself.
Pierre and Sara showed us around Orebro, which is a small town of just over 100,000 people. The town was quaint and pretty, with lots of parks, ponds, and other government sponsored areas, all of which are kept sparkling clean. Speaking of government sponsored, I detected some differences between their government and America’s. Sweden is a socialist democracy...at least that’s how Sara described it. It’s basically like a democracy, except the government takes huge amounts of money (compared to America) through taxation, and spends it on lots of super-clean parks. Oh, also the government restricts business a lot more. There is currently a 25 year waiting list to rent an apartment in Stockholm. This is because rents are kept artificially low by government restrictions. So much for supply and demand. Despite the fact that everything else costs double here, the apartment where we are staying rents for half what it would in San Diego. You can’t buy booze on Sundays and after 3pm on Saturday, because the Swedes found a link between sales of alcohol during those times and men beating their wives. If you choose not to work in Sweden, the government will pay you 80% of what you would make if you were working. Sara told us of friends she knows who did not work because if they had, they would have earned less than if they sat on the couch. These laws are in the process of changing, as the number of people who are taking advantage of them is growing. The political discussions we got into led to my understanding that Sara and Pierre (and a majority of Swedes, I think) are happy to give up certain liberties (that we enjoy) for the overall good of society. This opinion was really not that much different from many Americans - democrats with their liberal government spending ideas and republicans (especially the current administration) with their willingness to take away individual rights for what they consider to be good.
On our first night, Pierre and Sara cooked us a traditional Swedish meal. They said they only eat those foods during Christmas time...it’s the Swedish equivalent of our turkey and stuffing. The meal was served Smorgasbord style, with tons of little dishes of all kinds of things. There were pancakes, cheesy potatoes with sardines (couldn’t taste them...phew), herring in two different sauces, and blood pudding (with real blood!), and a bunch of other stuff. It was really good, and so nice of them to make it for us. The next day they were not so nice. Sara insisted we try this rotten fish dish, which some in Sweden find a delicacy. The fish smells so bad that (I kid you not) they cannot open the can inside the house, because the smell is so bad and lingers so long that it disturbs not only them but also their neighbors. Pierre confessed that as a kid he used to sneak the fish into the school vent so they would have to evacuate.
So we went outside on the grass and Sara opened the can of fish. I am not exaggerating when I tell you it is by far one of the worst things I have ever smelled. Somebody at fear factor is not doing thorough enough location scouting. I rank the smell as definitely worse than feces, and probably tied with vomit. To allow you to approximate the smell, imagine if the population of an average high school was allowed to each lay a rotten egg fart onto a pile of weeks old rotting fish. Those were the two smell components I picked up, in roughly equal parts. There was just no way I was going to get near it. Kelly actually took a bite of this fish, then chased me around trying to kiss me. Since then, I have purchased a hazmat suit, and have only recently begun to allow Kelly to gently touch the outside of the suit. Eventually I will again hold her in my arms and kiss her, but for now, baby steps.
We’re off tomorrow to Malmo (in the south of Sweden) for a day, then on to Copenhagen.
