Saturday, April 28, 2007

More Shameless Family-Promotion (also Flängan)

Ok, so it was only a few posts ago that I introduced my cousin Rutte and his brilliantly working mind, but I now checked his flickr page randomly again because I am bored in the library reading about Turkish/EU identity and I came across even more brilliantness. Plus it is really cool because these photos comes from where we spent every single summer together growing up (and still do but more sporadically). Its an awesome place just a couple of hours north of Stockholm. It it my grandmother (on my mother's side) and her sisters that all grew up there, then the next generation moved into the houses and build new ones (they are our parents) and then they had kids (us - there are about 10 of us or something like that) and then we all spent our summers up there being really Swedish and running around a lot even though we all live in different places normally. One family even lives on Shelter Island here in the States. The place in Sweden is called Flängan - which doesnt really mean anything, although Flänga kind of is a verb that means to run around, back and forwards, casually (hm. something like that - I dictionaried it and I got the answer Flänga: #(no translation given)# - it is a very difficult Swedish word to translate but it is very representative of what we usually do in Flängan). When we grow up (the 10 of us or whatever) we are going to move in to the houses in the summer and play around like we did when we were small. We played a lot of football and ate loads of community meals where everyone of our parents brought something each. It is very idyllic. No concrete roads - and a little lake that we swim in, loads of woods and green grass fields for the football (these pictures are from winter so they are slightly gloomy - but that is the great thing about it - in the winter Flängan turns into this little, dark, gloomy, warm, moist, snowy thing - almost unrecognizable to what it is in the summer - contrast is good)


Rutte's mum, with milk and some flowers - she is the most stylish woman I have ever met.



God intended us to have sex. Stop preaching abstinence.




This is actually, no joke, our toilet. Its a little bit chilly in the winter - but thats what we swedes are built for. Similarities to Stalin's Soviet is completely accidental.

Friday, April 27, 2007

Mission Accomplished, half-way anyways.

So I came to DC in August last year to go to class at the George Washington University and yesterday I had my last class so yay! - mission accomplished. Its a cliché but it went so bloody quickly. Of course there are a small mountain of stuff left to do, I have yet to see the White House (just driven by really really quickly), and, and lots of other touristy stuff. But I have been pretty good on doing other DC stuff - mainly getting drunk some of the finest (and some of the more questionable) establishment of this city - Madam's Organ, The Brickskeller, The Guards, Lucky Bar, Garrett's, the Saloun, 9:30 club - you know, all that stuff that matters. I also have actually managed to fulfill two lifelong (I say life long I mean post age 11) aspirations of my own - become a published journalist (Ok, its for the University news paper but still) and get a proper job (I know, I was a weird 11-year-old). It is actually much easier than it seems. Especially when you can write your columns about the finest (and some of the more questionable) establishments of this city and what to do in them. Then its just kind of fun. And the job thing has also worked out well - Ive been hired for the summer, which means I can stay in my beloved city (if the Visa Gods extend my J-1 visa thingy and my JS-21 or what-ever-the-hell-they-are-called-to-let-a decent-hard-working-Swedish-immigrant-stay-in-this-country-for-a-little-while). Summer here is going to be awesome (American word I am now started to overuse), I am very excited about it - not sure how to handle the heat but at least my building have a pool. Nice. Ok, at this point I now feel this post is just kind of rambling on about nothing and that is because I have a very important and big paper to write and it is therefore more fun to ramble. But enough and peace out. And all that jazz - I just wanted to share the mission accomplished bit because those words are always fun to use in a DC setting, right mr P? (but I think he was somewhere else when he said it....Oh right, paper...)

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Swedes and the Weather

I have this theory about Swedes and the weather. Basically it boils down to that our emotional well-being is the most interconnected with the weather in the world. Why? Because when you get on average 4 hours of sunlight a day (up north as little as 20min) for 5 months and the ground is frozen over a meter below the surface and you manage to not kill yourself (we have a high suicide rate) then you are going to be pretty happy when the sun comes out. I, for example, am not just dependent but addicted to good weather - it is essential to a good day. To compare it to a DC resident - he or she might be happy to see a beautiful day like today, however, it doesn't guarantee the success of the next 24 hours. Me? I am like Teflon right now, any problem just glides right off.

Sunday, April 01, 2007

America is Advertising Deluxe.

I was never really involved in that green-parka-wearing-Naomi Klein-Nike-bashing-stone-throwing-anti-globalization/commercialism movement in the late 1990s. I mean I read No Logo, and I agreed that brands and advertising is taking up too much public space, I just wasn't that into throwing stones. Living in the US now hasn't made me want to pick up a brick and throw it through a McDonald's window either but it has certainly tested my tolerance levels on advertising. In risk of sounding like the European communist most American's think I am; But wow, America has taken the idea of commercializing life to a whole new level. I was watching the Final Four in the NCAA (that is the semi-finals in the national college basketball tournament for those Europeans not familiar with the concept) on Saturday and maybe I was in super-communist-mood but everything seemed to be about some kind of product. The commentators kept on saying this thank you speech to Goodyear for providing the air pictures every time they came back from advertising break. And some award was handed out, and it wasn't named after like a great person who had done something great - it was named the Chrysler award and they guy who got it just kept on thanking Chrysler. I live with the ad breaks every 5 minutes (the most annoying ones being that between the last scene of a show and the end credits) and the complete commercialization of being ill (the funniest thing is when they list all the deadly side effects of an erectile dysfunction pill after the cheery man on the screen has said it saved his life - side effects include death, nausea, memory loss, and lifelong erection) but it is really weird when the boundary between what is advertising and what is not is so blurred. In Sweden, by law, we have a little jingle that say *ads* so you know. What happens when the news gets sponsored? How do you know the information is right? Anyways. Rubbish, its 1st of April and we are meant to be funny and I am just being Reclaim-the-street-communist.

My Cousin the photographer.

My cousin Rutte lives in France. He likes to take pictures. He is a very cool guy. We like him a lot. Here is a sample from his flickr page. I just get a really good feeling from them. Don't you?