Day 13: Gothenburg

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March 5, 2008: Gothenburg, Sweden

Today started in much the same way as yesterday: the air in my mattress had been successfully demoralized and scattered again, my belly was filled with a little Muesli and yogurt (and what the hell, a few slices of salmon too). I knocked on Henrik's door to rouse him for my tour of Gothenburg and received a muffled groan in reply. Yet another thing that crosses cultural boundaries: the groan of the reluctant to rise; a wordless expression that says, in any language, "just five more minutes you energetic prick."
The struggle between waking and hitting the snooze (or me in this case since I was the alarm clock), I posture, can be easily resolved by a bucket of cold water to the face. Upon administration of said water, the victim--err, subject--will bolt to his feet and proceed to beat to a bloody pulp he who administered the water, thus choosing both courses of action simultaneously: waking, and hitting the snooze button, or as close to the snooze button as can be found on the administrators face. Unfortunately, Henrik woke on his own which compromised the integrity of my experiment. Had I tried to test my theory now I would have just been a jerk throwing cold water on someone. But there's always tomorrow.
Wind blew through my hair, spiraling as it broke around me. My nose and cheeks began to turn a familiar rosy color. Then we entered the car. Henrik has a similar body composition to mine--we're both tall and thin, though he is somewhat taller and thinner--but he seems to endure the cold much more easily than I do. He's skinnier than I am, how can he possibly have more insulation? Whatever the reason for his freakish resistance to Swedish winters, we set out that morning to remedy my aversion to it. After days of persistent parental nagging--from Sicily, to Venice, to the train ride through Germany and the Alps--it was finally time to get a coat.
The Swedes have an exceptional talent for denial: "Cold? It's not that cold. Are you sure you don't want some?... Don't wowwy, my tongue alwayth thtickth to ithe cweam." "No, it isn't too cold to ride my bike downtown. Don't mind that it's just my finger, it's always turning blue and falling off here and there." They seem to welcome the cold like it's a long lost friend. Blissfully ignoring the elephant--turning slightly blue from the cold--in the room.
In keeping with the theme of denial, I noticed people walking around the shopping mall in coats and scarves, pretending to be warm and inside, while the mall was connected to the outside by a mere entrance way (who needs doors?). Hot air rises, I remembered as we entered the mall, so I suggested we check the second floor for a coat store. We wandered around for a while, more for the sake of my fingers than anything else, without much luck. There was a smaller mall a few blocks away, Henrik suggested, as we found nothing during our search. The second destination proved more fruitful as we entered and I listened to Henrik and a clerk converse in the beautiful staccato that is Swedish. Aw who am I kidding, it still sounds like the Swedish Chef to me. Regardless, I soon found a coat and quickly converted Swedish Crowns into dollars (carry the one...) to be sure it was worth it.
"Wait," I said as we reached the car to retrieve my camera, "I have to call my dad." On previous conversations, my dad offered to buy the coat for me since he knew I would really need it when I got to Sweden. This was a point he would not back down on, so I reluctantly agreed. As payback for his insistence, I decided to call to inform him of my purchase. I knew he was going to be in and out of meetings all day, so the odds of getting just his voicemail were good. The phone rang and his message kicked on, a smile broke on my face. This was the message I left:
"Hi dad, it's Matt. I'm just calling to let you know that I finally got a coat. It was pretty reasonable too, only 900." At this point Henrik began to snicker. I covered the receiver and motioned for him to be quiet. "Thanks for getting the coat for me--you did say you were buying the coat, right," I said more urgently. "Call me back when you get this. Bye."
Henrik was smiling, his stomach spasming in silent laughter, as I hung up the phone; I let out a belly laugh that echoed through the cavernous parking garage. I later found out that the message was received right before my dad entered a three-hour meeting. A meeting in which he spent the whole time sweating about the number I quoted, thinking that it was in either dollars or euros. Mission accomplished, I thought, when I heard this. As it turns out, 900 Swedish Crowns converts, roughly, to $140. A fact I decided to conveniently omit.
Camera in hand, we began the tour of Gothenburg. The rush of the wind created small white caps on the canal through the center of town, like tiny snow-covered mountains floating in the water. The flat gray sky, a blanket of cold, ever threatening the chance of snow. Me in my new coat, waterproof and warm, felt nothing of these wintry effects. I walked with a heightened appreciation for the scenery as my mind was no longer preoccupied with preserving all of its extremities. Gothenburg was surprisingly quiet for a town of almost 500,000. The excellent mass transit system, and how well the streets are set up for cyclists, left the roads mostly barren of cars. My hometown of 60,000 has more congestion than this. I listened intently to Henrik explain what everything was as we walked through the old district of town, through parks and museums, past cafes (there's over 500 in Gothenburg!), down alleyways and cobbled streets, past buildings decorated in traditional eighteenth century facade, from when Gothenburg grew into a large harbor and hub of modern life. We stopped for a traditional Swedish treat--a cinnamon bun--in a cafe that overlooked a park. It took three days, but I finally managed to try some local food.
The afternoon ended as our four-hour walk came to a close. Up to now Henrik had refused to let me pay for anything. Tonight would be different, as I planned to cook a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch meal for dinner. Minimal payment though it is, it's the least I could do for all of their hospitality.
I leaned over to look at the empty bowl in astonishment. We had eaten an entire batch of chicken pot pie (not that fake chicken pot pie in a pie shell either, this was the real stuff). I guess they liked it. Dessert turned out to be a bit more puzzling. I called my mom for her sandtart recipe and wrote everything down. "OK," I said, "preheat the oven to 375, we'll need a quarter pound of... Oh right, everything is in metric here." After a quick lesson in conversion we figured out how the rest of the world would make sandtarts. Henrik showed off his culinary prowess as he set the electric mixer into the batter and started it on high speed. The resulting splatter provided a tasty, unexpected midnight snack as our hands discovered hidden deposits of pre-cookie throughout the night.
Though dinner was my grandmother's traditional recipe, for dessert we decided to get wild and (gasp!) change a few things. Chopped up walnuts and light sprinklings of cinnamon as sissy toppings, we're going crazy tonight: peanut butter and jelly, honey, we might even make cream cheese frosting. Tonight, there's no limits.
Surprisingly, this was Henrik's first real taste of peanut butter. The wonderful childhood staple that brought us ants on a log, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and shut kids up by sticking their tongue to the roof of their mouth, is scarce in Sweden. He loved it right away. The real eye-opener however, was in getting the peanut butter. Allow me to explain:
On the way back from my tour of Gothenburg, we stopped off at the grocery store to pick up some things for dinner, and to stock up for the train ride ahead. Foreign grocery stores are always an experience. The diet of a people really shows through, grocery stores don't hide foods that are in demand. Besides the obvious abundance of fish, there different types of bread I'd never seen before. Henrik explained that most of the bread in Sweden is sweet, and helped me choose a good one for making sandwiches. Swedish people apparently have an enormous sweet tooth. Not only was the bread sweet, but the most represented food in the store was candy. Whole aisles, stacked six feet high and sixty feet long, of bins filled with candy: pay by the gram. The impulse candy--for those who bypassed all the other candy in the store but feel the overwhelming urge for this last chance at a sugar rush--right before the checkout puts those in America to shame. Considering how thin most Swedish people are, it was strange to see them eating so much candy.
The real surprise came at the register. I went through after Henrik had already paid. The cashier greeted me in Swedish, I smiled in return. She continued talking--giving me instructions for payment--in Swedish. I listened, or rather, I heard, the sounds without any comprehension. I turned to Henrik to get a quick translation. He told the cashier that I don't speak Swedish and could she please repeat the instructions in English. She nodded and turned back to me to give me the instructions again... in Swedish. There I stood, with a line forming behind me, obviously unable to follow anything that was being said. It was clear she understood English, she just chose to be as difficult as possible. It felt like Sicily all over again. With a look of disgust, Henrik turned back and showed me what to do. As we drove home he expressed his frustration with people like that. He was more upset about the situation than I was. This had happened to me at least once so far in every city I'd visited, perhaps I was used to it.
When I visit a foreign country I like to make an effort to learn at least some of the language, so I can interact with the locals. Swedish was not one I was able to study, and I felt slightly embarrassed, having to depend on a translator or the assumption that Scandinavian people speak English very well (which they do). It was a testament to Henrik's character that he would be more upset at the stubbornness and lack of desire to help someone than I was. It was nice to see someone act on a situation based on the situation itself, rather than a blind adherence to affiliation. That is, taking someone's side because they belong to the same club--whether it's a country, organization, or whatever--as you. Honesty of that type, and being able to detach from ones own prejudices or affiliations, is a rarity. I was glad to have spent the week with someone who recognizes the inanity of all of that.

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