The party turned out well. About 20 people (including me) were there. And the pies? I don't see what all the hullabaloo is about making pie crusts. They turned out well. Yes, I've made flakier, and I've got ideas on what to do for next time, but that's at best a minor niggle. Helene looked at it and said "it's an American apple pie." I think because of the top crust. Swedes tend not to do that.
Good news. (And in Swedish you can say "good new" - "news" can be singular). I've found a short-term apartment. It's a 2 room-and-kitchen ('r.o.k'). In reading more about Swedish history, they weren't broken up as "bedroom" and "living room" because they weren't that distinguishable. For example, the entire family might live in a 1 rok, so the 1 room was for living and sleeping. And the bathroom was in the courtyard.
But this is a 2 rok, at about 44 sq. meters, or about 480 sq. feet. My house in Santa Fe was about 1,100 sq. ft. or 102 sq. m. And Sara and I managed pretty easily there. After all, it was meant as a post-war home for young families so should handle parents + 2 or 3 kids. By the way, Sara's back home! Her unit's out of Iraq and she's in Santa Fe again. Though obviously not in my old house.
Anyway, I don't need that much space. It comes furnished, and the price includes the water, power, internet, and heat, as well as access to the laundry room. Unlike US ones where the machines are all coin-op, use of these is included in the rent.
I started with my Swedish course at Folkuniversitetet. It's been annoying and frustrating, for reasons I haven't figured out yet. Still, I am learning. Now that I have a Swedish id I went to the library and got a card for there. I've checked out Swedish versions of Calvin and Hobbes, and of Heinlein's "Have Space Suit, Will Travel." Heinlein is one of my favorite authors and that book, along with "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" are at the top of my list of favorite books.
This means I'm learning how to say "transmogrify" in Swedish, and "spacesuit" and many other essential words. Calvin and Hobbes has been pretty slow reading, and I figured that perhaps I wouldn't read the Heinlein because it's a novel rather than a cartoon. But I took it out and started reading it. And it was good. I've read the story so many times in English I nearly have it memorized, even now after I don't know how long. So I can figure out what's going on from the context, and that helps a lot. Plus, I don't have to worry that I'm missing something subtle. I know the subtle parts. I'm wanting to learn the obvious ones.
So I'm very excited about that too. One things to note though is that the book was written in the late 50s, and translated within a decade afterwords, I'm assuming. That means it has some older vocabulary. As one example, it used "gebit", which isn't in my otherwise extremely good 'Prisma's Abridged English-Swedish and Swedish-English Dictionary.' It's in the online one as 'domain'. The context was "top man in a specialized domain" and I've been looking for a good word to say that I work in a "specialized field".
I was wary because it wasn't in Prisma. At salsa I asked someone there (a Swede) if she had seen that word. I even had the book with me, so I showed it in context. Nope, had never seen it. Later I asked Jacob. It's a German loan-word, with the original meaning of 'career', that in Swedish became more specialized. It's not common these days because English has taken over a lot of the "lets's be cool and use foreign word" parts in Swedish.
I know a Swedish word that a good number of Swedes don't know! (perhaps. a sample size of 2 isn't much).
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Thursday, August 23, 2007
food processor
"Oh my Stars and Stripes!" That was one of my grandmother's strongest expressions, and one that I like to use to express astonishment. "Oh my Blue and Gold" in Swedish? Hmmm..
I'm getting things ready for the party tomorrow. I decided to make apple pies. Doing the crust is traditionally annoying. I think it was Christy, my sister, who pointed out that pastry cutters exist. I had been using two knives. Blah. Well Clarie has a food processor, and I used that to cut the flour and margarine together. Wow! Oh my Stars and Stripes! That was easy.
I also used it a bit to cut in the water but I think next time I do this I'll start with colder margarine and cut in the water by hand. I don't think the result's going to be that flaky for this batch. Maybe I'll make one and see what happens, then make the other.
Why margarine and not shortening? I couldn't find shortening here. Closest was "bakmargarin". I called Emily, a Brit. In the UK she uses suet (rendered beef fat). The US equivalent is lard (rendered pig fat). Both are good for pie crusts. I've never used it though. Emily uses butter instead. Hmm, when I head over to the store in a bit I'll buy some extra butter too, in case the test pie comes out poorly.
Looking on the web, it looks like pie crust making gives the heebie jeebies to a lot of people. Ignorantly sailing into treacherous baking waters, that's me! And treacherous is a hard word to spell.
I'm getting things ready for the party tomorrow. I decided to make apple pies. Doing the crust is traditionally annoying. I think it was Christy, my sister, who pointed out that pastry cutters exist. I had been using two knives. Blah. Well Clarie has a food processor, and I used that to cut the flour and margarine together. Wow! Oh my Stars and Stripes! That was easy.
I also used it a bit to cut in the water but I think next time I do this I'll start with colder margarine and cut in the water by hand. I don't think the result's going to be that flaky for this batch. Maybe I'll make one and see what happens, then make the other.
Why margarine and not shortening? I couldn't find shortening here. Closest was "bakmargarin". I called Emily, a Brit. In the UK she uses suet (rendered beef fat). The US equivalent is lard (rendered pig fat). Both are good for pie crusts. I've never used it though. Emily uses butter instead. Hmm, when I head over to the store in a bit I'll buy some extra butter too, in case the test pie comes out poorly.
Looking on the web, it looks like pie crust making gives the heebie jeebies to a lot of people. Ignorantly sailing into treacherous baking waters, that's me! And treacherous is a hard word to spell.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
birthday
Today I turned 37. One year ago I was in South Africa, as well as two years ago.
Living in foreign lands. I remember my 11th grade English teacher talking about Faulkner, and how we are tied to the land. I didn't believe her. But I had never really moved from the land.
It is easy to take a man from his land, but it's hard to take his land from the man. I understand that more now. About a month ago I flew back from Lithuania via Oslo. I did that route in part to scout out the city for the next time. As I walked around I came across the US embassy, with the Stars and Stripes flying high. It was a thrilling moment for me. I am American.
Earlier today I was walking to the bus stop. There was some flattened grass leading to the thicket. My first thought was "oh, that's a path made by the alligators." I am Floridian. A Michigander's first thought would likely be deer. Even after living in Illinois for a few years, my first thought on seeing snow on the ground, in the corner of my eye, was to think "beach sand." My New Jersey friends didn't think sand could be white.
I went to SFI (translates to "Swedish For Foreigners") today to see about which courses I could take through them. I talked with the guy working there and mentioned that my dad and his parents lived in Cuba. He mentioned that there was a Cuban restaurant nearby. Line-of-sight even, and showed me it. So I went there for lunch. It was tremendously exciting to have ropa vieja con moros. I am Miamian.
My birthday party is on Friday. I'm making a roughly south-west themed set of dishes for friends, including chips, salsa and guacamole, chili con carne, tortillas, and margaritas. I am New Mexican by adoption.
Am I also becoming Swedish? Unlike the US, with "{Swedish,Cuban,Irish,German,Chinese}-American", it's only been recently that Sweden has had a large number of immigrants. Turkish-Swede? American-Swede? The only time I've come across terms like that is refering to Swedish Finns vs. Finnish Finns.
My Swedish, by the way, is decent. There are four levels of courses and I place in the 3rd. What I really need to do now I think is work on my vocabulary, probably through reading.
This is salsa night at Oceanen, so I'm off for that. Love to all my family and friends who read this blog.
Living in foreign lands. I remember my 11th grade English teacher talking about Faulkner, and how we are tied to the land. I didn't believe her. But I had never really moved from the land.
It is easy to take a man from his land, but it's hard to take his land from the man. I understand that more now. About a month ago I flew back from Lithuania via Oslo. I did that route in part to scout out the city for the next time. As I walked around I came across the US embassy, with the Stars and Stripes flying high. It was a thrilling moment for me. I am American.
Earlier today I was walking to the bus stop. There was some flattened grass leading to the thicket. My first thought was "oh, that's a path made by the alligators." I am Floridian. A Michigander's first thought would likely be deer. Even after living in Illinois for a few years, my first thought on seeing snow on the ground, in the corner of my eye, was to think "beach sand." My New Jersey friends didn't think sand could be white.
I went to SFI (translates to "Swedish For Foreigners") today to see about which courses I could take through them. I talked with the guy working there and mentioned that my dad and his parents lived in Cuba. He mentioned that there was a Cuban restaurant nearby. Line-of-sight even, and showed me it. So I went there for lunch. It was tremendously exciting to have ropa vieja con moros. I am Miamian.
My birthday party is on Friday. I'm making a roughly south-west themed set of dishes for friends, including chips, salsa and guacamole, chili con carne, tortillas, and margaritas. I am New Mexican by adoption.
Am I also becoming Swedish? Unlike the US, with "{Swedish,Cuban,Irish,German,Chinese}-American", it's only been recently that Sweden has had a large number of immigrants. Turkish-Swede? American-Swede? The only time I've come across terms like that is refering to Swedish Finns vs. Finnish Finns.
My Swedish, by the way, is decent. There are four levels of courses and I place in the 3rd. What I really need to do now I think is work on my vocabulary, probably through reading.
This is salsa night at Oceanen, so I'm off for that. Love to all my family and friends who read this blog.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
tango marathon at Lomma
On Friday early evening I met up with some of the tango gang to head down to Lomma for the "Tango Marathon." It wasn't one of the "dance until you drop ones" and nor was it "the music never stops." It was a lot of dancing in the evenings (10pm until 4am) and workshops during the day. It was near the beach (about 20 minutes walking) so on Saturday afternoon we went there, and danced some on the deck of some beach bar.
Ahh, the scene of the crime. Zoom out a bit and follow Habovägen south west. Actually, zoom out enough so you can also see the small boat harbor and the channel. Going a bit up the coast you'll see "Campingvägen" ("The Camping Road"). The beach bar was at the southwest corner of that rectangle.
It was cheap. SEK 500 (about $80) for food, a place to sleep, and the milongas. A bit more for the workshops. Why was it cheap? Because we also prepared the meals (I was Saturday morning breakfast crew) and "place to sleep" meant "the floor". Though those with a tent could pitch one, and some slept in their cars or got a place nearby. And those from Lund (nearby) slept at home.
I was still rather tired and travel-logged from coming back from Lithuania so I went to bed early on Saturday night, at about 2am. As the dance floor wasn't due to be converted into the sleeping floor for another couple of hours, the question was "where do I sleep?" Mind you, I also needed to be up at 9am to help with breakfast.
The answer? The sauna in the men's changing room. It was a great place to sleep. (It was off.) With the door closed it was quiet and dark. The bench was a bit hard, but the floor would have been as well, and colder. A couple of people checked out the sauna while I was sleeping, looking I assume for a place to sleep. There was room for another on the other bench, but I woke up alone. Spent the 2nd night there was well, though this time with two others.
One was a Finn. He's the one who earlier Saturday night asked if it was okay to use the sauna, and did. I and another joined him. I've been surprised at the Swedes. Very few of the apartments I've looked at have a sauna. The couple I've seen have had it as part of the housing association's common property, and not a personal sauna. I know parts of the northern midwest (US) have small saunas, for 1 or 2, and thought that Sweden would be the same. But no.
Too bad, so sad. I like saunas.
The dancing got me thinking existential questions. (It's a weak word play on Swedish, where you don't say "There is a house in New Orleans", instead saying "It exists a house in New Orleans"). If I took lessons I would become a better tango dancer faster than I would doing it on my own. But does there exist a tango teacher in Gbg that I want to learn from? And what's the reason for wanting to get better? It's in part because there were some really good dancers at the marathon, and I felt out of place. But suppose I were to work hard at it, take lessons, attend workshops .. to what end? Or should I do other dances instead? Hmmm....
Johanna called me a galning after we danced Saturday night, and a Swiss woman also said I was a crazy guy. Both in a good way. The Swiss woman was crazier than me. I'm energetic in tango, and like the expressive interpretation that can happen. It's more of a tango nuevo thing. Is there a nuevo teacher around here? Not that I know of.
It was pretty hard for me the first 24 hours or so. There were a lot of new people, and directly after a conference. Conferences tend to burn me out socially, meeting new people and being outgoing can take a toll. What makes it harder too is forcing myself to do it all in Swedish. Though there were Danes there too (and Swedes from Skåne, who have their own accent). I know that doing so is overall a good thing for my Swedish learning, but it can make me feel so dumb. *sigh*
Ahh, the scene of the crime. Zoom out a bit and follow Habovägen south west. Actually, zoom out enough so you can also see the small boat harbor and the channel. Going a bit up the coast you'll see "Campingvägen" ("The Camping Road"). The beach bar was at the southwest corner of that rectangle.
It was cheap. SEK 500 (about $80) for food, a place to sleep, and the milongas. A bit more for the workshops. Why was it cheap? Because we also prepared the meals (I was Saturday morning breakfast crew) and "place to sleep" meant "the floor". Though those with a tent could pitch one, and some slept in their cars or got a place nearby. And those from Lund (nearby) slept at home.
I was still rather tired and travel-logged from coming back from Lithuania so I went to bed early on Saturday night, at about 2am. As the dance floor wasn't due to be converted into the sleeping floor for another couple of hours, the question was "where do I sleep?" Mind you, I also needed to be up at 9am to help with breakfast.
The answer? The sauna in the men's changing room. It was a great place to sleep. (It was off.) With the door closed it was quiet and dark. The bench was a bit hard, but the floor would have been as well, and colder. A couple of people checked out the sauna while I was sleeping, looking I assume for a place to sleep. There was room for another on the other bench, but I woke up alone. Spent the 2nd night there was well, though this time with two others.
One was a Finn. He's the one who earlier Saturday night asked if it was okay to use the sauna, and did. I and another joined him. I've been surprised at the Swedes. Very few of the apartments I've looked at have a sauna. The couple I've seen have had it as part of the housing association's common property, and not a personal sauna. I know parts of the northern midwest (US) have small saunas, for 1 or 2, and thought that Sweden would be the same. But no.
Too bad, so sad. I like saunas.
The dancing got me thinking existential questions. (It's a weak word play on Swedish, where you don't say "There is a house in New Orleans", instead saying "It exists a house in New Orleans"). If I took lessons I would become a better tango dancer faster than I would doing it on my own. But does there exist a tango teacher in Gbg that I want to learn from? And what's the reason for wanting to get better? It's in part because there were some really good dancers at the marathon, and I felt out of place. But suppose I were to work hard at it, take lessons, attend workshops .. to what end? Or should I do other dances instead? Hmmm....
Johanna called me a galning after we danced Saturday night, and a Swiss woman also said I was a crazy guy. Both in a good way. The Swiss woman was crazier than me. I'm energetic in tango, and like the expressive interpretation that can happen. It's more of a tango nuevo thing. Is there a nuevo teacher around here? Not that I know of.
It was pretty hard for me the first 24 hours or so. There were a lot of new people, and directly after a conference. Conferences tend to burn me out socially, meeting new people and being outgoing can take a toll. What makes it harder too is forcing myself to do it all in Swedish. Though there were Danes there too (and Swedes from Skåne, who have their own accent). I know that doing so is overall a good thing for my Swedish learning, but it can make me feel so dumb. *sigh*
what I've been doing, including ID
I've been traveling a lot this last month or so. I was in the UK for the chemoinformatics conference in Sheffield and in Lithuania for the EuroPython conference in Vilnius. And after the Sheffield conference I did some followup work, which I just finished today. They required a lot of preparation, which made it harder to keep up with this blog.
I think there's only so much writing I can do in a day, and those other things took up any slack.
I still don't have a place of my own to live. I'm staying at Debora's apartment on Kungsladugården. She went home to Argentina for a while and then to France. She comes back this Saturday, so I'll be cleaning up and moving back to the House of a Thousand Wows.
I've started looking again. As lac pointed out, looking for an apartment is a part-time job, and I just didn't have the time for it. I've also got to talk with the bank again. Previously they said my folkbokföring wasn't finished yet, and once that was done the woman I was talking with would need to talk with the higher ups because, well, I'm an unusual case. After all, I'm not employed by any Swedish company and have no credit history here in Sweden.
Two Fridays ago I took care of the last bits needed to get a Swedish ID card. It's a bit tricky because there's no way for me to get one from the government. They changed the laws at the beginning of the year, and to get one now requires I come with a Swedish relative or spouse. As my nearest Swedish relatives derive from about 4 generations back, well, that's rather hard. But it is possible to get a card from the bank, and I chose my bank in part because they said I could get one from them.
I took all the paperwork in, my passport, the photo for the ID, and Jacob (they still needed a Swede to vouch for who I am). I had everything but one, a "personbevis". That's proof that I've been registered to live in Sweden and have a personnummer. One dictionary translates it as "birth certificate" but that's not quite right. So I went to the tax office and asked for a personbevis, then back to the bank. Oops! Turned out I asked for the wrong personbevis. There's apparently many sorts, and the one I asked for was "bank owner" when I should have asked for "identification."
Getting the personbevis was simple. "I would like a personbevis." "Why?" "" "Here you go." "Thanks." The boring part was getting from the bank to the tax office and back. So I went back to the tax office and told the woman I asked for the wrong personbevis. So she printed out several different ones for me, just in case the bank wanted a few others. Very nice of her!
It's being processed and I should get it in a few more weeks.
I think there's only so much writing I can do in a day, and those other things took up any slack.
I still don't have a place of my own to live. I'm staying at Debora's apartment on Kungsladugården. She went home to Argentina for a while and then to France. She comes back this Saturday, so I'll be cleaning up and moving back to the House of a Thousand Wows.
I've started looking again. As lac pointed out, looking for an apartment is a part-time job, and I just didn't have the time for it. I've also got to talk with the bank again. Previously they said my folkbokföring wasn't finished yet, and once that was done the woman I was talking with would need to talk with the higher ups because, well, I'm an unusual case. After all, I'm not employed by any Swedish company and have no credit history here in Sweden.
Two Fridays ago I took care of the last bits needed to get a Swedish ID card. It's a bit tricky because there's no way for me to get one from the government. They changed the laws at the beginning of the year, and to get one now requires I come with a Swedish relative or spouse. As my nearest Swedish relatives derive from about 4 generations back, well, that's rather hard. But it is possible to get a card from the bank, and I chose my bank in part because they said I could get one from them.
I took all the paperwork in, my passport, the photo for the ID, and Jacob (they still needed a Swede to vouch for who I am). I had everything but one, a "personbevis". That's proof that I've been registered to live in Sweden and have a personnummer. One dictionary translates it as "birth certificate" but that's not quite right. So I went to the tax office and asked for a personbevis, then back to the bank. Oops! Turned out I asked for the wrong personbevis. There's apparently many sorts, and the one I asked for was "bank owner" when I should have asked for "identification."
Getting the personbevis was simple. "I would like a personbevis." "Why?" "
It's being processed and I should get it in a few more weeks.
Salsa in London
I went to the Sheffield Chemoinformatics conference a few weeks ago in, umm, Sheffield. I left Sweden a few days earlier to visit dance friends of mine in Oxford. On Friday we went to London for salsa dancing, and on Saturday we stayed in Oxford for tango.
Salsa in England has been a bit strange for me. I say "England" because I went salsa dancing once in Scotland and that was normal, so it's not a UK thing. When I've danced with English women I've often felt like something isn't quite there in the connection. It was about 1.5 years ago when I first danced salsa in the UK, both in London ("SOS" = "Salsa On Sunday") and in Cambridge. I couldn't figure out what it was; a timing thing? Cuban vs. L.A. style? Craig (UK Craig, who reintroduced me to salsa years ago) was there too and pointed out that I look at my partner, and English women don't like that.
I've born that in mind, and indeed it seems that my favorite dances in England were with non-English woman. The two I liked best at SOS were with a Swiss woman and with an American.
This time it was salsa at the Ealing town hall (organized by Mambo City). Good venue, with high, high ceilings so it didn't get hot quickly. They also had powerful blowers set up around the floor to get some breeze going. There were, what, 150-200 people there, almost all L.A. style/on-1, which is the style I dance. At SOS I noticed that there was a gradation, with the better dancers near the stage. Here, not so much. Just a lot of good dancers.
I jokingly say that I have an accent when I dance. It's not a joke though - people learn moves and styles based in part on teachers and the local dance community. People coming to Santa Fe could tell that several of the leads had the same dance background. I say it's "Santa Fe style salsa". Not as showy as the LA style they do in Gothenburg, and smooth. Thank you Santiago!
And just like talking to someone with a different accent, dancing with someone used to another style can cause some oopsies. Which happend, of course. Not quite as bad as "what do you mean 'you'll knock me up in the morning'?".
Of the people I danced with, the two I had the most fun with were .. with non-English women. One was a native Spanish speaker. Technically not as good as some of the others (it was a good crowd), but she had fun with the dance, which more than made up for it. The other, which was the last, was with an Australian woman. Also fun, with smiles and expressiveness.
Compare with an English woman I danced with (I assume based on accent) who just kinda looked another direction when we danced, and didn't crack a smile. Strange those English women.
Another cultural observation: in most places I've been it's okay to ask for another dance. That is, with salsa the custom is 1 dance, plus one more if either side wants to continue. Depending on the place, that can continue for a few more dances. At Ealing it was always one dance and only one dance.
Salsa in England has been a bit strange for me. I say "England" because I went salsa dancing once in Scotland and that was normal, so it's not a UK thing. When I've danced with English women I've often felt like something isn't quite there in the connection. It was about 1.5 years ago when I first danced salsa in the UK, both in London ("SOS" = "Salsa On Sunday") and in Cambridge. I couldn't figure out what it was; a timing thing? Cuban vs. L.A. style? Craig (UK Craig, who reintroduced me to salsa years ago) was there too and pointed out that I look at my partner, and English women don't like that.
I've born that in mind, and indeed it seems that my favorite dances in England were with non-English woman. The two I liked best at SOS were with a Swiss woman and with an American.
This time it was salsa at the Ealing town hall (organized by Mambo City). Good venue, with high, high ceilings so it didn't get hot quickly. They also had powerful blowers set up around the floor to get some breeze going. There were, what, 150-200 people there, almost all L.A. style/on-1, which is the style I dance. At SOS I noticed that there was a gradation, with the better dancers near the stage. Here, not so much. Just a lot of good dancers.
I jokingly say that I have an accent when I dance. It's not a joke though - people learn moves and styles based in part on teachers and the local dance community. People coming to Santa Fe could tell that several of the leads had the same dance background. I say it's "Santa Fe style salsa". Not as showy as the LA style they do in Gothenburg, and smooth. Thank you Santiago!
And just like talking to someone with a different accent, dancing with someone used to another style can cause some oopsies. Which happend, of course. Not quite as bad as "what do you mean 'you'll knock me up in the morning'?".
Of the people I danced with, the two I had the most fun with were .. with non-English women. One was a native Spanish speaker. Technically not as good as some of the others (it was a good crowd), but she had fun with the dance, which more than made up for it. The other, which was the last, was with an Australian woman. Also fun, with smiles and expressiveness.
Compare with an English woman I danced with (I assume based on accent) who just kinda looked another direction when we danced, and didn't crack a smile. Strange those English women.
Another cultural observation: in most places I've been it's okay to ask for another dance. That is, with salsa the custom is 1 dance, plus one more if either side wants to continue. Depending on the place, that can continue for a few more dances. At Ealing it was always one dance and only one dance.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Joyce
Joyce is a woman in South Africa that Heikki and Minna employ to help with the household chores. Amoung other things she helps with the laundry. When I've stayed with them, she's done my laundry as well. Including ironing the shirts. I have a linen shirt which I like to wear when dancing. I usually don't worry about the wrinkles, which aren't all that bad after air tumbling. But then I saw what it looks like when ironed. Wow!
Last couple of times I washed clothes here, I ironed the shirts afterwards. They do look better that way, and it fixes a few edges that have always given me problems. But they don't look anywhere near as nice as when Joyce does them.
In San Franciso there are a lot of wash and fold places. There are very few laundry places here, but they are rare and expensive. I've only seen signs posting price per article, not price per kg. I wonder why there's the disparity. San Francisco isn't all that cheap a place to live.
Last couple of times I washed clothes here, I ironed the shirts afterwards. They do look better that way, and it fixes a few edges that have always given me problems. But they don't look anywhere near as nice as when Joyce does them.
In San Franciso there are a lot of wash and fold places. There are very few laundry places here, but they are rare and expensive. I've only seen signs posting price per article, not price per kg. I wonder why there's the disparity. San Francisco isn't all that cheap a place to live.
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