Still in Sweden, Still Breathing

I finally have a moment of down-time so I thought I would give everyone a little update.

This country is fucking amazing. Everyone here has gotten really close really fast and it feels like I have known these people much longer than just two weeks! On top of that I swear this country has magical properties on the human body. I don’t exercise, eat loads of candy and drink way too much, yet my pants are actually becoming too big. This may be related to why all the people here are so fucking pretty… it’s not fair! The good news for all you jealous folks out there, though, is that while Swedes are frighteningly pretty, they suck at flirting. I mean they are terrible! It’s almost a joke to watch people interact at clubs because either the people straight up ask you to come home with them or they wander about creepily (prettily, but still creepily). They don’t even make eye contact with each other half the time! I think it would be a fun game to see how long you can hold a Swede’s gaze. One person here has a theory that this is all because the people look so good that they have completely lost the art of flirting and just jump straight to the sack. Kind of sad because there’s no fun to it. The other fun thing to note the way they dance at clubs. I haven’t seen any grinding at all. Hell, most of the time they don’t even pair off. They mostly dance in groups without any touching of any kind. Of course there are exceptions, and nobody is offended or weirded out, but generally they wait until the end of the night to pair off. The Americans broke out some American style dancing and the others were totally lost. Their reaction to grinding and pseudo-swing wasn’t so much, “ewe, that’s gross,” but more like, “oh, you can do that?” It’s also pretty fun when American top 40 comes on. It’s done maybe every 4^th or 5^th song and when it hits a lot of people kind of tone down their moves because they aren’t used to dancing to AT40 style music. Meanwhile the Americans in the group are going crazy and generally making fools of ourselves. It’s lots of fun.

As for the time spent outside of clubs and house parties (a.k.a. classes), we are learning at an awesome pace. My friend Door from Holland came here not knowing any Swedish, and now she can hold her own in our Swedish conversations. My Swedish has become substantially better in every aspect too. My conversation skills have shot way up! The other day I had to recharge my cell phone minutes and I was able to do the entire process on my own (with a little help for the word for #, which is “fyrkant”). I’m pretty excited to see where my Swedish will be at the end of the program. One of the biggest problems I will have back in the States is finding a place where I can converse in Swedish on a regular basis. Watching Swedish tv and listening to music can only do so much for me. I need something more interactive. Maybe I can find a conversation group in Ann Arbor.

Two people in the program have their birthdays today so we are celebrating tonight. We make lots of poor life choices like partying on Sundays but, hell, we are only here for a couple more weeks!

Hej då!

But it's all worth it to be in SWEDEN!

I was awake for 60 hours. Get that? 60 HOURS! Here's the story:

I woke up on Tuesday at 8:00am for my to finish getting ready for my 3:00 flight to New York that would in turn take me to Stockholm, to meet a train that would take me to Helsingborg. I arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare and made my way to the terminal to wait for my first plane. About one hour before it was due to leave, the airport drone came over the speakers and informed all of us lucky travellers that the plane would be 40 minutes late. We waited 40 minutes. then they came on eand said it would be two hours late. No problem, I waited two hours. THEN they came on teh speaker and said, ''sorry, mother nature hates you and now you have to wait 4 hours.'' Well, this meant I would miss my connecting flight in Stockholm so I went into a fit of panic and ran around the airport looking for a solution. After waiting in line for about 30 minutes I was directed to a phone terminal that had been open since I got there... thanks airport staff for being helpful. I talked to an agent on the other line and told her of my plight and she rebooked me for a flight to amsterdam from which I would go to copenhagen and take a train to helsingborg. I ran to the terminal where that first plane was about to leave, only to find a friendly (not) agent waiting to tell me that I had not actually been booked for that flight, but rather one to Paris! Fuck.

Fuck my life... not like a starving kid in Africa who's had both parents murdered and is now a child soldier... but close. I boarded the plane to Paris patiently and hopefuly. Right as I sat down the lights went off. Okay, nothing normal... then the pilot came on and said in English with an almost unintelligable French accent, something along the lines of, ''we fucked up.'' Then the plane lost ALL power and we were in complete dark. we waited there for almost two hours until the lights came on and the pilot said we were good to go. At this point I wasn't sure if I would survive the flight at this rate but hell, I played the sheep and stayed in my seat. we took off without any more issue and made it to Paris, thankfully. Unfortunately there was a baby in front of me so I didn't get any sleep the whole flight. we landed and I negotiated the poorly designed terminal signs of CDG airport in Paris. I waited patiently at the terminal for my plane to stockholm. I waited some more. then I took a piss. Then I waited again. As the time to leave came closer they came on the speaker in french, and then heavily accented english to tell me that the plane was going to be 20 minutes late. This happened again. And again. wait for it...again. the plane didn't show up until almost 90 minutes after it should have. ( just drank some jägermeister) Then, to make things better, they had to fucking drive us to the plane! The fucking GIGANTIC airport didn't have a fucking terminal actually available. To make things better, they only had one bus to drive an entire planload of people. fuck france.

We took off, late as usual, and got into Stockholm. I was happy to just be in Sweden, BUT because of all the late flights I had missed my first train. On top of that they had lost my luggage and it wouldn't be delivered untill the next day in the evening! I had packed clothes in my carry on so I wasn't too worried, but definitely pissed. I made my way as fast as I could to the Stockholm train station and arrived just as the last train to Helsingborg was pulling out. FML, right? I said fuck money and bought a plane ticket to helsingborg for the next morning. It was midnight and I was hungry as fuck and all the shops in the station had closed, so I went to the McDonalds next door. I got my food and headed back to the station. Right as I came up I saw a man locking the doors! I asked him what the fuck was happening and he calmly said they would open again in 5 HOURS! he had a gun so I didn't argue (cop).

It was midnight, all the hostels were closed and there is no way I had enough money for a hotel after the plane ticket so I sat down on the street to think. And I kept sitting, and sitting. I had a nice conversation with a chinese girl name Ye who went to school in Sweden and was in the same situation as me. Long story short, I sat on thte streets of Stockholm for 5 hours! Did you know the sun starts to rise at 3:00am in Stockholm? I saw it. well, finally the trainstation opened and I jumped on it like it was the last one out of hell. Guess what, the plane from Stockholm to Helsingborg was late! JUST KIDDING! it actually left 5 minutes early!!!!! I love SAS airlines as much as I hate Airfrance! They even served me breakfast on a 1 hour flight! I landed at the airport and my friend Robin was there to pick me up. We went to his girlfriend's house where I showered and then we went out to spend the day with her uncle. It was lots of fun, but I hadn't slept and I actually started having minor halucinations where I would ''read'' something from the book I had read on the plane and then suddenly realize that it was all made up in my head! I survived through dinner and we got home. Guess what... my luggage never arrived! we called them and they said it would be there the NEXT DAY! I poped a pill of Fuckitol and went to sleep for the first time in 60 hours.

I woke up today and we went to the place where Robin's family is camping for the summer. We swam in the ocean and basically soaked up the sun. wonderful. My luggage arrived late in the evening (after two days!) and I gave the wonderful Björnstedt family a bottle of tequila. The whiskey is mine! (I imported a bit of America). My trip is finally over and I can only hope that the shenanigans are done. My parting advice to you is to NEVER fly with Airfrance or trust Delta with your luggage. SAS (Scandinavian Airlines) on the other hand are AMAZING! This was by far the greatest test of my patience I have ever experienced, but I made it.

Purpose

The following is a short essay I wrote on Monday, December 28th 2009 in the wake of the election protests in Iran. Sadly many readers took it as a cry for help, which it was not. Rather it is a piece of self exploration. It helps to indirectly illustrate the stress of not owning your successes yet still bearing the burden of your failures; something that I think a lot of people growing up in the middle class can appreciate. But I digress...

Purpose

I just read the news about the most recent bout of protests in Iran. My interest was piqued when a friend of mine posted a video of protesters smashing open a Basiji van to save someone who was arrested (if you don’t know who the Basiji are look it up on Wikipedia, it’s some scary shit). Watching the video reminded me of the video of Neda, the Iranian woman who was shot and killed by a Basiji marksman while she stood as a bystander at a protest. That video made me sick to the same degree that this most recent video made me feel emboldened and hopeful.

Recently I also read an article in Newsweek by one of their writers about his four-month detention as an Iranian political prisoner. It was both heartbreaking and baffling as he described the tortures he endured and the completely stupid reasons he was ever even arrested (he appeared on The Daily Show and made some jokes so the Iranian Intelligence pegged him as anti-government and had him scooped up). I won’t go into details but to say that it was as fascinating as it was terrifying to behold. Literally like watching a train wreck.

This juxtaposition of the videos to the article got me thinking about what I would be willing to do to protect the freedoms of myself and those I care about. Would I take to the streets and risk life and limb in support of my liberty? I like to think so but in a strange way I feel envious of those students and protesters in Tehran and throughout the rest of Iran. They have the opportunity to see what they truly believe in, and to fight for it with everything they have. They risk beatings, arrests, torture, home invasion and death just for their right to have the freedoms that we take for granted. Americans start shouting when someone so much as mentions the idea of impeding our rights, and we take the right to complain for granted. But these Iranians are an example of what I hope Americans could become to be should the need ever arise.

It is even in the Declaration of Independance, the right to forcibly overthrow a tyrannical government. I think a lot of Americans fancy that as an invitation to act against opposing political groups (I’m thinking of some of those tea-party yahoos shortly after Obama got elected, although they were gracious enough not to take things too far); but in Iran we have the opportunity to see an example of what this really means. I’m not going to take sides as to whether the elections were or were not rigged, but the evidence is overwhelming that the Iranian leadership, legitimate or not, is disastrously corrupt and inhumane. The foreign minister of Sweden, Carl Bildt said, "A regime secure in its own legitimacy has no reason to fear individuals' rights to express their opinions freely and peacefully."

Like I mentioned earlier, I am in a way envious of the opportunity that the protesters have. This is not to say that I invite the situation they are in, but rather I admire their purpose. I think it is something that many of us lack. We have our passions and our commitments, but what can we say of our purpose? I’m not talking about some divine or cosmic purpose, but a humanistic one. What is our purpose in relation to the people around us; what can we do in our brief lives that will make us a vibrant flash of lightning and not just a dying ember left on the ground?

I wish there was some easy remedy to all this. I escape into fiction; books, movies, games, all to fill that void that I feel where purpose should neatly fit. How marvelous it would be to have one thing, however fleeting, that overrode everything else in life. Something so powerful you would rather pursue its completion than sleep or eat. I try to think what such a thing could be. Revenge, love, adventure… all of these stem from the stories I read and watch. I admire the simple plots of cheap fantasy novels. Such plots are by necessity fantastic, I know; but in our increasingly intertwined and complex lives I just want to find that one thing that will let me look back on my life and think to myself I was part of something great.

Here are the links to the videos if you are interested...

Neda (caution, very graphic): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWod532prgU&feature=related

Basiji Van: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEZK90Yo_io&feature=player_embedded