The next festive installment follows on from the voyage through the lands plundered by the Vikings to the land of the Vikings themselves. A land where no meal is complete without the addition of lingonberries - Sweden!
It's fair to say those Vikings got around really. Once they learnt how to make a boat they were off on their merry way and there really isn't much of the European coastline they didn't reach. Chances are if it was on the coast and had something worth taking, was remotely flammable or had women who were not chained down the Vikings probably found it. Sadly the clichés of giant battle axes, big beards and horned helmets are a little exaggerated but I think it's important we all still believe in them anyways because they are admittedly cool.
Nowadays the Swedes have given away the whole "pillaging" scene and are a very industrious people. The days are so short up here that they spend most of their time indoors inventing things - from mobile phones to pharmaceuticals to military aircraft so advanced and powerful no one can fly them properly. If inventing is not your thing as a Swede, you are usually blessed with prodigious good looks and high cheek bones, so you can always fall back on being a super model. To tell the truth though, you do see the odd ugly person, in fact they have a word for them here - "foreigners".
Despite a lowly convict appearance, friends offered a place to stay on a traditional Swedish farm. Situated in the Uppland region - which is the real home of the Vikings - there are very old rune stones and ancient burial mounds dating back over a thousand years very close by. A lovely selection of traditional Swedish cilinary delights such as deer, meatballs, herring, glögg, knäckebröt and of course the ever versatile and dependable condiment lingonberry jam were all devoured with much gusto.
The capital of Sweden is Stockholm, which is important to many for all that Nobel peace prize stuff but even more important for being the birthplace of Dolph Lundgren, who as we all know was robbed of an Oscar as Ivan Drago in Rocky 4. That aside, Stockholm is a fantastic city to explore and has one of the best preserved old towns in the world. In addition there is a small island called Skansen that has a replica traditional Swedish village in it from days long gone. There are stalls, dancing and numerous food vendors selling festive delicacies such as Swedish pancakes (which are great with lingonberry jam) and elk and potato which really could have benefited from lingonberry jam. All in all it was very magical, especially having villagers in authentic costume. One of them even slipped me a piece of paper which said "They won't let us leave. Please god help us." which I thought was cute.
In addition to picturesque town sights, Stockholm also has some really cool museums. The Vasa museum in particular contains a fully intact original 17th century war ship inside it that unfortunately, due to rather tragic design, promptly capsized the moment it left dock. Conveniently the brackish water everyone normally complains about also has the great side effect of preserving old wooden ships beautifully for hundreds of years (ever cloud really DOES have a silver lining) and it now sits upright once more in permanent dry dock for the world to see. The Vasa is a great example of period craftsmanship, modern salvaging techniques and how to fail ship design 101 by adding too many rows of cannon flaps ...
Big sights aside the intriguing opportunity was afforded to go and speak "Australian stuff" to a whole bunch of grade 4 , 5 and 6 kids at a Swedish primary school. Out of all the crazy situations to find one's self in, this was seemingly the most daunting. At first, there was a fear that it would just be a speech of gibberish to a small army of perplexed little blonde Vikings in the making, however they all understood English very well and had lots of questions ready to fire! It was all very cute really and in return Swedish was taught by the kids and there was also a traditional St Lucia festive celebration to attend together. No one could convincingly explain why St Lucia was celebrated but it just "is" and I suppose that's as good enough reason as any.
That's all for now, here are some important travel tips should you come to Sweden
- In case you were not aware, lingonberries are quite popular and they go with everything. In fact, they would probably taste alright with this blog too.
- Snus (Scandinavian snuff) smells really bad.
- Sweden must get some sort of award for having the most variations of the letter A.
- Never, ever turn your back on the sun. It will set the moment you do … mark our words!
- Did you know Abba came from Sweden? If you didn't (whoah), come to Sweden; you'll be made aware of it soon enough.
- What little money Sweden actually spends on a military budget pretty much goes to defending a giant straw goat statue erected in the city of Gävle every year from a hilarious array of daring arson attacks. Here I was thinking old Nintendo game concepts weren't based on reality!
- It's very cool to see deer running around in the snow at Christmas time. It's even cooler to shoot one and eat it.
- They have a hostel here made out of a Boeing 747!
- No one recognises the Swedish chef Muppet song (mork mork mork!). I think the stereotype is perhaps not totally accurate.
- When someone says it is only 1 "Swedish" mile away, reconsider 'on foot' as a valid method of locomotion.
- Pouch means testicles in Swedish. The kids love talks on Australian animals ...
