An Accelerated Autumn

As reports of an extended Indian Summer in the Midwest continue to reach me here in Scandinavia, I'm more and more compelled to notice the desultory transitional period from summer to winter at my doorstep. Only 10 days ago 70 and sunny was the norm. Oh how quickly things can change when you are roughly 20 latitudinal degrees north of places you have lived for the first 25 years of your life. Speaking of age and transition, I'm 26 now, meaning my early twenties are over, which probably means I should be more responsible or mature or whatever. Anyway, the point is things change, including atmospheric conditions. For instance, during a brief and terrifying period on Thursday morning, it was snowing. Yes, real, frozen, crystalline water fell on September 26th. It might have been the caffeine high I was on, the frustration I was feeling about an unsolved research problem, or a combination of the two, but I nearly lost it. There was a severe disconnect between the calendar date and what I was seeing out the window. Anyway it only lasted something like 30 minutes, but it happened and it's something I'll always remember about being in northern Sweden.

The actual day-by-day weather has been rainy and cold, kind of like late fall in Michigan/Wisconsin. The trees, once vibrantly green, have undergone stunning transformations into their traditional autumnal glories.

'Dead leaves and the dirty ground'?

Umeå is like a giant arboretum. And everyone knows arboretums are most spectacular in the fall. Here you walk down paths connecting two buildings, yet are interminably surrounded by towering birch and pine trees. The sights are great, but smells create nostalgia:  cold air freezing your nose while aromas of dry leaves and musty pine bring to mind late-night bonfires, early-morning tailgates, a sweater right out of the dryer, catching falling leaves, and cider so hot it burns your tongue because you are too impatient to let it to cool before the first sip.

All this rain here also means the low level forest growth of things I thought only existed on Nintendo gaming consoles:

Dude, do you know where that second warp whistle is?

This makes me want to do this.

I like you Autumn. Please don't end too soon.

Skål!

Actually Travelling, kinda

Six days since my last post! I hope you all have gotten your mediocre blog fix elsewhere for the last week. I figured it would be wise to avoid dousing my audience with diluted material. And really, what good is a travel blog if the blogger never travels?

This Saturday I went for a long bike ride, some 17 miles round trip, to a small town called Holmsund on the Gulf of Bothnia, which is part of the Baltic Sea. One of the northernmost cities lying on the coast of the northernmost arm of the Baltic Sea. That's how far up I am. Seventeen miles might not sound like a long bike ride to some of you, but when roads aren't clearly marked and you don't have a map, the back brakes on your bike don't work and you haven't fully inflated the tires for several weeks, it makes for an interesting ride. Luckily it was a completely rural route and probably the last nice day of the year.

Perfectly empty and perfectly straight for several miles.

I huffed and puffed to my destination. Holmsund was not very impressive, but it did have a lot of off the beaten trails leading to beautiful water/island vistas:

Ski jump, and lunch spot.

End of trail on remote island, awesome picnic spot.

View from picnic spot.

Sadly, there's no direct shoreline accessible for the Gulf of Bothnia from Holmsund, but these little inlets are probably much more scenic anyway. The ride home was calmer, probably because I knew where I was going, and sunnier, probably because I wished it so. I climbed a hill a few miles from downtown Umeå and this was the view (I like views):

City to the right, one-runway airport to the left.

I think the hill I was on was actually just a former landfill. Can landfills ever be 'former' landfills? Once a landfill, always full of garbage. This is the longest caption I've written yet.

The rest of the day was spent recovering, exploring some shops downtown, and enjoying this beer.

It's so majestic.

Yeah, it was a pretty good day.

Skål!

Bonus:  Saw this in a small movie shop. 99 kronor is about 15 USD, for the Lion King 3? Not even the original, which has to be more valuable. And when did they make a third one, or was this just a special Swedish Lion King 3? I mean of course I can find out, but making you guys read my speculation is more fun.

I bet Billy Crystal learned Swedish just for the voice-over in this release. That guy is committed to his craft. 

Umeå's Proud Sporting Tradition. No, Really.

To Americans, Swedes, sporting-wise, are best known for skiing, ice hockey, shooting while skiing (skiing while shooting?), Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and armed conflict neutrality.

In Umeå, sports and being active are an important part of the culture. The largest sports facility in all of Scandinavia, IKSU, is located in Umeå. I recently got a membership there, and it really is a ball-busting, sweat-inducing fortress. It has indoor beach volleyball, 30 different fitness classes with class-specific rooms (like a spinning auditorium), and huge gym/cardio area. It also has indoor golf for some reason:

Nothing like getting out and playing a quick indoor nine.

And even tables for arm-wrestling:

I just, I just don't get it.

There are also a few popular sports clubs with some pretty competitive teams. On Monday I went to a floorball (Innebandy) match between the city's two big teams. It drew a substantial crowd of a maybe 2000 people. Floorball has the same rules as hockey, except instead of ice and skates they have a composite court, they don't wear pads, the walls are only half a meter high, and they play with a wiffle ball. A plastic, hollow ball with holes in its surface so that it doesn't hurt when you get hit. When you see them warming up it's kind of cute really. Like a bunch of kids playing with plastic bat and wiffle ball at a family reunion.

They think they're big people!

But then they start playing, and hitting each other, and moving that wiffle ball at a hundred miles an hour. It's a frenetic atmosphere.

 You boys be careful out there.

Anyway, one of the two teams won, and some number of people there were happy about that. Afterward I went out to the T3 Exel Football Field, also part of the sports club. I had been there a few weekends earlier when the stadium was deserted and the gates were open.

Not bad seats, but I bet I could get a little closer.

Better, closer, warmer..

Ahh, field level, perfecto.

The Umeå female footballers, known as the Umeå IK, were in the middle of their match. They have a pretty impressive following as well, and have even won the Women's Champions League a few times in the past ten years. For some reason I could again walk right into the stadium. I decided to try to recreate my earlier shots because I crave temporal symmetry.

Yeah kind of, but not really.

My angles seem to be a bit off.

Nailed it!

Alright that's enough pictures and sports talk, at least for now.

Skål 

Language Barriers and I go Clubbin'!

I took German for almost 5 years. Reading and writing it generally isn't an issue for me, I can understand most of a conversation I hear in German (provided it isn't spoken too fast), and speaking it, though slow and deliberate, isn't too far-fetched. I even at one point had a few dreams in German, which is very surreal. Although all of dreaming is surreal, so maybe that wasn't the correct adjective. I've also read and heard a few times that Swedish and German are quite similar. For whoever said or wrote that, you're wrong. They are not similar. Sure they probably have some words that sound the same or are derived from one another, but most Western languages do.

Interestingly there is at least one word that has the same meaning in both German and Swedish. Whenever I am introduced by my coworker and mentor here, Anders, he makes sure to say both my first and last name. The new acquaintance then generally smirks as they extend their hand. Anders told me recently that it's a very good last name. I didn't think anything of it until I randomly typed it into Google translate. Here are results for both German to English and Swedish to English. It is a good last name...

Switching gears, on Friday night I got home late from work, went to the gym for an hour or so, then bought a cheap six-pack of 2.8% (!) beer, of which I immediately consumed three. This was unsatisfactory for me, and with some liquid courage sloshing around my insides, I decided to take a bike ride downtown and see what the night offered. I saw a line outside of this beautiful, pink building:

Scharinska, which is Swedish for Scharinska

Let's give it a shot. Swedes use the word club loosely, as this 'club' was no more than an entrance, a hallway to some bathrooms, a sitting room, a bar, and a 20 x 60 ft. room jammed with people. Anyway, these guys looked nice when I walked in:

It's all about the lighting.

But then they sounded like this:

It was some entertaining stuff. A real underground Umeå experience. I also met some pretty interesting people at the bar, though everyone at this type of show was probably very interesting. And the beer, though expensive, was delicious. Here's the single and double IPA I had (with appropriate alcoholic content):

If only this was a corgi...

And this was a pug.

They also had one called Sleepy Bulldog, which was probably just as adorable. The second band was more talented, and not as loud.

Ahh, my ears have stopped bleeding.

It was a good night, but made for a very tough first-ever spinning class the next morning.

Skål!

Dear Sweden, Thank you for getting me addicted to caffeine...

Coffee is awesome! It's amazing! It wakes you up and makes you alert and prepares you to tackle the day. Like a full-on, head-first, 15-yard-penalty-inducing tackle. Listless, lifeless, and lugubrious laborers are transformed into productive, prosperous, and popular plebeians (job status unchanged) with just a few sips at any time of the day. You see what I just did there? That's alliteration, and the use of two Oxford commas in one sentence. Coffee helped me do that. It turns non-morning people into moderately functioning people in the morning hours. Drinking 3-5 cups a day reduces your risk of Alzheimer's and dementia later in life. Seriously. Good work Finland. And they should know; they drink a whopping 12 kg of coffee per person per year. The most in the world. Did I mention that coffee is great, fantastic, life-changing?! It helps me type this so fast. I'm such a fast typist!

I consider myself a fairly regular consumer of caffeine, as I get a cup of some of the worst tasting coffee ever brewed in Madison pretty much every morning when I (eventually) arrive at work. If you play around with that world map at all, you'll see that Sweden (and all of Scandinavia) ranks right up there for most coffee consumption. "I like coffee. I'll probably fit right in," thought naive and ill-informed Eric. You don't realize how much 8.2 kg of tea/coffee per year is until you get into this fairly standard routine of every Swede:

0800-0830: Arrive at work. First cup of coffee (C1).
0830-0930: Start work. Ramp up your morning (C2).
0930-1000: COFFEE BREAK. Now we're talking (C3).
work until lunch...
1230-1330: Lunch. Followed by cup of coffee (C4).
1430-1500:           2nd COFFEE BREAK. I'm not making this up (C5).
1600:           One more to finish off the day (C6).

That's a normal day. I can imagine some people thinking, "Yeah but 6 cups of coffee really isn't that much." Sure, if you're drinking that weak shit we Americans are used to you'd be right. But Swedish coffee is strong, like Bruce-Banner-you-don't-want-to-see-me-when-I'm-angry strong. These guys are effin' buzzin' all day long. Anyway, that's enough writing about it. What I really wanted to do was present everyone with this picture, which represents the greatest office attribute anyone could ever utilize:

The Get-Your-Fix-Here 8000...is what it should be called.

This machine represents everything great about the Swedish office. It's sleek, shiny, makes great coffee, and doesn't make you wait. I think I'm in love...I mean, just look at the selection it gives:

Fresh-brewed and instant. with sugar, milk or both.

yes.

Cappucino. Something called Wiener Melange (delicious). Chocoffee should be a cereal. And on and on...

Yes!

YES!

And the best part? It doesn't cost a single kronor.

To wrap it up, Sweden has this whole workday thing down. A free, unlimited source of caffeine and lots of breaks during the day.

If you're going to invest that much money and time into drinking coffee, you better have a damn good place to do it. Here's a picture of the breakroom at our office.

Talk about a Swedish stereotype...

Skål!

Stereotypical Picturesque Swedish Settings

While having only roughly half the population, the city of Umeå shares several positive qualities with Madison: a large university nestled along water, low average age of inhabitants, extremely biker friendly, a lively nightlife, and rolling countryside just outside of the city. The latter allows for some great scenery to shoot during a bike ride. Yesterday was sunny and 75 all day, by far the best day of weather to date. Here's a few shots.

Just north of campus is a large wooded area called Gammlia with several winding paths used for running in the summer and cross-country skiing in the winter. Incidentally it was the most hilly and difficult 6 miles I've ever run; I don't intend to try it again.

"Deep in the forest a call was sounding.."

For Lee:  Rocky outcrop is the highest point in the city, but all of the trees block the view.

A round barn, which has historical significance or some shit. I can't read Swedish.

Even cooler, just east of me, is a lake with miles of paths. I've heard on clear nights at the right time of year you can see the northern lights from it's shoreline. In Sweden, private lands are completely accessible to anyone. This is known as Allemänsratten, or "every man's right." It allows the free and open enjoyment of all land. I used this to my advantage for some decent pictures of the lake shore.

The backyard of someone's summer cabin.

 I wish it meant open access to floating modes of transportation. 

The only sounds are wood creaking underfoot and the lapping of dampened waves against the hull of an old rowboat.

Could have just as easily taken this picture in northern Michigan or rural Wisconsin.

The serenity of the unperturbed water and clear blue skies is perfect for a picnic on the dock.

 And then there's the expected and swooned over Swedish cabin and associated architecture..

"This house was built in 1825 by General Custer" - Dale Doback

 This bridge is so idyllic it makes me want to puke.

Even my borrowed bike has a starring role.

Finally is the river itself, Umeå River. It runs through the heart of the city and allows for great scenery, places to stop and read a chapter or two, or just take a nap in the grass.

Pedestrian bridge often occupied by skateboarding youths.

 A view of the city from the north, one mile upstream.

Ignore the black stringy mark in the upper right corner. I will clean my lens more frequently.

 And the last, a view in the other direction.

Off into the wilderness.

"Nice pictures of stuff Eric, but where are the pictures of all the Swedish honeys?" asked everyone. Well I'm working on it so lay off. I've only been here for two weeks.

Skål!

Bonus! For Lee (again) and Kelley: Horseys out in the country.

Q: What did the bartender say to the horse?
A: "Why such a long face?"

Drunken Ruskis and Freshmen!

I mentioned in the last post that I went to see the UEFA Super Cup, a match-up between my two favorite club teams, in downtown Umeå on Friday night. What I failed to mention was that it was at an American themed sports bar and that I went alone. As I type this now I find it rather funny that my first excursion in Umeå's nightlife, downtown being a 45 minute walk away, took me to a place very reminiscent of every damn college bar in Madison or East Lansing. Speaking of Michigan, among the overwhelming plethora of Boston Bruins (?) crap covering the wall, I found this (image retrospectively artificially colored because I used no flash):

"Water Wonderland, and infinitely better than Ohio"

I'd never before sat alone at a bar muttering into my beer, which I found myself doing quite frequently. It's a natural form of entertainment when you can't eavesdrop on the Swedish speaking people around you. It was about halftime when a strapping young man, about my age, came to the bar and ordered some froofy blue looking drink. He was loaded. He turned to the older Swedish gentleman with whom I had fostered a silent, beer-sipping friendship and asked him a question I couldn't understand. The man hardly acknowledged him, so he in turn asked me the question. "På engelska vänligen (In English please)." A phrase I use something like 12 times a day. The next 5 minutes was a blur. Here are personal highlights I gained:  originally from Russia, speaks English with a British accent, "fucking" loves the Detroit Red Wings, Chelsea FC and FC Bayern Munich, is currently training to become a paratrooper for Swedish special forces, "fucking" loves CrossFit (including knowing the names, and listing them, of all the 'big time' CrossFit competitors worldwide), really drunk, never learned his name. In a flash it was over and he was gone. I had probably said something like 15 words.

Oh the people we meet..

As I left the bar, looking forward to a long walk along the river on a crisp and chilly near-Autumn evening, I saw this neon sign towering 3 stories above me:

You said it, Swayze.

The walk ended up taking around 75 minutes, mostly because I kept getting interested in off the beaten paths. Disclaimer:  this is not a good idea when two 60 cL beers deep in a still strange town at 1 in the morning.

The next day: After walking 2 hours the night before, I decided to again head downtown the next morning. I didn't get very far until an interesting event on campus forced me to stop. Students started class this week, but had one more Saturday afternoon of freedom to compete for the burning loins of their classmates. Freshmen!

Sponsored by Red Bull?

Lots of walking, sunshine, reading, and general sightseeing ensued. It was a good weekend.

Until next time! Skål!