Well it has been a very busy few days full of all thing Swedish. I have been enjoying looking at all the little things here both the same and different. While Katie went to Swedish school on Tuesday I walked into the little town of Huddinge. I spent a lot of time just wandering around the grocery store, reading the signs and looking at things. I find all kinds of things interesting : why are the crackers so huge? Why are the cheese wheels so huge? Can you put the big cheese on the big crackers? It is interesting that the packaging for so many of the products is much less than at home. More cardboard than plastics, and the things that are plastic, use much less plastic.
On Wednesday, I went into Stockholm for the first time on the commuter train. I had invited myself to visit a professor at KTH, the Royal Technical University. I am very good at simply inviting myself places. I have found that if you initiate contact, people are more than willing to accommodate you. In the past year I have invited myself to both Ireland and Sweden, so it is working out quite well. Ireland was a particularly egrious example – “I approached a professor at a conference and asked him – “Do you have a seminar series at your university? Because I’d love to visit your campus and lecture sometime.” After he stopped laughing at me, he said that he couldn’t pay for a trip to come visit him and lecture for an hour, but he could put me on a list to perhaps serve as a PhD examination committee member, although it might take years for something to come up. I readily agreed, and two months later he was on the phone with me. “Were you serious about wanting to come to Ireland?” And next thing I knew I had a trip to Ireland at his University’s expense. Yes, I am shameless.
Upon deciding to visit Sweden, I looked through the faculty list at KTH and found the name of a professor whose work I have read and use in one of my classes. So I emailed him and introduced myself, which culminated in a very nice meeting and tour of the Energy department at KTH. It was interesting to see all the different projects and laboratories. This was the Department of Energy Technology, which is housed in the industrial engineering department. I saw a lot of the same books that I use to teach on this professor’s bookshelf so I wondered if they teach their classes in English or Swedish. It turns out that they teach their undergraduates in English but their graduate students in English. This is mainly by necessity since most of their graduate students come from other countries and English is a common language for all. It is the same as in the US where most of our graduate student are from other countries. It was a great opportunity to visit and learn. I was interested in all their industrial sponsored projects, in contrast to ours that are more likely to be government or military sponsored.
Learning is a big aspect of this trip for me, I find myself asking questions of my friend constantly.
“What does that sign say?” “We drive softly here”
“What is that food?” “Pea soup in a plastic package that looks like a sausage. “
“How does health care work?” “Government single payer plan with co-pays at the time of service”
“How does maternity leave work?” “360 full salary days with guaranteed hold of your job for your return. The days can be split between mothers and fathers, each taking extended time off in turn.”
“How about daycare?” “Subsidized rates-about $100 per month”
“How about school districts?” “Open enrollment - you can pick any school to attend for free, with free lunches included, but preference is given to the kids in that district and schools can fill up.”
How about…… how about…….. how about??
I am asking so many questions that Katie walked away from me today, because she was shy of my questioningness. She claims she just wanted to look at a different sign. We were at the Vasa museum today which is a unique museum which houses the Vasa ship. It sank in the Stockholm harbor in 1628 just 20 minutes into its maiden voyage. It seems they had issues with stability, ballast and too many cannons. They claim that if the ship was 1 m wider it would have had enough additional stability to sail – but some things are learned too late. At the lowest level of the museum there was a wire mesh separating a region of the floor from the display and there was a man behind the wire at a desk cleaning a bit of wood. So I pressed my face up against the mesh as Katie wandered away quickly- “Hi, what is that piece of wood, what are you working on?” It turns out that he was an archeologist working to measure, characterize and catalog bits of wood that are from barrels from the Vasa. He was part of a team re-examining all the artifacts to learn more about them and eventually write several thick books with full chapters on things like barrels. These barrels were about 10” in diameter and held personal effects like mittens and hats. How would I know that the sailors kept their mittens in small wooden barrels if I didn’t ask? Katie thought it was interesting in the end, but also thought that it would be very boring to be an archeologist. The lure of knowing more than anyone in the entire world about that particular barrel was not enough of a draw for her, but I do get the thrill of learning something new about an artifact that no one ever knew before. The other museums (Historiska and Nordiska) were a bit less interesting, but we did see a room full of gold, learned that Vikings did not wear hats with horns and saw a huge statue of King Gustav with an inscription that read “Be Swedish!”
Walking around Stockholm we were struck by the number of men walking together in twos or threes pushing baby carriages in the middle of the day (see maternity leave info above), which I have never seen in the US. We also found the city to be very walkable, pretty and clean. It reminded me in some ways of Vancouver, but with more water. The harbors and old buildings were just gorgeous.
We had a wonderful dinner of pea soup with mustard and Swedish pancakes with strawberry jam. One of many recent wonderful dinners, including Swedish pizza one night and thick delicious slices of bacon with potato pancakes and ligonberry sauce another night. YUM!
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