Our Time in Sweden

traditional Christmas

As I sat outside of our local grocery store waiting for Michael and the kids to pick me up, I looked around at all that was happening around me and started to wonder at what point this whole situation (living in Sweden) stopped feeling different and weird.  At what point did the words sprawled on billboards stop looking foreign and when did the habits and mannerisms of the people here stop being peculiar?  I honestly don't know when it happened, though it feels like a long time ago.  But, every once in awhile something occurs that is different -  not good, not bad - just not the same.  One recent difference I noticed came to me last week in the form of the weekly newsletter sent out to all the parents of first-graders at Brule's school.    

'När vi var på julvandring i stadskyrkan kunde vi konstatera igen att det går bra att göra utflykter med klassen, och att det är väldigt roligt. I kyrkan fick vi vara med om en teater som utspelade sig vid tiden för Jesus födelse. Barnen levde sig in i handlingen och var väldigt intresserade men även informativa om den tid vi lever i idag. De informerade bl a Maria på ett övertygande sätt om att hon inte behövde gifta sig med den man, Josef som hennes föräldrar valt utan det bestämmer man själv(!) Däremot var många lite osäkra på vilket land vi kom ifrån, de flrsta chansade på Umeå. Så vi hade en liten geografilektion när vi kom tillbaka till skolan.'

Translation (in a nutshell): During a Christmas field trip to the State Church the children got to see a performance that took place at the time of Jesus' birth. The children identified with the story and were very interested, but also informative about the times that we live in today. Specifically, they informed Mary, in a convincing way, that she did not need to marry Joseph just because her parents chose him for her - that who you marry was something she should be allowed to decide for herself! 

Now, I should perhaps say a few things about religion in Sweden.  First, there is obviously no Jeffersonian described 'wall of separation' between the church and State.  There is no Swedish Jefferson, despite his name.  In Sweden, kids sing religious Christmas carols in December, hymns at Easter, have their Christmas program at the State Church, and so on.  Despite this, many Swedes are not particularly religious.  Most of their behavior in regards to the church comes from a perspective of honoring traditions rather than honoring a religion.  'It's just what we do in Sweden' is a common response, just like: we always eat soup on Thursday or we always have fika at 9am and 2pm everyday or we always eat crayfish in August!  It's a tradition. 

This lack of separation has become somewhat of a 'tradition' for us as well.  As non-Swedes we have acclimated to the differences like all the other immigrants, regardless of how it is where we come from.  The thing that I noticed about this difference was that the message that these first-graders received went beyond the tradition of religion and the story of Christmas.  As children in Sweden, there is also a tradition of equal rights and these kids saw fit to defend (and inform) Mary of her rights as a person free to choose for herself (I'm sure they would have afforded Jesus the same advice). 

A different kind of Christmas message, but a worthy one indeed!  God Jul!

December sunrise from our new kitchen window

 

I fought the law and the law won

When I was younger someone suggested to me that instead of referring to something as weird that I might try to use the word different instead.  I have never forgotten that moment, it was really huge.  I had taken my lazy teenage brain filled with generic and sometimes unintentionally disrespectful terms and forced it to acknowledge a new perspective or at least sound like I did.  This lesson is especially handy these days because when you live somewhere other than where you are from, things are often 'different'.

For the first year that we lived in Sweden I was legally allowed to drive (Michael got four years because he is a scientist and therefore super special).  It isn't that different driving in Sweden versus the US, for the most part the rules of driving are the same and after a few roundabouts and ONE frightening experience of being passed by a car with oncoming traffic in the other lane, you start to figure things out.   Plus, the cars in Sweden drive on the same side of the road as we do and the steering wheel is in the same place in the car (these points will be important later, I promise). However, by law I had to take the Swedish driving risk course, the all-day icy road and skidding course instruction, the theory test, and finally, the driver's examination to get a license.  I've complained a lot about how much it costs because in addition to those mandatory requirements, I opted to get additional instruction from a driving school.  I made that expensive choice because I had heard a LOT of stories of people doing it on their own and failing many, many times and so I paid the money (Michael did too).  After all, who doesn't love spending nearly $2000 to get a driver's license?  Ahh, the freedom of making the six-hour round trip to IKEA and hauling it all back in a trailer not exceeding 3500kg is priceless.  If you come from the EU, you are lucky enough to automatically qualify for a Swedish license and trust me, this is reasonable.  These are the perks of being in the Union.  But oddly enough, if you come from the non-union countries of the UK or Japan (where they drive on the opposite side of the road in cars with steering wheels on the opposite side of the car and have regions of the country that don't ever have SNOW or ICE), you get the same special treatment and trust me, that's WEIRD. 

P.S. I got my license yesterday!  

{ gravity }

{ gravity } - a single moment or a set of moments that bring me back to the ground and show me what is truly important.