It’s Winding Down

It’s a co-worker’s birthday this week, so we decided to gather a bunch of people from work to go out and have a few drinks.  It was a great night.

The thing is, this co-worker and I have made it habit to insult the living hell out of each other every time we’re in the same room.  It’s funny and entertaining to people who know what the heck is going on, but to others, like some of the Swedes there that night, it’s confusing.  It’s so confusing they ask, ‘Why do you guys hate each other so much?’  And it doesn’t help when your friend answers, ‘Well, Ben is kind of a dick,’ and I answer, ‘Phil is the world’s biggest douchebag.’

We partied with some locals, too, which was fun.

Most of us took the next day off, and it was nice to just do nothing.  I’ve travelled on all my other days off, which usually meant  I was getting up pretty early, so it was great to sleep in and just lounge around for a couple of hours.

My time here is winding down, too.  I got mixed feelings about that.  It’s been cool to work at a nuclear power plant, and it’d be great to be around when the reactor is online and producing, but at the same time it’s been a pretty hard haul.  Throwing in India, I haven’t really been home since July (my time at home in August was zombie like) and it’s starting to wear on me.  I’m looking forward to seeing family and friends, sleeping in my own bed, playing my guitar.  But I’ll also miss things here, as well.

Ah, fuck it.  I’m not gone yet.

The Sweden Playlist

I’m currently compiling a new playlist that is Sweden related.  So far I’ve got the following:

Stockholm Syndrome – Muse
Lund – Hello Saferide
Submarines of Stockholm – AC Newman
In The Round – The Cardigans

I need much, much more.

‘But you know what the funniest thing about Europe is? It’s the little differences.’

A friend asked me what I thought about the culture in Sweden and that got me thinking – what do I consider culture?  So much of Sweden is similar that I don’t feel terribly out of place, except for the fact I don’t speak or read the language, but English is so widely spoken it still doesn’t seperate me from them that much.

Culture, to me, is mainly the customs and food a foreign country has.  Those are the things that you notice the most and make you say, ‘Back home, we do it like this…’

You’re not supposed to eat a hamburger with your hands in a sit down restaurant.  You use a knife and fork.  Swedes like a big breakfast, a good lunch and a simple dinner.  They love their coffee (it seems like there’s a coffee machine every twenty feet at the plant) and their coffee breaks.  They enjoy this weird fish paste thing called Kaviar.  It’s a tradition to have soup and pancakes every Thursday for dinner or lunch.  They don’t put syrup on their pancakes.  There’s a kebab place every block.

I feel like I’m a bit sheltered working at the plant 12 hours a day and living on the boat, but those are the things I’ve picked up.  If I ever spend more time in one of the cities, I’ll probably notice a bunch of other things, too.  And who knows how long I’ll be here?