Stockholm Syndrome

Before departure, whenever I told someone that I was going to Stockholm in the middle of January, I was unfailingly given a default look of incredulity. Stockholm? In January? Are you crazy?

When I stepped out of the airport, thinking about how I was currently the most northward I had ever been on the planet, and in the middle of winter, no less, I was fully expecting to be hit by gusts of icy cold freezing wind. Rather, I felt that I had somehow landed in the middle of a black-and-white movie. The landscape was entirely a monochromatic variant of gray, white snow glued onto the black tree branches with ice.

Actually, I would say that the weather was nice the whole weekend. It was the crisp, refreshing sort of cold that makes the lungs feel good and hearty. Someone explained to me that the little humidity accounts for why it doesn’t feel so bad. I was grateful that the air was dry, except for one thing…

Know that feeling that you’re forgetting something important before going on a big trip, but you can’t think of it, even though you’ve checked your suitcase a million times? For me it’s unavoidable as I’m heading out the door. And normally it’s nothing, but this time I really was forgetting something important: my chapstick. Granted, not so grave, but now I can attest that chapped lips for a weekend aren’t so much fun.

For purposes of full disclosure regarding my impressions of the temperature outside, I will admit that as a precautionary measure I dressed myself in more layers than an onion. (It was quite the ordeal getting dressed in the morning; my movements were on the stiff side and I was feeling a bit like a snowman.) But the important thing was that I wasn’t cold.

One place I visited was the world’s very first H&M. I probably shouldn’t have bothered, because it isn’t too different from the one at home. The only thing is that it is easily five times bigger, and it’s even spread out among separate buildings. I decided that I could never actually go shopping there; it’s too overwhelming to be surrounded by so many clothes.

I had also considered going to the origins of Sweden’s other big claim to fame, Ikea, but it involved a bus ride to the outskirts of the city, which would have been tricky time-wise.

But if you’re acquainted with the vibe of Ikea, it gives a good idea of the vibe for the rest of Sweden. There is a focus on modernity, practicality and utility. The buildings and architecture are more simple and straightforward. Another representative example would be Stockholm’s omnipresent font, Futura (also available for viewing in any Ikea catalogue):













Reading a tourist brochure, I couldn’t help but groan when I saw printed, “Stockholm, Venice of the North,” as EVERY European city with bodies of water flowing through it loves to compare itself to Venice. Stockholm is in fact built on a cluster of close islands that has been linked together with bridges.















An enormous congregation of swans and ducks (a bridge in the background)

Yet on all fronts, Stockholm met or exceeded my expectations. For instance, in surveying the crowd, there were indeed a disproportionate number of blonde people. And the majority of cars parked along the road were Volvos.















Volvo Land

Practically the whole time I was there I had an Abba song stuck in my head, as I kept overhearing them on the radio or playing on the background music of stores. And there was a nice accumulation of slush and snow on the sidewalks, meaning my hip flexors got quite the workout.















Sand = very important for anti-slippage















Cursed toilets.

On a side note, I am in love with the Swedish language and its charming orthography, eg coffee = kaffe, and how some vowels have little bubble or dot accents on top of them. Although I was intimated in trying to pronounce some of the longer words, with all their multi-syllable clumps.















Judging by the selection at the supermarket, Swedes like putting pureed meat in a tube, caviar and shrimp flavors included.

Paris, Part II: Christmas edition

Ah, Paris.

Not as magical as when I was seeing everything for the first time, but nonetheless there is no denying the city has charm.

Champs Elysees at dusk, with light-stringed trees

One thing I just love about Paris is walking on the sidewalk right before dinner time and passing by all sorts of people, of all ages and backgrounds—little stooped-over old ladies, shoe-polished businessmen, Maghrebian immigrants, teenagers on bicycles—all with one thing in common: they’re in midst of coming home for the evening after picking up a fresh-baked baguette from the boulangerie. It just seems so quintessentially Parisian to have a golden thin loaf tucked under an arm or peaking out from a bag.

Another thing I love in Paris? Spotting Boston Red Sox caps amongst the crowds. Of course in Massachusetts they’re a dime-a-dozen, but whenever I see one on the Metro I get a pang of MA pride. Speaking of which, I am sad to report my observation that Yankees baseball caps undeniably win on the international scene among European youth (most likely to be explained by their highly unfortunate recent World Series win).

Museum hopping

Versailles

Certainly the most ornate place I’ve ever seen. Beds, mirrors, chandeliers, sumptuous velvet walls, marble busts and statues, paintings, finely tufted rugs, inlaid furniture…everything. The gardens are not much to see in December (except for an expansive puddle of slush) but in the summer I imagine they are extraordinarily pretty.

Musee d’Orsay

I liked the Musee d’Orsay right off the bat for its location in an old train station, and its prettily vaulted ceiling.

At first, as I was passing by all the famous chefs d’oeuvres, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Am I really seeing what I am seeing?

But then honestly, so many pastel Monets got a little…vanilla. Reaching a point of idyllic overload, I started channeling my inner interior designer as I circulated among the exhibition halls, hypothetically considering which tableaux I would use to furnish a house. For example,

Pissarro's Femme Etandant du Linge would suit a laundry room

And Degas's Le Tub for a bathroom

Lastly, I made it to the architectural wonder that is the Centre Pompidou, with all of its buildings pipes exposed on the exterior.

I had to wait in line for an honest-to-goodness eternity for my ticket, but it was worth it when I got to the top of the building—the view was awesome. All the rooftops of Paris, the Eiffel Tower, the Sacre Coeur, all out there in the distance…

As for the actual art inside the building, practically the whole time I was wondering, Is this really art? A lot of Modernist pieces challenge my conception of what constitutes art (maybe as intended) and make me wonder at what point a piece is worth hanging up on the wall of a museum.

For instance, I finally got to see up close and in person what I find to be one of the most ridiculous pieces of art on the planet. I thought it was atrocious when I first laid my eyes on a picture of it in the third grade, and I continue to do so, regardless of the philosophy behind it. A canvas, Monochrome Bleu (IKB 3), painted all blue by Yves Klein:

Seriously?

But there were also some really good things. My favorites were the Matisse collages, and Robert Delaunay’s very nicely entitled piece, “La Joie de Vivre.”

Smile and Say Cheese

My Christmas dinner was a multi-course, five-hour (no joke!) affair including jambon en croute, purée de marrons, and crème de chocolat. I even tried some foie gras, which I’ve decided is nowhere close to becoming my favorite food, as the whole time I was chewing I was thinking less about the flavor and more about the poor little geese.

The ultimate test came towards the end of the meal, an evaluation of my introduction thus far to French cuisine, in the form of the all-important cheese course. The French will tell you that the bacterial ferments aid with digesting the meal; I just think they’re stupendously delicious.

For the special occasion, an enormous platter of multi-hued, multi-shaped, multi-textured, multi-stinking cheese had been ordered from the fromagerie. Really quite impressive. All eyes were on me as it was placed on the table. Each specimen was pointed to in succession, and I was to name them.

The results? Perfect marks; I know my Roblochon from my Morbier. In recompense I got a couple little cheers of “Bravo!” and a nice hunk of camembert.

Speaking of which, when my aunt and uncle came to visit me after Christmas, they were inquiring what the peculiar smell in the fridge was. I spent a good minute digging through the leftovers looking for something that had gone bad, and yet was still unable to find a culprit. Turns out, it was the cheese dish all along.

So it’s official. I’ve become immune to even the most particularly fragrant varieties of cheese; it no longer registers in my system as offensive.

All I can say is that my brother William, who detests the faintest scent of the mildest and most harmless of cheeses (such as cheddar or feta or parmesan) had better watch out for when I get back home.

Mini Photographic Exhibit

Various Metro signs of Paris

Budapest

If you asked me to describe the city in two words, I would say: Freezing cold.

This is what I looked like pretty much the whole weekend, all bundled up!

I would advise anyone interested to head there during the summer. But when the opportunity came and I found a cheap flight for December, I didn’t want to give it up. The architecture alone is gorgeous. The city is an interesting range of old and new, with remnants of the Communist era, but also plenty of modernity.

In fact it’s actually two cities in one: Buda and Pest, separated by the Danube River.

Aside from all the oohing and aahing and sightseeing, also on the agenda was a trip to the Roman baths. It was so nice getting some spa treatment after all that shivering! But let’s just say Hungarian women have no hang-ups of being absolutely stark naked and letting it all show, regardless of sagging flesh. And that’s just about as descriptive as I am going to get.

Our last evening in the city we went to a performance of the Hungarian ballet. The show playing that night was Shakespeare’s "The Taming of the Shrew." It was beautiful. I feel bad admitting this, but I’m glad I saw the movie “Ten Things I Hate about You,” otherwise I would have been confused about what was going on.

Food-wise, Hungary is famous for its paprika, so for lunch I got a roasted stuffed pepper dish:

Okay so maybe it doesn’t look so appetizing but it tasted good!

There was also a bookstore chain there called Alexandra and I was so excited I took approximately five thousand pictures of it! Here’s just one.

A very special weekend

Normally my weekends are free and I can do as I please. But within the lines of my official au pairing contract lies a clause that I will look after the girls for a few weekends over the course of the year. Last weekend was one such weekend, when S and D left for an extended weekend getaway to Vienna.

So basically, I got to sample the life of a single parent for four days. Some highlights:

The good

• Reading books and telling stories before bed time, and getting kisses (bisous) good night
  
• A late breakfast on Saturday morning: a stack of maple syrup-topped pancakes, and fresh squeezed orange juice

The not-so-good (So this is the nitty-gritty, down-and-dirty of being a nanny…)

• Wrestling with a three-year-old at seven o’clock in the morning while simultaneously trying to take off her pajamas and get her dressed into clothes appropriate for school, while she is meanwhile screaming bloody murder...

It really wasn’t that bad. The only really trying moment was a three-person tantrum session at the end of a school day that took place over the course of dinner. That is, I was the only one in the house NOT crying, even though I really sort of wanted to. Not that I blame the kids for it in the slightest:

The oldest had had a long day of school, followed by a string of various extracurricular activities, not getting home until 8:30 in the evening, and then had to face a pile of homework given by a mean teacher with exacting demands. The middle one was upset by some gossip and girl politics that had developed at school that day. Yes, preadolescent girls can be pretty cruel to each other. I’ll admit I had forgotten such dramas of elementary school!

And the little one was upset because I had made lasagna for dinner that night. The recipe called for some red pepper flakes, which weren’t in the pantry, so I unknowingly substituted a pinch of ground jalapeno pepper, thinking it would have the same gustatory effect. Turns out, it was much spicier than I had anticipated, so I was hearing a chorus of “Ca pique! Ca pique!” (That’s spicy!)

And to top it all off, the lasagna itself was way overcooked because I got distracted and completely forgot about it after I placed it in the oven.

Thankfully that was the worst of it. Granted, I was bone-tired at the end of weekend and struck by how I was constantly and continually obligated to the well-being and happiness of three other people. It definitely made me re-evaluate exactly what the role of a parent demands. It gave me new respect and empathy for my own parents, like how many times they had to tell me to put the dishes in the dishwasher. Now it makes a lot more sense.

Strasbourg

The first weekend of December, me and some fellow au pairs decided to kick the holiday season off right with—what else?—a trip to the Christmas markets of Strasbourg!

The only hang-up was location: Strasbourg is a good four-hour car ride from Geneva. So it was that I groaned as my alarm clock went off and we departed in the pitch black darkness of morning, watching the sun rise through the mountains as we zipped along the highway.

Although we were staying in France, the quickest route took us through small pieces of Switzerland and Germany. I was really excited because it was going to be my first time on the AUTOBAHN. Actually, the only thing I had heard about it beforehand was of its lack of speed limit. I was envisioning a special sort of highway, straight and flat, with all the cars flying down it at maximum speeds. Well, as it turns out, “autobahn” refers to all the highways in Germany, and so it was basically just like any other European auto route.

There also was the Black Forest, of which we passed through the edges. From what I saw, it wasn't as the name suggests. No density of trees, no particular darkness--just regularly spaced woods, with light filtering regularly throughout. Despite all the adjustments of previous conceptions, I liked watching the little villages of Germany pass by the car window: a ring of relatively homogeneous red-roofed houses encircling a tall church steeple.

I never knew it before coming here, but Christmas markets in Europe are a pretty big deal. Almost every place has at least a little something (even the small town where I live held a market over a weekend in December). But Strasbourg proclaims itself to be the “capital of Christmas” and boasts to have the best Christmas market in the world.

I cannot personally affirm that, but I will say I was impressed with its size and grandeur. Sprinkled throughout the streets of the city, there are conglomerations of petite wooden market stalls of artisans and merchants selling their goods of Christmas paraphernalia, ornaments and gifts and such. Plus the stalls of food, which sort of reminded me of what it is like to go to a fair in the US; think greasy fast food and popcorn. But there was also hot spiced wine, churros (a sort of fried dough which I had never seen before), waffles, crepes, and roasted chestnuts for sale. There was even a huge tent devoted entirely to gourmandises, with assortments of cookies and cakes. I’ve never seen so much pain d’epice in my life.

Yet for lunch we decided that we should take full advantage of our location and sit ourselves down to a proper Alsatian meal, with all of the delicacies of the region: choucroute (aka sauerkraut) and saucisse. After walking and down the quaint streets of Strasbourg, we finally settled on a cozy little establishment with dark wood paneling, red-and-white checkered curtains at the windows, and haphazardly-posed pictures on the walls. The restaurant was absolutely chock full and buzzing of other like-minded tourists, taking a pause amongst the Christmas markets. I was enjoying the warmth of the place after being in the windblown streets, but from the moment that we were greeted overly-curtly by our waitress, I couldn’t ignore just how bad the service was. Granted that in Europe the bar of what constitutes good service at a restaurant is considerably lower than it is in the States, it was absolutely dreadful at this place. In fact our waitress was almost a caricature--a short, fat woman with a thick German accent, whose idea of hospitality was so skewed that it ventured into downright rudeness. Basically it was a language barrier, and she had absolutely zero patience for a single question on the menu. I had never done it before, but after spending a half hour trying to place an order, we decided enough was enough, and got up and left the place. Continuing down the street we found another restaurant which had considerably less ambiance, but at least the waiter there didn’t insult us and call us names, thinking we wouldn’t understand because it was in French. I ended up ordering spaetzel (buttery noodle clumps) and coq au vin with a creamy mushroom Riesling sauce. Definitely not what I would consider light, and the helpings were generous to boot, but delicious and hearty nonetheless.

Granted, being in the Alsace Lorraine region of France, right next to Germany, I could definitely see the geographical influence in the architecture; it is a nice blend of the two.

The city is very charming during the day, but it is also lovely at night. Draped across the streets are grand light displays, with further flourishes of light hanging up on the lampposts to illuminate all the main roads.

Before departing, we went to the town square to see the big sapin de Noel (Christmas tree) all lit up, and to listen to a chorus perform Christmas carols—it was a very multicultural spectacle, with songs from around the world, and definitely put me in the Christmas spirit.

As for the city of Strasbourg, its big claim to fame (when it isn’t December) is its “Notre Dame” cathedral. But then again that is also true for virtually any city in France you could name! Yet this one I thought had particularly interesting architecture: very Gothic, very dark.

Similar to a wishing well or fountain, the church’s money-making scheme was a grate where you could throw down a coin. Here’s the action shot of me making my wish:

All in all, a very nice day.