Household mysteries - like trash, laundry, & baking!

Hej,
I thought that I would share the idiosyncracies of being an english Canuck dealing with household activities in Sweden - sometimes it is a challenge of being lost in translation even for the basic daily living stuff!
Having been here for almost 2 weeks the garbage and recycling and laundry were all piling up.  Easy enough to take out the garbage right - well not if you can't figure out where the heck it is supposed to go ;)  I wandered into the Miljhus - 'environment house' and there were pictures for a lot of the recyling containers that seemed intuitive enough (glass, cardboard) - but the problem was I couldn't figure out where to put my non-recyclables aka garbage ("sopor").  My solution was to take a picture and bring it in to work and show Kelley (my wonderful labmate & Michael's wife who speaks AMAZING swedish - I'm so in awe!) and she translated that this is where I put my household waste - phew - now I know where the stinky stuff goes :)  And on a side-note - they have this composting system set up where you put all your organic waste - meat included - into special bags and this waste is then burned and used to heat the water that is used in many parts of the city as part of the heating system - apparently quite innovative - seems pretty cool (or is that hot?) to me ;)

Household waste - who knew - not me!

The Waste Hub - "Environment House"

 So with the trash taken out it was time to do laundry.... which seems straightforward and all - but Sweden has it's own unique way of doing the washing - laundry rooms rather than laundromats (although a lot of people do have their own laundry within apts too - but I am not so lucky).  Laundry rooms function very much like a laundromat - only the good news is that you don't need to pay with coins - there is no additional cost to use the facilities - the catch is that you have to reserve them - so you get this little lock and then you place it on the monthly calendar in a 2-hour slot....

The laundry calendar sign-up system

I'm signed up for the 8th of the month from 6-8 pm - luckily it seems not so hard to get a slot :)



What surprises me with our laundry room is that we actually have 3 laundry rooms - each with 3 different types of washing machine - so in essence 9 machines to do our laundry with - but only two dryers and a drying room (the idea of having a big room heated to 100 C or whatever it was also seems like a popular alternative to a dryer machine here).  It seems unlikely that a student would have 9?! loads of laundry to do simultaneously - even when I moved back home I don't think I did that many loads of laundry in a row ;)


3 styles of machines - I stayed away from the middle one!

It turns out I did have enough for 3 loads - so I succeeded in washing clothes - of course there were other challenges - these machines are not simple 'add the soap and hit the start button' operations - they seem to have about 6 different settings for washing (I recognized 'jeans' on one machine) and multiple slots for soap - so I just looked to see which soap holder seemed to have the most mess around it and put mine in there!  In addition to google translate perhaps a swedish-english dictionary would also have been a good choice to bring with me - but now that I have photos perhaps I will sort out the mysteries - or just try to replicate what I did last time!


clear as mud washing directions - even the pictures didn't help me!

So with clean clothes and a garbage-free kitchen I moved on to baking some halloween-themed witch finger shortbread cookies.  The oven it turns out is very intuitive to use - numbers are universal :)  The only catch was that I was on the hunt for a cookie sheet  and could not find one - finally after talking with Etsuko I realized the reason that they sell muffin & cake pans et al. but no cookie sheets is that these are a part of your oven - rather than the grill trays we have back home, the ovens are outfitted with both grill and solid/cookie-broiling trays.  Kind of a duh moment - considering I'd been using the oven and saw the trays but didn't really put 2+2=4 together ;)  So I made a shopping list and google translated some of the items before heading to the store. Vanilj=vanilla which is in powder form rather than extract so was a bit of a guess in terms of how much to add, Mandelbrotten=almonds, and so on - and I bought some baking paper for my cookie trays (bakplåtspapper - Swedish seems to be very intuitive - e.g., sujkhus = "sick house"=hospital - now if only I could figure out pronunciations!!).  I plan to make more cookies soon - although I didn't seem to notice any chocolate chips so maybe that is something they don't have here so much?  Stay tuned :)

Witch finger shortbread cookies ready for the oven (looked better before they were cooked but tasted better after)

Swedoween activities

Well despite it not being an official holiday for the Swedes - it turns out that there were celebrations of the Halloween variety to experience this weekend.  In the grocery store yesterday there was a young gal with a witch hat on, and last night I went to a Halloween party - which conveniently was just a few buildings down from mine :)  I also went to the jazz festival on Friday night with Ben - another friend from the boreal forest course - although there was no halloween ambience there!

It seems that Saturdays are big shopping days in Sweden (stores close early 3 or 4 at the latest!) and there is NO shopping on Sundays - this will take some getting used to ;)  Etsuko, Petter, and I as you can see made out well in the shopping dept and each came home with a pair of shoes (which apparently I am supposed to keep in their box so I can claim back the tax I paid on them when I leave the EU?) :)  I also found a cheap dress for my halloween 'costume' (it was a weak attempt!).

Shopping downtown - mmmm shopping (not cheap though!)

Etsuko and Petter just renovated their kitchen and I got to enjoy a delicious Japanese meal with them prior to Halloween party festivities - I really must get to the gym with all of the good food I've been enjoying!

The chef's in action - I love their aquamarine glass tile backsplash!


Dessert decadence - yum - including my 'witch finger' cookies :)



Etsuko (2010 attire) and me (circa 1980 - legwarmers included)

At the party we had Lady Gaga (I didn't even recognize Maja!), reggae man, and more :)  A good time was had by all as you can see in the pictures - lots of dancing to old dance music - which fit with the era of my outfit - I had to resort to going back to the 80's for a costume - which in reality is the 2010's - it seems like the 80's are back - I looked rather like a lot of people I have seen walking around town - who were NOT in costume!

Ghouls and Gagas


 

The Party Hosts

 

 Now I'm off for Halloween supper with Michael, Kelly, and their two kids.  A great weekend!

Snow-filled field adventures...

Hej - finally back to update the blog!
As of today I am pleased to report that field work is complete!  And what an adventure it was!  I spent the last week traveling around Vasterbotten County looking for lodgepole pine, Scots pine, and Norway spruce (apparently the swedes don't call it this - maybe they call it swedish spruce - although I think actually they just call it 'tall' ;)  Most days I had help from Michael so that was much appreciated.  However, on Monday morning I headed out on a solo journey - in a Volvo V50 stationwagon with studded tires no less.  I must say that it is more than a step up from our field rigs at home - heated seats?!  A warning alarm when you are backing up and get too close to something - not that I heard it go off or anything ;)  I think my Mini Cooper may have some competition when I need a bigger vehicle down the road!  Although as you will see below - what it lacks is the clearance of a bigger rig ;)



My dream field car - aside from clearance ;)  There is a local ski hill in the distance - 30 second runs ;)

It turned out the despite the snow usually arriving much later - the snow arrived EARLY - and it didn't magically melt over the weekend like we hoped.  So there I was on my own going down roads that no one else had been down since the snow fell, without cell service, thinking - is this really such a good idea ;)  I generally erred on the side of caution and so I ended up walking some roads that most likely would have been fine driving :)  And I got lots of work done so I was happy.  But Michael decided that at this time of year and given the conditions it might be best if I didn't go alone - so I only had one solo day in the forest :)

Yes that is most definitely a LOT of snow to dig through to collect samples!

Digging through the snow to find the forest floor - brrrr!

Today was the last day in the field - just had two more sites to get done - which seemed like it would be smooth sailing :)  A colleague at Umea, Helena, came with me (she had been on the boreal forest course so I knew her from there too).  The day started out great when we quickly found our first set of stands and collected from the lodgepole and spruce stands - then we could not locate any Scots pine stands of similar age - so we went on a driving adventure down all the side roads and came up empty :(  So then we thought - well we move on to the next site and have better luck there.  We were driving the trusty and luxurious Volvo towards our last site down this road that looked harmless enough when we heard a horrible scraping sound and I quickly stopped the car.  To our dismay when we got out we saw that we were bottomed out/high centered - the snow was covering up what seemed like solid concrete - but was just frozen dirt!  Luckily a couple of Swedish moose hunters came out of the woods - they were talking Swedish so I didn't understand but Helena said they came b/c they heard the horrible sound and said it was a pity we were driving a Volvo and that surely we were in big trouble.  But after only a few pushes the car happily slid back and we got it parked safely.  Swedish adventure!  Alas the last adventure of the day was using our trusty GPS to get to the spot where the lodgepole pine was *supposed* to be only to discover that it was no where to be found - so after about an hour of walking in circles we came up empty handed.  The whole field operation had been going much too smoothly up until today!  But at least I had good company and it was another beautiful snow-filled day out there and we still have 8 sets of stands to work with (10 was the goal).  The up side is that this translates to less samples to be analyzed in the lab so I guess I shouldn't complain ;)
Tomorrow it's time to familiarize myself with life indoors in the lab!  Hej do :)




Helena where the road turned out to be on the 'high' side in the middle - looks harmless right? Not so much!

 

Where in the world is Umea?

I know that it is darker here than in Edmonton, but at the same time the forest and climate aren't that different (well okay maybe this fall given that when I left it was still in around 15C in Edmonton!) so I thought it might be helpful to give a bit of context to where Umea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ume%C3%A5) is!

Umea is the A on this map - it's a ways up there eh!

The sun is currently rising around 8 am and setting before 5 pm - so we're still doing okay with 9 hours of daylight.  However we're losing ~8 minutes a day so by winter solstice it will be down to less than 4.5 hours of daylight with the sun rising around 9:30 and setting by 1:45 - something to look forward to ;)  This is in contrast to the minimum of ~7.5 hrs of daylight I'm used to in Edmonton around the solstice (http://www.gaisma.com/en/location/edmonton.html)
Our latitude here is 63°49'48"N  - so we are still a few hundred km away from the Arctic Circle (66° 33′ 44″), but Anchorage is south of us (61°13'05.016"N), along with a big chunk of Canada - including Fort Smith where my friend Jeff lives (and I thought THAT was way north)!  Thank goodness for the Gulf Stream, which means that despite being truly up in the Great White North, temperatures *I think* are comparable to Edmonton - not that that is warm by any means in the winter - but at least it's something I've experienced and can tolerate :)  Although leaving the PNWet I always commented on how I preferred the cold with bright winter skies to the wet of coastal winter - guess that argument is not so easy here where it's dark AND cold!
Well better get outside while the sun still IS shining and make the most of it :)  Hejdo!

Field Work Begins!

I had a day in Umea to get ready for Swedish field work and try and get over the jet lag.  After a so-so sleep I awoke to giant snow-flakes (at least they melted!) and walked in to SLU.  It turns out that there are bike/walking paths absolutely everywhere in the city - and they even get plowed before the roads do when there is fresh snow.  Impressive!  Despite the paths, I managed to get lost and had to walk along the road - but at least I found the building I was looking for - I just took the longer more scenic route ;)  Its taken me a few days to take the most direct path - everything looks the same in my neighborhood - and I thought I had a good sense of direction ;)! 
SLU - Before the snow arrived

SLU - After the snow on Friday

Everyone I've met in the Forest Ecology and Management Department is super friendly - one of the first people I met is from southern Alberta - good thing he's an Oilers fan!  It was great to see Maja, who also participated in the Swedish Boreal Forest Course that I took here for a week last summer.  Sitting in a talk later in the day I saw some other people I recognized walk by too, so I'm looking forward to catching up with old friends while I'm here :)  It's amazing how many people there are who are NOT from here - which works out well when you don't know much Swedish because everyone speaks english :)  Although I try my best to speak what little Swedish I do know (which at the grocery stand just involves saying Hej and then giving money and saying Tack (thanks)).  Hej - I'm trying ;)

The path I walk to/from SLU

With a GPS and some GIS maps Michael and I spent Thursday and Friday in the field sorting out our plan and gathering my first three sets of stands (all within about an hours drive of Umea).  The maps are quite impressive here - they even seem to have random old barns mapped on them!  I'm collecting forest floor samples from Scots pine, Norway spruce, and lodgepole pine stands to compare with my Alberta lodgepole pine stands.  The locals here are very concerned about invasives and the potential for non-native species like lodgepole to become invasive, so the project is very relevant to addressing their concerns. 
I wasn't expecting the ground to be frozen here, but it already is!  On Friday when we were in the field it started to snow and then it was really snowing and so it became a snow-filled field adventure.  Probably makes life easier for the moose hunters we saw out there, but it's not quite what I had in mind!  At least I bought some insulated rubber boots for Friday (leaving my field boots at home was not such a wise choice after all - given the conditions here!).  At the end of a productive Friday I created my own version of a Swedish snow angel - a snow crash angel to be more specific - beware those slippery frozen puddles below the snow's surface!
Next week I venture to six/seven more sets of stands on my own - in a rental Volvo - how much more Swedish can you get ;)  I hope I won't need a snow shovel!!!

Collecting forest floor samples on Thursday

Michael at the end of our field day Thursday

 The snowfall at the end of Friday

Arriving in Umea

After months of preparation that seemed to culminate with a bit of pandemonium in the last days leading up to my departure, it was finally time to head to Sweden.  Last Monday morning I said good-bye to Molly and stuffed the last of my belongings into a suitcase.  Tyler drove me to the airport and after yet more sad goodbyes it was au revoir Canada, Hej Sweden!  It took four plane rides (Edmonton - Calgary - Frankfurt - Stockholm - Umea) and five security checks (grrrr!!) but I made it 22 hours after leaving Edmonton.





Leaving sunny warm Edmonton for colder parts

Strangely in Calgary I heard someone at the check-in counter calling my name - turns out one of my PhD Committee Members, Uldis, was also flying through Frankfurt on my flight- small world eh! 

Uldis in the smoking jail chamber in Frankfurt

I somehow managed to fit everything I need (okay well mostly anyhow!) into one bag - my other checked back included 50 pounds of forest floor samples from Alberta (happily no problems with customs but I'm sure they aren't so used to seeing baggies full of humus!).  I also had a bit of help in the what to bring department b/c my great friend from Oregon State days, Etsuko, lives in Umea with her boyfriend Petter - so she hooked me up with some of the essentials too, saving precious space and weight :) 
My advisor, Michael Gundale, picked me up at the airport and after a stop at SLU (Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet - aka Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) to drop off my forest floor samples, it was a quick drive to my own apartment (no one to clean up after but me!) - which is in the student-housing neighborhood of Alidheim.  I was delighted when I walked in the door and saw how spacious and cute my apartment is.  It's got room for visitors - so come on up to the great white north of Sweden!

Arriving in my apt - with very little sleep!

As I settled in and looked at the clock around 6 pm I saw that it was already dark.  That is going to take some getting used to!  Some people might think Sweden is better to visit in the summer - but I've already done that - so living in a darker latitude will be a cool experience too (although maybe not so cool in December when 4.5 hrs of daylight is all Umea gets)! 

My apt is the upper left one in this Pedagoggrand Building

Alidhem has two supermarkets that are open late (which is unusual in Sweden where they have very short shopping hours - and most stores are closed on Sunday) - and so I made my first trek out to get groceries so I could eat some supper (plane food leaves something to be desired imho).  It's only a couple blocks from my apartment to get groceries, so super convenient.  It was amusing to try to decipher all of the labels.  Happily I didn't inadvertently buy the hamburgerkött - which is smoked horse meat - I'm on the look out to avoid that one now that Michael warned me about it!  They have squeeze bottles of everything - I saw one that had a picture of bacon pieces on it but managed to resist the temptation but sounds like it might be some bacon soft cheese concoction - cheese with caviar anyone ;)  Translations seem pretty literal on a lot of things so I came home with the staples and no surprises :)  Most stuff you buy here (e.g., tomato sauce, milk, yogurt) is in tetra-paks rather than cans or cartons.  It turns out that Sweden is the home of the tetra-pak - who knew!  And while I was expecting groceries to be super expensive here, overall they seem fairly comparable to back home so that is good news for my travel budget :)

ICA - where I get my groceries

After supper it was time to crawl into bed under my beautiful Marimekko (Finnish company - I love their patterns) duvet that Etsuko gave me and finally catch up on some sleep - I'd only been up for 30+ hours - not that I was counting ;)

My bedroom - home sleep home :)

Did I mention my bathroom has a TUB - usually just showers in Swedish apts - BONUS for those cold dark nights that are coming!

My kitchen - where I've actually been cooking some meals for a change!

My living room - too bad the internet connection is in my bedroom

The desk that is also far from the internet connection - so I use my bed more!