Boston Blatte

The reality that work starts again on Thursday (7 Jan) is painfully sinking in.  I’ve done better than some; the ones who went back to work this past Monday (4 Jan) or the poor schleps who had to work the weekdays aka mellandagarna,  the “between days” literally between xmas and  new year’s,  but I am not as fortunate as those who won’t clock in again until next Monday (11 Jan.)

Christmas season isn’t really over in Sweden yet. Tomorrow, Wednesday, is Trettondedag Jul, the day many other European countries call some variety of “Three King’s Day” of the Christian Epiphany persuasion which many orthodox Christian faiths consider true Christmas.

Did you follow all that?  However you slice it,  Trettondedag jul is  a red day –a colorful Swedish way to say it’s a pubic holiday.

Now if there wasn’t already enough  controversy (well, mostly in the US) mixed up with the xmas holiday i.e. what to call it and associated paraphernalia,  why to celebrate it, who stole it from whom and even when it is,  it appears a homegrown controversy has sprung up in Sweden too.

As it were, most of Sweden’s public holidays are religiously based. Of late, there are more voices calling for greater distance between church and state holidays. The Local’s article even describes a proposal to allow each employee to designate his or her own “holidays” (Isn’t that what vacation days are for?)

Now I don’t know if I agree with a proposal to individualize public holidays (kind of takes away the public value) but I can fully sympathize with the sentiment to reduce the religious affiliation to pubic holidays.  Giving Sweden a National Day and cutting out the second day of Pingst, the Pentecost was a great move.

But I think I want to keep Trettondedagn, it stretches Christmas to nearly mid January and I have become pretty fond of this midwinter break. So back to work on Thursday it is.

Good thing I am taking Friday off.

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There’s a great irony involved with Swedish Christmas and Christianity. Swedes use the pagan word –JUL or Yule in English– and yet despite there being very little religion in the daily lives of Swedes, nearly everything about Christmas is more Christian than my Boston Christmases.

Christmas in Stockholm officially started this weekend. The season always kicks off in line with the First Sunday of the  Advent. So many homes had jumped the gun on Saturday with all their lights up and lit.

Lights are nearly always “white” (no multi color bulbs and definitely no blinking lights ) in Sweden and candle “trees” in windows or advent stars are pretty much all you’ll see.  This window is about as stereotypical as you can get.

I have joked for years that one of these Christmases I might just go Griswold on the house. It probably won’t happen, but boy would it be fun to have a spread of the tackiest light displays ever seen this side of Stockholm.

It won’t happen this year. I think we have one star and one functioning candle tree. Must get those up soon.

Only 25 shopping days left to Julafton, Swedish Christmas.

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My flight attendant on the trip back to Stockholm Bromma had on jeans.  I found it odd and interesting simultaneously. The boisterous guy in the seat across the aisle thought so too as he pointed it out to his  buddies. He ended up flirting with her on and off throughout the hour flight.  I think it was part of his boisterousness persona.

I think the jeans were a part of her flight attendant’s uniform. Sweden is ahead of the times on the dress-down trends of the world. Maybe little Kullaflyg (servicing Ängelholm, Visby, Mora and Bromma) is a global trendsetter.

Today was my business travel debut. For most of you that’s old hat, I know. But when you’re your own boss and your customer base is local, the closest you get to business travel is writing off business-related trips on your tax forms. Today was my first free ride.

The grand adventure brought me across Sweden to the northwest corner of Skåne, to Höganäs, home of Sweden’s traditional stoneware pottery (well, birthplace more like, today the pottery is owned by KostaBoda in Småland.)  Skåne is one of my favorite regions of Sweden. It is Sweden’s “breadbasket” with rolling farmland and quaint farmhouses with a very long enveloping coastline. The great tease that this trip was, I didn’t see much of it.

But I did very much enjoy having a flight attendant in jeans. More new trends Kullaflyg.

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Stockholm-technology-wise I’m a little behind the times these days. I just acquired, loaded and used for passage my first SL (Stockholm’s public transit authority) Access card at a terminal.

Where I stood and loaded

Mine is red.

An array of colors

I felt so technologically smooth and clumsy at the same time needing to read the instructions closely.

And this has got to be my fastest post ever. Pulling into Centralen (Stockholm Central Station) now.

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The periodontist (that’s fancy speak for fancy dentist) asked me while he was extracting my molar (that’s fancy speak for tooth in the back) what I missed from the US while living in Sweden. The speed of getting an appointment for an emergency molar extraction was first on my list.

Second on my list was: Pain-killers, the good stuff. (Well, in fairness the list would have been different under other circumstances, but let’s not digress too much.)

Last August, a few hours after an invasive knee operation, nearly in tears, I hobbled my way to the emergency room to get something for the pain after the local anesthesia wore off. The clinic (Sophiahemmet, a fancy one in the fancy part of Stockholm) sent me home with nothing. Feeling no pain when I left I never thought of what I might need later on. The emergency room offered me the equivalent of an “aspirin plus”.

The fear of the potential drug abuse of narcotics seems to upstage the genuine need for short-term pain relief in Sweden. It does seem ironic that the medical facility couldn’t administer one dose of something potent under their guidance, but I could leave with a prescription of Codeine.

The fancy dental doctor was a fan of Sweden (home of the dental implant inventor, Per-Invar Brånemark) and a bit surprised. Cheerfully, he assured me that I’d get a ’scrip of the good stuff.

The extraction did create some serious pain.  Thankfully, I was comforted by my prescribed pain-killers. I only need one or two to get over the worst of it. I’m hoarding the rest. You just never know when you’ll be in the need.

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Why is so acceptable to ignore email in Sweden? I think I’m more puzzled by people unfazed by all their unanswered emails than the fact that so often Swedes don’t answer their emails. Why oh why do companies have an info@ email address when they clearly have no intention of replying to the incoming traffic?

Then again, if a company trying to earn a krona or två (2) willfully ignores its potential customer base I would say: “Suit yourself bucko and go belly up like the worst of them.” Unfortunately their indifference to us consumers doesn’t even shake the pen on the bottom line. Why?

I used to whine about my perception of the lack of service. But now I’ve converted to “Blame the consumer”. After all, if we accept the crap way they treat us who else can we blame? But at the end of the day, enough of the pragmatic understanding and do the right thing.

Answer your darn email already.

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