Reflections on Sweden...and Denmark (Copenhagen)

 My last memory of Sweden: the excellent dance classes. Here Victor shows me how it's done.

After a total of one night's (!) stay in Denmark, I feel it is time to take a look at what my two weeks traversing (and tangoing) Sweden. I must say it was an eye-opening experience, as personally I think I've always regarded Sweden as something too close-by, to similar to things at home to be interesting. In terms of landscape, the time cycling across it did not really change my perception, as I had to keep reminding myself that I was indeed outside of Finland, but in other respects, the country turned out to be a very positive surprise indeed.

Funny warnings in Sweden (1)

Let me try and list the things that I really liked about our western neighbor, often regarded with more than a little bit of apprehension by us Finns. They include:
- general cleanliness, friendliness and accessibility (extending to every single sidewalk edge being slanted at  crossroads to enable wheelchairs, or bicycles, easy access)
- the wonderful national hostel (vandrarhem) network: the hostels are truly well kept, clean, safe and comfortable, and most incredibly, most of the cleaning and upkeep is done by the guests themselves as this is one of the conditions for the relatively inexpensive pricing
- the ease of communication with 'the natives' in their own language (this obviously being due to my having studied, and used, Swedish enough to feel confident about using it in everyday situations), meaning that I could read all the roadside signs (some of them quite funny too!), local newspapers and the wonderful tango website www.tangoportalen.com
- well signposted (although sometimes quite winding) roads and bike routes
- extremely well-behaved drivers: I don't think there was one instance during my 9 days of traversing Sweden where I felt a car driver ignore or disregard my safety or rights. Instead, at every single crossroads I was given right of way, even when I had already stopped to wait. This is truly impressive!
- quite an advanced state of environmental awareness, if the availability of organic, fair trade and locally produced goods is any indication (I mean, where else can you get even small cartons of organic milk, at absolutely the same price as 'normal' milk?)
- and then, of course, the Tango Scene. I was truly astounded by the warmth, friendliness and ease with which I was welcomed to the events I attended, and how easy it was to get to know Swedes through tango. Also, the incredible variety of courses, workshops, milongas and practicas everywhere I went, and the ease of finding out about them in Tangoportalen.

 Funny warnings in Sweden (2): the text, in a peanut bag, warns that it might contain TRACES of nuts! :-))

For a long time, I felt that there really wasn't anything to complain or criticise Sweden about. In the end, the few things that stood out (and even those mostly after I had arrived in Denmark and had some contrast to it), were truly minor, but I feel for fairness' sake I should mention them too. They are:
- due to the incredible cleanliness and meticulous order, the whole country is somewhat sterile and lacking in charisma (dear Swedes, please forgive me for saying this!). This is evident for example in the gardens that all resemble each other and display an almost mathematical organisation of two red tulips followed by four violets, after which come again two tulips...you get the twist :-)
- the same goes for the dancing as far as I can tell: as tangueros, the Swedes I danced with (and watched dancing) were, almost without exception, neat and civilised but... when it came to listening to and expressing the music, truly LIVING it, there was a certain timidity, willingness to conform that seemed to inhibit true expression of the soul of tango. Obviously, I am not claiming to be an expert in this either, am just making a remark about something I think I could see as an outsider.
- finally, and this is truly a minor observation more than a complaint, it is certainly true that the Finnish accent in my Swedish (I would say quite representative of the Swedish spoken in Finland) did seem to cause a certain amount of amusement, even resentment, in more than a few of the people I spoke to during the two weeks. More than a handful did seem to find it important to mention some Finn they knew who had managed to lose the Finnish altogether and now sounded just like a Swede. Mind you, they were not talking about grammar or vocabulary, only the accent that is certainly different. Why they felt this was an important thing to mention, as well as stating that it was easy to hear I was Finnish (why wouldn't it be, as I am indeed a Finn and only visiting their country?) I never quite understood.

As a final remark, however, I want to repeat that I was left with extremely positive and fond memories, and will definitely be willing to go back, especially to dance tango, in the near future. Tack så mycket, Sverige!!

So much for Sweden. Getting to Copenhagen yesterday involved a train ride, as cycling along the famous bridge that connects Malmø in Sweden with Copenhagen in Denmark is prohibited. So, I rode my bike to the last station before the bridge, boarded a train and rode over the bridge, getting off at the first possible station on the Danish side, which happened to be the Kastrup Airport. It was quite funny, emerging out of the train station in the middle of all those flight passengers with their suitcases!

Waiting for the train at Malmo station.

I did not have a map of the route to the city, but guessed rightly that as it was only about 8 km, I should be able to follow road signs and bike paths. It was not quite as straight-forward as it would have been with a map, but despite riding around in circles upon nearing the centre, I did make it to the City Pubic Hostel at my estimated arrival time, 4 pm. The hostel is a huge affair, they actually have dormitories of 60 beds!! Myself, I had settled for the slightly more expensive but more manageable dorm of 12 beds, and although the premises were certainly nowhere near as neat as the hostels in Sweden, totally acceptable as a base to explore Copenhagen.

 A view of Copenhagen harbour.

To my dismay, I had discovered that there was no tango on a Monday night, so I decided to take a look at the city instead. Unfortunately, I was plagued by a nagging headache which, with the weather that had once again become really cold and windy, made sight-seeing a bit of a task. I did ride around for a couple of hours, though, and as this city is even better suited for cycling than those in Sweden, did get to see most of the landmarks and famous sights during that little time.

Today, I have been a good girl, as I finally managed to prepare my presentation for this weekend's conference in Hamburg. The topic of my talk, 'Tourism Responding to the Challenge of Climate Change', is certainly familiar to me, but still, not having prepared the slides was starting to disturb me so much that I could not avoid it any longer. In addition, I did my laundry in an automatic laundromat (the first one I ever visited), and went for a quick bikeride in the city. Perhaps due to being so open-minded, easy-going people as the Danes are said to be, they seem to place little importance on shopping. Or what do you say about this: on the main shopping street, almost all the shops close already at the early hour of 6 pm!

Now I am just getting ready to go to a tango practica that I found through the Danish equivalent of Tangoportalen (although it is also listed there), www.tango.dk. It is mostly in Danish, but with the help of Swedish I was able to deduct that there will be an event tonight, not far from where I am staying. Am hoping of course that it will be an interesting evening with lots of dance, and also give me an idea if and how the Danish interpretation of tango differs from that of the Swedes.

Figuring out how to use the laundromat..all the signs were in Danish and there was nobody else around!

Tomorrow, I will be starting my 'final approach' to Hamburg, Germany. It entails a mighty long ride across the region of Zealand (the island on which Copenhagen is located) to its southernmost tip (Rødby), where I will be catching a ferry (every half an hour) to Puttgarden in Germany. My initial idea had been to reach Hamburg already on Thursday night, but as it really is quite a long way and there is a pretty strong headwind, have now informed the conference organisers that my arrival might be delayed by one day. It will still leave me plenty of time before my own talk on Saturday, and, most importantly, the milongas in Hamburg on Friday and Saturday!! :-))