Tourist season has begun. Hordes of Germans and Dutch and their cars usually flood into western Sweden when May/June starts, but today I even got behind a slow-driving, confused and ugly French car. Worse than any actual French car (Renault, Citroen or Peugeot) is a Nissan Juke. I think this is one of the ugliest cars with THE dumbest car name possible. Who chose “Juke” and what is it even supposed to mean? (“Please meet not only our least favorite car of 2012, but our least favorite car of our quarter century lives.“)
It’s also a time of year when people decide to put giant, handmade, ugly neon signs that read: “VÄRNING! ÄLG!” (“WARNING! MOOSE!”) everywhere.
Elg Norwegian warning sign
In most places in Norway and Sweden there are actual signs that warn of moose – but here in this rural area it is all a DIY effort. The Norwegian signs (the real ones) look like real moose, but the Swedish signs, if you don’t look carefully, look a bit like panthers. Haha. Beware all those wild Swedish panthers.
Swedish älg warning signs
The earlier cited article about Dutch people in Sweden actually made me think of a point that I sometimes question (and it’s not why someone writes the word “assassinate” as “assinate” and posts it on their blog): immigrants (those who have moved completely by choice, like the Dutch woman cited in the article, often report the following feeling: ““In the Netherlands, everyone is always in a hurry. When I went back there recently, I kept thinking: ‘Do you ever take the time to live a little?’.”
This made me wonder whether immigrants (again, by choice) are just by nature more “slowed down” in many cases than those born in a certain place. That is, it is easier to opt out of (or never join in the first place) things that are sort of like family and social obligations that one is often subject to at “home”. My life for example was always full of obligations, greater speed and involvement and integration where I came from – and no matter how I aimed to integrate and ingratiate (haha), I still was kind of “apart”, which naturally slows me down. Did I entirely choose to take the time to live a little or is it a matter more of circumstance because I am not totally integrated and also don’t feel like I have to fit into some preconceived idea about what I have to do and what is expected of me? I hear this “moving abroad helped me take time to live a little” – and immigrants often credit the “slower, more appreciative culture” to which they have moved – but I doubt very much that it is wholly or even appreciably attributable to the adopted country’s culture (in many cases) as much as it is the immigrant’s interpretation and place in that culture.
Sound du jour: John Grant – “That’s the Good News”
“You cannot trust me/I will stab you in the back/I’ll sell your grandma on the street to buy some crack/if crack is not available, I’ll buy gelato/you have to take things as they come that is my motto…”
“I have been fucked over a thousand times or two, and now I feel that I must take it out on you…“