Notes from Göteborg
- May, 2000
I first visited Göteborg in the late summer of
1998, for the B&B concerts, chronicled elsewhere in these pages.
My hopes to return were fulfilled in May this year. I made these notes
while there:
I followed the weather in Göteborg for more than
a month prior to my trip, and was pleased with the trends. Available
information on the net suggested that during an average May, Göteborg
enjoyed 9 hours of sunshine per day, 10 hours per day in June. This,
within long days of 15 and 16 hours total daylight. Obligingly, the
weather turned balmy in early May, with sun and high temperatures consistently
around 73 degrees.
However, the weather was considerably worse in the actual
experience, with prevailing temperatures in the 50's and low 60's, and precious
few sunny days. The last 5 days of my stay featured solid overcasts, and
rain.
Even a grand boulevard as the Avenyn ("The most famous
street in Sweden") is less hospitable and charming in the rain.
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My best intentions with regard to the language were
unavailing. Eventually, they became discouraging. Watching American
television, or a movie, I am encouraged by my recognition of the text in
the Swedish subtitles. But when it is my turn to put together even
a simple sentence, my slow struggle is an embarrassment. For this old
brain, it will take more than two weeks in-country to make headway.
I had the benefit of receiving a personal auto-tour
of Goteborg from a generous couple I met on this trip. During this,
I saw areas in the suburbs where the government is providing housing for Sweden’s
swelling wave of immigrants. This is, or course, a complex issue which
cannot be fully explored during a casual tour of the city. I did learn
that the government provides language training for the adult immigrants,
with apparent success. Would that I could have had such success, or
found a means of auditing the classes.
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The new hegemony is commercial, and not governmental.
Addidas and Puma and Gap are dominant in Sweden, as in the USA and elsewhere.
My efforts to find a leather belt made in Sweden failed. The nearest
I came was in finding a few made in Holland, among those made in Italy and
Portugal.
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Göteborg is one of the few remaining European
cities with a comprehensive system of trams for public transportation.
These are reliable, and remain charming for me. One Saturday evening,
on a very crowded #1 tram, I got to see the "bus police" in action.
They work in a team, in this case 3 or 4 plain clothes persons, flashing official
identification (as polisen). I'd have misunderstood their function
but for all of my fellow bus riders waving and offering their bus cards in
response, and was therefore able to follow suit. They busted one tall, respectable
looking young Swede, perhaps 30, and it appeared that he was issued a citation
of some sort, as well as being required to exit at the next stop. He
put up an angry protest throughout, and I could not translate the debate.
In two visits and tens of trams rides, I have seen this mild law enforcement
process only once. What had seemed to me strictly an honor system in
fact rests on the threat of exposure or fine, just like auto speed limits
at home.
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Speaking of speeding, if a Swedish driver is caught
exceeding the speed limit by 30 or more km/hour, he or she stands to have
driver's license confiscated for a period of months. In my own State,
such an offense carries only an enhanced fine, although under some circumstances
excessive speed might be considered "reckless driving," and if so support
a license suspension. But this is not automatic, and requires prosecutorial
focus and energy which is usually lacking.
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I met an American girl while in Göteborg, and
one of her comments was that the language was "ugly". It turned out
that she was fluent in Spanish, and had some French as well (as do I).
I did not argue with her. The sound of Svensk is certainly quite different
from the romance languages. My own exposure to Swedish comes first
from Swedish pop music, and only second from direct efforts to learn the
language. Swedish is both lovely and romantic, and I offer the Vennersten
recordings, or the soundtrack to Kristina as Exhibits A and B.
Context counts, too. What do people think of English, whose first exposure
to it is via American rap music?
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How many other major cities, in Europe or anywhere
else, have its major sports arenae located in the main downtown area, just
a short walk from its most opulent hotels?
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Nordstan is reputed to be the largest shopping mall
in Sweden, which means I guess that it is larger than any in Stockholm.
With Centralstationen, the Opera house and controverial Utkiken (Outlook Tower),
Nordstan anchors the river-end of the "most famous street" in Sweden.
I shopped there repeatedly. I visited the little sister köpcentrum,
Frölunda Torg only once. Many of the same stores are present at
both malls, just as occurs in the USA. But it was in this Avis of malls
that I found a new winner in my personal ToscaFlarn cookie competition:
Svanhill's Konditori. The diameter of a large American pancake, rich
and sufficient dark chocolate, and a nice soft chewiness raise this version
just above my prior favorite, at Kronhuset downtown. Less expensive,
too, at 8.5 kronor. I went back and counted 16 in the window, and sorely
wanted to buy them all to bring home.
I visited Kronhuset twice. The first visit was specific
to my intent of trying again this cookie. There were none displayed. On inquiry,
I was told that the cook had dropped the morning's batch onto the floor,
and so none were available. What's more, the piqued cook had decided that
this cookie was just to fragile to be worth the trouble, and had declared
that never again would these be made. I sampled a slice of a very rich chocolate
cake to salve my spirits. Moments of pique do not necessarily last, though;
a second visit several days later found the toscaflarn cookies again for
sale, and I bought and consumed two before finishing my lunch. Kronhuset
covers one half of the cookie with chocolate, on both sides, making a half
moon effect. A less conventional presentation to be sure.
I have since tried to locate a recipe for this cookie, on the internet.
I have a few printed out, and we will see if any are just right. Most
of these recipies are calling for coconut, or orange flavorings, and I don't
think this is present in the Swedish version.
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My ABBA experiences on this trip were too limited,
and very much only in background. On my first day in Sweden, I walked
to a tram stop past a three piece band which was playing Chiquitita, with
the lead player carrying the medody on a pan flute!
I heard Waterloo playing on a butik's music system when in Fredrickshavn,
Denmark. ( I tried pastries from several shops. All were good.
None were noticeably better than the pastry I have been buying in Sweden.)
Expressen GT carried a feature article on Anni-Frid during my stay.
It reported that she had been to the Mamma Mia! premiere in Toronto, and
I believe Frida said she had been asked to attend by Bjorn, and had just
kind of figured "why not?" This woman continues to define dignity in the
face of tragedy, and indominatability too.
Hant Extra showed up two days later with a cover feature
on Agnetha. This was the Brita Åhman piece which has been discussed
on some of the ABBA mailing lists. From the lead-in, it was not going
to be very flattering. I elected not to buy it.
I am in Sweden just shortly after the 2000 ESC, and there are a number of
ESC related compilations available on CD. I picked up one which featured
the Swedish selections since 1958. Waterloo is sung in Swedish.
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There were two souveniers I was coveting:
a replica jersey from one of the local All-Sweden division football clubs
(for my daughter), and a t-shirt or sweatshirt from the University in the
city. I could find a generic jersey with Swedish national colors, quite
overpriced, but nothing distinctly from Göteborg. It seems there
was once a specialty store for Goteborg IFK, but it has closed. One
salesman told me that there would be some additional stock coming in June,
which might include local jerseys. Wish I could be here.
As it turned out, the University does not market itself through clothing,
at least not that I could find. Thus, failure on both scores.
I really wanted to get my daughter a pair of shorts from the Landvetter woman's
team, which competes in the Damer All Sweden division. I watched them
play, and win, one day, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The paper claimed the
crowd was 1800+. This must have included the magpies. My impression is that
the only way to obtain a Landvetter jersey or shorts is to buy it from a
player.
My suspicion is that Swedish performers, whether in music or in sport, are
able to retain more of their privacy than in America. That part
of our American culture which tolerates (or encourages) "in your face" behavior
expresses itself also in our requirement that celebrities accept invasions
of their privacy. One does not see much evidence of this kind of behavior
on the streets of Sweden (at least not where I walked as a tourist), on their
nightly news, on in their local TV programming. As we know, Agnetha
was shocked, frightened and scarred by fan intrusiveness, and this suggests
just how high her expectation of privacy must have been; and consider that
she was a big star in Sweden before she was a bigger star in ABBA.
That was 25 years ago, but I watched fan interaction with Helen Sjöholm,
Karin and Anders Glenmark and Tommy Körberg only 2 years ago following
the original B&B concerts in Goteborg. Fans were pretty polite.
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