Islands, sourfish and Blueberries
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•09
Hello. It’s been a while.
In the meantime I’ve been trying my best to become swedish… just as well I’m failing. I’m sort of like the trojan horse - I fit the swedish person from the outside but when you get closer, you realise I’m not quite what I seem. I must really confuse alot of swedes who think I’m really swedish, only to say something very serious and experience me laughing like a fool for no apparent reason.
So I’ve enrolled on an intensive swedish course. The first day the teacher said: “Jag ska skriva en list, men vanlig vänta jag för att många lämnar kurs efter 3 dagar” - (I’m going to write a list but usually I wait becuase many peopel leave the course after 3 days.) It’s a bit like being in an academic army. I’m not speaking much swedish, but I’m scraping my brain over objects, subjects and conjunctions - our teacher is a self-confessed grammer “nörd”.
Even so, I’ve managed to find some time to swim in the sea below our house, stocked up on blueberries from the path down to the sea, visited the coast of Norrland for an ‘organic wedding’ and took a trip via the wonderful viking line ferry to Turku to spend a week on the island of Vänö.
Vän means ‘friend’ in swedish, and ö is an island. And the people really live up to the name of their island. The hut that we were renting was owned by Magnus and his wife Pirjo. Magnus was a true crusty sailer, complete with hat, large curvy pipe and a massive woolen jumper. His ‘modersmål’ was swedish, but he could speak finnish, english and a bit italian. He had been married before, and his ex-wife still lived on the island, the next house down. Pirjo then arrived on the island and he snapped her up. Their daughter, an increadibly jolly soul, gave us a brilliant historic ghost tour of the island one night that is where most of my information about the island comes from.
One of the reasons we were on vänö was to celebrate my Dad’s 69th Birthday. Which we did in true swedish style. Sruströmming is a swedish delicacy. It is literally “sour fish” which means fish that has been allowed to rot. The smell is absolutely horrid, and Dad’s can was particularily so, as when he opened it the release of pressure forced the rotten fish juice to spray upwards, splattering my brother and his finnish girlfriend. This didn’t do much for fin’s ideas of swedes. Dad eagerly lapped up 3 files, while the rest of us tried our best to get past the smell and sample the fish. It was extremely salty, but not as bad as expected. And very ‘fresh’ looking.
