Topics that I don't care enough about to give full articles...

I’ve tried recently to put out a lot more blogs, but my queue is still building up, so I figured it was random observations time.  As usual, just a few little things that have jumped out at me, but are not long enough for full-length blogs.

Linguistic Oddity #1 - Pie v cake – When we were having a few meetings discussing the presentation we were building, I kept getting confused with everyone talking about cake.  It was “cake this” and “cake that” and, because we have pastries delivered to the office every other week, I was getting pumped up.  Then I realized that they all substituted “cake” for “pie” when discussing pie charts – “we need to get a bigger piece of the cake” instead of “we need to get a bigger piece of the pie”.  Just a slightly different take on it, but it really threw me for a loop.  Thinking about it, I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen many “pies” available at the bakeries here, just various sorts of cakes, tarts and pastries.  So maybe the “pie” analogy just wouldn’t make sense here.  Regardless, this will require more visits to the bakery to investigate further…

 Linguistic Oddity #2 - Question Marks  – Normally when talking about an issue, ‘mericans say “well, that is the question”.  Here though, I’ve heard numerous folks say “well, that is the question mark”.  Just a fun little discrepancy there.

Linguistic Oddity #3 - Facebook “Assault”  – I overheard my coworker (mid-30s single Greek/Swede guy) talking to some folks the other day.  I initially started paying attention when he started explaining how he was “assaulted” the other day, then became perplexed when he explained that people “liked” it afterwards without knowing.  He then repeated the story to someone else how he had been “Facebook Assaulted”, and someone had posted a fraudulent status that garnered a number of likes from his friends.  No one else had batted an eye during this, so I’m not sure if this is a Swedish thing to use “assaulted” (actually a little more graphic verb) instead of hacked, but I don’t like this oddity as much as the whole pie vs cake thing. 

Dogs -  In the US, you would only see a dog off it’s leash in public when at a dog park.  NOT HERE – it’s everywhere.  In the park, on the running path, in the middle of the sidewalk, crossing the street, there are no limits here.  I’m not sure if they just spend all winter just training their dogs to not leave their side or what, but I know that if Darby (Bessie loves food too much) is off her leash for 2 seconds she will sprint after the nearest duck/rabbit/squirrel/shadow and we will never see her again.  Give us one more winter I guess

Pocket squares – All the euro-guys at work wear pocket squares in their suit jackets.  I realized that my suit jackets looked really, really plain, so I added that little item to my birthday list for this year.  I’m in the fashion capital of Scandinavia – I need to step my game up.  

Live odds during sporting events – When I’ve watched hockey or fotbol on TV and I’ve gotten confused at the sports ticker on the bottom of the screen.  It popped up every few minutes, but the scores didn’t really make sense to me.  That’s when I noticed that they were sponsored by betus.com, livesports.com and a few other online betting sites.  Evidently these were the live odds offered by the online gambling companies.  So if the original odds have Stockholm as the big favorite against Helsinki, but then Helsinki scores a goal, they will update the odds in real time so that degenerate/awesome gamblers can put more money down.  I love it because it is so different from the US method of trying to pretend that sports betting doesn’t exist or that it is the end of pure sports or whatever.  Unfortunately I don’t know enough about soccer or hockey to take advantage of these bets and pay off calvin’s college fund, but if I see these things on during an American football  broadcast, I am IN!

Decks – Now that it is nice out, a lot more restaurants offer seating outside.  By that, I don’t mean that they just toss a few tables and chairs out there – I mean that they build a whole deck, taking up 90% of their sidewalk.  I’m assuming that this isn’t the first time they’ve done this, which means that they must rip down the decks come Sept/October.  These guys LOVE the outdoors once it gets nice out!

Blankets – Along with the whole “outside seating” thang, it’s also been interesting that each bar with a  deck has a pile of blankets available for patrons.  These were available in the winter, but honestly, who would sit outside in the Stockholm winter.  Now though, if the sun goes behind the clouds, the blankets are “really comfy cozy!” (according to lis)

Hockey Sticks – I know that I joked when we first moved out here that I was going to get big into hockey and that Calvin would become a gretzky-style star.  But really, these guys LOVE hockey.  Even now in the summer, I see people walking around with hockey sticks (usually the plastic ones).  Doesn’t matter if it is on the Ericsson campus, at the café or in the subway.  Young, old, guy, girl no difference – they are always ready if a faceoff challenge occurs at any point.