Another Commute Comparison

Four weeks down and this ridiculous commute is getting easier every day. I guess that’s the great thing about routines.

I’ve traveled 682 kilometers — 424 miles — every weekday for a month. That’s 13,640 kilometers — 8,475.5 miles — in four weeks.

The earth’s circumference is about 24,900 miles at the equator (a little less around the poles) so I will circumnavigate the globe by train every 11-and-a-half weeks. I can’t even begin to process that right now.

Anyway, since the daily distance comparisons I made in my first commute blog aren’t so reasonable because they follow interstate highways and many of those U.S. routes don’t even have train service, I think I finally found a comparison that will put this grind in better perspective.

One of Amtrak’s longest passenger routes, the California Zephyr, winds 2,438 miles from Emeryville, California through Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska and Iowa en route to Chicago, Illinois.



Since I commute around 2,120 miles every week, in my first four weeks I’ve covered almost the same distance on rails as the California Zephyr does from Reno to Chicago, back to Reno, back to Chicago, and back to Reno again. Two roundtrips.




At least my Swedish train journeys are much faster than an Amtrak would take to cover the same distance.

Next time I blog, I’ll explain why.

TV ads

Ikea furniture, Absolut Vodka, Volvo cars, H&M clothing — Sweden may be synonymous with many things, but clever television advertising isn’t one of them.

Amanda and I don’t watch much TV, but when we do we usually mute the commercials because they’re so boring.

Maybe I was just spoiled growing up in a country where corporations spend millions of dollars and countless hours on one 30-second spot for Super Bowl Sunday, but the ads just seem dull here.

There are exceptions, of course. Here are a few of my recent favorites.

ICA Reklamfilm Midsommarfest i butiken 2011

I should preface this by explaining that ICA, one of the largest and most Swedish of the many supermarket chains here, is not making fun of Down syndrome.

The company launched a controversial ad campaign a few years back featuring Swedish actor Mats Melin as “Jerry.” According to one report, the ads were designed “to challenge prejudices about mental disability.” Different people think different things about the commercials, and it’s hard to say whether the ads have any effect on changing perceptions about those with mental disabilities.

This ad is a funny parody of Midsummer, traditional floral wreaths and all. Somehow, ICA commercials are consistently able to convey humor and the week’s sale prices at the same time.



Com Hem Bredband - snabbt stabilt och jättejättebra – Juditune

Fast, stable and very, very great. That’s essentially the broadband from Com Hem, a triple play telecommunications provider that has featured redheads Judith and Judith in many of its recent commercials.

I think autotune is the greatest things to happen to music in my lifetime, so I was obviously already onboard when Com Hem jumped on the bandwagon. Amanda and many other people I know hate this commercial, but I enjoy it.



Tele2 - Sound Studio

This commercial literally made me laugh so hard one night I cried. And that was probably the 40th or 50th time I had seen it.

Frank the Sheep originated with Tele2 Netherlands and spread to Sweden, Tele2’s original European market, because sheep is pronounced very similarly to “cheap” in Swedish.

Frank is pretty ignorant when it comes to Swedish. This ad gets me EVERY time.

“That wasn’t good? Felt good!

Who speaks Swedish anyway? Heh… Swedes.”



And I’ll leave you with a classic for a popular Swedish beer that aired at least a few years back.

Falcon Fisherman

One Year Later

I arrived in Sweden a year ago tonight.

Today, I can say without an ounce (or perhaps I should say gram?) of hesitation that moving to here is the best decision I’ve ever made.



My shortcomings in the Swedish language aside, I’ve established a pretty respectable life here in 12 short months.

I wake up next to my dream girl every morning in the perfect apartment, in an ideal small town with exceptional train service. No member of my outstanding support system lives more than 20 minutes away. It’s taken a lot of effort but I finally feel like I’m starting to be able to call a few friends “close.” I have an amazing job that pays well and is secure until at least next summer.

I’ve grown accustomed to a lot of things I never thought I would, too:

• Strong coffee, and lots of it

• Incessant conversations about weather

• Trying to argue in a culture that avoids even minor confrontations at all costs

• Lunch replacing dinner as my main meal of the day

• No shoes indoors

• Planning everything in advance, whether it’s doing laundry or visiting a friend

• Complete and total division of work and leisure time, with zero overlap under any circumstances

• Outrageous food and drink prices

• Queuing (that’s European for “waiting in line”) for everything

• Striving to come across as modest and humble in a country where bragging is practically a jailable offense

As far as my Swedish is concerned, it’s obviously going to take greater self-discipline, but I think what it’s really going to take is a commitment to spend more time here this year.

After having lived in Sweden for only a few weeks last fall, I took a solo vacation to Glasgow. We went to Sicily for Amanda’s birthday in November. I visited Germany and Denmark with my brother in January. Then I spent more than 10 weeks over three separate trips in the United States. All told, I spent 85 of my first 365 days as a resident of Sweden, outside of Sweden. That’s less than 77% of my time actually spent in this glorious country. Pretty difficult to focus on learning a language under those circumstances, but that goal now sits alone at the top of my list for the next 12 months.

I’m looking forward to what my second year here has in store.

2,100 Miles a Week

People used to call me crazy when they learned I drove 50 miles each way to work in Fairfield, three or four days a week, during my first two years at Sacramento State.

Even my 60-mile roundtrip to Auburn the last few years shocked many of my friends.

Both commutes pale in comparison to the daily grind I started this morning.

For the next year, I’m going to attempt to travel more than 400 miles daily, five days a week.

That’s more than 2,100 miles every week. Leaving our apartment before 6 a.m., getting home after 9 p.m.



There are exactly 341 kilometers of rail between Falköping and Stockholm, which is about 212 miles. To put my commute in perspective for a Californian, the following drives are each between 210 and 220 miles:

Eureka to Santa Rosa on US-101
Reno to San Francisco on I-80
Redding to San Francisco on I-5 and I-505
Sacramento to Visalia on CA-99
Fresno to Los Angeles on CA-99

Other trips in the same distance range include Boston to New York (215 miles), Phoenix to Yuma (211 miles) Ft. Lauderdale to Orlando (213 miles), Dallas to Oklahoma City (206 miles), Salem to Seattle (219) and Lansing to Chicago (218 miles).

It’s almost like commuting from New York City to Washington, D.C. (227 miles) or Toronto to Detroit (232 miles). And back. Every day.

The trip can be as short as 2 hours, 20 minutes each way depending on train type/speed and number of stops, but the average ride will be almost three hours each way. Most people wouldn’t wish that on their worst enemy.

Granted, there’s a huge difference between traveling 200 miles by train and making some of those aforementioned comparable drives in a car. They really shouldn’t be compared. This guy is the only one I could find who commutes a similar distance on roads. But six hours a day on a train is still borderline insane.

Fortunately, mobile broadband is booming in Sweden so I’ll have internet at all times. With a computer and web access, there are far fewer things I can’t do that I would do anywhere else.

My MacBook Pro and 3 stick are going to be my best friends.

Olofsbo

We kicked off our summer vacation last week by spending eight days at Amanda’s family’s cabin on the west coast. The house is 150 meters from the Kattegat sea, which separates Sweden and Denmark.



The house is 220 kilometers — only about 140 miles — southwest of Falköping in a tiny summer community called Olofsbo, which is a few minutes north of Falkenberg, a town of 25,000.







Olofsbo is home to around 1,000 houses, most of which are small summer cabins, and two campsites. Houses in the front row, like Amanda’s family’s, look out onto a long, sandy beach.



Below is an aerial view I found through Google Images, with our cabin’s location indicated by the red dot:



This was my second time at the cabin and first since moving to Sweden. We spent a few days there in January 2010 when I first visited the country but that was in the middle of one of the worst winters on record.

Everything obviously looked very different 18 months later in warmer weather.





















Falkenberg is a much nicer town in the summer, too.









Tonight we’re celebrating midsummer with family out on the farm and the rest of the weekend will be devoted to packing for our U.S. visit. We look forward to seeing all of you back home very soon.

High School Graduation

Falköping’s high school graduated the class of 2011 on Friday.

For whatever reason or combination of reasons, high school graduation is a monumental event in Sweden and our town is no exception.

It started with a lunch for students and their teachers on Thursday, followed by a student breakfast Friday morning before a graduation ceremony. After the ceremony, students paraded through town while embarrassing their teachers in creative ways.



The woodshop kids showed off their carpentry skills.



The parade ended in the town square, where students celebrated some more with family and friends…





… before loading onto flatbeds to be driven around town while they got drunk.







Much to the chagrin of local police.



Then there was a student ball on Sunday, where many classmates partied together for the last time. Some move out of the area to pursue higher education but a large number enter the workforce immediately — high school in Sweden is divided into programs of emphasis and while some programs are college preparatory, around two-thirds are vocational.

National Day

Sweden celebrated its National Day yesterday, although maybe “celebrate” isn’t the most appropriate word.

Swedes save all rowdiness for Midsummer later this month. According to a survey conducted by SVT, the country’s national television broadcaster, roughly 80 percent of Swedes don’t do anything special on National Day.

While many countries, like the United States and our Scandinavian neighbor Norway, celebrate independence on their National Day, Sweden doesn’t have any such history to commemorate.

June 6 is the day Gustav Vasa was elected king in 1523, and also the day Sweden adopted new constitutions in both 1809 and 1974. The date became Swedish Flag Day in 1916 and the government first officially recognized it as National Day in 1983, though it’s only been a public holiday for six years. If it falls during the workweek it’s viewed by most Swedes simply as a bonus day off as the weather is starting to warm up.

The weather couldn’t have been any better yesterday in Falköping. The town organized a day of music, performances and free mini golf in the park.

I’ve never seen so many people out and about here.