It´s Saturday night and the Swedish national song contest is about to start in an hour on national television. Why do I tell you this? Well, it is a cultural observation. This country is dedicated to this song festival, which consists of several episodes featuring 8 songs each time where 2 get selected for the great grand final. It is amazing to see how a country can get so involved in Swedish pop music, which is really aimed for the Swedish market. We produce pop music for the whole world but the music played in this festival is typically Swedish and wouldn’t survive outside our borders. For the coming 8 weeks the kids have booked the TV room every Saturday night and I find my refuge to the Internet. At least now that Jochem is away and no friends are visiting.
I have had a week off work as the kids have had “sport vacation” for a week. Yes, we actually call it sport vacation and it is a one-week break from school in February every year. We went down to my parents and celebrated Ingrid’s 10th birthday for a few days and came back on Wednesday to enjoy the snow, some skiing and Elsa went on a horseback riding camp. Jochem is Japan and will be back in 8 days. He has experienced Japanese hospitality and spent last night out with his Japanese colleges returning to his hotel room at 6 am after visiting every game arcade, a number of pubs and probably some karaoke places as well in Tokyo.
I am still trying to recover from my small town blues. I know I can be a bit demanding and I need response to what I do. I prefer criticism instead of silence or ignorance and when people do not act in any direction what so ever I get frustrated. There is more to this place then what I currently see. I just wish it had a bit more diversity and craziness. While living in the Netherlands I sometimes felt that everything in the NL had to be over the top. Every TV show had to move the level of acceptance a little bit more and if it wasn’t crazy or brutal it was not worth airing. Here it is the opposite and I have lived too long in the NL to feel comfortable with it. Well, I know that this is a luxury problem these days and on Monday I will be back at work planning two working trips to the Netherlands and writing a proposal for a new cooperation between Ulricehamn and Voi in Kenya (yes, they did arrive and we had an interesting and very intensive week!). I am looking forward to next weekend when the house will be filled with girlfriends, wine, talks, laughter and maybe some tears!
Time to watch some Swedish disco!
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