After my last post, I'm sure you're gonna read what I'm about to say and go, "Oh geez, the girl's off her meds..." But I'm going to say it anyway: I'm pretty sick of being here. And damn, it feels cathartic to say so. I've been so polite and done my best to be upbeat and gracious about the downsides of winter in Sweden, even when—for instance—it's only 50 degrees in my apartment.I know what you're going to say, I've been back for less than a week so it's not really fair to take the gloves off and start pummeling Sweden. But the fact is that being in the sunshiny southwestern U.S. for three weeks and then coming back here brought the "sick of" feeling into sharp relief. I hope my Swedish buddies reading this won't take offense—from what I can gather, most people get sick of Sweden between November and February, and unluckily for me, that time frame has comprised the majority of my experience living here. I fell in love with Sweden a little bit between August and October, but since the leaves fell off the trees, my time here has basically been spent in a series of coping strategies, with varying levels of success. Bury my head in work? Successful! Drink a lot of alcohol? Successful! Overeat? Successful! Exercise regularly and get the proper amount of sleep? Completely unsuccessful!
Speaking of the proper amount of sleep, since I switched up my prescription for vitamins a few days ago, I've had a ton of energy, which is remarkable since I ought to still be jetlagged. But I think the jetlag hit me in a single punch, instead of spreading itself throughout the week. Yesterday I mysteriously and alarmingly failed to wake up in the morning. I hit the snooze button at around 7:30 am, half-noticed that the sun was peeking through the clouds and then rolled over and went back to sleep. The next time I woke up, it was 3:30 pm and the sun was going down! Good thing it happened to be a Saturday, but it was still an eerie feeling. An entire day passed and I didn't miss anything. I did not wake up, and no one noticed. Most people don't lead solitary lives where it would be possible for no pets to need a walk, no children to climb into bed, not even friends wondering why I didn't make it to brunch! I'm not only flying solo in Sweden, but anybody who might have been looking for me is six to eight time zones away. Creepy.
But back to this blog post's original theme. The icing on the "sick of Sweden" cake came last night, when I was declined admission to a two-bit nightclub. (This is where Urkel, or at least feeling like Urkel, comes in.) My American colleague Tom (in town for the Bonnier Publishing Program) and I decided to go to this place called East, which serves pan-Asian food and then confusingly becomes a hip-hop club after 11 pm. Tom usually dresses well—I don't ever think I've seen him without at least a sport coat before—but last night for whatever reason, he was wearing a Patagonia fleece and a wool hat. And I was wearing a cute outfit, but with glasses and a long puffer jacket, and no makeup. So, glibly conversing about something or other, we walk between the velvet ropes, up to the doorman, who mumbles something about "try coming back in an hour." And we're like, an hour? It's already midnight, what's going to change in an hour? But the doorman has turned away. Now, Tom and I have been to a few clubs before, in places like New York, Las Vegas and L.A. And neither of us has ever been turned down before. It doesn't even occur to us that it's possible to be turned away from a nightclub in effing Stockholm, so we don't realize what's going on. We're just standing there going, huh, what do you want to do now? And this girl behind us in line goes, "Honestly, you guys, I think it's your outfits. This is Stockholm, you've gotta dress up!" And we just crack up. She might as well have been like, "This is Des Moines, you've gotta dress up!" But apparently we'd stepped into the center of the universe, and woefully misread the dress code.
The whole velvet rope thing is really lame in any case: the idea that you either have to "be" somebody special or look like somebody special to get inside? Yuck. I don't care if the people next to me on the dancefloor are wearing headgear and Crocs— I just want to dance, man.
Next order of business: In an hour I go to the St. Eriksplan kettlebell gym I was so excited about, but now I'm feeling apprehensive. I'm worried the place is going to be full of 200-lb meatheads, swinging around castiron bowling balls. Gulp. I'll report back later about how it goes.
3 comments:
East is 20 years old! Knowing that, they "try" to be hip, thus the "wannabe NY, never willbe, we are Stockholm" door policy. But, the joke is on the people who actually eat there. Good thing you didn't. Many times this restaurant has been condemned by the Health Department (see Julbordet kan sprida otäcka magbakterier - Dec. 22, 2006 Expressen.se)Other times, they were cited for serving to the underage "glamour girls". But, the restaurant still stays in business despite this and overpriced and bland food because in Stockholm, let's just say knowing the right people keeps restaurants, clubs, etc. in business, despite negative criticism. And, more importantly, the people that go to these places are so drunk off their ass, that they wouldn't know the difference between a lobster ("hummer") served at Restaurant Lux and a crayfish caught in one of their "pristine" lakes. They just go to get their photos taken so that they appear in the newspaper or online (e.g. www.stureplan.se)or so that they can impress their friends on lame facebook. The point is that you are right to be tired of Sweden. It is a country that loves to dislike (unless it is cheap or involves the word Thailand in it), is always hypocritical ("no we are not materialistic like Americans..." said a 20 year old girl clad in Chanel, with Prada sunglasses, a Burberry scarf and Louis Vuitton handbag talking on her specially made D&G gold phone), complains but doing nothing about it (..."we have way too many meetings to have more consensus meetings..." said a fellow employee to me on her way to another meeting to decide when the board meeting will be held - preferably where there is a sauna) and are jealous of anybody who has more than them. Can you say lagom??? Swedes believe that the world revolves around them, until they actually manage to get out of their little fiefdom (every Swedes quiet dream) and they realize life is far different then their "living in a bubble life " taught. So book your one way flight back to the U.S. And keep this in mind. You can escape with this plane ticket. They still have to stay there and complain for the rest of their lives.....which they will.
The same thing happened to us in St Louis. After having gone to all sorts of great clubs in Germany, we were refused entry in friggin' St Louis Missouri (!) because my brother was wearing sneakers and a T-Shirt with a print on it. That print was a famous DJ's logo, ironically, but I guess that didn't make up for the "faux-pas." Whatever...velvet ropes suck.
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