This post will be in Dutch, look at the bottom for an English translation of the introduction. Swedes can read parts of the Dutch text also.

Gisteren is het Nederlandse woordenboek binnengekomen, voor Zweden wel te verstaan; Nederländska fickordbok. Zodat Frida de Nederlandse grammatica achterin in het Zweeds kan leren, wel zo makkelijk.

En achterin hebben ze ook heel handig een lijst voor in een restaurant of voor de ingrediëntenlijst geplaatst. Van Nederlands naar Zweeds, zodat je op een pak de ingrediënten in het Nederlands kunt lezen en dan weet wat dat eigenlijk betekent. Het leuke.. al die typische Nederlandse recepten die geen directe vertaling hebben, worden hier netjes uitgelegt :)

• Haagse hopjes: hårda karameller med kaffesmak
• hagelslag: (choklad)strössel som äts på smörgås som pålägg
• Hollandse nieuwe: holländsk matjessill (jämför maatjesharing nedan)
• hutspot: maträtt bestående av kokt potatis, morötter, lök och kött
• krentenbol: litet runt matbröd med korinter i
• kroepoek: indonesiska chipsliknande tilltugg av fisk, kött eller frukt
• maatjesharing (vervolg van Hollandse nieuwe): matjessill (med skarpare fisksmak och mindre kryddsmak än den svenska motsvarigheten); köps ofta i stånd utomhus
• moorkop: chokladtäckt petit-chou med gräddfyllning
• oliebol: friterar bakverk i form av en boll, pudrat med florsocker, som främst äts vid nyår
• pepernoot: kryddad sötsak som främst äts i början av december i samband med S:t Nikolausfesten
• stroopwafel: dubbel, hård våffla med sirapsfyllning
• taaitaai: mjuk, seg pepparkaka
• vla: kräm som äts till efterrätt

Gelukkig is het andersom nog veel ‘erger’. De lijst van Zweedse recepten met de Nederlandse uitleg is veel langer, omdat bijna elk product een flinke uitleg nodig heeft om in het Nederlands begrijpelijk te zijn. Heeft Zweden een rijkere culinaire cultuur?

En dan de standaardzinnetjes natuurlijk. Hoe zeg ik x in het Nederlands (iks). Wat de mensen van dit woordenboek die arme Zweden allemaal aandoen..

• Uit eten; Wat wilt u drinken? “Een pils, alstublieft.”
• Op reis; “Wilt u me bij de volgende halte laten uitstappen?”
• Apoteek/Ziekenhuis; “Kunt u mij iets tegen hoesten/keelpijn/zonnebrand aanbevelen?”

Dat wordt nog wat..

—–

Yesterday, the Dutch dictionary came in. The one for Swedes. So Frida can learn the Dutch grammar in Swedish. The dictionary included a list of typical Dutch food and recipies, with their explanation in Swedish. Quite funny to see how some of those typical Dutch things are translated :) And also the default sentences that these kind of books give you, like “Can you tell me where the trainstation is?”. Only some of them are a bit strange/old, or just wrong. Lets hope that all goes well..

One research was investigating the (Hofstede’s) culture dimensions (like individualism – collectivism, femininity – masculinity, long-term – short-term orientation) and how they applied to exchange students. Otherwise said, is it so that people from the ‘travellers country’ have another scale on the culture dimensions? :) And, although the research has some limitations, it showed that for example people from this travellers country were more individualistic – not surprisingly of course.

A lot of the other research also showed a difficulty in research and culture and language. When research about stress and burnout for example, might it be the case that American people experience something else than Swedes. And thus that when it turns out that American people are more stressed and have more burnouts than Swedes (according to this research), that that is because they see more situations as stressing and/or have a different understanding of the ‘same’ word.

In the train back to Eskilstuna a guy was offering his newspaper back to some elder couple opposite to him; he probably borrowed it earlier. After they said that that wasn’t neseccary he said “tack så mycket” (“thanks you very much”, in Dutch you would probably say “heel erg bedankt” or “dank u zeer”). To me, that sounded a bit too much for just getting a newspaper in general, but it might be influenced by the fact that the people were older, more ‘respect’ for elder people? Or a different understanding of the same language? Maybe in Swedish it is more common to speak like that..

Do I still want to continue with HKU? I’m not thát sure anymore. Although it might not be bad for me and also give me a nice few projects again. (Something practical finally! I’m quite done with the theory here..)

I found the Interactive Institute here. Looks like a nice place for projects. I’ve been thinking about staying there for some time. If at all I get in here at some place. Without diploms, without the language (which is more important here than in the Netherlands).

And spiritually the Netherlands would be a very interesting place. A lot of things are happening there. So maybe we can life there for some time. Start new projects there, explore what I want on that green sphere.

I’ve started to work again, small things, but still. Yesterday I continued walking through the methods I use in projects I did. The step of yesterday was making a mindmap of everything. Quickly the paper (A4) became too small :) There is a lot that I know, a lot I’m experienced in, a bit too much maybe? At least I should structure it a bit more now. I want to describe the methods, for myself and for ‘clients’.

And when I was going through some past projects I saw Lones again.. Did anybody made those things for real? I could use them now.. Or, in two months would be ok as well ;)

“This our concept video of the Emotion Stone, that transfers warmth, emotions and gestures over long distances. This video gives an example how it could work.”

The sun will shine brightly for you again every day.
Some romantic moments that u lost in past will be brought back!
Have a nice day,
Extend your possibilities in your private life
Do not lose your chance to be happy and healthy.
Stop sitting near computer, let’s go out

Thanks to Craig Ryan, Helene Cellier, Williams Battle, Brent Hinton, Maxine Bird and Ysuhofalut!

Eldflugor och Odågor (picture from eldflugor.se)

There was a concert last Sunday were I went with Frida. It was from 6 girls, Google Translate said they called themselves Firefox and Waster (Eldflugor och Odågor), singing songs, mostly a cappella, some with addition of drums.

Most of the songs were in Swedish so I didn’t understand the words, but I could understand the feeling sometimes. A bit like Evelyn Glennie showed on TED.

It also was a great place there, good atmosphere. I think it was a living and working community (is that a correct term in English?). And there was a ecological shop in this building, finally with really good goods. Too bad it is in Uppsala which costs about €30,- to travel to..

It was great to travel this whole day. Although not as far as Nikki is traveling, I finally see some other places then only Eskilstuna and Västerås. And also that the good day is more than the goal your going to (the concert), it is also the travel, the things you see, the talks you have, what you think about..

On the way back there was this flyer on the streets of Uppsala. Some flyer from the International Womans Day. On the front it had a quote:

“Det är tur att vi finns, men det är en skam att vi behövs!”

I, apparently with my cultural background, read something like ‘man are scum and we behave’. Ohoh, don’t read that! Too late :) Not, it was more something like ‘it is good that we exist, but a shame that we are needed!’, about the womans organization behind this flyer.

Again, in Dutch. I’ll keep on doing that because there are some people who want to hear my ‘native’ voice. But some English subtitles can be found at dotSub (oh, what a horrible website..).

I’ve restarted Inbox Zero – a technique to process your email faster and ‘spend less time in your inbox’ – and I’ve been able to continue it for about two weeks now, feels very good. At the same time clean out all those blogs I’ve been following, the snail mail, the photos and other files on my computer. Cleanes up a lot, more than just the things themselves, also my head.

Now only to do something useful with the time I ‘created’.

Hej, jag heter Lode

The result of my first Swedish class. It is a bit strange to sit in a classroom and repeat the alphabet after the teacher.. :) Useful though, not all letters are that easy.

I think you can understand most of the preceding message. I had to ask what the following were:

• bor = live
• på = on
• tyska = german

The y remains hard, you start it as an i but end speaking an u. And now I know when the k is pronounced in different ways. Normal usage is like ‘kå’, like ko(a). But when preceding the e, i, y, ä, or ö you pronounce it more as ‘sj’, like hemsjöp (the supermarkt I usally go to).

I’m following the level 2 courses at the same time as the level 1 goes a bit too slow and level 2 is simple enough to follow, at the moment anyway :)

First is Järnpojke (Järn = iron, pojke = boy). First of all because I think it was kind a cute :) He was meditating here all day for the people who worked in the iron mines.

The people that lived and worked next to this little statue took good care of Järnpojke. He always wore some clothes, a scarf or a jacket when it was really cold.

The guide told that the story goes that you’re blessed if you stroke his head, but she thought that was nonsense she immediately added. That was the reason his head was so shiny.

There were more of these kind of meditating statues in Stockholm, nice :)

When we entered the museum (Moderna Museet) we could choose for an audio tour, which I didn’t as I like watching more. But some others did so the lady explained how this worked.

There was this MP3-player-stick with infra-read. When you were in the museum there were several ‘dots’ next to art works. Here you could point the MP3-player to and it would start telling a story.

There weren’t any other controls, except for one; you could point the MP3-player down, to the ground, and it would stop the audio. This reminder me of an umbrella-controlled MP3-player I once saw. With different gestures, like opening (start) or closing (stop) the umbrella, turning (next song) and others you could control the music which was kind a neat. But that was just a concept back then, here they made a little start with an actual product :)

Further they had a quite advanced toilet system.

First of all the lock. They had an explanation (in Swedish) on how to use the handle to close the toilet.As you can see you have to move the handle up to close and down to open. From this explanation I pushed the handle upwards and let it go again. Went very well.

Then, luckily I was already ready and washing my hands, the door suddenly opened! Apparently it wasn’t locked.. After some testing it seemed that you had to move the handle up further and that it then would stay up. Too bad there was no second feedback if you did it well. No problem for Swedish speaking people though as I guess the text will explain this..

Further they had this very good ‘dyson airblade‘, no airplane, but a hand dryer. I first saw this in the museum for Beeld en Geluid (Video and Sound? Well the museum attached to the Dutch public media archives). You slide you’re hands through this and they are totaly dry afterwards, working very well. On the other hand, using a lot of power also I guess and it is no disaster to not completely dry your hands..

As a last thing they had a CCTV system in the toilets. Outside the toilets there was a TV and you could see the toilet room, the toilets, the urinates, etc. This gave a bit strange feeling as you walked in, but when inside this was explained using another work of art:

When I got home I thought about how we give compliments to each other – sorry, the introduction has hardly any relation with the following I think. When you’ve worked together with someone and you like the way the other did something you say, “you’re good at .. communicating” for example. I’m brought up by my environment to reply with “thanks”, but I never really adapted to that, always found it a bit strange. I mostly mumbled something like “yeah” or “ok”. Then after some time people around me started saying that I should learn to receive compliments. Now I suddenly knew why I never got around that, why it feels strange to do so.

It is not something I can be thankful for. It is just something I do, something I’m capable of. If someone says that I did something well then that is more a thing someone else notices which for me is already clear, is a normal way of life.
And I also thought this might very well be related to the individualistic culture we grow up with in the west. A culture where personal achievements lead to a higher status, to getting a job, to performing well in society. This makes that when somebody tells you that you’ve done something good, you thank them because they, so to say, ‘gave’ you an achievement. Because the people around you attribute things to you, you climb up the social ladder, you do or don’t get the job.

Something I never could understand. I do understand why now, but I still don’t like it.

– I went to get something to drink –

Ah, now I also now what the relation with the introduction is. Nice how this getting out is helping you to remember things.

Before we went out for a walk I put my backpack in my apartment because I just came from the university. I showed my apartment and she said something like that it was nice. I think I answered with “yes”. At that moment I thought about this getting ‘compliments’. The nice apartment to me was also just something normal. Of course it is something that I created and thus something that someone can compliment me on, but still it is just who I am, what I create around me.

But still there was a feeling that something missed. The Jong MenS group I’m in in the Netherlands (and all the people around that) is something I hadn’t found here yet. But luckily that has been changing the last days! In the student café, Origo, I saw some people, one giving a massage to another, they looked nice. And I managed to make some contact, which I found a bit hard. Mainly because the overal tendency here is not to say ‘hi’ to others you don’t know yet. The Swedes – overall – are a bit reserved. So that gives me a feeling that it is hard to connect. But among students this is less the case. And luckily it worked out. And afterwards I was sitting somewhere else and a few of that group came by and said ‘hej’. I felt very good then because it in some way really surprised me. People have been talking a lot about – and I’ve been experiencing it myself too – that when you meet someone and think you made a new friend in some way and you see each other at another time, people don’t even greet. It is a bit strange, so that was why I was surprised and happy to see these people, whom I’ve only been talking to for some fifteen minutes, already said hi :)

And this evening I’ve met up with some Indian students who are here for just two weeks. And it was great to notice that I soon had a good connection with them, maybe also because their English is so good, compared for example with the Turkisch people I had sometimes a lot of trouble just talking about normal things, because we didn’t had this common language. And there was a Swedish girl with her own company in spiritually healing people. Which was the second moment I could relate to someone else with things that are familiar to me too.

Now only comes the ‘friend management’. It is strange that when you meet so much new people in such a short time. It suddenly gets hard to keep track of all this. Where normaly you meet new friends not that often, so you can easily ‘manage’ the relations. But hey, if it is the worst thing that I’ve too many friends to manage ;) then that’s not bad.

This has the same reason as the dark video I made of the apartment; I haven’t been home a lot during daytime.

I live in a very multicultural neighborhood as you can see, good for my study :)

Today I went to people from Sri Lanka. A mother and two (två) boys. The older boy translated a lot for us, he could speak English very well, he learned that in India. But he is better in Swedish he said, he’s following classes since they came here 8 months ago.

I got good noodles, chai tea and biscuits from them :) With the mother I spend some time looking at her Swedish lesson books. Very interesting to learn a few more words this way. Some basic things like jag, du, han, hon, det, de, vi, oss (I, you, he, she, it, they, we, us). And I always fall in love with the Tamil script :)

And I’ve been on the phone with friends from the Netherlands for over an hour, haha. It is hard to leave those friends in the Netherlands who I also only know for a few months or even weeks but who are so close. Homesickness? No, I don’t think it is in a sad way, but just thinking about them.

Nikki helpt with following the IKEA manuals and creating a bed, table, chairs and a closet out of the seperate parts. Now I also now a little bit more what Your van ‘t Hek (a Dutch cabaretier?) ment with getting the IKEA slatted bed base (lattenbodem) together.

The room doesn’t have that ‘I just arrived here’ look anymore. The blankets on the ground are now replaced with a real bed. I put some of the stuff from my suitcases in the closet and in boxes.

—

Most -offline- reactions I get are about the blog being in English :) I do that mainly because I want to document my experiences for a broader public. Not only my Dutch friends, but also the non-Dutch and other people who stumble upon this blog. I also found another blog a few weeks ago from a Dutch guy who also went on exchange to Mälardalen university here. So I write in English to tell my experiences from the university, from the course context and from the country, to more then only my friends.

Further I hope to develop my English writing in this way. I’m also translating parts while writing in English because I don’t know them yet. And a last thing, as soon as I enter another country, I start not only to use English to speak, but also to think. Then the same applies to my writings, as I already think of things to say, in English.

This first course I’m following is about the anatomy of intercultural interactions.. Yes, this first lecture was an introduction to the course title :) The course is about laying the basics for the course and giving a theoretical overview of intercultural communication. We’ve been talking about the meaning of ‘inter’, ‘culture’, ‘interaction’ and we talked about things like managing, communication, meaning, context, interpretation and generalization.

I learned a lot about context in the IDSS project in Istanbul. Here Jonas (the teacher) talked about high- and low-context cultures. When someone says something, a part of what is meant lies in the language (being it spoken, unspoken, or body language for example) and another part lies in the context of the culture (and other context too of course). In so called ‘high context cultures’ more meaning lies in the context than in the language itself.

In the end we talked a bit about the ‘similarities / differences’ topic going around cultural discussions. Jonas supposed to talk more about ‘variations’ instead. This can cover both and also implies that they are both there. And it leaves the door open for group variations and individual variations.

Yesterday, the first -whole group- lecture ended with a quote which I forgot to post. I really like this point of view.

“The tourist sees what he has come to see.
The traveler sees what he sees.”
G. K. Chesterton

• ä is pronounced as e
• å is pronounced as ó (oo)
• ö is pronounced as eu

And some more less important for reading:

• y is pronounced as uu
• v is pronounced as w
• g is pronounced as the g in ‘good’
• the e and the end of words is pronounced as an ‘e’ instead of a ‘u’ in most Dutch cases

Try it:

• föreningar
• borgmästare
• karriär
• invånare
• contrasterna
• trådlösa

Answers after the beep.

Did you do well?

• vereniging
• burgemeester
• carrière
• inwoners
• contrast
• draadloze

Then I only stumble upon those little words. Commonly used but pretty unknown to me. And I need to learn to speak it :)