No one needs to convince me about Scandinavia and its ability to provide for its citizenry. Having seen the following neighborhood and lived in Northeast DC for three years, I know the difference between a Scandinavian bad neighborhood and a really bad neighborhood.

And this image is of, hmmm, a house in Northeast DC?:

No, its right here in the Akalla ghetto. These are the “low income” houses I pass on the way to the train everyday.

When I mention I reside here in scenic Akalla temporarily, people tell me how dangerous it is and how terrible it looks. That picture above, that doesn’t look too terrible to me. To bad I don’t have a photo of the guy getting arrested with a semi-automatic weapon in front of my house or robbers undoing the bolts on the bars on the windows in my house to break in. Or the cops dusting the place for fingerprints. Did I mention this was 12 blocks from the Capitol Building. Of the U.S., the world’s biggest democracy and most prosperous country.

Akalla, a ghetto. Sure. Anyway, two more of this Swedish “bad neighborhood”:

I love the Swedes, I do, but sometimes it goes a little bit too far. Yes, this isn’t the most wonderful part of the city, I know that, but believe me, after you’ve gone to a 7-11 4 blocks from where you live and found out a guy crashed his car near the store after he’d been shot, Akalla really isn’t going to look bad.

Well, I am sure this will become a regular feature, being that I am going to have to visit these places pretty often. I actually find very little strange about these markets because people might mistake me for being an actual Swede what with what I buy:

No, that is not salt. Its sugar. They sell these things at Ikea, source of all things Swedish to the outside world.

The Scandinavians though not famous for their culinary prowess have cornered the market on one thing. These little take away salads:

Red beet salad, that I eat everyday:

Americans won’t go near this stuff. You mention beet salad and they act like you said beetle salad or something. But me, I eat right along. Man, I hope those are beets…

Another two:

This somehow approximates a salad my mom makes at Christmas time that my father and I eat in 8-10 seconds. Its a miracle it even makes it onto the table. It was also kind of a leap of faith because I have no idea what the label on the outside said. It had dill on it and something I ate at the mess hall this past week had dill on it, so I figured it couldn’t be bad. And I am pretty sure Swedes don’t eats anything like brains. At least I hope not.

And to close it out, plain old potato salad:

See Mom, see? I got to the supermarket. Oh and to add to it, I usually eat this stuff with this bread:

I went around the supermarket looking for this thing, not realizing it was actually in a section for high fiber bread. I am so boring.

But for every thing at the supermarket that I love, like the shrimp salad, there are things that make me scratch my head:

The Swedes have so many good sweet things. Why of all things chocolate chip cookies and from Maryland? Maryland? I stood there in the supermarket wondering why this would be an enticement to buy this thing? What? Do you love Babs Mikulski? Do you drive really really really badly? Do you call Baltimore “Balmer”? Are you planning on visiting Prince George’s county any time soon? For the uninitiated they called PG County “The Long Island of the 1990s” because all of this weird stuff happened there at that time. Anyway, that’s what I thought of when I saw those cookies. Babs Mikulski and PG county. I also love how that company listed on there is their exclusive supplier for Scandinavia. I do not travel oceans to Scandinavia to see the words “Maryland” anywhere. Rest assured I will never try these cookies.

Also, Ramlosa. There should be an umlaut over the o and I’m sure there is some crazy Swedish way of pronouncing it, but I do love the Ramlosa. I am like really really really boring because I seek out fiber bread and pretty much can only drink water. Just drinking water all the time is really boring, so I have to get flavored water, which usually tastes really bad. Somehow Ramlosa manages to make it taste good. I got some judging eyes from a coworker recently when I bought a pear flavored Ramlosa, but whatever. He doesn’t know that I can only drink about 5 substances in the world.

Ok, anyway, a lot of explaining about that Ramlosa. Though this is a very good tasting Ramlosa, I find it a bit curious:

Until I came to Sweden, I didn’t know cactus was a flavor or what perhaps the flavor of a cactus might be. I drank the water and can’t really describe it, but it tasted green, which makes no sense, but there you have it.

Maryland Chocolate Chip cookies and cactus flavored water. Thus far the culinary curios I’ve found here in fine Sweden.

Again, may I repeat:

MOM, SEE, PROOF I DO GO TO THE SUPERMARKET.

I was going to try to make an entry about “oh, guess what this is, its Chez Akalla” but since the photo of the ugly parking lot is already up, I can say that this is the view outside Chez Akalla at 7:15 to go and hopefully not face plant on the way to work. Anyway, I took these in the morning and of course punched them up a little with some editing:

The light up here is something you will not see in the rest of the world. It kinda sucks that the sun goes down at 5:30 everyday, but seeing a sunrise like that at 7am is pretty amazing.

Maybe I’ll show these to my coworkers and try to convince them this isn’t Akalla? They all seem to think Akalla is really horrible. Hey Swedes, two words for you “Northeast D.C.”

Sweden:
The land of quiet amusement and hilariously funny ads.

Case in point:

I believe kuddar are pillows, but it almost unimportant when you notice that each is holding on to their kuddar while watching Basic Instinct. Oh Sweden, love you how I do. An ad featuring a grandmother watching Basic Instinct.

I had to take pictures of the faces and how they looked up closer:

The grandson is looking in total horror, I think. No, she can’t that’s just so wrong….

Grandma on the other hand:

The sweet little old lady is watching Basic Instinct with that a little smile on her face. Her face is saying “yes, yes, that is how it should be.”

Seriously Scandinavia — an ad for pillows featuring a smiling grandmother watching Basic Instinct with her horrified grandson? Why did you people give up so easily on ruling the world? Come on, give it another shot.

NOW!

Yes, there are tons of photos of the Stockholm metro system up here, because I love it. I spoke to a local recently, and he told me that the natives couldn’t care less about the metro and I could tell when I was photographing the waterfall in a station (no, really, I am being serious) people were just wandering around not caring.

You people in Stockholm, you are spoiled. Though there is graffiti and gum on the ground in the subway here, it in no way resembles that underground hell hole dug and designed by Satan himself that is the New York City subway system.

So, jaded people of Stockholm, I will keep posting these photos of the subway, until I get bored of them which I am scheduling to be about, I don’t know NEVER.

Here’s the latest crop:

I love how socialist-realist it all is and the mean looking speed skater looking guy is my favorite. Per usual, no kind of explanation is offered about why these images in particular for this stop. That’s just the way it is. I mean I guess people do work around here or whatever and I guess this is supposed to symbolize them, though other than looking like something out of X-men, I’m not sure what line of work the speed skater guy is in.

But, these things do serve a purpose. I get into to the station in the morning and see the females, so when I exit at night, I should see, yes, the females. One day I got confused and walked in the wrong direction and saw the males. I of course had to photograph them, but then I knew. The males and the females let you know which side to get out on. Perfect.

Well, anyway, there has to be some kind of compensation for Akalla itself, where me, my Mac, my clothes and my Buddha temporarily reside. Take a look see at Chez Akalla:

Yes, those are company names on the side of this thing. Yes, the shock you are experiencing from seeing its beauty is normal.

This is the picturesque view directly outside my window:

I would photograph the inside of my “apartment” but the jacuzzi isn’t here yet and they are doing some renovations on the east wing. None of the previous statement is true.

Thus far saying the word Akalla elicits one of three responses:

1. I lived there too for a month.

2. What? Where? This one usually comes from the natives.

3. I live there now.

My favorite is number 2. The natives who I have told I live in Akalla (AAAkala, or Uh-ku-la or uuuh ku la, seriously I have no idea) who by and large have no clue where I am talking about, though most people here speak perfect English and I am pronouncing the name the way it is written.

Even better is the fact that Akalla is the last station on the blue line, where my job is.

Ok, fine, sure if I got on a train everyday and didn’t care where it was going because I knew I wouldn’t bother to look around either. I had a woman ask me on the Metro North where Grand Central was as we got off at Grand Central. Hopefully, I didn’t look too shocked. So, all right locals that you don’t know where Akalla is, but come and visit sometimes. The pictures above only offer a small hint of the beauty to be found here.

Oh, how people have complained about there being no pictures of people or me on this blog. Why don’t you post pictures of yourself up there? Why? Can’t you do that?

Well, after long consideration, I’ve decided to reveal my identity:

I’m in the photograph, ok people. So, you can shut up about there being no pictures of me up here. And by the way, my Swedish is fabulous after only a few days. NOT. This language. Well, see example above. I went out last night and I showed the picture to some Swedes and they said “do you understand any of what is on the newspaper?” Yeah, um, the words “Stockholm” “City” and “50%.”

I am a strange creature. Most people who visit this blog already know that. I am not your usual human being. For example, on planes I always want the window seat, but when I do get the window seat, I freak out because I see the plane’s wings shaking or something.

As is usually the case, when there is an interesting view outside, I don’t get the window seat. I was on a train from Brussels to Cologne a while back and I looked out the window and I saw the German countryside, that looks so beautiful. Sitting next to me? Some sleeping German guy who couldn’t have cared less and I knew he was German because when we hit the border Herr whatever his name was flashed some ID card and not a passport.

On my last flight from Iceland to Sweden, my lucky streak held up. This is what the person next to me who had the window seat was doing:

And, this is what was outside the window:

Beautiful. Just beautiful. Makes me happy to travel and get to see these kinds of things. And, some people out there, those clouds do not look like every other cloud ever. They look different. Jeez.

At least Mr. Sleeping Swede had a empty seat next to him, so I moved on over and took some photos. Yes, as I write this, fate sits there and says “you know what? We’ll put Natalia in the window seat on her next flight, but it will only to watch the plane wing shake.”

I was in the airport on one of my many trips here in the last year and I asked about decaffinated coffee and I was told “this is Sweden. We don’t have that.”

Well, wise-ass, you do:

Yeah, you can’t actually tell decaf from a picture, but its there. Trust me. Anyway, in celebration of my extended sojourn in Sweden I decided to sample the local foods:

And here it is:

It wasn’t bad. They toasted it with butter and there was some kind of cinnamon on there, but all right.

Did I mention my extremely pleasant dining companion?:

I am not the fastest hands with the camera, so it wasn’t as if this thing sat down and then flew away. No, it was hanging out on the table and gave my slow self enough time to pull out my camera and take a picture of this flying vermin. Oh flying vermin, you will never know how important your presence was to my life. Thank you.

Usually when a country tries to get people to come and visit, they use beautiful pictures of places or things and have some sort of slogan like “Find your Montreal.” I found my Montreal and his name was… Never mind that. This ain’t that blog.

Iceland, oh darling Iceland is a little bit different. No, I didn’t spend a week there. I spent an hour in the airport and it affirmed my belief that Iceland does in fact… rule.

Case in point, the aforementioned ad campaign:

Ohh, and this friendly fellow:

To me, that face makes me want to write letters to him, but I am betting a lot of people would be scared of old Thor or whatever his name is.

But, this is what sold me on Iceland and leads me to believe that it rules:

Eat a sheep’s head? Most people wouldn’t touch a sheep’s head, much less try to somehow eat it. Come to Iceland, eat a sheep’s head. Iceland rules. No doubt about it.

Oh and then there was this little thing. Not many airports feature taxidermy animals, but not many countries entice tourists to visit by offering them the chance to eat sheep’s heads.

Here it is:

Look out Iceland. Natalia WILL invade you with her explosive laughter and constantly present digital camera.

No writing. No explaining. No nothing. Just the image:

Ok, a little spiel. For the photo nerds out there, I got the clock to look like that because I put in some fill flash. I knew it would go completely dark if I didn’t. The fill counteracted the sun coming in through the window. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. Grand Central is amazing.

Here’s the photo before the changing. I can’t decide which one I like better:

As usual, I am my worst critic. I don’t like how upwards the picture is. I wish I had done it straight.