DominicHamon.com

Life is like a grapefruit

Jag kan tala Svenska

I haven’t written anything here in a while because my creative juices have been drained by my new position writing over at Guerrilla Geek.

Last week I was in Sweden. Ostensibly for a family thing, but also to take a break and spend some time with Mirto‘s family. I’ve been there once before, about nine years ago, and both times I’ve felt oddly at home there. I say oddly as I have no connection to Sweden other than my wife having been born there. Given that I’m blonde with blue eyes, and have familial connections to both Yorkshire and Normandy, there’s a good chance that far back in my genealogy someone in my family tree encountered a Viking in a, you know, biblical manner. However it’s unlikely that my genes felt the connection.

On the subject of having the appearance of a Swede1, there were a few tense moments during the week where a native would speak to me in Swedish expecting me to understand, but speak to my wife in English assuming she was a tourist. An arctic wind blew through the room during those moments.

There are some similarities in the environment of Stockholm to where I grew up in Jersey. It too had granite cliffs and was surrounded by water and the constant crying of seagulls was a regular sound throughout the year. Of course, it was a little warmer where I grew up, and I spent more time on the beach than I would be comfortable doing in Sweden. The population of Stockholm is approximately the same as my home, though that population is focused in an urban centre rather than spread over a rural island.

Don’t get me wrong, I love living in San Francisco and cannot see a time when I’ve done everything there is to do here or get bored with the city. And if I ever do, well there’s a big ol’ country out there to explore. However there is something about Sweden that just feels more like home. Maybe it was the rain and sense of gentle irony.

 

  1. As in a Swedish person, not a rutabaga ↩︎

Posted on 2011/04/20 in personal | Tagged sweden, vacation | Leave a comment

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