As we began our descent, I looked out the window and felt that feeling. That TCK feeling I hadn’t felt in so long: novelty, curiosity, and unhinged excitement at the prospect of living in a new location. That feeling that only truly hits upon first sighting of the new country. A country that, from my aerial view, appeared to be everything ideal connoted with Europe; wide rectangular fields, perfect patches of forest, and something I hadn’t expected: lakes. Small rivulets running through the country, and a giant glassy lake dotted with tiny populated islands.
I turned to my seatmate, a Swede, and asked the name of the lovely water below us.
“I’m not sure,” he fumbled. “But it might be Vanern, that’s the largest lake.” He turned to his wife on his other side, and she seemed to concur.
“It’s beautiful,” I said. I was happy to have met this couple. Before takeoff, we had chatted during an hour delay – Delta had supposedly forgotten to stock our plane with food – a conversation that started with a simple: “You’re American?” asked after my use of English.
Swedes, as I have discovered several times during my first eight hours, are convinced that I am one of them, even after I ask a question in English. It’s only when I answer their Swedish queries with an apologetic shrug and laugh that they accept my Aryan coloring as non-Swedish.
“Your parents are Swedish? … You look Scandanavian,” my seatmate questioned.
I smiled apologetically and mumbled something about Irish. I am hoping my apologetic smile doesn’t become a permanent expression on my face.
My affirmative – yes, I am American – led into a conversation about why I was moving to Sweden, why they had been in New York, and an analysis of the different cultures.
We discussed everything from the weather:
“Sweden winter is comparable to New York; oh you live in California? You cannot compare,” he laughed, “Yes, I think you cannot compare.”
To economics:
“In Sweden, it is like we value the person more,” his wife explained. “In America, it is like if you don’t have the job and money and status you are nothing.” In socialist Sweden, everybody, high status or low, has access to the same life benefits: education, healthcare, transportation.
And “Friendly” American shopkeepers:
“In Sweden people are nice, you know, but it’s like “Hi, I’d like this, okay, bye. In New York, in all the shops, with all the shopkeepers…you know..it’s ‘How are you,’ all this stuff. It’s so fake. It’s like a show. I mean, it’s understandable that they want to do business, but it’s so much. It’s like they’re kissing your ass because they want your money. It’s not like that in Sweden.”
This commentary reminded me of how striking I had initially found the friendliness of American store workers.
**
Naturally, the first outing I made in Sweden was walking to a cinema to watch Inception. I definitely recommend watching it after four hours of turbulent sleep, under the dizzy discombobulation of 15 hours of traveling to a foreign country. Fatigue adds an essential je ne sais quoi to the Inception experience.
**
I have been lost in our apartment at least four times since arrival. Nothing serious. And, unsurprisingly, this has less to do with the size of the apartment than my dubious sense of direction (which apparently does not improve like Inception under the previously described mental state.)
**
Mr. Marx is here. He is the second appendage to visit our family, and spends the majority of his time sitting next to Llama blank faced, purposefully spacing out. I am not exaggerating: he literally told us he often tunes us out because there is so much going on at the same time. Jessie, visitor no. 1, utilized a more effective defense mechanism when visiting: she and Chris simply disappeared for large chunks of time.
From Will’s description of his love interest, our family is developing a tendency to pluck shy introverts from their natural habitation and place them into uncomfortable situations, like our family dinner table.
But all is well. Mr. Marx and I have established a code for when we are kidding with each other (an “s” hand signal), because his sarcasm is so rare and so dead pan that it is virtually unnoticeable aside from Llama’s squeals of laughter and explanation, (“That was a joke! Haha! He actually hates that band!”) and mine is so frequent and silly that misinterpretation would be highly problematic. (“You brought us all shirts from Ohio? Why thank you! haha”) etc.
Of course, Mr. Marx has already weaseled his way into my grandmother’s heart. Appalled at Christophe’s choice to wear ripped pants to the airport, she declared “I bet Karl doesn’t walk around with holey jeans.” This turned out to be accurate. He patches his.
**
Tonight’s undeleted texts were three in a row from my brother. Apparently I had described something as opulent yiddish:
“Sounds like a Law Firm.”
“Or a fancy men’s clothing line.”
“And Christian Bale on the red carpet tonight wearing Opulent Yiddish.”
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