I’ve always thought that the best way to get a real sense of a place is to spend a lot of time with the natives. When those natives are family, you the traveler have got it made. Not only can you get nice home-cooked meals, a comfortable bed to sleep in and, in a non-English speaking country, a personal translator but you get to see beneath the shiny, crowded tourist exterior of your destination. For these, and many other reasons, we’re lucky that Dr. O’C’s sister married a Swedish fisherman and now live with their two boys on the outskirts of Göteborg, Sweden. We get over there once or twice a year and have had the opportunity to “see” more of Sweden than if we had done the same number of trips with a Rough Guide.

This was our first trip with Z and it was fantastic to watch him starting to interact with his cousins (most of it pleasant despite some of the pictures in the slide show above) and to meet his uncle, with whom Z seemed completely enamored. We got the chance to do a lot more child-friendly touristing – ice skating in Frölunda, a wander around the grounds of Gunnebo Slott and swimming (and water sliding) in Mölndal. Z got to participate in more of the activities than you might think, though I’m still slightly hurt that his mother didn’t trust my skating skills enough to let me take him on a spin round the rink.

We jumped on the offer of babysitting from Z’s aunt and high-tailed it into town for our first “date” since last September. We went to see “Juno” at a wonderful old city-center cinema in Goteborg and had coffee and cakes afterwards. The film was great, and even though it’s a teen rom com, is entertaining enough for the old folks as well. It was subtitled in Swedish which made for interesting audience surveillance- I think that a lot of the punchlines were just lost in translation. How do you subtitle this, for example:

“Yea, you just take Soupy-Sales to prom I can think of so many cooler things to do that night. Like, you know what Bleek? I might pumice my feet, uh, I might go to Bren’s Unitarian Church, maybe get hit by a truck full of hot garbage juice, you know? Cause all those things, would be exponentially cooler than going to prom with you.”

I had heard two things about Juno coming in – it had a great soundtrack and a questionable message. The first is absolutely true – one of the best movie soundtracks since “Rushmore“. It features an outstanding singer-songwriter that I had not heard of in Kimya Dawson and classic tracks from Belle and Sebastien, Mott the Hoople, Sonic Youth, Buddy Holly and others. For this guy, a good soundtrack goes a long way toward my enjoyment of a film.

As far as the second preconception, I had heard that the film was strongly anti-abortion and kind of flippant about teen pregnancy. I don’t know about these criticisms. I tend not to look to teen comedies for my life lessons, but maybe some folks do. It is not the anti-abortion diatribe that some on the left and right have been bemoaning and celebrating. I don’t have the experience to know if teenage pregnancy is like a Belle & Sebastien song, but I reckon they might be glossing things over a bit. I just wanted to go out (without baby in tow) and have a laugh with my love and “Juno” was a great opportunity for that. Political and social commentary aside, it’s good fun and even though I could relate the most with Jason Bateman’s shady character, I came away from the cinema with a smile on my face.

It would make more sense to attach a song from “Juno” to this post, but I’m not in the mood for making sense (check this post out for one of the Belle & Sebastien tracks from the film). Instead, to finish out a week of Scandanavian music here’s one of my favorite Swedish bands Peter, Bjorn and John doing “Objects of My Affection”. Their 2006 LP “Writer’s Block” is available from Amazon, Peter Bjorn and John - Writer's Block and eMusic.
“And the other day, this new friend of mine
Said something to me
‘Just because something starts differently,
Doesn´t mean it´s worth less.’
And i soaked it in, how i soaked it in,
How i soaked it in…”

 
icon for podpress  Peter, Bjorn & John - "Objects of My Affection": Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 9% [?]