Glad Lucia

press play, then read on

Every day of the Swedish calendar celebrates a name or names (remember back to my name-day celebration!); December 13th marks Lucia day in Sweden. According to the Julian calendar, December 13th was the shortest day of the year, and the traditions of Saint Lucia developed into a time of bringing light into darkness. This day comes with a special bread (Luciakattor), but even better,  an incredibly beautiful tradition of a singing 'Lucia train' or Luciatåg, and it was this that we first experienced. In short, Lucia, dressed in white and wearing a wreath of candles, and her train of maids, each dressed in white and with candle in hand, enter a darkened room, singing and parading through, bringing light and song.

At the Högskolan were treated to an early morning visit from Gävle's Lucia and Lucia maids who introduced me to the song that I linked at the beginning of the blog. This recording (assuming you hit play!) comes from Umeå University and has all of the enchanting and haunting feelings that were hinted at by our Gävle Lucia choir today and which made me fall in love the first time I heard it. This song has been stuck in my head all day and has been a lovely companion.

Similarly, the International English School (and dare I say every other daycare, junior, senior or high school in Sweden) had their own Lucia event (I am sure Richard will have something more to say about this in a later post ... stay tuned) ... hmmm .... looks like Blogger photo uploads just crashed. Stay tuned for more photos.

So lovely were the morning's celebrations that I decided to head to the cathedral in town this evening for a longer version. Together with Thomas and Hasse, I settled into a packed church pew for about an hour of beautiful song. I wish I had had our camera, but it was with Richard today. Still, I wanted to share some of the feel of the event so have turned to YouTube.

The first gives a sense of the Luciatåg entering the church or room.

Luciatåg entry - sure, candles on the head might be a fire hazard, but there is something rather magical about it too

This last video is a repeat of the song you hopefully clicked at the beginning of the blog post - and the song that might just be my new favourite carol. Like many of the Swedish songs there is a real focus on light at a very dark time of year. I will work on a translation and post later.  In any case, the video gives a sense of how big this tradition can be on a major stage:

perhaps my new favourite Christmas carol performed at Globen last year 
Jul, jul, strålande Jul - Christmas, Christmas, radiant Christmas

With only eight days to go till the shortest day, I can definitely see why this was a focus for Jul songs in Sweden. Last week I felt like a wind-up toy that was starting to wind down. The days are short. It has been rather cold when you consider everything we do begins with a walk or a cycle, and I think we are both a bit tired from a long autumn. Tack on a bout of illness each and two missed ski trips and you can imagine that it all adds up to a bit of an 'uggg' feeling. So I guess I needed a bit of light and song today.

It was a real delight to be introduced to some new Christmas songs, and I happily spent the hours listening to Sveriges Radio Jul Station while working away with MatLab (Sweden's Radio Christmas Station - click the classical link on the right side to listen). Maybe this was just the little boost I needed to help make the last few shortening days as enjoyable as the lengthening ones to follow!

Good night and Glad Lucia to all.

Thumbs up, Thumbs down

Every Thursday some of the guys from the senior English school head on over and play some 'footie' against some of the male staff at the junior school. I have never ever played soccer before, but it is a pretty fun sport.

Of course, as with learning any activity as an adult, you are acutely aware of how badly you suck at it on a level that a child could never appreciate: when I'm out of position and wasting energy on defense; when I'm not exactly sure where to go and be on offense; when I realize that kicking a ball at a net large enough to pass as the proverbial side of the barn is a deceptively simple proposition.

But it is good fun. The game usually transpires along this simple delineation: of the five of us from the senior school who usually come out, three are North Americans (and thus have never ever had much of anything to do with soccer before). Of the five or so from the junior school who come out and play, only one is a North American. Advantage: junior school.

A couple weeks ago whilst playing 'keeper' (that's European for goalie; it's different, but not nearly so disorienting as the fact that calling "time!" during a game means you have time to handle the ball before a defender closes on you, not that someone is calling a time out) a shot bounced off my hands awkwardly, leaving my right thumb inverted to it's usual position on my hand. Dislocation = thumbs down.

Besides knocking me down a peg below raccoons on the evolutionary hierarchy, this has made life mildly difficult to moderately annoying over the past couple of weeks. For instance, here is a photo of my lovely womanservant changing my bike tire to the lone (as in one) studded snow tire we could find in the size required by my army bike. We put it on the back.

pay no attention to the Ikea bags of laundry behind the curtain

For you bike geeks out there, the imperial measurement for my tire is 26" x 2"-1.5". It means absolutely nothing, as is best illustrated by the fact that tires marked as 26" x 2 - 1 1/2", while mathematically equivalent, are a completely different size. And yes, I did learn that lesson the 'buy and have to return it' way. The metric (aka, real) measurement for you geeks who are interested is 54-584 - in mm, naturally.


Here is the old slickster that came off, pictured next to the "dubb däck" who replaced him. While there are some cheapo Chinese models of spiked tires available, Nokians are definitely the preferred choice, and they are what Jennie and I are both rocking on our bikes (Jennie even has two dedicated winter tires for her studly self). They are awesome. And not just because they stick and grip to all forms of ice and snow, and remember: they don't put down salt over here (a really good call, in my opinion, by the way).

No. As further evidence of awesomeness, I also give you exhibit B:

also yes, bike geeks, speaking of size: those are the biggest nipples any of you have ever seen.
... come on, you were all thinking it.

Yes, that reads "Speed Hakkapeliitta." Speed. I have no idea what the Hakka-whatever part means in Finnish, and neither does ye old Google Translate, but really? "Speed" makes it awesome enough all by itself. Let us make no mention of its tenacious gripping qualities, or pay attention to its prodigious weight. Or that "speed" has absolutely nothing to do with its intended application. What should we call this tire, Finnish tire guys? "Speed-Something-with-double-consonant-and-vowel-sounds." Sure. Why not.

While I was still able to run with my sore thumb last week, I was feeling a little less willing as with all the snow we had gotten over the past couple of weeks I wanted to start up with the xc skiing. Alas, this was not to be. I had to content myself with scampering along the neatly plowed running paths at -15C.

a portrait of the artist about to freeze his effing arse off

I actually ended up having some of the best-feeling runs I've had in a while. Super cold running necessitates a more relaxed pace, which definitely felt nice. Plus, despite the near-perpetual dark and grey, we do live in a pretty little town. Between the picturesque river and the satisfying crunch of my stride in cold snow, I got in some great - if shorter than usual - jaunts. At that temperature, even dressing 'properly' (and I do have the goods these days) something starts to either get too warm and wet, or too cold, after about an hour.

We did finally get skiing with Catherine at Högbo on the weekend, and it was fantastic - well worth the purple accents it brought up on my still-healing thumb. And the mucus-fest the frigid temperatures brought to all of our faces. I've got joy like a fountain, in my nose.

no pictures from during the ski - only the after party. Too busy skiing

My mitten is still a little tender, but it is great to be skiing again.

I will leave you now, gentle readers, with one more image from the past week:

That is looking out from our bedroom window; that is what it looks like here at 15:00 in the afternoon now; and yes, believe it or not, that is an ice cream truck ... and someone is buying. The truck's siren song alerted me to its presence as I was walking home from school, and I immediately rushed to fetch the camera.

Swedish ice cream trucks do not just stock cornettos and the odd sandwich treat - they carry Ben & Jerry's pints, Haagen-Daas, two litre tubs of premium Swedish brand glass; you name it, you can get it from your friendly neighbourhood vendor. Even in December, when it is -17 freaking degrees outside.

I love it here. We're hitting the local xc ski loops at Hemlingby tomorrow - maybe the camera will not-freeze long enough for some shots.

In the midst of it all

I know I promised advents posts aplenty, but December 6th has a really different meaning for me than any other of the days in the advent season, and this year I wanted to share some names with anyone reading this so these names can live a little longer.

December 6th, 1989 was a terrible day in Canadian history for women's rights and academic freedoms and for our very basic history itself. On this day, late in the afternoon, a man entered the campus of the École Polytechnique in Montréal, Québec, separated female from male students, and shot dead 14 women. He also injured another 10 women and four men. And then he shot himself. He claimed he was fighting feminism. It never felt that way to me.


One of the things that has always bothered me is that I can easily remember his name. I don't want his name to be stored in my head, but it is strongly written there. Even worse, I don't remember all of the women's names. My friend Lynne wrote them bright and clear today for me to see, and I was so glad for them. I write them here now for you. And so that maybe one day I will remember their names alone.

Geneviève Bergeron

Hélène Colgan

Nathalie Croteau

Barbara Daigneault

Anne-Marie Edward

Maud Haviernick

Maryse Laganière

Maryse Leclair

Anne-Marie Lemay

Sonia Pelletier

Michèle Richard

Annie St-Arneault

Annie Turcotte

Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz