Kräftor

When we were at the beach the other day, I met two of "our new countrymen" - or Sweden's new, I suppose, who asked me if I were local and how far it was to drive to Gothenburg. I couldn't really say for sure, but estimated around 3 hours from Malmö and this was 40 mins from Malmö too. A series of misunderstandings on the grounds of slight idiosyncracies in Norwegian and Swedish lead to the following conversation (and yes, this might seem like a stupid reconstruction):

Me: So you're here on holiday?
Dude1: No we're driving.
Me: < dumb look — pause >
Me: I mean holiday (in Swedish). Are you driving around the coast of Sweden for your hoiliday?
Dude2: Doh, don't you understand Norwegian? Haven't you assimilated? To assimilate you need to understand Norwegian, that's part of being Swedish!

I thought this was kind of a strict definition of assimilation and integrating into the Swedish society, but in a sense he's right. And I'm trying to assimilate in Sweden. Today we had a little crayfish party. Real Swedish, with aquavit (we finished the last of John's stash) and dill potatoes. We're assimilating alright.

These creatures are pretty disgusting though, if you think about it. Like bugs. So are shrimps. Even chicken can be repulsive, if you buy a carcass and you pick it apart, tearing the flesh from its bones. Sometimes I'm almost a vegetarian soul. As we all know, meat is highly inefficient energy use. And while I do enjoy buying locally produced food, I'm skeptical towards buying Danish porc, if it's bred on Brasilian soy beans which have been transported in large quantities. Then it's better eco-economy to buy Brasilian meat, perhaps. But, the base line, I suppose is to be a conscious and critical consumer, and know what you're buying and reduce meat consumption and transport weightlenght.

Anyways - our crayfish was from China. I talk the talk...

I took some pictures from our monsterparty.