Phase I: Complete.

As most of you know, this summer I'm doing research on the Church of Sweden (Svenskakrykan). As of Wednesday evening, I have completed the first part of the research, which consisted of doing 7 interviews with various Church officials about the Church of Sweden.

A week from today, I made my first trek out of Stockholm to a small-ish town about 45 minutes away from Stockholm, called Uppsala. Uppsala is the "hub" (if you will) for the Church of Sweden. I met with some theologians about the consequences of accepting gay marriage into their theology. He gave me some interesting perpsectives on the subject, most of which did not even focus on the Bible. He spoke about ecumenism within the Church, and the Church's insistence on "loving the neighbor." There seemed to be less focused on strict readings of the Bible (and dare I say the Bible at all).

That Sunday I met with a former priest in the Church of Sweden, who gave me a much different, more evangelical-sounding account of the situation in the Church of Sweden. His perspectives centered around particular passages in the Bible.

On Monday I journeyed back to Uppsala, this time to meet with the ARCHBISHOP of the Church. For those of you unfamiliar with the Church of Sweden's heirarchy, he is the leader of the Church. I had built him up to be this really powerful, Wizard of Oz sort of character, only to find him of normal stature and very personable. I felt so lucky to be speaking with him, but he commented that I looked tired. He blamed it on the jet lag, and I happily took his scapegoat. In reality I haven't been sleeping as well as I'd like. Jon came up for the afternoon, so we grabbed dinner at a chinese restaurant. It's really interesting how different chinese buffets in Sweden are. Have experienced two different buffets, I can attest that they don't have General Tso's Chicken, which is a staple in American buffets.

On Tuesday, I met with Eva Brunne, the Bishop-elect of Stockholm. She is the first openly lesbian bishop, and she lives in a civil partnership with her wife. I thought she'd be really important to my study because she was an active queer in the Church, but she said her experience hasn't been that bad in the Church. Maybe her experience is different than others, or maybe I just really wanted it to be bad so I could show how much better it was getting. It could be that the Church of Sweden has been really accepting of homosexuals for some time.

After meeting with Eva, I went to the Gym and did my first real work out of the summer. It felt good to get back into the groove. I've missed having that part of my routine. I've decided to go to the core class and the yoga class. The core class wasn't really bad; I've always had pretty strong core. But the yoga class SUCKED! It was soooooo much harder than I ever expected. Holding those poses for several minutes BURNS. But I think it's gonna really help me with flexibility. Afterwards, I got this delicious salad. See above. mmm.

Then Wednesday I made my longest trek so far, all the way to Karlstad, Sweden. It was pretty hot all day, so sitting in a metal train car was not my idea of a good time, but while the train was moving, we had a pretty good breeze. Unfortunately, about five minutes from the Karlstad station, I heard this whistle blow. In the back of my mind I had this bad feeling, but I wrote it off as paranoia. About a minute later, the train stopped. My curtain was closed to keep out the sun, but from the window across from me I saw a big body of water. I hoped that this train station just had a really great view of the water, but when I looked out my own window, I saw another lake. We had stopped just minutes from Karlstad. There was a message in Swedish, but I couldn't understand it. But I managed to pick up on the general tone of the train...a hush fell across the entire car. A few minutes later, an Englishman announced that the train had hit a man (an apparent suicide). For the next three hours, we waited as the authorities did an investigation and cleaned up the remains/train. I ended up being about 3 hours late for my meeting, but luckily the Bishop I was meeting was still in his office. We had an excellent conversation with him and one of his chaplains. Afterwards, I was to tired and all I wanted to do was go home. I grabbed some dinner before heading back to Stockholm, very tired and overwhelmed.

Mid-Summer and Swedish meatballs

When I started this blog, I figured it would be pretty hit or miss with the updates. Apparently, it's been more miss than hit, but I wanted to sit down and update you all on my adventures from the past few weeks.

Mid-Summer is a holiday the Swedes have to celebrate the longest day of the year. Apparently, everyone leaves the city for their country homes, leaving the restaurants and shops closed for the weekend and us with very little to do. Luckily, we heard about a festival being held at Skansen. Skansen is this outdoor museum/zoo (think Renaissance Fair meets zoo). For those of you in Massachusetts, it's a lot like Old Sturbridge Village. Our Point sponsor Jeff had invited his two friends from Munich, Tilo and Johanna, to enjoy the weekend. So we all headed over to the park to enjoy the festivities. All the events center around a giant may pole set up in the middle of the park, where kids and adults alike dance around. With the clouds in the background, it looks pretty ominous, and to tell you the truth, it wasn't the prettiest of sites.

The rest of the afternoon we spent going through the zoo. I saw my first reindeer (which happened to have a pretty red nose). There were elk, brown bears, and some other "nordic wildlife." Because it's spring, there were tons of baby animals wandering around the pens, so that was cool to see.

That evening, we went to this place called "Berns." It is this asian style restaurant housed in an old hotel lobby. It has a 1920's art deco theme. You walk and to the right is a two story mirror that reflects the entire scene onto the wall. There is a balcony the wraps around the entire area where people congregate as the night goes on--there are five bars upstairs alone, so it becomes the hot spot after 10pm. We enjoyed a delicious meal and then headed upstairs to one of the bars and had some drinks. It seemed like within a few minutes the entire restaurant and all the bar areas were packed and there was a huge line waiting to get in. I was in the hottest party in town...for the first time in my life.

The next day, Tilo, Johanna, and I rode bikes around the island that Skansen is on. It was a really nice ride, following the coast line. We saw a few of the Sail boats from the Volvo race doing some test runs, manuevered through the canals of the inner island, and found our way back to the apartment (some how). Since it was Jeff, Biv, Tilo, and Johanna's last night in town, we decided to go to a really easy dinner and just enjoy each other's company. We trekked over to the Old City (Gamla Stan). I scanned the menu as I always do, trying to figure out the menu in Swedish, before resorting to the English italics underneath. As a made my way down the menu, my eyes hit the magic words: SWEDISH MEATBALLS! When I first heard about the Swedish internship, the only thing I knew from Sweden was meatballs, so to finally see them on the menu was overwhelming. My decision was made.

Swedish Meatballs are much different than we make them in America. For starters, in America we tend to serve them with like a pasta dish, kind of as a nordic equivalent to Italian spaghetti and meatballs. However, true Swedes will eat Swedish meatballs as its own dish...they stand alone without the pasta. My meal was meatballs, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. The second difference I noticed was in the taste. Swedish meatballs in America tend to have a very ground beef flavor to them, the same way an italian meatball might. However, from my experience with Swedish meatballs, they taste a lot like corned beef...but in that unique ball form. Overall, I was really happy with the meal. (Ashley, this one's for you!)

Religion in Sweden

After a week in Stockholm, I thought I should write about my initial impressions of religion in Stockholm. Yesterday, I traveled to Uppsala, Sweden for a meeting and interview with Goran Moller, a theologian in the Church of Sweden--Svenska Kyrkan. He was an older man, probably sixty five, with a very thick Swedish accent (when Swedes speak English, they sound very British). He made some interesting points about the Church's position on many social issues. As a Church, they follow the sentiments of the majority in the country.

On my way home from Uppsala, I met this guy, Johan. He works as a particle physicist in Lucerne, but grew up in Sweden. He told me that most people in Sweden don't really go to Church. Johan suggested that people "liked" the Church of Sweden, but that it had become to watered down. It didn't provide anything structured for their lives. There is no reason to dislike the Church, but no real reason for it to be an important part of their life.

As far as I can see, there is a traditional Swedish religious life. Children are baptized into the church and go through confirmation classes, before paying taxes to the Church. By paying taxes to the Church, they are allowed to vote for representatives in the parliament. As a tax paying member of the Church of Sweden, Swedes can get married in the Church and get buried in the cemetary. Other than that, there is really no other benefit to membership.

Despite all this supposed religious indifference, there are still those in Sweden who think that the Church has too much power on the government. In the metro station near my apartment, there was a sign funded by the humanists. The billboard reads: "God probably does not exist. Yet He still affects most people's decisions." Humanists want to minimize the affects that "God talk" have on social issues. Despite most people not believing in God or the Church, the Church still becomes the way to define themselves. The Parliament is divided into several different religious parties, and non-religious people (like Johan) vote in elections in order to prevent "conservative" parties from gaining to much power in the country.

I think Church's inability to divorce itself from the state's decisions is an interesting topic that I will investigate further in the future.

Greetings from Stockholm!
It's been five days since I arrived in Stockholm, and I wanted to update you on some of my favorite parts so far. On the first full day in Stockholm, Jon and I went on an excursion to see the Old City. Stockholm is made of like 14 different islands, the oldest of which they call the "Old City" (creative right?). Sweden is one of only a handful of countries that were neutral in WWII, so the Old City is very well preserved. While walking through the streets, we found this really small coffee shop near the Noble Museum. The waiters were really awesome and the coffee was awesome. In the following picture, the coffee shop is in the orange-melonish colored building.

Here I am with my mochaccino bianco...writing in my journal and trying to fit in.

Jon's tea and dostovesky book, my coffee and journal...

Jeff and Michael are our Point sponsor's for this summer. They L-O-V-E the Ballet, especially Swan Lake, so when they found out the Swedish Ballet was performing its 600 show of Swan Lake, they had to get tickets. The ballet was at the opera house "Operan."

"Svansjon" ie Swan Lake

Jon and I at the ballet.

This was during the first of FOUR intermissions. A little bit excessive. So it's 8:30 pm and it looks like its mid-day...right. That's how crazy the time is here.

10:45 pm, walking home from the ballet.

Last night we went to the IceBar with Jon, Jeff, Michael, and Bev (Michael and Jeff's friend). The bar is sooooo cool. They basically create a bar completely out of ice. Every month they take a day and melt down the bar and recreate it. It's sponsored by Absolut so they serve mixed drinks in the bar. You can only stay in for 45 minutes, becacuse its sooo cold in there.

Yeah, we had to wear parka's, because my huge coat wasn't enough lol
The group...Michael, Jeff, Me, Jon, and Biv (Richard...long story).

Hej Doh

T-Minus One Week

So I'm leaving for Stockholm in one week and thought I should start this blog. Yesterday I had lunch with Jon at Ciao Time. We talked about our trip to Sweden and caught up with each other.

Here are some pictures of our apartment in Stockholm.

This is the park down the street from my apartment. It looks pretty dreary in this picture from late April, but I'm hoping it gets prettier in the summer. If nothing else, I'll have some flat areas to do some running.

This is the street leading up to my apartment building. I LOVE the colors! So European!

This is the front door that leads to my apartment. Notice the guy in the window. That's Michael. He's one of the guys who is funding my trip to Sweden this summer!!! THANKS MICHAEL!

This is the living room. Can you say breakfast BALCONY!!!! I knew one day I'd get my balcony.

This is the view of the living room from the balcony.

This is the kitchen, for all those meals I will fail miserably at preparing. Atleast I'll do it on something besides a camping stove.

Bedroom #1

and #2