The Ten Mile
I just wrote a lengthy article to post here, which just got eaten by the Blogger software. So, since I am rather upset about this turn of events, you will have to get by with some photos.
Here is a video I took shortly after the start of the race at 23h00.
I ran the final, longest leg of the race, against guys like Holger Hott Johansen and Thierry Gueorgiou, both of whom are multiple world champions. I have them worried now, as they ponder who this unknown Canadian is that almost doubled their run time. (they ran the 16.8 km in 1:30 ish and I ran it in 2:45 ish). No seriously, they are scared. I can tell.
Start-finish area, which is normally the Eskilstuna speedway (car racing)
Doped headlamps
Here is a cool 3 minute report from SVT, Swedish television (equivalent to CBC), about the pressing national question of whether night-orienteering lamp technology has just, you know, gotten completely out of hand. Because making this nutty sport a bit easier with better lighting would just be besides the point. It is
supposed to be nutty, I suppose.
Even if you don't understand Swedish, it is worth a look because they have some good shots of night-o races. It gives you an idea of what it looks like to run through the woods at midnight.
If they really wanted to make this sport even more difficult, they could station volunteers at each control point to beat the competitors with sticks as they arrive. That would have the bonus of probably making for great TV.
Tiomila
Tiomila means "10 mile". Tio = ten, mila = mile.
It took me months to figure this out. It is a 10 mile, 10 person orienteering relay which is held in a different Swedish locale each year. I think I mentioned this before. Anyhow.
Oh, and a Swedish mile equals 10 kilometers. Small detail.
The race starts at 11 pm Saturday and runs non stop until there is a winner. Normally this takes about 8 or 9 hours, mostly through the night. This event is huge. While the 25 man relay I did last year is kind of more recreational in nature, Tiomila is deadly serious. It would be kind of like the Boston marathon of orienteering. It is right up there with the Finnish Jukola in terms of how important it is on the orienteering calendar.
I am running on the Umeå OK (my orienteering club) A-team, based mostly I assume on my result at Vasaloppet. I am also running the anchor leg because a) it should be during the day and b) it is really long: like 16 km. Both of these are key because I have repeatedly demonstrated my total incompetance in night time navigation starting with Army Phase training 13 years ago.
This could go two ways. If we are totally out of the hunt for any kind of result because someone screwed up their leg, my run will be reasonably pleasant and stress free. If however we are doing very well, this will make my job rather stressful, running clean-up for a team of guys who have been up all night and have a lot invested in the race. You can be sure I will be checking my controls two or three times to make sure I don't mispunch. That would be a bit awkward.
"Uh, sorry guys - I mispunched my third control and got the whole team disqualified. Hey! We are all human, right? Right? Uh - guys? "
Interestingly for a country so equality-aware, the women run a team of 5 and start at 14h00, so they only run during the day. I don't really understand this.
I will be running Sunday morning which means I will probably drive down Saturday morning. It is apparently a 7 hour car ride. The rest of the team is travelling in a sleeper train Friday night. I am bummed I will miss out on this (I
love sleeper trains) but we are 3 places short and it makes sense that me being the last runner goes down later than the rest. Ah well.
I also got some nice team warmups to wear. They are snazzy. It is all about the kit.
Swedish bikini team
I suppose it was just a matter of time before a blog about living in Sweden would broach the timeless subject of that most hallowed of national institutions, the national bikini team. For all the lowdown, click
here.
Back in Umeå
Hej!
For those who don't know or whom I didn't personally see, I was back in Canada for a week for the CIOR in between meeting in Toronto. I just got back a few hours ago and I am trying to stay awake until this evening to get over this jetlag.
I have been hearing noises about union problems at Arlanda airport with the baggage handlers, but today I got my first personal experience. Arriving on an international flight, you must pick up your baggage and then re-check it onto the domestic flight. It does not get transferred for you. Based on my observations today, I am going to guess that there are some sort of statistics kept about how long it takes between passenger deplaning and the first bags whicha arrive on the belt. From a customer service point of view, this seems logical. However, any system can be gamed...
I was towards the front of the plane and I walk fast so I was one of the first to arrive at the baggage belt for out flight. As I arrived, the belt started and the first bags began to arrive. The automated sign above the belt declared that the first bags from our flight were now available.
There were exactly two bags delivered. After that we all waited nearly a half hour before any other bags appeared.
My guess is that the workers get some kind of a bonus if they have really good time-to-first bag statistics. So as soon as the belly door opens, one designated guy grabs the first two bags and rushes them over to the delivery belt. After that, the workers can take their time and leisurely offload the remainder of the bags. Makes sense based on what I saw, anyhow. My only surprise is that they bothered bringing 2 bags. I am sure 1 would have been sufficient to punch their statistic.
Happily, my flight to Umeå was delayed because of crappy weather in Sweden (poor visibility and drizzly), so I didn't miss the last leg of my journey.
It is all in the name
As I was surfing around, I stumbled on
this interesting site authored by the very clever Dr. Jeffrey Lewis.
No, not the Jeffrey Lewis most of you know. The
other Dr. Lewis :
"is Director of the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative at the New America Foundation. Dr. Lewis is the author of Minimum Means of Reprisal: China’s Search for Security in the Nuclear Age (MIT Press, 2007). Dr. Lewis is a research affiliate with the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard University and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists."He is about an order of magnitude smarter than I will ever be. He is unquestionably an artsy type (Poli-sci is my guess) but he does it very well. Dr. Lewis researches and blogs about nuclear proliferation, uranium enrichment and big picture WMD stuff.
I study dirt and blog about Swedish coffee slurpers.
Heh.
Coffee slurping
It seems that just as I am settling in here and getting used to Swedish quirks and thinking I have really seen it all, I suddenly get hit by something that makes me realize there is still so much about this place I need to discover.
I was sitting at lunch today with several colleagues. Standard practise at lunch is to eat together and then whoever is finished eating first takes the coffee orders for the whole table and goes to the machine to fetch the 5-8 mugs. Today I was sitting with a colleague I don't often sit with and he asked for a lump of sugar. Instead of putting it in the coffee and letting it dissolve, he held it in his teeth and slurped the coffee over the lump. I sat there with my mouth open then started to laugh. I thought he was intentionally trying to be absurd.
Nope.
Turns out, this is a common practise among older Swedes. Wait, it gets better.
The folks at my table also told me that it is common practise among older Swedes to take their mug of coffee and pour it into the saucer, then slurp the coffee from the saucer (with the lump of sugar between your teeth). The reasoning is sound: Coffee here is steeped, not perked, so it is usually extremely hot. Pouring it into the saucer lets it cool enough to... well, to slurp.
I have not personally seen this - yet. However, I will be watching closely the next time I go to a coffee shop.
And no, this was not a late April Fools joke. At least, I am pretty sure it wasn't. Everyone seemed quite sincere. Hmmm....
Cultural differences as seen through a compass
Over at the
OKansas blog there have been a few posts recently about the differences between orienteers in the U.S. (which I will extend to Canada) and Sweden. There are a few interesting and valid points brought up, but one of the stories he recounts made me think of something almost identical that happened to me last fall.
I was running a classic distance race just outside of Umeå and was doing reasonably well. For me, that means running fast and just being on the edge of losing track of where I am on the map. I was running in a beautiful open forest with some good rock features and was just finishing a fairly long (1 km or so) leg. I was on the edge of losing contact with the map, and some of the features weren't lining up the way I expected, so I stopped to relocate. I was standing there for maybe 5 seconds when a little kid (I would guess maybe 11 to 13 years old) ran up to me and asked (in English) if I knew where we were. I felt kind of bad because I wanted to help him, but I really wasn't 100% sure where we were. So just as I was about to say this, he points at my map and says "We are here, just beside that rock."
Ah. How to make a grown Canadian feel like a moron in 1 easy step. And I agree with OKansas: that would never, ever happen in North America.
Some pics from Denmark
Squatters paradise: Christiania(aka: how a third world country would look if it were run by hippies)
Oh crap
I was just invited onto Facebook for the first time, and therefore had my first reason to sign up. I feel even more of my life getting sucked into the on-line time pit...
Denmark
Nice place. I will happily return, despite the lack of snow.
As you may have figured out from my last post, I was kindly hosted by a Danish couple I had never even met before, Rolf Lund and Lene Jensen. If you are Danish, you may have heard of Rolf, because he has sold over 100 000 cookbooks (in a country of 6 million). They are basically books about cooking well on a shoestring. He has published six books, all called "Fattig røvens". Apparently this is an expression which describes someone who is poor but happy, or so Rolf explained to me. Rolf is also an amazing orienteer, at 50 he kicks my ass. I don't feel bad, though, because he is national champion in his age group, and is a former national team member. Same with Lene. We got along like a house on fire. Lene keeps chickens in the backyard, in the middle of town. Apparently municipal regulations are flexible about keeping livestock within town limits. I thought this was awesome, and of course with Rolf's culinary skills I enjoyed fresh eggs in the morning and amazing meals for dinner.
Rold and Lene live up in Helsingør. This may ring a bell, because Shakespeare set Hamlet in the castle in Helsingør. You know, the whole "Romeo, oh Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo" thing.
Uh, wait, thats not right is it?
Um... "Out! out! damn spot!" ?
Heh heh. Uh, maybe not. Hey, I'm an engineer! Cut me some slack here.
"To be or not to be, that is the question"
That's it, I knew it would come eventually. So yeah, Hamlet was set in that very town, which even as an engineer I thought was pretty cool. Although Shakespeare apparently never set foot there.
Helsingør castle was built at the narrowest point between Sweden and Denmark, so the Danes could levy stiff taxes on any ships sailing the straits. Since it was the only way to get to ports in Germany, this was apparently quite lucrative for the Danes for a few centuries.
Orienteering was quite good too. By that I mean I didn't embarrass myself and placed solidly middle of the pack for the two classic races Thursday and Friday. I even managed to improve quite a bit between the two days. I think orienteering is one of the best ways to visit a place, because you get to see the countryside in rather intimate detail. Also, the races tend to be in rather pretty areas. If you go to an orienteering race, you are kind of guaranteed to see something nice.
Copenhagen was also nice, with the exception of the freak show that is Christiania.
Christiania is basically a holdover commune from the '70s. Hippies tore down a fence on an abandoned military base and declared themselves the free state of Christiania in 1971. They have been there ever since - a population fluctuating between 800 and 1000. They are all about free love, man, and peace and contentment, and new age and all that.
Also, they are apparently all about ramshackle buildings, lots of graffitti and so many drugs, the main street is actually named "Pusher street." I found it quite charming to be told in no uncertain terms by a guy who was clearly not getting much of that free love that if I didn't stop taking photos, I would "regret it". Allllready then. So much for this Free Love social experiment with no central government, hum? Apparently, the Danish government has been getting antsy over the past few years to retake Christiania (it is in a very prime location), and they have set the wheels in motion for this to happen. The only thing I find surprising about this is that it hasn't happened sooner. Denmark has basically allowed a bunch of people to live here tax and rent free for over 30 years. For some reason, Lonely Planet (who publish tourist books) finds it tragic that this brave social experiment will soon be snuffed out. All I can say as a visitor is: get on with it, already. This place gave me the creeps. Interesting fact (from Rolf): for all their idealism about inclusion and equality etc etc, there are no immigrants at all in Christiania. Interesting.
However, Copenhagen as a whole is a great city, with a really nice pedestrian mall that is apparently the longest outdoor mall in the world. I also rather enjoyed the smørbrod and schnapps. Smørbrod is just a fancy name for an open face sandwich, but the Danes are known for it, and they elevate it to an art. I heartily encourage anyone visiting to go to Cap Horn on Nyhavn. This is probably the most photographed street in Copenhagen, and rightfully so. Although I suspect I was doing a typical tourist thing by eating there, I still recommend it. It was delish.
10 rules for being a gracious visitor
1) Don't ever talk about yourself unless asked. If asked, reply briefly, completely and honestly then use the subject to lead into a question for your host. Do not exaggerate anything, ever.
2) Ask lots of questions. Be curious and show a genuine interest in your hosts and your host's interests.
3) Always smile and be enthusiastic. Again, be genuine. Nothing is worse than fake enthusiasm. Never, ever say anything negative about anyone or anything under any circumstances. Nobody likes bad energy, regardless of whether it is true or not.
4) Help out in a small chore without being asked. Helping out in a big chore will probably make your host uncomfortable no matter how much you insist you want to do it.
5) Be neat.
6) Do your bed.
7) Be effusive in your praise and thank your host repeatedly. Once again, be genuine.
8) Go with the flow. You do not dictate the pace of things in someone else's home.
9) Make an honest effort to speak their language, even if you butcher it. The effort is always appreciated. At the very least, learn how to say 'Thank you' and 'Please' in their language.
10) Put on your shoes before final goodbyes. If you say goodbye
then put on your shoes, there is always a minute or two of awkward silence when neither of you know quite what to say.
These rules are not negotiable if you wish to leave a good impression and hope to be invited back. When people host you, they probably realize that the chances of being repaid in kind are very slim. They host you because you seem nice and interesting and because everyone enjoys the feeling of altruism. As a guest you need to understand these motivations and do your part to fulfill your end of the bargain.
You know you are doing well when your hosts offer to set you up with their neices within 24 hours of meeting them.
Vikings and Andre Boisclair
I will put money down that that title has never appeared anywhere in any format, in the history of the world.
I have been reading up on the Danish Viking history. They put a lot more stock in their Viking past than the Swedes do. Even more than the Norwegians, it seems. And in reading about these Vikings, it has occurred to me that many of these guys had awesome names. Erik the Red! Canute the Great! Magnus the Strong! Now those are names of
leaders. Which brings us to Andre Boisclair, whose family name can arguably be translated from French as "Smoothwood". I could easily insert an inappropriate joke here, but will refrain out of respect for wood products. For my non-Canadian readership, Andre is the first openly gay leader of the separatist Parti Quebecois.
I think that there should be a rule allowing the population to vote on a public figure's name one year after they have come to office. I think this would keep a lot of politicians on the straight and narrow. Who would want to be tagged with a name like "The dishonest" or "the adulturer" for the rest of their lives? Here are some of my offerings.
Stephane Dion the Green (or: the Floundering)
Jack Layton the Irrelevant
Sheila Fraser the Honest
Stephen Harper the Scary (ed. note: I don't particularly subscribe to this, but if the names were voted on, I think the population of the Greater Toronto Area would wrap this up pretty quickly)
Segolene Royal the Surprising
Andre Boisclair the Smoothwood. (You just can't improve on that, really)
Other suggestions? Lets hear them!
Big Question: Who in Canadian politics would warrant the moniker "The Great"? Historical figures count.
Copenhagen
Nobody jaywalks here. Ever.
I have stood at a street crossing with at least two dozen people with no traffic
at all in either direction for over 100 meters and still everyone patiently waited for the green pedestrian sign to go on. When I stepped into the street to cross, there was an audible gasp from the assembled crowd. I kid you not.
Denmark
I am off to the first orienteering races of the season in Denmark this morning.
Unlike Norway, I cannot say that Denmark has been a country I have been itching to see. I am happy to add it to my list of visited nations because it is Scandinavian, but in my mind, Denmark has always been the poor second cousin of her her northern neighbours because 1) it is small and 2) it has no snow. Somehow, a Scandinavian country without snow just seems very wrong. And I need not mention that Denmark has no skiers worthy of any note, a serious black mark on any country in my books.
OK, OK, I know that Denmark has a proud history and that it was actually the seat of the kingdom over all Scandinavia at one point. Plus I have heard they have excellent orienteering, which is a plus. I will reserve my final opinion on the matter until I have actually been there.
I get back Sunday evening, photos to follow.
Happy Easter, everybody!
Enough
I have put a lot of thought into this over the past few weeks, and I've decided that writing this blog has just become too onerous. It isn't as much fun as it used to be, and it takes a surprising amount of time. So, this will be my last post.
April fools!
Wedding part III
"I just wanted to cut the crap."
That would be the quote of the day, folks. Following the ceremony (which took 5 minutes, tops) I congratulated Jörgen and Eva on a the great plan for their wedding: outdoors and brief. The above was Jörgen's cheerful reply.
Afterwards we repaired to the Stöcke community center for the reception, where I was introduced to another most excellent Swedish tradition: guys are allowed - nay, encouraged! - to make out with the bride if you should catch her when the groom is out of the room. Since Eva was looking particularly hot, this tradition was scrupulously observed. I found it a bit odd, but hey, when in Rome... :-) Ladies, you should know that of course in the Swedish People's Republic of Equality, this tradition goes both ways, and I watched Jörgen get mauled by Eva's aunt.
Here are some pics.
Bride and groom. Notice wood smoke drifting around. Cool.
Swedish dress at weddings: three piece suits and hiking boots.
Swedish wedding, or auditions for The Matrix IV? You be the judge.
Start-finish area, which is normally the Eskilstuna speedway (car racing)
"Welcome to Tiomila" You know, in Swedish
The inside of our team tent at about 2 am
Riding the biggest darned Dalarna horse ever. Taken in a hotel after I ran 16.8 km. That is my excuse. 
