Sunshine and Vikings

Saturday in between breakfast and my unusual trip to the theatre was somewhat messed up by the unexpected and startling appearance of the sun. Having lost a couple of toes and grown mildew in unmentionable places tramping around stalking fictional characters the day before, I’d decided to spend Saturday coming over all cultured in museums. I’d picked out the museums I was going to go to, and had even worked out a route to avoid further frostbite to extremities, so was entirely discombobulated to wake up on Saturday morning to find the city blinking in bright sunshine.

It’s an unwritten rule of being Scottish that one must never, under any circumstances, waste an instant of sunshine indoors. While people from warmer climates can blithely carry on their day safe in the knowledge that it will likely be sunny the next day or the day after, in Scotland summer generally lasts a matter of hours, so the instant that unfamiliar light stuff peeks through thick grey clouds we all drop what we’re doing, coat ourselves in olive oil and fling ourselves on the pavement. So clearly, my museum plan needed to be re-thought.

I decided to walk up to something labelled on my map as “Viking Terminal” which sounded suitably exciting and mysterious – the place where the Vikings came to an end? I marched up a slushy and cracked pavement that ran between a dual carriage way and the Baltic Sea – from which a biting wind ignored the sun and howled, apparently just round my head (honestly, I could see people in t shirts and flip flips barely meters from where I walked in my own private North Pole expedition). No matter, I thought to myself, it will all be worth it to see whatever this Viking… thing is that I will reach any moment. It must be behind that bloody great ferry I can see up ahead.

Ah. Or, it IS the bloody great ferry I can see up ahead. The Viking Terminal turned out to be the ferry Terminal for the Viking line that goes to Finland. So basically I’d walked along a slushy and cracked pavement in my own private North Pole expedition, to look at a mini version of Dover. It was all worth it though, when I saw the sign reading “Viking Check-in” which conjured fabulous mental images of a queue of giant hairy dreadlocked blokes with horned helmets and possibly the head of an Anglo-Saxon tucked under their arm, queuing up with their passport and hoping for a window seat.

I idled what remained of the afternoon away wandering through neighbourhoods consisting of endless coffee shops, a video shop where I tried and failed to find DVDs of Swedish films not released in Britain (every DVD I found turned out to be an American film, sadly), a supermarket where I bought some salty liquorice for my friend Maja (after first polling everyone shopping there to ensure that someone in their right mind would actually want salty liquorice and I hadn’t mistranslated her request), and possibly a park or possibly someone’s front garden (less said on that the better).

Just as the sun was sinking, I made my way back to Slussen and decided I had time for one more mini-exploration before it was time to forage for some dinner (and, as it would turn out, a school play). I managed to translate a sign by a passenger boat that read “next departure 5 minutes” so to celebrate I bought a ticket and got on the boat hoping vaguely that it wasn’t going to Finland.

It was in fact going to an absolutely brilliant place called Djurgården (bashing some icebergs on the way which was excellent) – though it ended up proving the only disappointment of the trip as I got there too late to explore it as I would have wanted to. Not only was it starting to get dark, but the last trip back to Slussen was leaving about 20 minutes after I’d arrived and I wasn’t sure enough of where I was to attempt to get back any other way. So I zoomed around what looked like beautiful gardens with intriguing statues and beautiful museums and even a funfair (though that was closed) and then collapsed back on the return boat slightly out of breath.

I did manage to fit in a quick return trip to Djurgården and the Nordic Museum the following day, where I discovered a swing band playing and mostly elderly people lindy hopping, which cemented my impression of Djurgården as a fabulous place I definitely want to return to.

So that was it. Nearly three decades of Swedophelia and my first trip there did nothing to dampen my ardour. There is definitely a predictable (though far from unpleasant) efficiency and cleanliness; but anywhere with porn in mainstream shop windows, teenage Goths demanding opinions on Afghanistan and the eloquent homeless man deeply put out by the gentrification of Södermalm is far from bland. They’re not effusively welcoming in the way that Americans and Canadians can be, where, if you stand on a street corner holding a map and looking confused hoards of people will all but trample you in their eagerness to give you directions and introduce you to all their family; I stood on many, many street corners in Stockholm holding a map and looking confused and the people cheerfully left me to it. But if I made the effort to approach them, they couldn’t have been lovelier, and their dry humour and quirky friendliness put me in mind, oddly enough, of Glaswegians (albeit taller and infinitely more gorgeous). I’m making plans for a train trip this summer through Northern Europe that will take in Stockholm – though this time will study a map in advance and be sure to watch out for statues of August Strinberg.

Förstår Du?

After an inadvertent pub crawl from Kvarnen back to my hotel (don’t ask), I decided that a bit of Swedish telly (and a very large glass of water) was in order before turning in. It was then that I discovered possibly the best television programme ever invented. It seems to consist of teams of people who sing at one another (presumably competing in some way, though I could never decipher how) in turns, cheesy British and American pop, and what appears to be Swedish folk songs. What’s even better, is that the studio audience joins in, with quite a bit of enthusiasm and clapping along. What’s even better than that, is that the lyrics play along the bottom of the screen so that the audience at home can also join in, presumably with quite a bit of enthusiasm and clapping along, though I can’t speak for anyone but myself. I’m not sure when I have passed a Friday evening post-pub more pleasantly.

Saturday morning was then passed rather quietly and with no sudden movements, in a coffee shop with a large cup of tea and a book, though I spent most of the time with my book in my lap, watching the world go by and listening to conversations I didn’t understand. It hit me that, while I’ve travelled alone in North America, Australia and France, and visited plenty of other countries with friends or family, this was the first time I’d been alone in a country where I didn’t speak the language. It’s an odd feeling, variously exhilarating and disconcerting. Of course there are about seven people in all of Scandinavia that don’t speak better English than I do, but there is a difference between someone specifically speaking English for me and being able to pick up what is generally going on around me.

The night before, people remembering to speak English for me had been inversely proportional to the amount of beer consumed, but the more I drank the more I was convinced I could speak Swedish anyway, so it all worked out. I was quite happily flinging around ‘hej’s and ‘tack’s by this point, and even the odd ‘varsågod’ (you’re welcome/there you go), but sadly ‘hej’ and ‘tack’ and even the odd ‘varsågod’ does not fluent in Swedish make, as I discovered when I tried to express… well anything else really.

Pronunciation is the biggest stumbling block. Swedish grammar isn’t desperately complicated (and as someone who starts to sweat when possessive apostrophes are misused, a language which lacks possessive apostrophes altogether is frankly heaven), and their vocabulary, in comparison with English, isn’t huge. I’d noticed that when watching Swedish films: the subtitles might read “good”, “great”, “enough”, “fine”, but the characters would say ‘bra’ for each. So getting the basics in hand in my head wasn’t a giant challenge, but actually making myself understood to a Swedish person is another matter altogether.

When I’d left my new friends the night before I’d said “Trevligt att träffas” (nice to meet you) and they’d all looked at me blankly. I think we all remember what happened when I’d attempted a “vilken vacker utsikt” so there’s no need to repeat it. In three and a bit days I did not once manage to communicate effectively “talar du engelska” (do you speak English), and every time had to repeat myself in English. When you make more sense to Swedish people in English than you do in Swedish, you’re definitely doing something wrong.

That evening, I took a notion to see some theatre (I wasn’t up for another night of drinking and everything at the cinema was subtitled American movies which seemed a bit pointless), so decided on a whim to head for Södra Teatern and buy a ticket for whatever was on that evening. Determined to make myself understood, just once, in Swedish, I rehearsed “en biljett för ikväll, tack” all the way and was thrilled beyond words when the Box Office lady didn’t look at me blankly but nodded… and then said a lot of words I didn’t understand.

I could, of course, have swallowed my pride and asked her to repeat what she’d said in English but I was loathe to bring my moment in the speaking Swedish sun to an and, so I just nodded enthusiastically in a “yes yes I understood all that perfectly thanks” sort of way and proffered some money. She shrugged and handed me my ticket, and so chuffed was I at my minor triumph that it took me a minute to notice that everyone in the auditorium was roughly around the same age. And they all seemed to know one another. Which is somewhat unusual for a theatre audience.

Shrugging and putting it down to some engaging Swedish quirk, I settled down in my seat to watch a production of…

Well it was a school play.

That will have been those words I didn’t understand then. Saturday night in Stockholm and I watched teenagers singing and dancing with a load of Swedish mums and dads. It was fabulous. Unquestionably the most entertaining night at the theatre I've spent in a while, and thanks to the brilliant overacting of schoolkids, I probably followed it better than I would have had it been the subtle wordplay of some Pinter-esque kitchen sink drama. There were even opportunites to clap along, and I think we've established that there can never be too many opportunities to clap along in my opinion.

Skål

My wits recovered (well as much as ever), I was off to Hornsgatan and a coffee shop that not only features in the books but was apparently a hangout of author Steig Larsson. A little way up Hornsgatan, I noticed a bookshop across the road so darted over to see if they had a Swedish phrase book I could buy, as clearly Teach Yourself Swedish Chapter 1 (and part of 2) wasn’t getting me very far. They didn’t, but the lady behind the counter kindly wrote down a couple of survival phrases for me (including “I don’t speak Swedish”). Next door to the bookshop I couldn’t help but notice a coffee shop that appeared to be packed with men gorgeous enough to make me as dizzy as August Strindberg had. Even allowing for the fact that quite a few of them were suffering under the unfortunate predilection for moustaches that seems to afflict the men of Sweden, it was quite a startling sight. But I had no time to drool, I was on a Larsson mission! So, with difficulty I tore myself away from the Coffee Shop of the Beautiful Men and charged on down Hornsgatan. After stopping for a brief lunch in a sandwich shop owned by a man who had lived in Nigeria and Orange County, CA and now wouldn’t live anywhere but Stockholm, I arrived unexpectedly at the end of Hornsgatan. Which was when I was confronted with the uncomfortable fact that my map ended long before Södermalm did. And I was lost.

After a little bit of hopeful wandering that reminded me I’m entirely over confident with regards to my sense of direction, I was just about to admit defeat and, well panic really as there wasn’t much else to do (I was on a main road with traffic whooshing by, but very little in the way of other pedestrians to approach for directions), when a man appeared apparently out of nowhere (that’ll be another sodding Viking ghost then). Or a homeless man, asking me for a light. Pleased that I was able to respond jag pratar inte Svenska as I’d just been taught, I was a bit thrown when he – humblingly in perfect English – begged to differ as the fact that I’d said I couldn’t speak Swedish in Swedish rendered it untrue. Which was perfectly reasonable if somewhat disconcerting from a homeless man. He turned out to be extremely kind, and walked me back to where my map started, giving me a running commentary on the area as we went. Apparently Hornsgatan was all factories in the seventies. Who knew?

Another bit of frustrated wandering, turning my map this way and that in a vain attempt to find this mystical-bloody-coffee-shop that appeared not to exist, I finally rounded a corner to discover that the coffee shop I’d spent the entire afternoon looking for was… of course it was… the Coffee Shop of Beautiful Men that I’d clocked hours previously. And most of the Beautiful Men appeared to have now gone home. Sigh. A cup of tea was welcome in any case, and there was a very kind man (fairly beautiful) behind the bar who taught me to say “more water please” in Swedish and helped me translate a review of The Hurt Locker in a local newspaper. A group of men in the corner (not particularly beautiful) were having a lively debate – political I’d like to think, though let’s face it they could have been talking about broccoli for all I’d know – and I felt as though I could imagine Larsson ensconced in the corner with his laptop (did he write on a laptop? Who knows) listening to the debates and churning out his story. Course I might simply still have been hallucinating from the Strindberg blow.

One advantage to getting lost was that I, completely accidentally, stumbled across Lundagatan, where Salander lives in the first book, and Mimmi in the second. I'd imagined it'd be a reasonably, err, less than salubrious area, but it didn't seem to be, particularly. Not as picturesque as some others, it's a neighbourhood of fairly non-descript apartment buildings, but perfectly alright otherwise. That said, a drunk man did lean out of an upstairs window and shout at me, which was kind of awesome. Now I think about it, quite a few people shouted at me in Swedish. I wonder why I'm dying to go back?

Having made it also to Blomkvist's flat, I'm dying to go back and read the third (well all!) book again, as it's so steep and the cobblestoned street outside so narrow that I can't imagine how anyone could have kept it under surveillance. Fictional secret people apparently have impressive surveillance skills.

Evening was drawing in again, so I decided that I deserved the last stop on my Millennium tour: Kvarnen bar, hangout of Evil Fingers. Where it seemed rude not to sample some Swedish beer. Then I made friends with some lovely guys at the table next to me. And learned to enthusiastically shout ‘skål’ before swiftly downing a beer. And there was some more beer. And accidentally walking into the gents’ and standing for excruciatingly long seconds while I tried to remember Swedish for ‘sorry’. Then another bar… other friendly Swedes… some more beer… Anyway. Skål.

Glasgow Kissing in Stockholm

Friday morning found me raring to go and waiting outside the Stockholm City museum… about an hour before it opened. Right then.

I was back in Slüssen and curious about the giant right angle that dominates the view, which is created by a lift that rises into mid-air then is connected to the cliff behind by a narrow footbridge. My curiosity about a lift to nowhere didn’t extend to paying 20-something kronor for the privilege, so I took the wooden stairs cut into the cliff, stopping regularly pretend to take photos while gasping for breath, as elderly Swedes leapt past me taking the steps two at a time.

I discovered at the top of the stairs, a theatre. Which is a somewhat odd thing to find at the top of a flight of stairs, but there you go. A beautiful old theatre, in fact, which put me in mind slightly of the Old Vic but bigger and perhaps grander (not least by virtue of its situation at a cliff edge). Making a mental note that it might be interesting to check out some Swedish theatre, I wandered across the square and down a side street, where I was accosted by some teenagers thrusting a microphone in my face and saying things that you don’t learn in Teach Yourself Swedish Chapter 1. I apologised that I couldn’t understand them, and they offered to interview me in English for their student radio station, about my views on Swedish troops being in Afghanistan. My deeply intelligent and worldly response? "Err, I thought you were neutral?" "No, no", they replied. "That was the Second World War". I’m not entirely convinced that they’ve really abandoned 200 or so years of neutrality without telling anyone, but it didn’t seem prudent to argue so I muttered something about it all being a terrible mess and ran away.

My future as a political commentator on Swedish student radio assured, I headed back to the museum. It’s a fascinating building, once the city hall of Södermalm, which sort of cuts into a hillway so you enter by taking a lift three storeys down, then climb back to street level through exhibitions. Such an old building is deeply atmospheric, particularly when you’re the first – and only – visitor on a Friday morning, and so have the place to yourself. I’m reasonably convinced I saw a ghost, or at least, I saw a scraggly-haired man (slightly Viking like, if you squinted and really, really wanted him to be a Viking) sitting at a table in one of the exhibitions who darted away when I entered and promptly disappeared (because of course I followed him, just call me Alice).

The Millennium exhibition on the top floor (which consists mostly of the set of Blomkvist’s desk from the films) reminded me that I’d read you could purchase ‘Millennium maps’ from the museum which point out the various locations in the books.

Guess what I did next?

Guess how excited I was when I discovered that the 7-eleven in which I’d bought an apple for dessert the previous evening was the very 7-eleven frequented by Salander? On a scale of 1 to 10, just how tragic is it to take a photograph of a 7-eleven where you bought an apple and Lisbeth Salander fictionally bought numerous Billy’s Pan Pizzas? Don’t answer that.

I then had to re-trace my steps, as the cliff-top theatre (some call it Södra Teatern) features in the books: Salander and Annika Gianni have a drink there at the end of the third book. It’s also right round the corner from Fiskargatan 1, address of the apartment bought by Salander after she filches Wennerström’s billions. That apartment building isn’t at all how I pictured it. For some reason I had the impression it was a bit off the beaten track, whereas in fact it’s barely a minute’s walk from the theatre. If you lived there, you could roll to the theatre, if you were so inclined. The view, however, is just as described: spectacular. At least, the sight of the matchbox city and icy Baltic Sea is spectacular from the street far below the penthouse apartment; I can only imagine that from the top floor you can see half way to Finland.

There was a terrace at the side of the theatre that appeared to promise a view unbroken by trees, so, noticing that the gates were open, I crept up the stone steps with my camera ready feeling very naughty and trespasser-y. Slithering and sliding over piles of snow and ice (I take it the terrace is more of a summer hangout, then?) I managed a couple of photos before a man emerged from the theatre and shouted something at me. Assuming it was something in relation to the fact that I was trespassing on a clearly shut theatre (it was still mid-morning), I frantically wracked my brain for a way to explain my presence, then with triumphant relief the phrase for ‘what a beautiful view’ popped into my mind so with no further ado I spread my arms wide and announced vilken vacker utsikt with no little gusto,. The look on his face suggested strongly that he hadn’t in fact been asking me what I was doing there and was mildly stunned by my sudden pronouncement on the view. So naturally I did the only thing a cool and sophisticated person such as myself would do; I turned heel and ran. Which isn’t the cleverest of ideas when you’re on a terrace covered in snow and ice.

Looking probably a little like Tom and or Jerry when they run off a cliff, I flailed on the spot for a bit before finally finding a little traction and… skidding a couple of meters at speed and slamming into a statue of August Strindberg. Forehead first. I saw stars and for just a moment thought my forehead might explode, but was still convinced that the confused man was about to make a citizen’s arrest for trespass so dizzily zig-zagged down the steps and back onto Moseback square.

Incidentally, the following morning I passed by the terrace again at around the same time and found it heaving with tourists taking pictures, not one of them running around in a panic and head-butting August Strindberg.

Garbo and Herring and Porn. Oh My.

All that said, language issues didn't trouble me too much that first night.

Well, there was a minor hairy moment when I tried to buy a cup of tea and a croissant at the airport and realised that I hadn't yet learned, of all words, "and" (turns out it's och). Rather than chicken out and speak English on my very first Swedish attempt in Sweden, I settled for asking the tea in Swedish, then pointing to the croissant and nodding in enthusiastically in a manner intended to convey "and that too please". It seemed to do the trick.

The minor thrill of asking in Swedish for a cup of tea and receiving a cup of tea paled though in comparison with the fact that the coffee shop radio was playing, fabulously, Lay All Your Love On Me. Less than an hour in Sweden and I'd heard some ABBA. Not even being charged a small mortgage payment for a ticket on the Arlanda Express could dampen my good mood after that.

Nor could the fact that when the train pulled into Stockholm, I remembered that I'd forgotten to check the address of the hotel and knew only that it was "a couple of blocks" from Centralen Station. After walking "a couple of blocks" in most directions from Centralen Station in fast fading daylight and light snow, I finally noticed the helpful sign that lists most of the major hotels in the area with arrows pointing in their direction. Ahh. The Sheraton will be that way then. Yes, I'd chosen the Sheraton because a character from the Millennium books stays there. What's your point?

After flouncing around the hotel hallways pretending the Secret Police were after me, I headed out into early evening Stockholm to flounce around the streets pretending the Secret Police were after me. And also, find some dinner. A few hair raising moments with an oddly complicated road crossing that took me via a bus stop to the opposite side of the road from where I wanted to be, and I made it onto the bridge that took me to Gamla Stan.

The city of Stockholm, as you may or may not know, is made up of lots of islands. Not unlike Venice, though chillier and with rather more Swedish people. Gamla Stan, the Old Town, is the original island, from where medieval kings and queens ruled the not un-intimidating Swedish Empire. Not least amongst them, one of my heroines Queen Christina, daughter of Gustav Aldolf who succeeded him upon his death when she was six years old. In fairness, my heroine is the Greta Garbo version of her which may or may not be entirely historically accurate ;) Happening upon the royal palace while looking for something else (namely, dinner), I was so inspired that I stopped flouncing around pretending the Secret Police were after me, and started striding around pretending to stop wars and fall in love with John Gilbert.

The best way I can describe Gamla Stan is to say that I expected at any moment for witches with long knobbly fingers to reach out of upstairs windows and snatch children to eat. The tall, narrow buildings, crooked windows and cobblestones are right out of a fairy tale; but no bluebirds singing along with princesses here, this is the world of the original, dark and twisted Grimm fairy tales.

And even better, porn. Not in the fairy tales, but in a bookshop on a main road in Gamla Stan. I was idly wandering along, glancing in shop windows and testing my Swedish by trying to translate signs announcing sales and book titles and such. I had managed to puzzle out a couple of the titles on display when I noticed... well let's just say I didn't need to understand Swedish to guess at the plot of the book. It was the sort of image normally wrapped in several layers of cellophane in England (err, I imagine). Naturally I came over all British, jumped a mile, blushed to my toes and glanced around in panic to see if anyone had caught me looking.

In an attempt to lower my blood presure a little, I decided it was time for dinner, so pressed on and crossed another bridge. I would discover once I looked at a map the following day that I'd wandered over to Södermalm and Millennium-land which was exciting except I didn't know it at the time. Assailed by a gorgeous smell, I headed straight for a fish & chip style van where I informed the friendly man that this was to be my first Swedish meal and asked him for a recommendation. Shockingly enough, he recommended herring.

I sat on a bench overlooking the Baltic Sea (right on the lock in fact, that separates the lake Mälaren to the Baltic Sea - wonderful things, maps) and tucked into undoubtedly the yummiest meal I've ever had out of an aluminum carton, of fried herring, mashed potatoes, red onions and carrots.

Having pretended to be Greta Garbo, seen some porn and eaten some herring, I decided I could call it a successful first night in Sweden.

The Girl with the Obsession with Sweden

It’s a funny thing, learning a language from scratch. I went through a brief Italian phase when I was 16 and in love with an Italian, as is required of all dreamy 16 year olds, but only really got as far as being taught naughty things to say to him by a friend whose Grandmother (worryingly, given what he taught me) was Italian. French I picked up between the ages of 7-10 when my family lived just outside Paris so absorbed without realising and by the time I started consciously learning in school some years later, I had the basics already well in hand.

I have absolutely no reason in the world to learn Swedish, except that I once read the best workout you can give your brain is to learn a new language, I read that while reading (by which I mean becoming slightly unhealthily obsessed with) the Millennium books, and I vaguely like the idea of randomly being able to speak a language that not many people other than its own citizens speak (as opposed to the way most people have a smattering of French or Spanish). I’ve also got deeply geeky reasons relating to my fascination with the English language. I love exploring how such a mongrel language developed, and there was of course a huge Norse influence on early English by way of the Vikings. After all, if my local monastery had been pillaged and menfolk slaughtered by giant dreadlocked Scandinavians, I’d be sure to steal a bit of vocabulary right back off them.

Plus the fact that I have always had a bit of mild Swedophelia. One of my earliest memories is of watching ABBA on Top of the Pops when I must have been barely three, and when I was eight I was quite convinced that the Super Trouper album was about me, on account of there being a song that mentioned Glasgow (where I’m from) and one that mentioned Paris (where I lived at the time). This probably says more about me than I’d really like to consider deeply, but I did organise a Sweden Day on their national holiday (it involved meatballs and an enthusiastic if ear-crushing rendition of a folk song I’m going to guess didn’t much resemble anything a Swedish person would recognise), and start up an ABBA fanclub. My country-crush also led me to invite the random class of Swedish kids at school (no I have no idea why the British School of Paris had a random class of Swedish kids either) to my birthday party, despite the fact that I’d never spoken to any of them before. Which might be because none of them could speak English. My parents didn’t thank me for that one (I still have memories of Dad trying to mime “it’s time for birthday cake!” while they all looked at him helplessly).

So anyway, my new year’s resolution this year was to learn Swedish, and I’ve been diligently repeating that jag heter Claire and it’s trevligt att traffas (nice to meet you) along with my CDs for the last few weeks (often out loud on the tube, which has the pleasing side effect of startling commuters). I thought I was doing well to be honest, particularly as I’ve been watching a lot of Swedish cinema (I recommend the original Insomnia* – even if it’s mostly in Norwegian – Ondskan (Evil) and Tillsammans (Together) if anyone’s interested, assuming that The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo and Let the Right One In go without saying!) and have started to be able to just about follow only glancing at the subtitles reasonably often). I’ve even been able to decipher most of my friend Maja’s facebook status updates, which I’m sure is at least as exciting for her as for me.

So I thought I was doing quite well. I managed to understand on the plane when the cabin crew man (who looked disconcertingly like Basshunter as it happens) offered me something to eat or drink, and respond nej, tack, because, I didn’t want anything to eat or drink. Get me, I thought to myself, pratar-ing Svenska. Nae bother. Well that lasted approximately until the plane landed.

* As far as I can make out, it doesn’t have another title, though when you mention it to Swedish people in a bar they don’t seem to know what you’re taking about… which might sadly lead you to drunkenly mime shooting a dog. At least they then knew what film I meant, but still. I’d drunkenly mimed shooting a dog. Anyway…

One Nation Divided by a Common Language

We had only lived in the U.S. for a couple of weeks when, during a family visit to a furniture shop, I found myself in need of a dustbin. Having been entrusted with the care of my two youngest siblings I yanked the two of them by the hand over to the counter where I proceeded to ask the lady where I might find such a receptacle. Well I would have done, if when I caught her attention and she turned to look at me expectantly I hadn’t suddenly found that I couldn’t for the life of me think of the American word for dustbin. (It’s garbage can if you’re curious.) We had moved to Connecticut from Paris, so I was used to finding myself in public places without the required vocabulary handy, but somehow searching for a word that was English but wasn’t, utterly stumped me. In panic I ended up blurting “trash! ... litter! … rubbish! … dirt?” and eventually “things people don’t want any more!” before, flustered and burning with the shame and self loathing that can only be felt by a mortified pre pubescent, I turned on my heel and ran, dragging two toddler brothers behind me. The poor woman must have thought that I suffered from some bizarre and G rated British form of Touretts'.

My confusion was not unlike that experienced by a good friend of mine when she signed up for a temp agency upon moving to Vancouver and was told to wear “smart pants” to her booking – she wondered what sort of job she was being sent to where the state of her knickers was relevant. Or the reaction of another friend to bars in Australia who seemed to positively encourage VPL by mounting signs on their doors saying “no thongs.” (Thongs being the Australian word for flip flops.)

There can be quite serious consequences to not speaking the appropriate version of the English language. On my very first trip to the States, at four years old, I developed an irrational terror of my uncle. He’s over 6 foot with red hair, a long red beard and unintelligible Boston accent, and I was entirely convinced that he would feed me to their equally ginormous and red haired dog given half a chance. So it was to my utter horror that I awoke late one morning to find my mum and my aunt had popped to the shops and I was alone in the house with the Scary Uncle and suspiciously hungry looking dog. When I slunk into the kitchen trying to be invisible, he asked if I was hungry. Too afraid to do anything but nod mutely, I was astonished when he then offered me a jelly sandwich. Jelly? As in jelly and ice cream? (or Jell-o to Americans) I was being offered jelly before I’d even had lunch? And what sort of sandwich could there be that had jelly in it? In joy I leapt to the table, thinking that maybe this country and my Scary Uncle weren’t so bad after all, only for my horror to return with a vengeance when he placed a jam sandwich in front of me. I hated jam. Loathed it. No idea why, but I felt it very strongly.
“What’s the matter? You said you like jelly, don’t you?” Demanded my scary uncle.
I whimpered mutely to myself: “then why did you give me jaa-aamm?” but could only nod again. As soon as his back was turned, I realized that I could both keep him happy, and the dog from eyeing me up, by feeding the detested jam sandwiches to the dog. Who gobbled them up then proceeded to throw up everywhere. Apparently he felt the same way I did about jam, but the following day when my cousin took me into school for show-and-tell she introduced me by saying “this is my cousin Claire. She’s from Scotland and she made my dog puke.” And 20 Bostonian kindergarteners radiated waves of hate in my direction as only dog loving kindergarteners can.

So I think that George Bernard Shaw had something when he observed that we are “one nation divided by a common language” although I must say that it is with some pride that I inform people that ‘A’ level French isn’t my only foreign language. In addition to being able to say “I love you” in Italian, Russian and German, I am also a fairly fluent speaker of American, Canadian, Australian and one of my 2008 resolutions is to master Irish.