W ~ Water, Water, Everywhere, Pick Your Country! #atozchallenge

All Aboard! "It's Very Swedish..." a train on a cultural journey through Sweden, exploring the differences big and small between American and Swedish culture.

***

If you're not into the whole cultural experience, feel free to skip to the embarrassing childhood pictures.

I've been sharing about Sweden's great lakes and the fun we had there, but they are not the only water attractions in Sweden.  Water plays a huge part of life there.  Why do you think so many Swedes gravitated to Minnesota with it's, what is it, 10,000 lakes? Swedes felt at home there.

The lakes I grew up with were of all sizes and conditions.  There were lakes we could swim in, lakes we only boated on, lakes where we fished, and of course lakes where we did all of the above.  One thing they all had in common: the water was quite cold. You do get used to it though.  Really used to it.  

It's kinda of like when my Amazing Aunt Risky asked me today, at a restaurant, if the dish was spicy.  I said no, it's just pesto, it's not spicy.  Then I got her portion, because to her, it was too spicy.  Moral: don't ask me if the water is cold.  My answer will be NO, it's fine, come on in ;-)

One of my favorite lakes was the one where The Swede's best friend had a house.  There were two docks. One where there was foot-high sea weed and you wouldn't dream of swimming there, but that's where the boat was.  The other dock was on the other side of the house, around the corner if you will, and the water was crystal clear and you could see all the way to the bottom even where it was REALLY deep.  

Here's a picture of the "sea-weed" dock.

I found that I have more childhood photos involving non-lake water.  Enjoy.  

This is our backyard in Sweden.  That's DataBoy on the left in the pool with friend I can't remember, and I'm on the left on the "beach blanket" with friend I also can't remember. This picture was only marked "Spring time back yard water play" by Momarazzi.

This is one of our favorite vacation destinations.  We stayed at the campground, but had full use of the wonderful facilities enjoyed by those who stayed at the actual, pricey resort.  It was called Billingehus, for those Swedes reading :-)  That's Farfar with Swissie in his lap.  Me styling in the bikini...thought I was styling.  Year not marked, but I'm thinking this was right before we moved to America, so about 8.

Water sports continued after the move.  This is in the backyard of our first house in America, 1974.  Me, Swissie, and DataBoy. Yes, we dragged DataBoy in, fully clothed. Good thing, or he would have been nude, and then I couldn't have put up the picture...

That's me in the flowered bikini, still thinking I'm all that, at age 12.  There's Swissie, and Farmor, in the background, headless.

Ever the gymnast, I also enjoyed diving.

What are your water experiences?  Did you grow up with access to lakes?  Are you afraid of what you can't see when you're swimming? Come back to "Y" and you'll hear my learning to swim story.  Not that you'd want to miss "X"...seriously.  X is hard enough in English...

~Tina, who happily swims anywhere she can see the bottom, and will sometimes, with enough peer pressure, swim in uncharted waters (it's hard to resist Aunt Risky...)

©2014 All Rights Reserved

All photos most likely by Momarazzi, or another family member.  For example, Momarazzi would not have cut off Farmor's head...

Summer Homework?

Do you think teachers should assign summer homework? I'm talking about a list of tasks which, for OYT, going into 8^th grade, are the following:

- 2 book reports

- a short story

- a 20 page math packet

- 2 current event reports

-a science packet of undetermined length since we can't find it

-posting opinions on various topics to several school sponsored forums

I do understand the teachers' perspective – I WAS a teacher. Keep the kids brains alive during the summer. Review skills. Keep them in shape. However, the way this is being done is not fair to all the students.

OYT's school is the only one in the district which does this, but not all students get assigned this list – only those on the Silver Team. This means half the students in one school, in an entire district, are the only ones doing these tasks.

Now let's think about the population trying to complete these tasks. Not all of them have mothers who used to be teachers who nag until it gets done. Some are motherless. Some have mothers who work, some have mothers who have no idea that there IS summer homework.

So the students show up to school, some with it done, some not. More time is given to complete the tasks, so the summer homework really could have been saved until school started since this is what a LOT of the students are doing, some on purpose, some by default, some because of the reasons we discussed above. Meanwhile, these onerous tasks have been hanging over the head of kids who just want to be kids.

They want to ride their bikes to the pool and chlorine burn themselves, come home so tired they almost fall asleep eating dinner, and then do it all over again the same day. They want to run around the yard and bash each other with foam and rubber weapons. They want to go crawdad fishing, drive their RC cars, play their video games when it's too hot outside, and JUST BE CAREFREE KIDS. Old-fashioned, seemingly endless, glorious summer vacation. What are we gonna do today, Ferb?

But no. They have work to do, and are reminded that more responsibilities soon await. High school is almost here, then college, then LIFE. Let them be kids for the summer. Their brains will catch up. 

What do you think?  Do your kids have summer homework?  Did you have it as a kid?  What should be done?  Talk to me.

Double Butt-Bumpers, and Other Water Sports

It's a scorcher here today, 97 degrees.  It doesn't help that I have really special air-conditioning in my car. It works if I'm not accelerating. So I'm the crazy car pulling away from the light at supersonic speed, reaching cruising altitude, taking my foot off the gas, and THEN the fan blows again. Once I'm at speed, I can push ever so slightly on the gas, and the fan will keep blowing. However, I do most of my driving as a taxi-cab, so it isn't often I can really get the car cool. This totally reminds me of the (one) summer Farmor and Farfar came to visit from Sweden.

Up until the summer of 1976, they had always visited during the winter, but they wanted to try a summer in America. In Maryland. In the humidity. They didn't know what they were getting into. Sweden is a country where they count sun-days, as in, “The summer of '47 we had 16 sun-days.” As in the sun came out that day. A summer high is in the 70s.

It was a good thing that it was also the summer we got a family membership to a private swimming pool club nearby. We spent almost every day there. Farmor especially suffered from the heat. I remember giving up my seat in the front so that she could aim all the AC vents her way, but still, by the time we got to the pool, she'd be soaked. She'd get out of the car and declare, “Det är varmt I America!” It's warm in America. That is a saying we still use in our family. Farfar would reply, “Ja, något so collosalt!” Yes, so colossally! Can you imagine the climate change?

We did enjoy the pool. I learned to jump off the high dive. My sister and I invented double-butt bumpers. Bear with me here, use your imagination, and try to picture this. We hold hands, hold our breaths, we have our feet touching, and as we go under water, we try to bump our butts together. It's a trick with about a one in six chance of success. We tried forever before we ever hit our first one. Yes, this is weird. If you don't have a sister, or a brother, you probably won't ever understand where games like this come from.

We also learned to do somersaults underwater, how to swim the length of the pool in one breath, and how to stay cool during adult swim. We hated adult swim. We'd sit on the edge of the pool, like the good little girls we were (12 and 10) until the lifeguard starting flirting with the other lifeguard, and then we would lightning fast slide off the edge, dunk under water, and lickety split be back up on the edge picking our fingernails by the time they looked again. Only got caught once. “Sorry, I slipped.” “Don't “slip” again”.

It was a good summer, but the heat took it's toll on my beloved Grandparents. They didn't come back for a summer again, and we never had a pool membership again, but the phrase remains, “Det är varmt I America!” It sure was in Colorado today.

Do you like the heat, or are you heat phobic like me? Have you ever played ridiculous pool games with a sibling? Please tell...