h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Speaking as a Swede living abroad, I have to say that one of the best features of any IKEA store outside of Sweden, is the fact that after you've passed the checkouts, there's a place where you can buy Swedish food, snacks, chocolate and even some types of schnapps (at least the schnapps are there around X-mas).

I have to admit that I've only been to IKEA Edinburgh twice, but after I left those times, I'd spend about as much in the Sweden Shop as I did in the main store. Estrella's Dill and Chive crisps, Marabou's chocolate bars, Ahlgrens candy cars, Ballerina biscuits.... There is so much in there....

And then, of course, you can always start the IKEA experience by having a meal of real Swedish meatballs, boiled potatoes and gravy, served with lingonberry jam.

Hmmm.. I think I have to go there sometime soon again. Preferrably just after pay day.

Of course on Thursdays you have to eat pancakes and pea soup instead...

/ R the

I never really fancied teh pea soup. I think it brings back bad memories from school. The pea soup served in the school canteen was horrible, and there were no pancakes served to accompany it. That meant that those days in schol, lunh consisted of "knäckebröd" (hard, crisp bread) with butter.... Not pleasant at al.

Well, I can sadly inform you that nothing has changed. The only real difference is that now we can have filmjölk (sour joghurt) aswell.

Ooooh.. I haven't had filmjölk for ages. I do believe I have to buy a pack of it when I get back home to Sweden for my vacation. NOt that I particularly like it, but it is something that is realy Swedish. After all, what other country would drink/eat sour milk?

Two things that I don't have to go too far to get from where I live (IKEA is still about 2 hours drive from here) is Pågens Krisproll Skorpor (biscuits) and "Mamma Scans" meatballs. Those I can find in my local supermarket.

So here we are...a Swedish dude in Great Britain remebering the lutfisk (dried and then rehydrated fish, it tastes as bad as it sounds) and surströmming (rotten fish, I'm not kidding) of Sweden whilst a Brittish gal in Sweden is stuck with it and wants to reuturn to her native country. Sorta ironic....

I guess the lucia tågs are nice (a procession led by a girl with candles in her hair held each year on the 13th of december)

/R

So here we are...a Swedish dude in Great Britain remebering the lutfisk (dried and then rehydrated fish, it tastes as bad as it sounds) and surströmming (rotten fish, I'm not kidding) of Sweden whilst a Brittish gal in Sweden is stuck with it and wants to reuturn to her native country. Sorta ironic....

Still, I guess the lucia tågs are nice (a procession led by a girl with candles in her hair held each year on the 13th of december)

/R

Yes, I do recall the lutfisk and surströmming, but those are probably two of the reasons I moved out of the country in the first place.
I have to say that two of the things I miss the most (and regularly have my family send me by post) is Kexchoklad (sort of wafer biscuit covered in milk chocolate, designed to be totally uneatable if you plan on not covering yourself in itty bitty wafer and chocolate crumbles) and Ahlgrens Bilar (mini marshmallow-like candy shaped like cars).

Lucia-tåg is a nice tradition, with a severe drawback. They are supposed to take place, starting at about 5:30am on the 13th of December. No sane human being is awake at that time of the morning in the middle of winter in Sweden. The only reason to watch the televised luciatåg (yes they televise it, and have beauty pageants every year to decide who will have the honour of walking about with candles in her hair) is tosee if the aforementioned candles topple over and set fire to something.

I'm am impressed that Kexchoklad will survive all the way to England without being crushed.
I wish malteasers and aeros would survive the journey in reverse (they don't, I've tried).

Each school I've been to has held some kind of Lucia procession. First with electric candles and then with real ones. I remember teachers standing nervously around with buckets of water and wet cloths. Nothing serious caught fire at anyway.
Another drawback with Lucia (at least if you're superstitious) is that every few years it will be held in Friday 13th.

/R

The Kexchoklad bars actually manage pretty well to stay intact. Well, that is if they are packaged correctly, of course The best way to get them, though is in the IKEA Sweden Shop, and I'm anxiously awaiting the opening of the Glasgow IKEA, that should take place sometime next month, if all goes as planned.
And then I'm going home to Sweden for a while in late October, on "vacation". So I'll be able to bring some Kexchoklad, Ahlgrens Bilar, Estrella's Dill & chive-crisps and...... Oh, the list is so long I can't write it all here.

I'm sure that a box of Maltesers would manage the trip over from the UK to Sweden without being too demolished. After all, it's cardboard, isn't it?

Yes, it's cardboard but don't that doesn't pose a problem to the Swedish postal service. I'm not totally without malteasers though, I can get them at "the English shop" in Stockholm.

IKEA Glasgow opens today!!! 30 minutes to the nearest Sweden Shop instead of 90 minutes..

YES! YES! YES!
The Swedish shop (or Bottega Swedese as it's called in my part of the planet) is a PARADISE for Scandinavians abroad! We have an hour's drive from where I live to ours so it's not often I get the chance to fill up my kitchen with falukorv and marsánsås, but I have been told that they will open one just outside my town next year! Guess who'll ask for a job there just to get a chance to be close to the goodies every day? *grin*

By the way - having any kind of Swedish connections is a sure way of getting first in the job offer line! And I mean ANY kind. A friend of mine applied for a job at the (not so) local IKEA but was told no, sorry, your merits are not quite good enough. At the end of the interview my friend and the IKEA guy started chatting about this and that - different cultures and such, and my friend happened to mention that his uncle was married to a Swedish lady. The IKEA guy stopped dead. "What! Why didn't you say that straight away!" He got the job!

Guess I'll be first in the line too then. I lived in Sweden for nine years!

*cough, cough*

*decides to dust off an old conversation*

I was really just searching for 'knäckebröd' to find one of my own postings, and stumbled over this one!

Well, howdy there.

Titania, since you're a Swede, living in Sweden, what are your feelings on the Sweden Shop at IKEA stores abroad?

Eh - I don't know, I've never been to an IKEA outside of Sweden - yet...

Okay.. But the IKEA stores in Sweden don't have the Sweden Shops, cause they're already in Sweden...

I think I would appreciate them very much - I know how delighted I was when I discovered that the Swedish consulate in Alexandria, Egypt, had Swedish newspapers and Swedish magazines, but above all, Swedish coffee and Swedish cinnamon buns!

(this was after having travelled for 2½ months by bus from Sweden to Egypt)