I’ve been spending a lot of time watching the World Cup this weekend, and I got to wondering about what my favorite sports really are… So here’s my top 5.. What are yours? Why? If you just hate sports, why haven’t you moved to Red China, you godless commie? (or, you could try to explain yourself..)

My 5:

1. National Football League

2. Major League Baseball

3. National Basketball Association

4. NCAA Football

5. National Hockey League

You’re up…

PS: Can anyone explain the offsides rule in soccer to me?

PSS: How did Sweden fail to beat TNT today? Are people freaking out up there?

But something a little more sinister is afoot.

This is causing quite a stir here in Sweden. The fact that the Motion Picture Association of America has the influence to force the Swedish police shut down The Pirate Bay, a Swedish site. Yes, it was a pirate site. Yes, you could download software and other such stuff. Yes, everyone knows it’s wrong. Had a Swedish governmental authority cracked the whip would have been fine.

But the Motion Picture Association of America? Lording its power over a lone sleazy Swedish pirate site?

Can we say “outside reasonable jurisdiction?” Yes, the Swedes have very little backbone but giving away its power away to the US? Sickening.

We finally got around to watching “Good Night and Good Luck.” Tobey hadn’t been in any hurry to see it because he figured he would find it quite boring. Which is not to say that he doesn’t find US poltics interesting. He does. But only marginally so because I am. He figured he could go the rest of his life without ever delving into 1950s Cold War politics (which never quite reached Sweden) and McCarthyism and not miss a thing.

He can just look back over the last five years of US politics for the re-run and be completely up to speed.

He also figured he wouldn’t catch many of the cultural references. And on that point, he was right. We typically watch movies with the subtitles on: leaving English language films with English subtitles and vice versa if Swedish. I don’t enjoy watching Swedish films with English subtitles because the translations are often wrong and I use them to simply confirm what I heard, not to explain.

With “Good Night and Good Luck,” however, we eventually turned on the Swedish subtitles. It broke the flow to stop the film every few minutes to explain.

But something very interesting indeed came up during the film. After a few references to pinko Tobey finally asked, “What’s a pinko?” I stopped the film…and suddenly found myself at a loss for words. Did he really not know what a pinko was? Even more fascinating was his real sense of confusion. “What’s so bad about being a Communist?”

I gasped.

And that’s when it hit me. I live with a man who’s never been brainwashed.

He’s never thought of a government which is perhaps less (or perhaps more) efficient as satanically composed. He’s never thought of an economic system, while different than his own, as evil. He’s never thought of people who believe that government’s role is one of equalization as morally inept. And he’s never thought that taxes, while an imposition (and sometimes misappropriated) but which were voted for by the people, as anything but a necessity to provide government with the means to take care of its citizens and its infrastructure.

Sometimes the difference in how we were taught to view the world just shocks me to the very core.

I’ve always kind of liked chocolate. Sort of. I wouldn’t turn it down anyway. But when I was a kid I preferred jelly beans and gummy bears to M&Ms and Hershey’s Kisses. By the time I was in college, though, my candy of choice had become chocolate covered raisins. It was a sleazy compromise: nature’s candy drenched in decadent, yet second-rate chocolate.

Later, when I worked retail, a co-worker with a second job at Teuscher Chcolates once brought me a champagne truffle. A whole new world is about to open up for you he promised. I scoffed. But during those next few seconds, I knew he’d spoken the truth. I had no idea what real, quality chocolate could do to a person. Seriously. No idea.

But they were expensive. Those fancy European drugs.

Proximity is of course a factor, but those former fancies are now within my easy reach and considerably cheaper (bearing in mind the all-things-relative caveat). “Within reach” meaning in the supermarket! Valrhona, Côte D’Or, Hachez, Jacquot, Lindt and more. Even on this little island, Neuhaus is available.

It should be understood that there’s a reason quality chocolate is sold only in small bits and pieces. It’s meant to be savored and cherished with a great cappucino or a divine glass of wine, not devoured with a careless abandon that can only be described as sheer gluttony. That’s the American in me talking. The one who was trained from a young age to take all things to excess.

What I was not expecting, however, in my trans-atlantic culinary journey is how good the “regular stuff” is. An Irish friend of mine (in Seattle!) returns from visits to Ireland with suitcases full of Cadbury chocolate. Insisting that it didn’t taste the same as Cadbury one buys in the States, he proved it by shoving a chocolate egg in my mouth.

As an aside, it was also interesting that buying a jar of Nutella in the States often made me feel part of a secret society of those who understood the beautiful marriage of chocolate and hazelnuts, who got a certain ironic glee by pretending it was “kind of like peanut butter!” and who would eat it by the spoonful(s). Here it’s considered an everyday purchase. And by that I do mean “every day.”

In Sweden, Marabou is the appointed chocolatier to the King. Marabou is, as a label, owned by Kraft. And frankly, I don’t care a wit. It is good. Damned good. It isn’t crazy sweet, like most OTC chocolate in the US, and carries a hint of caramel. I might be making that up. But my refined palate senses it. It is, however, the equivalent to a Hershey bar. Really. Nothing extravagant about it or any of its offshoot products. One of the most common things in the nation. Marabou chocolate. Pffft!

But I’m telling you I am crazy about it. I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I could (and have) eaten an entire 500g bar of it (that’s about one pound) by myself in one sitting. It should be enough to put a person into a diabetic coma. But, as I live and breathe and waddle around the room, I’m proof that the stuff is magic.

But “a life without chocolate” you ask? Yes, well, starting today, I’m going cold turkey. For a while. Wish me luck.

The terrible truth is that I’m still not fluent in Swedish. Worse, I’m skeptical that I ever actually will be. Worst? Somedays I just don’t care. At all.

There’s a series of Telia (telecom) commercials that feature a teenage girl, a younger boy and a father. Perhaps in an earlier commercial, the whereabouts of the mother were properly discussed but as far as I know there has never been a mother in this family situation. I hate these commercials with a passion. I especially hate the girl. Hate is a strong word, yes, but it is the appropriate one.

I can’t understand a word she says. Not one single word. In the US, teenagers of course also speak “a different language” made up of code and slang. But this is something else entirely. I cannot make out one word from another. I ask for a translation with every new Telia commercial and, even after knowing what she says, I still strain to hear something that actually sounds like articulated Swedish.

I could slap her. Really. Plus, she seems like a total bitch.

Then there’s Filip and Frederik. I love these guys. They’re the ones who bring us High Chaparall (misspelling intentional) which is as funny an ironic commentary on the US as any Simpsons episode, all things being relative of course. Last year they created Grattis Världen (“Congratulations, world!” but an added “Here we come!” should be included). They’re funny, Filip and Frederik, no denying that.

Every afternoon now, we’re watching reruns of their most recent series called 100 Höjdare (Literally, this translates as “100 Bigwigs” but to me, it would more appropriately be called “100 best bloopers by semi-important people from Sweden that the rest of the world has never heard of.”)

Anyway, Filip and Frederik speak at lightening fast speeds. And again, there are minute-long spans of dialogue where my brain simply cannot keep up. I just can’t process it. It’s like listening to rap or something, but worse. Because at least with rap I might catch a word every once in a while.

And that’s when it occurs to me that I just don’t care. Because I can watch the news and make out nearly everything they say. I can read the newspaper and speak to the cashier at the grocery. I can call a doctor and explain my symptoms and make an appointment.

That said, my everyday struggles with the language creates some crossness which absolutely balks my getting off a plateaued level of fluency. I don’t care because I get by without understanding certain aspects of Swedish pop-culture, what little there is of it. Frankly, American and British shows are on every day, at all hours of the day. Commercials, the Telia ones notwithstanding, are often in English and more and more not subtitled.

Swedes speak and understand English with an insane level of competency.

But me? What I need is a good reason to get better in Swedish.

Before I really get started, it is important to note that I really do, actually, like theater. I would go all the time if it were: 1. Convenient (right now it is not), 2. Relatively cheap and 3. (this is the big one) In English. Before I left the States, I had considered purchasing season tickets at one of a number of Seattle theaters. Like singing, I have at times fantasized about being an actor (hasn’t everyone?) and am full of enthusiasm for those who do the craft well.

Tonight I went to the theater. Under duress.

As part of my Swedish language class (along the lines of English Lit 101) I am required to attend two theater performances this term. Tonight’s performance, on the surface, would appear to be convenient as it was shown on the island, about 10 minutes from my house.
Incidentally, my island has a number of cultural offerings that would otherwise seem anomalous to its rural, farming community setting: a major European watercolor museum, current events lectures, book readings of well-known (Swedish) authors, a yacht race in the summer that is more prestigious (in Europe anyway) than the Volvo Cup, which in and of itself is on a high order, Volvo being Swedish and all.

Economically, this performance was in the “affordable” range. 80 kronor translates to about $12 or therabouts. (Don’t quote me because I haven’t checked the exchange rate for a week or so.)

But it was just a painful experience because I didn’t have my translator with me. Tobey worked tonight and I was forced to really listen and pay attention. Usually I don’t need a lot of help, but every once in a while he will provide for me a quick translation, those tedious understandings can make or break my enjoyment of something. And I already knew that it would take me at least half the play to really “feel” the new speech patterns of the actors, something I struggle with whenever I meet or hear someone new.

I got about three-quarters of the way through, when I suddenly realized I had no idea what was going on. I thought, up until that point, that I did. I laughed at the appropriate times, felt what everyone else appeared to be feeling. But then something happened onstage that I completely misunderstood. Or, maybe really did understand it, but in doing so, also had a whole new wrench thrown into my understanding of Swedish culture.

The play was about marriage. But maybe, just maybe, it was about divorce. See, the man got down on one knee, confirming my expectation that this couple, despite their many (many!) problems wanted to renew their vows. The woman looked loving down at him and cried little happy tears (she was grinning from ear to ear). And then, in a grand gesture that made me gasp (loudly!), he asked her: Will you divorce me?

She said “yes!” And they danced and danced…and then started sawing in half the kitchen table.

I missed something along the way. I’m sure of it now.