This afternoon I met my new friend Jordan to enjoy two of Sweden‘s finest traditions – Fika and H&M. I met Jordan last week after responding to her post on expat website TheLocal where she had asked if there were any more expats around in Västerås. Kind of like internet dating but for making friends instead of finding a bloke 🙂 There seems to be a fairly big expat community here but it is not as easy to integrate into as the expat scene in Vietnam. This shouldn’t be a problem as Swedes are very amiable, hospitable and, language barrier aside, there are fewer cultural differences than those I faced in Vietnam, making it much easier to befriend locals. For today though it was nice to hang out with someone else who doesn’t speak Swedish, although Jordan’s attempts sound infinitely better than mine! We headed into town to a nice little coffee shop by the river for fika.
Fika is both a noun and a verb that kind of means ‘to drink coffee’. It often includes sweet breads, pastries or cookies too, sounds like my kind of thing! As I don’t drink coffee and usually have varm choklad I’m not quite sure that my version of fika is actually orthodox but I like the idea anyway. It was warm weather today so I had sparkling citron water and a chocolate chip cookie instead. It was good to share my opinions of Sweden with someone else in the same position as me and so we spent a happy hour discussing Swedish fashion, including the difficulty of buying clothes here when you’re only 5’2″, and the Swedish perception of British women (Vicky Pollard has a LOT to answer for).
After fika we headed off to the shops with H&M being top of the list. H&M originated in Västerås in 1947 as a women’s clothes retailer called Hennes (hers) and became Hennes & Mauritz in 1968 when founder Erling Persson bought out a Stockholm hunting equipment store. It has since been abbreviated to H&M. And so we headed to H&M, Västerås where it all started out – although I imagine that the store we were in today is a far cry from the one that opened in 1947. Three years in Vietnam has pretty much decimated my wardrobe thanks to dusty roads, cold water washing machines and eating too much delicious cheesecake; it is high time that I go shopping. And so a few shopping bags, and a lot of British pounds, later I left the shop one happy lady.
I’m kind of enjoying this lady-of-leisure routine. It’s just a shame that I only have a week of it left.
Loving the Blog Elaine. Will definitely have to try and make a trip to Sweden for Fika and H&M at some point!
You are more than welcome at any time, Rach. Hope to see you soon xx
Oh this picture made me laugh! I didn’t realise you were taking a picture of me, hence why why I am sort of leaning out of the way! I thought you were taking a picture of the glorious svartån …instead you got glorious evil stares instead hahaha. You didn’t mention the mountain of clothes you were carrying through H&M! It looked like a washing pile with legs.
Sorry – I should have warned you! Will take a smiley one next time 🙂 I just admitted how much I spent to Nicklas, I think we’re about even on our spending this week now. He bought a monitor and I bought clothes and make-up!
You seem to be enjoying yourself in Sweden.
Contrast it with all the harassed teachers I know in the UK.
Most seem to hate their jobs/life and are counting down the days to half term