Jubilation!

Yay! My passport arrived. On time. With a new entry visa to the U.S. in it. This has been a source of considerable anxiety for me since I decided to take this trip so, yay! Woohoo! Now I can proceed to Germany and Israel without worries.

Of course the hardest part about getting the visa turned out to be picking it up at the “post office.” I use scare quotes because we don’t really have post offices in Sweden anymore. That is, they decided to save money by having supermarkets take over post office functions like selling stamps and package pick-up. Predictably this is a big pain in the butt.

The woman at the counter very nearly wouldn’t let me pick up the package containing my passport because A. you need a Swedish ID to pick up a package and my only Swedish ID is my passport. B. I had written c/o my mom on the address so the woman claimed I needed to come with my mom to pick it up. Gah!

After about 20 minutes of arguing and calls to various bosses she admitted she had been wrong and I could pick it up.

Also: I am deeply indebted to my sister for saying to the cashier, “Legally speaking c/o means that only the person it is addressed to, not the person who is c/o can pick it up.” I need to start using teh phrase “legally speaking” more often.

Schweden – Hölle oder Paradies?

Switched on the TV shortly after arriving and got a true only in Sweden moment.

It was some C-Span type live coverage of the Swedish parliament. It turned out to be a special session with “the five national minorities.” Like a little delegation of Jews, a little delegation of Roma etc. Each with a sign in front of them reading “Romska Minoriteten,” “Judiska Minoriteten,” and so on.

They each stepped up and did a show and tell, sung a song, explained their/ our history in Sweden, problems faced and plans for the future. Then a scheduled kaffepaus and an admonition to be bqack on time. “We are so glad to have our minorities; they make Sweden so much more colorful and interesting.” Incredibly bizarre to watch, fresh off the plane from New York. Watch for the upcoming web portal “minoritet.se”

Also, given the current demographics of Sweden, why are there two Finnish-speaking “national minorities” but no Arab or Muslim ones?

Shaliach Tzedakah

Things are starting to get critical. I’m leaving in a day and still haven’t done laundry, made key copies, or cleaned my apartment. Eeek! Det börjar brinna i knutarna, sagt man auf Schwedish.

I spent half the day yesterday frantically sending emails to get my shit in order work-wise before I leave. The other half was spent running around town like a headless chicken buying stuff for my father and buying myself a pair of canvas shoes and a linen shirt (both feel like essentials for the modern summer traveler).

I am about (insh-allah) to publish the long article about Chabad’s outreach activties in Williamsburg that I wrote for a class. Thus I wanted to touch base with Leah, the Chabad lady (who I should clarify to those who don’t know is 26 years old, in case anyone is picturing an old woman) to make sure she was ok with appearing in print and also make sure that there were no inaccuracies in the article.
Earlier Leah had offered to lend me a book about a Lubavitcher family by a writer named Lis Harris — originally a series of articles that appeared in the New Yorker. So, I popped by for the book and for a chat. (Since I hadn’t heard back from Leah after sending her the article ten days ago I was secretly worried she was offended by it). All went well and I emerged from the meeting with two extra books on loan (for my spiritual edification, courtesy of Leah).

Leah also introduced me to a custom I was not aware of. She gave me a dollar to give to charity during my journey (tzedakah) also to protect me during my travels. Apparently this act of giving for someone else is called Shliach Tzedakah (Shliach means emissary, I am her tzedakah emissary of sorts). And yes, I am probably ruining it by blogging about it, but whatever.

After I deliberated for a while over which country it would be best to give the dollar in, Leah gave me two more so I will have one for each country.

I am guarding the three dollar bills in a separate, secret place for depositing one in Stockholm, one in Berlin and one in Tel Aviv. Though it occurs to me now I will need to change them for local currency. Ah well, I will figure our a way around that.

Last but not least, in the evening I had a very enjoyable dinner with Miki and Sanna at Wild Ginger, my favorite vegan-Asian restaurant. As usual I was paralyzed by choice, I am so used to only having one vegetarian option. I can’t handle a whole menu full of choices.