{"id":363,"date":"2004-04-29T00:56:36","date_gmt":"2004-04-29T07:56:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stefangeens.com\/?p=363"},"modified":"2004-04-29T00:56:36","modified_gmt":"2004-04-29T07:56:36","slug":"top-ten-things-i-hate-about-stockholm-v","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/2004\/04\/top-ten-things-i-hate-about-stockholm-v\/","title":{"rendered":"Top ten things I hate about Stockholm, V"},"content":{"rendered":"

The fifth in an occasional series.
 
Ten: Predatory seating<\/a>
Nine: Culinary relativism<\/a>
Eight: Pre\u00ebmptive planning<\/a>
Seven: Premature mastication<\/a><\/span>Six: Irrational discalceation.<\/span><\/p>\n

This one really baffles me. If you’ve never been here you might think I’m exaggerating, but trust me, it’s a law of Swedish nature: Swedes will not enter anyone’s home until they’ve taken off their shoes.<\/p>\n

I cannot figure out why. During my first few months here, in the autumn of 2002, I wandered about many a friend’s apartment, shod and oblivious to the silent anguish I was causing them as they followed me around in their socks, too polite to enforce the terms of use of their hardwood floors.<\/p>\n

Then, in the winter, I too started taking off my heavy boots, caked in snow, as I got home. But this made sense — my boots were dirty. Come spring, however, there was no sign of this habit letting up among locals. Shoes came off indoors, even when it was sunny and dry outside and not a speck of dirt sullied new sneakersNow that I’ve experimented with unshod home life, I can tell you I don’t like it. Cooking without shoes makes me feel vulnerable. Likewise when I wash up the dishes. I feel like I use up socks too rapidly. I stub my toes. I can’t just go outside on a whim.<\/span>.<\/p>\n

I’ve considered and subsequently discarded various theories as to what might explain this behavior. It cannot be that Swedes do not want to cause a ruckus with downstairs neighbors: Joachim and Elise have no-one living below them; and people who live in detached houses discalceate too. Is it a bizarre sock fetish? No, because many actually switch to slippers when they get home. Are Stockholm streets particularly prone to wayward dogpoop? On the contrary, they are completely devoid of gunk, slime, and the garbage juice that often finds its way onto New York pavements. Could it be that they are so enamored of their hardwood floors that they don’t wan’t to “use them up?” That would be a very curious departure from an otherwise vigorous culture of consumption: Swedes don’t encase the cushions of their IKEA furniture in plastic, for example, and they do actually use their espresso machines. Like I said, I’m baffled.<\/p>\n

I now suspect it is a deep psychosis. Last weekend, when Christine, my Swedish teacher, came by for lessons on a dry and sunny day, I told her there was really no need to take off her shoes. She look so unhappy. “But it feels so wrong!” she said finally, staring at the floor she’d have to violate. She took her shoes off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The fifth in an occasional series. Ten: Predatory seatingNine: Culinary relativismEight: Pre\u00ebmptive planningSeven: Premature masticationSix: Irrational discalceation. This one really baffles me. If you’ve never been here you might think I’m exaggerating, but trust me, it’s a law of Swedish nature: … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","category-sweden"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7eNhC-5R","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}