Reading: Kristina the other way around, today

Part 1: Nippon-soppa and salty licorice When Kristina and Karl-Oskar moved to America they faced a whole new world with new experiences. They couldnt imagine what was waiting for them and how their lives would be changing. The same situation faces millions of people today as well, people who are forced to move away or people who do so of their own free will. This week you will read a text written by a man who moved from his home in America to a new strange place: Sweden. Its not 1850, its 2008. And this is not a letter in an envelope, its from a blog.

Your assignment read at least the first three pages (until the end of the Djungelvrl-part), but feel free to read all of it, especially those of you who are aiming at higher grades do the assignments on the last page there are some trickier assignments too, but these are not mandatory (obligatoriska) keep this handout and bring it to class next week the underlined phrases in the assignments are homework for next week Enjoy your reading!

This handout belongs to ______________________.

Mia Larson, Herrgrdsskolan, Gteborg www.lektion.se

Josh's Adventures in Sweden

http://sitemaker.umich.edu/sweden0607/ So apparently Sweden has many other fruity and desserty soups just waiting for me to explore. This is nyponsoppa, or rose hip soup. Yes, rose hips. You know what those are, right? If not, then I'm sorry, call someone and ask them. I always laugh at this soup becuase it sounds like Nippon-soppa. Which would mean Japan soup. Or it would if you already knew that Nippon is a name for Japan. Because it is. Anyway, rosehip soup is a strange orange red color like this. The taste is very hard to describe. It is sweet because it is a dessert soup, but other than that, I am at a loss. It tastes... healthy. Or... natural. Or something like that. Swedish people tell me to eat it hot with some ice cream, which I can't really imagine. It tastes like a healthy smoothy to me more that an ice cream accompaniment. I actually really like this soup though. It has like a billion percent vitamin C too. It is good for keeping the scurvy away during those long Swedish winters. Oranges don't exactly grow here, you know. If you can get your hands on some rose hips, I can give you a recipe and you can try it out yourself. Another thing that I am just loving is this Swedish thing called 'saft'. Saft is a sweet fruity concentrate and you pour a little of it into a glass, add water, and voila you have a glass of drink! No need to mix up a giant pitcher of koolaid. At home, I would often get yelled at for scooping out some frozen juice out of those frozen concentrate things and making myself a glass of juice. WHY CAN'T YOU JUST MAKE THE WHOLE THING?? they would say. Because then I will drink it all by tomorrow and get diabetes and die!

Mia Larson, Herrgrdsskolan, Gteborg www.lektion.se

It turns out I was just being Swedish. This is my favorite saft so far. As you can imagine, it must be quality saft to come in such a fancy bottle. And it is. It is flderblomsaft. In English that is... elderberry flower saft! In Sweden, they boil up elderberry flowers with some sugar and make elderberry flower saft. It is so much fun. I love to drink flowers. A lady at work even brought in some homemade elderberry flower saft for me to taste. It was great. That particular kind in the bottle right there also has lemon and grape juice in it. It is good. I like to mix up some flower juice at work and eat me a frozen pizza. Ah, good times. Let's talk about cookies now. I've realized that cookies are cookies. I like cookies here and I like cookies at home. And cookies pretty much taste the same. Sugar. Flour. Butter. Cookies. These are some good Swedish cookies that I like to eat. They are sandwich cookies with vanilla cream in the middle and rasperberry filling on the top.

But the real reason I bought them is because I heard them mentioned in a Hkan Hellstrm song. Hkan Hellstrm is a Swedish singer and he is super cool. He sings about cookies in sad songs.

Mia Larson, Herrgrdsskolan, Gteborg www.lektion.se

Now lets talk about candy. For a while I had been hearing rumors on the internet of something in Scandinavia that sounded too scary to be true... Salty black licorace. And ever since, I have been keeping an eye out for it. Sometimes even madly searching. For that philosopher's stone... that salty licorace. But I didn't really know what it was called in Swedish, so it was hard to look for. When I was at the grocery store, I would eye the candy aisle suspiciously, wondering and sometimes even accusing different candies of being salty licorace. But I had no way of knowing. Unless I bought it and found out the truth. Which is what I did. I saw something. It looked kind of black and kind of salty and kind of weird. So I bought it. Here it is. I had no idea what Djungelvrl meant but that yawning monkey was enough to make me want to buy it. It's like it was saying, this candy is soooo good that it made this monkey sleepy and now he is about to fall out of the tree. Later, after consulting the dictionary, I found

out that djungelvrl means JUNGLE ROAR. I still think that monkey needs a nap, though. So I open the bag and find little black pieces of candy in strange alien shapes. There is a nice smell coming from them though, kind of sweet and... I dunno, candyish. I slowly put one on my tongue... Success! It is salty! But a weird kind of salty that bites your tongue and goes up your nose. The candy underneath the salt it pretty good too. Chewy... candyish. It really tastes nothing like licorace, yet I see licorace extract in the ingredients.

Mia Larson, Herrgrdsskolan, Gteborg www.lektion.se

ANYWAY. So I kind of like these jungle roar candies! Salty, yet good. I look on the ingredients (again), but don't find any salt. I see a strange ingredient though... Salmiak (ammonium chloride). What the hell is that? I go back to the internet... So these salty licorace candies are covered in not salt but some weird chemical called ammonium chloride! Isn't that weird? Apparently this chemical is used in things like deodorant... solder... glue... and candy! Anyway, these candies were certainly a learning experience. I (foolishly) think that I like salty candy and pick out another kind to try. I'm a salty veteran, I think to myself. I'm down with the salt. This one says salt right on it! Roughly translated, the name of this candy is salt mix. I open it up, bite off a piece and... almost die. This is sooooo salty. And totally disgusting. Something is bad wrong. I try a different piece. Ugghhh. I have laid out all the different shapes for you, and will describe their various nauseating flavors. Starting from the left, we have... the berry shaped one. Does it taste like berries? Hell no. It is a very strong licorace flavor. Too strong for me. Very anise-y. Nothing like djungelvrl. And the texture is all wrong. It just makes strong salty black sludge in your mouth. Moving on, we have... the shell! I bite into this one. God! Why is this happening. I couldn't figure out the flavor, it tasted like perhaps it was trying to be orange. Or maybe it was seafood. I don't know. But it was definitely salty and the texture was definitely too soft. A squishy salty polluted ocean in your mouth. At least the djungelvrl is chewy enough to force you to chew the salt off and then you have the nice candy underneath. This is just salty and strong and then your mouth is empty and your throat is buring. Number three is the star. It seems to be a cousin of the berry. Salty strong licorace that is just all funked up.

Mia Larson, Herrgrdsskolan, Gteborg www.lektion.se

Number four. The pepper-thing. Possibly the worst one of them all. The flavor is actually that of bell peppers. Indescribably horrifying. Salty, soft, and vegetable. Number five. The devils triangle. I bite into this expecting it to taste like licorace like the others but instead get this sort of flowery flavor. Maybe this one will be good? Oops actually it tastes like I just took a swig of shampoo. And not good shampoo either. Like the free crappy shampoo they give you in hotels. With salt. Number six. The tube thing. Licorace again, but they have changed the gummy texture. I actually half like this one. It is still very strong, but it has a good chewyness. I eat a few more, and then throw the bag in the trash. You know, let's keep talking about licorace. Like dill, it is flavor that I think Sweden is really obsessed with. REALLY obsessed with. They even put it in their ice cream! Licorace ice cream! Can you believe that? I of course had to try it and take pictures. Here it is. Wooo licorace. Let's open it. The black ice cream of doom. I taste it. It's not that bad actually. Nice licorace coating on the outside that isn't too strong and anise-y. Kind of like white chocolate. Only black. And licoracey. No salt either. The ice cream on the inside is vanilla. This is okay. I wouldn't really want to eat it very often, but it's actually not bad at all.

Then I get to pretty okay. of it and feel I guess that disgusting this will make

the weird middle part. AND..... It's still Kind of like licorace... fudge. I eat the rest like a fatty. was sort of anti-climactic after the vegetable and shampoo candy. Maybe up for it. Yes, in the summer, Swedish people eat so much ice cream that signs like this are needed. It says: "Kindly eat the ice cream outside first." And that is where I will end.

Mia Larson, Herrgrdsskolan, Gteborg www.lektion.se

Assignments
What are these things called in English? They are all in the text. nypon flder citron vindruva vanilj hallon lakrits _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________

Translate the following phrases into good Swedish. Use a dictionary if you need one. desserty soup its good for keeping x away scurvy voila (French!!!) a pitcher of something get yelled at ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________

I will drink it all by tomorrow ____________________________________________ a fancy bottle for me to taste pretty much flour Ive been hearing rumors too scary to be true ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ________________________________________

Ive been keeping an eye out for it

Mia Larson, Herrgrdsskolan, Gteborg www.lektion.se

grocery store the candy aisle suspiciously accusing x of being x that yawning monkey he is about to fall

_____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________

after consulting the dictionary _____________________________________________ that monkey needs a nap strange alien shapes goes up your nose chewy _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________

More assignments (tricker ones)

What is Nippon? ______________________________________________

What does the writer mean by ice cream accompaniment? _______________________________________________________________________ Hkan Hellstrm does sing about Singoalla in Knn ingen sorg fr mig Gteborg, but hes not singing about cookies. Who or what is the Singoalla that Hkan sings about? (You might need to google this.) _______________________________________________________________________ What does the writer mean by that philosophers stone? _______________________________________________________________________ The writer describes Djungelvrl as Chewy.... candyish. What does the ish mean? Could you use other words to describe it? ________________________________________________________________________

Mia Larson, Herrgrdsskolan, Gteborg www.lektion.se