kseenaa | This is your Random Swede!

July 2018

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This is KSena

Usually a friendly sort. Be nice to me, and I am nice to you. Here I ramble on about me, life, work and fandoms. I am a fan of Robin of Sherwood, Xena: Warrior Princess, Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, Pirates of the Caribbean, Tokio Hotel and Sons of Anarchy. I don't apologize for anything I write here. This is my mind. And you entered it. Welcome.

Visits:

YES!

I just signed up for something absolutely awesome! I've talked to people from all over the world since yesterday! This is AMAZING!!!

OK, so mostly people from the US. Why are you so fascinated with Sweden? I'll ask that the next US-person I'll get on the line. But man oh man... I am LOVING being a random swede!

Call Sweden! Talk to us! We love talking! And, bonus, we're good at english. ;-D

Watch on YouTube

The Swedish Number

My first call was from a couple high as kites guys from Netherlands! X-D They wanted prostitutes and drugs, both illegal in Sweden! Oops! X-D And it has moved on from there to some sad calls (woman who had lost her husband) to interesting ones (refugee politics in Sweden) to calls just from people curious on the country and what great sights there are (the nature, get out in the nature, for GAWDS SAKE! and visit Öland and Gotland, for SERIOUS!!!)

I am so continuing to be a random swede in the evenings. This is so awesome. I hope this will continue to be a thing, just like the swedish twitter account @Sweden where a random swede tweets each day... I so so so hope this will continue. Because I am loving the hell out of this!

Call Sweden! Get a chance to talk to me or my countrymen (and women!)!!!!

This entry is crossposted between LJ and DW. Comment where you are comfortable.

Current Mood: jubilant
Current Location: my desk, in the nerdcorner, at home
Current Music: None!

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too bad it'd be an international call. It's such a cool idea! I'm glad you're enjoying it.

I'm having a ball with it, to be quite honest! It's amazingly fun to talk to strangers from other countries. Who knew? :-D

And on the site there's a list of countries that have local numbers to call for a local fee. US do to: +13012760600. ;-)

Oh that's cool. thanks for letting me know.

No worries. :-)

Hm. I think my interest in Sweden mainly comes from my mother having spent a year there as an exchange student while she was in high school. She used to pick up a little extra money when I was in elementary school by tutoring people in Swedish. I remember sitting in the living room while she had people translating fairy tales out loud.

Her host family sent us a few small gifts-- Mostly I remember tomten (sp?) Christmas ornaments, one blue and one brown (this was before my brother arrived, so it was one for me and one for my sister). I have no idea what happened to them. I'm not sure if my mother still has them. I hope so because I'd like to think that I'll get one of them some day, but I worry because I think she and my step-father got rid of all of their Christmas stuff in one of their moves without letting any of us kids have any of it.

Really? That is so cool! From what I've learned from the refugee kids I work with daily, swedish is really hard to learn! So kudos to your mom for not only learning it and then teaching it to!

Yeah, Tomten is spelled like that. :-) It's our version of Santa, so to speak. A shame to get rid of all your Christmas-stuff though. :-P

My mother adopted some customs/foods-- She really loved that flat rye bread, the hard stuff that I'd almost call a cracker, but that comes in large round sheets. I don't like rye, so I never got into it, but I remember her bringing home the big round packages wrapped in blue paper.

At Christmas, she would make rice porridge (I do it, too), using the recipe she learned from her Swedish host mother. We used to listen to an album of Swedish winter/Christmas music every Christmas morning. I don't remember the name of the album, but it was vinyl (this was the early 1970s, so I suppose it couldn't very well have been anything else) and had kids sledding on the cover.

At one point, on a trip, my mother found a Swedish bakery a couple of hours away from where we lived. It was too far for her to go often (we didn't even own a car then), but she would buy a lot of bread whenever she did get there. I specifically remember limpa (sp?), but there may have been others, too.

I'm not sure if my mother's birth family didn't have Christmas customs (surely they must have? I can't remember anything in that direction with that part of the family, but...) or if she simply didn't like those customs much.

AHA! She liked knäckebröd aka crispbread (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crispbread)? Not many none-scandinavians do! Totally cool! And yes, that's how limpa is spelled. :-D

I think that is wonderful that she adopted so many of our Christmas traditions. :-D

Wow, you have a really cool country. Americans should be frightened by the idea of letting others call us to ask us questions, lol.

I hope you tell us some fun things you talk about. Good luck!

I like to think Sweden is tiny but a bit cool, yeah. :-D I must say it's a ball to be a random swede, I am having SO much fun with it!

And no offense, but I do get the impression that US-people are constantly afraid?

And no offense, but I do get the impression that US-people are constantly afraid?

ROTFLMAO!! That's awesome! I think of Americans as being very abusive and mean. But you have a point, that all that is usually just misdirected fear.

I lived in the US between 1996 - 1997. And I've never seen news-coverage like the US version before or after that period. It all built on scaring everyone constantly. And then I watch the different elections, not just this one... It still plays on fear. Fear, fear, fear, fear... Obama a bit less so, but it was there during his campaign as well.

So from an outside perspective, US-people are always afraid and being told to be afraid. Again, no offense. :-)

I read about the Random Swede initiative in my newspaper. How nice to actually know one :-) It sounds like so much fun! But I feel I need to apologize for my stupid countrymen. Why on earth would they call a Swede to ask for prostitutes or drugs? It sounds like they didn't lack the latter anyway! (Okay, I guess the being high explains a lot.) I'm glad they didn't put you off from being a random Swede. I hope you'll be getting lots of nice and interesting calls!

It IS a blast, to be quite honest! I am having so much fun answering these calls!

And I have NO IDEA why they asked about prostitutes and drugs! X-D I guess it was because they were high as kites and some sort of party going, I don't even know. It was hilarious though!

Hee! I heard about this, and it sounded highly amusing. I actually have family in Sweden, too. *g*

Oh, you do? Well, not that strange. There were a TON of swedes that immigrated 100-150 years or so ago. Sweden was very very poor then.

Random swede is probably the most fun thing I've done in a while. SOOO happy I signed up for it! It is a blast to answer these calls! :-D

This is a really fun idea! I would be afraid to be on either side of the line as I'm quite shy with people I don't know but it is indeed awesome!

It is an AWESOME idea! And I have SO much fun answering these calls!

You're one of the random Swedes? That is so great!!!!

Gabrielle

I am indeed. :-D *takes a bow*

I'm tempted just to keep calling until I get you :p

Ha ha ha! I think there's a lot of us taking these calls, so my guess is you'd have to work hard for it. ;-) Skype one day instead, perhaps? :-D You'd get the bonus of looking at my ugly face. ;-D

I was reading something about that in the paper, there was something about not mentioning IKEA or Abba!

HA HA HA! I've gotten questions about both, and don't mind the least. I didn't know you weren't supposed to mention that? HOw silly! :-D

My understanding was that it wasn't so much a rule not to mention it, but some people didn't like it.

I guess so, but then again why would you sign up to answer questions about Sweden if that annoyed you? *LOL* Like it or not ABBA and IKEA is some of the most FAMOUS things/people about Sweden after all! :-D

That's such a great idea! I'm glad you're having so much fun with it!

Oh, I am having a BLAST answering these calls! It is so so much fun! And I think it's a great idea over all! :-D

I read a story about this on a national news site, so I'm sure you'll be getting a lot more calls soon! ;D It's very cool to know one of the random people they can call. I hope you get to talk to some really cool people too!

Unfortunately we sleep when the US is awake, but I still get A LOT of calls from the US! Seems like the US is really curious about Sweden! Not that I mind, it's easy talking to US-people. :-D

you were ALWAYS my random swede ;) :P

*grin* Why, thank you! :-D

Well that is pretty freakin' cool. And I can't believe people are actually calling! What a grand experiment! I wonder what other kinds of questions people are getting.

It's SO MUCH FUN! :-D And the questions range everywhere! I had three calls the other day, in a row that just asked what the weather was like and then hung up. X-D

I heard about this in the news!

Sounds like a wonderful endeavor. Do you get to specify the hours during which you're available to receive calls? Or is your phone ringing off the hook whenever?

I hope you get nice callers in the future and not more of those under the influence...

They talked about it in US-news? That's kinda cool! But not surprising. Ever since I signed up I've talked to US-people the most. *grin*

Most people are very nice. Sometimes it's hard to hear them, but I think that's mostly technical troubles. :-)

Yeah, one blogger who tried it said he had connection problems. But maybe with more people calling, maybe the phone company will decide to improve international services to Sweden! :)

That sounds amazing!! How cool is it that you are one of the random Swedes! :)

I had no idea it would be this much fun though when I signed up, I'll admit that! I just hope it'll continue be popular even after the hype is gone. :-)

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