I decided this week to take the train to Kiruna for my regular project meeting. As I've written before I prefer to drive the 3 1/2 hours to Kiruna and then the same home again. Primarily because I'm basically an unsociable prick. I think I appreciate that part the most about Swedish society. Swedes speak when they have something to say, otherwise they usually don't go pestering you with so called friendly chit chat which is somewhat less than genuine. In that respect, I suspect I am a Swede trapped in a foreigner's body.
Back to the train. I booked the train this time because one of my co-workers was going to be in the area on the same day and was driving back. So we could share a drive home. Not my ideal, but I made the sacrifice in the name of corporate relations. Anyway, he was so disorganised that he left it too late to hire a car. By that stage it was also too late for me, so I had to book a return train trip home. I have little patience for people who can't plan their time (which unfortunately includes me at times), so I was a bit miffed. The trip up was ok and I managed to do some long overdue reading. The only real annoyance was some stupid person further up the train who decided that singing for half an hour would lift everyone's spirits. It almost got her lifted off the train.
When I got off the train I found that 3 other of the meeting participants were also on the same train. Two were from the same region as me, while the 3rd was from the south of Sweden. As we had a bit of time to kill, we decided to walk the couple of kilometres from the train station to the LKAB project office.
A lot of Swedish company names end in the initials "AB", which is an abbreviation of the Swedish word "Aktiebolag". It's the Swedish version of the English "Ltd" only, unlike the English version, it's often attached the abbreviated name of a company instead of following after as a separate word. The Swedish language joins a lot of words together, to form longer single words, so I guess it's no surprise that they do the same with this abbreviation. Bit of trivia there.
As I said, the walk to the project office wasn't too far and took us maybe 15 minutes. It's still a bit nippy in Kituna, around 2 or 3 degrees with a bit of wind coming in from Norway. I had a pair of gloves with me, so I was fine. One of my Norrbotten colleagues had his hat with him, while the other announced that he was yet to remove his thermal underwear for the summer. The guy from the south, well, I don't think I've ever seen a colder person in my life. I was actually a bit worried that he wasn't going to make it the whole way there. Then he spent the whole meeting fretting about having to walk back to the train station with us again. Which, of course, we did. Thoughtful bunch that we are. I had a bit of a smile to myself. A couple of years back, that would have been me. Totally unprepared and not even stopping to think that the conditions somewhere else might be different. The thing was that I didn't think about it either this time. It was just automatic to me to throw a pair of gloves into my work bag. I guess that somewhere along the way I've become Norbottenised. I was actually rather chuffed with myself.
I can wholly relate to that, even in the somewhat warmer UK. I met up with a new neighbour from the North the other night. I was in a thin pullover, jacket, still wearing socks and winter shoes. She was wearing a new summer dress, thin cardigan and bare-legged with sandals. To her, it felt like summer.
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