Getting Into the Swedish Mindset

A fortnight after my return from Malmo, as I found myself dancing my way into the centre of a large circle towards an activewear clad, tall, smiling Swedish woman, I think I begun to understand the Swedish mindset.

It might be important to note that I was attending Swedercise at the Tottenham Court Road YMCA, an enigmatically named exercise class that combined dancing, running around in a circle, bodyweight exercises and skipping around a hall like an idiot. The music was not entirely Swedish but the teachers were. They smiled and encouraged and squatted their way through the class in the way that only exercise professionals can.

But this 55-minute madness helped me to contextualise a week in the warmer bits of a country steeped in darkness and cold for several months out of the year. Our experience of Sweden was seen both on our own and through Clare's lens of living there. Having arrived the previous August, she only experienced the dying embers of sunshine and weather that, unsurprisingly, shape so much of a culture's psyche.

On the one hand, Sweden is clean, friendly and efficient. It's home to one of the smallest gender pay gaps in the world and is a mecca of political correctness.  Sweden is also ranked ninth in the 2018 World Happiness Report, a survey of happiest countries in the world, behind four of its Scandi neighbours (Norway, Finland, Denmark and Iceland). Gyms abound, cafes abound and people value their connections to family and friends, a concept embodied by the word 'Fika', a rough translation of which is: to sit down with friends or family and have a cup of tea/coffee with something to eat.

On the other hand, Malmo has seen a significant rise in violent crime. Immigration is becoming a divisive issue amongst the nation; and as the country plunges into more hours of darkness than daylight in the winter months, issues surrounding alcoholism, drug use and depression rise.

Being there is February, I suppose I expected to see this indirectly. Or at least see empty, deserted streets and a similar inward turning much like we saw in Latvia. But instead, we saw coffee shop after coffee shop with minimalist IKEAesque tables crammed with friends and family nattering on, eating pastries and catching up on the day's affairs. The Espresso House chain has become ubiquitous in this little corner of the world. Gemma and I were initially confused about how a country that shoves down so many delicious pastries, and coins at least one for each holiday (hello Semlor, you cardamon and whipped cream delight; hello Kanelbullar, not your grandma's cinnamon rolls), could remain so lithe and healthy.

Because there's also the Swedish Saturday Night Official Pastime: the pick-a-mix station. We accompanied Clare to her local grocery store, one part helping her with her weekly shop, one part sociological scouting mission. We were rewarded several times; the cheese and meat in a tube aisle was both colourful and intriguing.

But our final stop, pre-register ring up and bagging, was the wall-to-wall, floor-to-near-ceiling Pick-a-Mix aisle. Sweet, sour, gummy, chewy, you name it and it was there. As were the crowds, young and old alike, preparing for the Saturday night ritual of hunkering down, turning on a film and eating their way through kilos of candied sugar. I've never seen anything quite like it. And still, the people were so damn thin and energetic.

So we asked Clare. And as we meandered back, she pointed out at least four gyms in a ten-minute radius from her flat. Many of them were open 24-hours; many people took advantage of these hours and as we passed, around 7pm on a Saturday evening, a girl was sprinting her little heart out across a speedily moving treadmill. It seems exercise works on two fronts in Sweden: one for the endorphins, those little hormones that ensure you don't go toasty being caged up indoors during the winter months; and the second front, a more practical need to work off all the damn sugar you've fika-ed and pick-a-mixed your way through. Everyone here seems to have a gym habit. Or a yoga habit. Or both.

This all came together for me as I was skipping towards the maniacally smiling Swedish woman back in London. The sugar must have been coursing through her blood; she was staring down a future of obesity and insulin injections without that workout. The smile was genuine but stimulant induced. And that made me love her, love Sweden, love Swedercise just a little bit more.