Old Man Encounter, #4

There's more I need to blog about, but for now, I'll share this brief story.

For those of you who aren't aware, I have this sign that only old men can see, that tells them that I'm a good person to approach and compliment and generally talk to. And because I'm a smuck, I generally let them talk to me (some strange thing about respecting your elders and all that, even if they are are crazy).

Since coming to Sweden I've had three old men encounters.

Now, I would like to add a fourth, that happened while I was in Oslo.

So on Friday I'm walking down Main Street in Oslo (a wonderfully touristy place that is a pedestrian street) and I stop at a light and suddenly I feel a hand on my arm. I jump, turn and some older man is speaking to me in Norwegian (which is close enough to Swedish that it sounds familiar, but not close enough that I can understand anything he is saying.) Throughly startled, I respond, "Lo siento, Ya talar bara lite Swedish," managing in one sentence to mangle three languages.

The man gave a long slow blink (I'm fairly certain he thought I was a native- at least, I didn't have a map out), and asked, in English, "Where are you from?" I have to say, I think I throughly disarmed him. "The States" I reply, as I realize what I had just done. (again, showing how mixed up I've become, Americans don't call the States the States, only English speakers not from American do that)

Well, he recovers. "I want to give you a compliment."

Me: "Ok."

Him: "I'm not trying to be a... scary man, but you have a... nice... a good way of walking. I noticed as you were walking."

Me: *wonders* Does that mean he was looking at my butt? "Uhhh, thank you."

And then the light changed, and I hurried off.

I don't know if it's just a cultural thing, and an older generation of European Males have it hard wired into their systems to give women compliments, because I haven't noticed younger men doing this. I can't just write them off as creepy old men, because this one, similar to the others except for Crochet man, seemed sane and, well, rather charming in the way that only old men can be. But it does provide a sense of amusement, and I have to say, the rest of the day I was more aware of how I walked.

I suppose, when it all comes down to it, the whole thing makes me smile.

Strange Men and Time Changes

I swear, I have a sign that hovers over my head that indicates to old men that they should talk to me. I went to the bank to cash my food subsidy check. Now, here in Sweden it's fairly common when you go into a bank (or any place where you normally have to wait in a line in America) for there to be a little ticket-issuing machine that gives you a ticket, and then you wait for your ticket to be called. So, like any good Swede, I hit the button, take my ticket, read it, take not of where they are in the numbers (ten people ahead of me) and go sit down. There's one seat available. It is by an old man.

I sit down, open up my book, start reading.

The old man shifts.

I hold my book closer to my face, ignore him, and pray to god that he won't talk to me.

No luck.

He says something in Swedish, I reply back that I don't speak Swedish.

He then proceeds to use lots of pantomime, and wears a big smile as he talks to me. For emphasis, he touches my arm.

After struggling to be polite for five to eight minutes (during which the line only moves about three) I finally tell him that I need to read the book for my class. Then I turn my back on him and BURY my face in the book.

WHY ME? I DO NOTHING TO ENCOURAGE THEM. WHY?

The world may never know. This brings the strange man incident count up to four. The Italian guy, the bug guy, the crochet guy, and now the bank guy. *Fumes*

AND THEN, so make things oh so much better (can you sense the sarcasm here?) the bank won't let me cash the check, even though I had ID up the wazoo and I went to a bank that was the same type as where the check was issued. Apparently I have to have a Swedish person with a Swedish ID to verify that I'm who I say I am. ARRAGH! So I don't have my food subsidy money, which is a bother, but not a hugely big deal. But still, frustrating.


In other news, the European equivalent of Daylight Savings time started today, and we rolled our clocks back an hour, which meant that around 3:30/4 pm-ish, it started getting dark. By 4:45 pm, it was pitch black. See the stars black. This is greatly un-nerving. It's getting to be hardball time.