Monday, April 13, 2009

The battles between the nordic countries.

This morning was quite cold but when the sun started to shine it became rather nice. This is a picture of my villages center. Not much of a village anymore actully. Lots of houses has been allowed to fall appart when no new owners has come. That´s something I don´t like about this area, if they can´t get the sum of money they want for a house/cottage they just let it fall appart, they don´t lower the prise.


Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finlad are friendly neighbours since long now, but there´s one thing that makes us what to beat the crap out of each other and that is in sports :-) When it comes to football (or as You americans call it, soccer) we have to beat Denmark what ever the cost is :-) If we don´t beat any other country in the world, let us at least beat Denmark. If we do we´re happy :-) When it comes to Norway it´s crosscountry skiing. We have a problem there, I admit that but we have new strong skiers comming up so in a couple of years we might have a chanse. We haven´t had a chanse there for over twenty years, but that has no other country either :-) On the other hand we have the upper hand in Biathlon (crooscountry skiing combiend with rifle shooting) at least our women have :-)




The first cattle in the village this spring. They are still very young, not a year old.


No activities from the frogs yet. When I moved here one could hear thousands of frogs in spring. Since then many small ponds has been filled with plants so there is no water anymore.


Finland is however a bit more important, we want to beat them in everything :-) Might have to do with the fact that Sweden and Finland was the same country for six hundred years or so (we were only in union with Norway for almost a hundred years) We don´t want to loose aginst them in icehockey. The Finns can be lousy during a world cup, but when they meet us they play better than any nation, they really want to beat the crap out of our team, and vice versa. I don´t have to see any other match on the world cup, but if I see that we win over them I´m happy :-) There´s one thing more “Finnkampen” (The Finn battle). Every year we have a competition against each other in track and field athletics. Every second year it´s in Sweden and every second year in Finland. It´s like a small world cup between our nations and it doesn´t matter if the athletes a really bad as long as the finns are worse :-) The important thing isn´t the results (taktics are though), it´s that our three competitors beat as many of the three Finns as possible in every race. Cheating isn´t that unusual. There has been times when all competitors has been disqualified :-) Probably one of the toughest battles between nations to be honest :-)These last years we have won on both the mens and womens competitions I think, but it has been a close call. I rather look at that than the Olympics so You have to understand that this event is very important :-) I think that You can read about this on Wikepedia.











But othervise we are all very peaceful. We never have to have passports when we travel to each others countries (including Iceland) and we do so frequently. Norwegians comes to our westcoast every summer and since Sweden is a cheap country for them they also buy a lot of houses here to have as summer houses. The Danes do the same but in southern Sweden and since long there is a lot of Finns that live in Sweden and people on the eastcoast do travel to Finland. The Finnish language is impossible to understand but fortunally there is a lot of Finns that has swedish as their native language and swedish is also protected by constitution in Finland, but not in Sweden straingly enough. Norway is probably the most beautiful country in the world, can´t be described You have to see it. Denmark is more laid back and they are the most happy pepole in the world according to studies. Finland I´ve never been to but they say it´s very much like Sweden. Lots of forests and lakes.


The White Wagtail. When people see this bird for the first time at spring they call friends to say that it has come :-) I´ve already had several of those phone calls, now it´s my turn to phone others :-) It´s a lovely little bird not especially afraid of humans or animals. Cats might try to catch it, but the bird just laughes at them :-)



This morning was chilly and perfect for a long morning walk with my dogs. I´ve tried to take a picture of how the crows looks in Sweden (and in the countries east of us) but they as well as the raven is impossible to take a picture of :-) They know when I´m going to try :-) But click on CROW and you´ll see a picture from the internet.
Have a great day this last day of easter!


10 comments:

Anonymous said...

That was a nice history lesson Christer. I enjoyed reading this as I had no idea the sports battles going on over there. I have been a Washington Redskins fan for 35 years and we love to beat Dallas in football every season. That is the games we do not miss. They are our rivals. So if we lose all season that's OK as long as we beat Dallas.

Yesterday watching the kids find their Easter eggs in our front yard which is all woods, we saw the Yellow Specled Hawk return for an 8th straight year. She has the wing span of an Eagle and looks marvelous in flight. Now we know for sure Spring has Sprung. She flies down from Georgia every year to nest in our woods and catch all our moles, which is OK by me.

You have a wonderful week.

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Z&M!
We all have our special teams we just have to beat I think :-)The season can be lousy, but as long we just beat that special team everything is ok :-)


Living here thre cranes should of course be the bird that tells us spring is here, but they have a tendensy to come much to early sometimes. But the wagtail is never wrong (I hope ).

I tried to get a picture of The Yellowspeckled hawk on the net but ther´s none. There´s text about it but no pictures, but it sounds as if it is a magnificent bird! It´s fun when they come back every year like an old friend. And when they take moles they are very special friends!
Have a great day now!
Christer.

Barb said...

Hi Christer,
I love reading about your country. so much I don't know about there. I guess there are conflicts everywhere. (Usually it is the US causing them). I hope you had a nice Easter.
Barb

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Barb!
But our conflicts are very peaceful (even if it´s tough on the racetracks between sweeds and finns :-):-) ). We are all good friends aftewords :-)

I had a great easter and hope thet You had too!
Christer.

Valerie said...

You are some crazy Scandinavians..ha ha!

Loved the mini history lesson in sporting rivalries! Especially sine my mother-in-law is Danish!

Blessings to you from Kansas,
Valerie

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Valerie!
Yes those sportsbattles are deadly serious :-) :-)
Christer.

Wsprsweetly Of Cottages said...

Hi Christer.. :)
I understand about the cows...yep...and I got it about the froggies...uh huh...and I even understand that people walk off and leave their homes at times because it happens here...a lot now! But the sports thing...totally escapes me. I know people take soccer VERY seriously...but...never could figure out why. The men in my family smile at me tolerantly when I ask questions..so... there ya go!
I didn't know you had to work on ..wait..yes I DID know you were going to work...awwww..Christer...darn it! Wish you could have been with family!!!
Take care...how are you feeling???
Mona

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Mona!
Well it´s prestigious between us :-) Sweden has always behaived like a bigger brother to the other Nordic countries, weather they liked it or not :-) Sopeaceful as we are, in sports we really have a war :-)

We are scattered all over southern Sweden so even if I could have been with my family, it would only have been one or two of us anyway :-) But I had a great easter anyway :-)
Have a nice day now!
Christer.

Visiting Voyeur said...

I loved your story. It sounds almost like college football here but I believe that many can never be friends afterwards. I never did understand that. Some men from opposing fights got into a few years ago and then it ended with one fan sueing the other fan for anguish. Who knows!

Great details thank you.

Chelle

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Chelle!
When it comes to league soccer it´s a different story, they faighr for their lives sometimes. I can´t for my life understnd that. But when it comes to sportbattles between countries we´re all good friends afterwards. Especially after "The Finn battle" we´re teasing each other rather much :-)
Have a great day now!
Christer.