Santa Clause vs. The Anatomy of a Joke

A Christmas joke:
What nationality are Santa and Mrs. Clause?
They're North-Polish.

I work at an international elementary school, and I've been looking forward to telling this joke as Christmas-time approaches.  I figured the joke, which hinges on the idea that everyone has a nationality, would be a big hit.  Boy, was I wrong!

Jokes are multi-layered things, balanced on a fragile combination of culture, subtleties within language, and shared assumptions.

When I tried telling this joke last year in Italy, it fell flat.  Italian children believe that Babo Natali lives at il Polo Nord, but it simply doesn't work to deliver the punchline: Sono Nord Polacchi!  Maybe it's because the words Polo and Polacchi aren't similar enough to come together as a pun the way they do in English, or maybe it's the stigma against eastern Europe that exists among some Italians, but the joke doesn't even elicit groans.

In Sweden, the joke faces the additional challenge that Santa isn't associated with the North Pole.  Nordic people possess an understanding of northern geography that wouldn't lead them believe a fellow as clever as Santa Clause would make his dwelling in the middle of the ocean.  Pinpointing Santa's home, however, is a source of debate among Scandinavians.



Swedish children believe that Santa lives just outside Mora, Sweden.  There is a Santa Clause theme park, but it's only at 61° north, and although the village's website lists a mailing address, they didn't seem particularly enthusiastic that folks should address their letters to Santa there.

Finnish children insist that Santa lives in Rovaniemi, Finland.  At 66° north, it touches the Arctic Circle, giving this location more of a Santa-territory feeling.  There is an entire Santa Clause village, including a rather busy post office.  Children are encouraged to send letters here if they'd like a response from Santa Clause.  Write to: Santa Claus / Santa Claus Main Post Office / FI-96930 / Arctic Circle / Finland.  I'm told that when St. Nicholas left Myra, Turkey in the 4th century he came north to live in Rovaniemi, and that the current Santa Clause answering letters to children is the many-times-great-grandson of the original.

Danish and Greenlandic children imagine Santa in his secret castle, just outside Uummannaq, Greenland.  At 70° north, one could walk over ice to the North Pole from Uummannaq, and see plenty of reindeer along the way.  There's no touristic village or theme park dedicated to Santa here, and the town's official website only briefly mentions their most notable resident.  I find the lack of Santa-hype to be a mark of authenticity, as well as the fact that mail sent to Santa will arrive to an enormous postbox here if addressed simply to Santa Claus / North Pole / Greenland.

I told my joke to a gathering of colleagues last night, and it received its share of laughs and groans.  I work with people who speak English fluently, and most of them are from America, Canada, Britain, and Australia, so there were no cultural or linguistic barriers to the humor.  However I was immediately warned not to tell this joke to the children at school.  This time of year is the student body's highest incidence of arguing and fist-fighting, and avoiding the topic of Santa Clause's nationality is a strategy for peace.

Swedish Relatives Part II

The wedding of Gustav Victor Westerberg & Ineborg Albertina Eleanor Holmgren. Frans Oskar Westerberg (Gustav's father) is in the last row, far left. Klara Mathilda Welin (Gustav's mother & my great-grandmother's paternal aunt) had already died.

Gustav Victor Westerberg, my great-grandmother's first cousin

I took an early train to Västerås from Gothenburg on a Wednesday morning.  The trip took four hours, which gave me time to relax and take in the countryside after five months within the city, and to reflect on my expectations regarding meeting Åke and Sven.  I was excited to meet them and uncertain about what I should expect, and I felt confident that the encounter would not be uncomfortable.  As we had arranged, Kajsa picked me up at Västerås station at around 11, and we headed back to her place where Åke and his wife would be arriving shortly.  Sven was unable to join us.

Kajsa was friendly and easy to talk with.  As she prepared lunch, she chatted about the Västerås area and told me it's Sweden's fifth largest city.  She clarified her connection to Åke and Sven: she's the niece of Lillan, Åke's wife.  She informed me that since neither brother had any children and since all of their cousins have died, the only blood relatives they have at this point are one another.  And now, all of a sudden, me.  Before my letter arrived, Åke and Sven had no idea they might have relatives in America. 

Kajsa also told me about Åke's reaction when he received my letter.  He had pulled out a Swedish-English dictionary and spent the better part of an hour trying to understand the message before he realized it was printed in Swedish on the reverse side.  The story gave me a giggle, but it also gave me some confidence: I figured if Åke was willing to put that effort into receiving my message, then he might actually be an interested participant in this project, not someone simply tolerating the second-cousin-twice-removed role he'd been cast into.

Åke and Lillian Westerberg

When Åke and Lillan arrived, I watched through a window as Åke helped his wheelchair-bound wife from the car, through the gravel driveway, and up the porch steps to the house.  This took perhaps ten minutes, and I was glad for the opportunity to observe him before being thrown into introductions.  I was pleased to see that he was patient, gentle, attentive.

Inside the house there were introductions and handshakes.  Åke and Lillan wanted to know if I could speak some Swedish, and I was embarrassed of my linguistic limitations as I demonstrated a few phrases I could manage: Jag heter Jaime. Jag är din kusin. Trevligt att träffas.  Amidst all of this, there was a high frequency of small stolen glances between Åke and myself.  There is a social stigma against looking too long or too frequently at the face of someone with whom you are not well-acquainted, and I think we were both aware that we were breaking this rule but also overwhelmed with curiosity about who the other person was, and if we might find something of ourselves recognizable in the other.

Åke, middle row 3rd from left, & his cousin Ingvar, bottom row far left

Kajsa was still finishing up lunch, so Åke pulled out a large envelope full of yellowing photographs and told me the names that go with the faces.  I produced an iPad full of my own family photos as well as a multi-page family tree document which we used clarify how the people in our photos were connected.  Limited Swedish didn't prove to be such a problem as I had feared; my intro to Swedish course has equipped me for a conversation about family relations.  I found myself easily referring to farfar, dotter, fru, bror, and asking, Vad heter han?  I was able to add a few cousins' names to my family tree.  I took notes and snapped photos of his photos, giving some moments of our interaction an atmosphere of research, and I think he was amused by the idea of mundane family mementos being documented as artifacts.

Sven & Åke's mother as a child

cousin Kalle Johnsson

Åke, left, Sven, right, and their cousin Kroen, middle

Åke in the military

Over lunch Kajsa was available to translate, so we got to share a few stories.  It was hard to know where to begin; I felt this desire to transmit to him all the family stories I know, and to hear something equally comprehensive from him.  Instead we spoke in a natural way.  He told me that the farm where he grew up has now been covered by an airport, and that he worked at a factory making parts for trains.  I told him about how I met my husband and how we came to be living in Sweden now.

The farm where Åke grew up, now covered by an airport

Sven and his mother, Ingeborg Albertina Eleanor Holmgren

Sven, who wasn't able to join us

Look familiar, dad?

I finally found the courage to ask him about his hair.  I didn't see so much in Åke's visage that reminded me of my family members except that his hair looked so much like my father's and grandfather's: thin and wispy, and clearly showing the scalp underneath.  I related to Åke my father's story of having been told in high-school that he would be bald by thirty, but instead his hair stayed consistently thin and wispy throughout his life while his classmates balded.  Åke said it's the same for him - his hair has always been this way.  I found a great satisfaction in knowing this.

Not long after lunch Åke and Lillan headed home.  Our parting was a nice moment, with a good strong hug and sincere smiles and expressions of gratitude for the day together.  We didn't make plans for another meeting, but the possibility of this felt very open.  Once Åke was gone I found I could think of lots of things that I would have liked to have asked him about, but I don't doubt we'll have another opportunity in the future.

Lillan, me, and Åke

Swedish Relatives Part I

Like most Americans, I come from a family of immigrants.  I grew up knowing that one part of my family's story was set long ago in Sweden, however I wasn't ever familiar with the details of that story.  But I started to grow curious about researching my Swedish heritage shortly after I arrived.

It started one day as I was sitting on the couch in my flat in Gothenburg.  Suddenly I realized that it was possible that my ancestors lived somewhere quite near to where I live now, and that if that was so it would be a shame not to visit that place.  I called and asked my mother for my great-grandmother's maiden name even though I doubted that she would know it or that her name would lead to any useful information.  To my surprise, I was wrong on both counts.

Klas and Sofia Welin, my great great grandparents

My mother was able to tell me "Nana's" maiden name without even looking it up: Welin.  She was born Hulda Marie Welin, an American-born daughter of Swedish immigrant parents.  I put her name in a Google search and found a site with extensive family tree information that included a page just for her with the locations and dates of her birth, death, and marriage, as well as links to pages for her parents, children, and spouse.  Following these links I found an extensive network of family relations; some of the names were familiar to me from stories I'd heard as a child, but most of them I'd never heard before.  The family tree went as far back as the grandparents of my great-grandmother, and included a long list of cousins and aunts and uncles.

 It was pure luck to find such extensive and well-organized information on a public site; as I have since learned, there's no small amount of work involved in genealogy research, and I doubt I'd have been willing to get involved in this investigation if I'd had to do it all from scratch.  A Swedish friend put me in contact with his grandmother who does genealogy research as a hobby, and with her help I located two living relatives: Sven and Åke, the sons of my great-grandmother's first cousin.  That makes them my second cousins twice removed, but perhaps a diagram makes it easier to understand how I'm related to these fellows:

Second Cousins, twice removed

 It was exciting to know that I had living relatives in Sweden, but a bit intimidating to actually make contact with them.  I wasn't sure what to say, or how they'd react to being contacted by a stranger.  I finally wrote a letter that introduced myself and explained who I am (including a copy of the chart above), and suggested we meet in the last week of October when I had some vacation time and planned to be in their part of the country anyway.

It took some time before I heard back and I almost gave up hope of a positive response, but then one evening in late-October I got a phone call from Åke's wife's neice, Kajsa.  She said the brothers were curious to meet me and that they didn't speak English but she could assist with translation.

At that point I had to ask myself what I was really looking for in this interaction.  I came up with this approximation: I was seeking was a better understanding of who I am, some sense of what my family was like before it was transplanted and redefined as American, and a stronger feeling of connection and belonging to the country I currently make my home in.  I recognize that this is beyond what could be expected to result from an initial meeting with strangers, even if we do share DNA.  So I kept it simple by reigning in my expectations and gathering some family photos.

Hulda Marie Welin (Hryse) - my nana

Hulda Marie Welin (Hryse) and me

John Eugene Hryse (grandpa) and Alexis John Hryse (dad)

John Eugene Hryse

John Eugene Hryse

Cooking like an American

I love to cook, but somehow I always seem to invite complication into my kitchen.

As a preteen I developed an intense pride in making food 'from scratch'.  It made me feel a bit like Laura Ingles Wilder.  I remember my baby brother waddling over to me waving a box of brownie mix in his hand, asking me to bake brownies for him.  I put on a big-sister smile and raised my voice an octave as I said, I'm sorry sweetie, but I can't. Pouring something into a pan out of a box doesn't count as baking.  Then I dedicated the next two hours to making brownies from scratch even though I doubt his tiny taste buds appreciated my efforts.

In my mid-twenties I became obsessed with using the healthiest ingredients possible, though that didn't necessarily add complication to cooking so much as it added expense to my grocery store excursions.  Shortly thereafter, however, I declared myself a raw-foodist for a brief period, and my culinary creativity was stretched thin.

The karmic cycle repeated when I moved to Europe and married a vegan, thus forcing me to come up with a whole new bag of tricks in the kitchen.  I'd had no idea the extent to which I'd previously relied on eggs, cheese, and milk.  At first I simply didn't cook for him - I let him cook for me.  Romantic, right?  And educational.  But it didn't take long before I got tired of eating the same three meals, so I sought out vegan blogs and recipe sites, figuring out how to make something yummy that didn't inconvenience any animals.

I soon realized that the majority of vegan recipes are written by people who have access to places like Whole Foods Market.  Specialty food stores are not as ubiquitous in Europe as they are in California.  When I do come across an organic shop here, it tends to be very small and quite expensive.  Sweden is better than Italy was as far as availability of obscure products is concerned, though it's still hit or miss regarding whether or not I'll be able to find xanthiam gum or kombu.  The combined challenges of finding the names of odd ingredients in the local language, locating them, and being able to afford them keeps my excursions to health-food shops to a minimum.  (May I just rant for just a moment?  At the ecological market I frequented in Pisa I couldn't even find simple rolled oats, and when I asked the clerk if she could order kombucha from her supplier she had to look it up online to know what it was.  The answer was no: kombucha was not even available as a special order.  Argh!  I had my choice of three different brands and eight different flavors of kombucha at the normal grocery store in California!)

So I've learned to seek out recipes that focus on standard ingredients.  Absolutely nothing fancy.  Even some rather standard ingredients that we take for granted as Americans are unheard of in Europe.  I've given up hope of finding shortening here.  And once in a while I ask Dad to include a container of baking powder when he sends a care package ... not because baking powder doesn't exist here - it does - but the baking powder I find in Europe is single-acting rather than double-acting; it behaves and tastes entirely different than what I buy at home.

And I find that regardless of the ingredients, it's still a challenge to whip up American recipes here in Europe. You see, in America we measure everything differently.  I'm not just talking about imperial measurements instead of metric - gallons rather than liters.  We also differ from Europeans because we tend to measure by volume - by how much of an ingredient can fit into a given space.  This actually works just fine, even though it's not the most scientific method.  It doesn't present any problem for liquid ingredients, but the volume taken up by a dry ingredient will vary according to the way an ingredient is handled.  Therefore our recipes refer to packed brown sugar, and heaping teaspoons.  Ours is a culture of approximation.  And that's the beauty of America, isn't it?  Exactly how hard should you pack the brown sugar?  As hard as you damn well please.  We're a country of rugged individualists, and though we recognize the utility of using a recipe as a guideline, we take pride in creating a finished product that is the result of our individual interpretations.

Not so in Europe.  The first time I saw my husband cook, I thought he was joking.  He was an undergrad in physics at the time, and he cooked as though the kitchen was his laboratory.  He pulled out a small scale and weighed each ingredient to the gram.  I can see now that this is advantageous for making something like souffle, but he was just making spaghetti.  C'mon, don't you just grab a big hand full of spaghetti and toss it in a pot?  If you make too much, there'll be leftovers for tomorrow's lunch.  But I've since learned that Italians aren't nearly as excited about leftovers as we are in America, and that precision cooking is a practice that goes beyond my favorite physicist's kitchen.

I've now come to appreciate cooking according to a European recipe's measuring system.  There's less to clean up when you eliminate the middle man from the measuring practice.  The bowl rests on the scale and you hit reset after adding each ingredient.  Each ingredient is poured, slowly, into the bowl until the correct weight is reached.  But this really only works with European recipes.  Converting an American recipe from volume-based cups to weighted measurements involves more than a few calculations from imperial units to metric; you also have to keep in mind that each ingredient will be converted differently because it's weight to volume ratio is different.  A cup of flour, depending on the type of flour, will weigh anywhere from 110 to 135 grams.  A cup of rolled oats weighs 85 grams and a cup of chocolate chips weighs 152 grams.  A cup of shortening weighs 205 grams, and lest you think that I should quit griping about Europe's shortening deficiency and use butter instead, let me set the record straight that a cup of butter weighs 227 grams.  Translating an American recipe into something useful in European culture requires a fair amount of research and above average math skills.

I received a gift in the mail recently from my best friend in California.  A simple thing, really, but it's made such a difference in my life.  It's a set of measuring cups and spoons.  Even though I figured out long ago that one American cup equals 236 milliliters, and I marked one of my glasses with a permanent marker at the 236 ml line, recipes never turned out so well with that method as they do now with these nesting cups and spoons.  Thanks for the lifeline, Emily!

Duty From Afar

Leaving home and making a life in a new land has presented it's share of challenges.  I'm currently struggling through learning my third foreign language.  Becoming employed within a new society is rarely easy.  There are some culinary pleasures that the grocery stores outside of America cannot provide (oh how I crave root beer, Reese's peanut butter cups, and cornbread!).  And then there's that inescapable hassle: governmental bureaucracy.

Bureaucratic interaction was also a part of my life in the States.  Every four years I had to renew my drivers license.  There were a few occasions when I bought or sold a car I had to interact with DMV to transfer the registration.  Once I had my car stolen and had to file a police report.  I remember occasionally feeling exasperated listening to the same song over and over while hold with some official office, or explaining the details of my case to Person X who then tells me I had better call Person Y, who then transfers me to Person Z, who informs me that Person X is the one who handles this type of situation.

But since uprooting my life and planting myself in new soil, I have had to learn to fine-tune my bureaucratic patience.  Getting married to an Italian involved a mountain of paperwork and a complex choreography of interaction between several bureaucratic offices in both of our countries.  Becoming an Italian resident was an adventure in forms, translations, photocopies, official stamps, and a favors from a friend of a friend.  Obtaining Swedish residency seemed more straightforward at the onset, but lately we've run into complications that have made us seriously consider just giving up and moving back to Italy.

On top of this, I received a jury duty summons last week.  From a California courthouse.  It arrived at my mother's house, which I continue to use as my permanent mailing address.  The same thing happened about a year and a half ago, when I was living in Italy.  At that time I called the Jury Commissioner's office and explained that I'm no longer living in California, that I'm married to a European and making my life outside of America.  The person I spoke to back then was very nice - she said that I should just fax in my juror form with I am not domiciled in the State of California checked, along with a letter of explanation and a copy of my passport showing my stamp of entry into the EU.  It was easy to do and it required a minimal expenditure of time and energy.  I thought the problem was solved, so it surprised me to get the déjà vu email from mom: "You've got a jury duty summons here, what would you like me to do with it?"

I called the court office and briefly recounted my situation to the woman on the phone, ending with "I sent in a letter last year explaining I live outside the US, so I'm confused that I'm receiving another summons."  She told me that the letter last year only excused me from jury duty last year, that I'd have to fax in another letter this time, and that I should expect to continue receiving jury duty notices in the future.  She went on to inform me that sending in a letter would probably work this time, and maybe even next time, but that after a while this method wouldn't effectively excuse me from serving jury duty and I'd eventually be held in contempt of court.

Whoa.  Contempt of court.  I've heard those words on TV, and I don't like the sound of them.  I asked what I could do to stop receiving summons, and her advice was that I call California's Department of Motor Vehicles and cancel my drivers license.  I asked if she was serious.  "Yes, ma'am."  I suggested that there must be some other solution; that my situation couldn't be so unusual.  "This is what we tell everyone in your situation," she informed me, "There's nothing we can do about it at this office - you'll have to call DMV."

In case it isn't obvious, let me state that I really don't want to cancel my California drivers license.  I don't go home so often, but when I do I generally have occasional access to a car and I like to be able to get around that way.  I've tried navigating southern California via bicycle and public transportation, and it wasn't a particularly enjoyable experiment.  Plus, my California drivers license affords me permission to drive in Europe for one year from the issuance date of my Italian and Swedish residencies.  Giving up my license would have an immediate unwanted effect on my life.

The first thing I did was call my embassy.  They're the ones who help Americans living outside America, right?  The operator told me that there was nothing they could do for me; that they handle federal issues and jury duty is the jurisdiction of the state.

The next step was to call DMV.  With the time difference it was a little tricky to call at a moment that didn't have a ridiculously long wait time, and when I finally spoke to a human, he didn't know what advice to give because he'd never heard of a situation like mine.  "We are obliged to give the courts a list of names of licensed drivers every six months," he told me, "and there's no way to have your name removed from that list."  I informed him of the jury commissioner's suggestion of canceling my drivers license and he was as disbelieving as I had been.  He went on to suggest that cancelling my drivers license wouldn't necessarily solve the problem because the courts also receive a list of names from the Registrar of Voters.  I told him to ixnay the ancellationcay, and I called the Registrar of Voters.

The woman who answered at the Registrar's office listened sympathetically to my problem, but said the same thing as DMV had said - that they have no choice about providing the court with a list of names of registered voters.  She kindly helped me to register as a permanent absentee voter, but told me that this status makes no difference with regard to my name's presence on the list given to the jury commissioner.  She also told me that according to California election code 2025, I have the right to maintain my last residential address in California as my voting address / district even though I'm living out of the country now.  Her reference to rights and codes got me thinking about a strongly worded letter I might send the jury commissioner, and I called DMV again, this time with the intention of arming myself with a knowledge of my rights.

I dialed the general number at DMV and asked if it was a problem from a legal standpoint that I maintain my California drivers license even though I live outside of California.  I was transferred to the Public Inquiry Department where a very nice woman listened to my situation and sided squarely with me.  I asked her if she could cite some vehicular code that would confirm this right, and she put me on hold while she went to look it up.  A few minutes later she returned and told me she had bad news: the only code applicable to this situation was California vehicle code 17460, which says that by accepting a drivers license I have consented to obey any "summons" that are sent to me whether I am living in California or not.  She seemed to believe that "summons" generally referred to being held responsible for legal infractions - parking tickets and whatnot - but that the Jury Commissioner could reference this code in asserting their right to oblige me to serve jury duty based on my possession of a drivers license.

Damn.  There went my strongly worded self-righteous letter plan.

I felt defeated, but I still felt rebellious.  I followed the Jury Commissioner's instructions, mailing in my juror form, copies of various official documents confirming my existence outside of California, and a letter of explanation.  The letter (below) was meant to draw attention to the absurdity of my situation, and hopefully put a smile on the face of the human who receives it.  I doubt it will solve my problem for the long term, but I doubt it will make anything worse either.  Perhaps I'll have some new ideas of how to deal with this situation by the time the next jury summons arrives.  Maybe I'll have a Swedish drivers license by then, or as several folks have suggested, perhaps contempt of court are words with a strong bark but no bite.  One friend has suggested I might receive help from my representative in Congress if I contact him, but at this point I've mailed my letter to the Riverside County Courts and I'm gladly putting this issue out of my head.  I've got plenty of other bureaucratic strings to untangle.

Riverside Office of the Jury Commissioner
PO Box 400
Riverside, CA 92502-0400

July 17, 2012

Dear Jury Commissioner,

I regret to inform you that I am not available to fulfill the duty to which I have recently been called.  My badge will not sit proudly upon my breast, for I am at this time incapable of participating in the judicial system of Our Great State.  Woefully, I am not currently domiciled in the State of California, but in Europe, and I am unable to procure the funds necessary to transport myself to 4100 Main Street, despite my heartfelt desire to fulfill my civic duty.

You see, I have entered into the sacred bonds of a transatlantic matrimony, and please believe me when I say that the pang of regret that I feel at my current inability to participate in America’s esteemed legal system is but one among a great many difficulties that I have undertaken to endure by joining my life to a partner who shares my undying love of country, but who harbors a pointedly different opinion as to exactly which country on God’s earth is most deserving of our love.

I maintain the Californian address of #### Riverside // 92507 (my childhood home) as a mailing address and in fact as my permanent address, for I shall not give up my dream of someday returning to The Land of Liberty, and breathing in the smell of freedom; indeed it is still America I think of when I hear the word home.  However I am currently domiciled (and expect to remain domiciled for the next two years) at #### // 41258 Göteborg // Sweden while my husband pursues his higher education, after which time he insists we shall return to his beloved Italy so as to live as near as possible his mother.

Mr. Commissioner, please understand that I swore a vow before almighty God that I would love, honor, and obey my husband.  More specifically, I swore di amare, onorare e rispettare, and Italians take these words quite seriously, particularly the rispettare part.  If I were to break with this oath, even for so high a calling as that of serving the great judicial system upon which America was founded, then there would remain no honor in my countenance to render me worthy of wearing the title Juror, now nor in the future.  For this reason I cannot promise with any certainty when in the future I might be available to make my offering of service to the Superior Court of California; I can only underscore that my current inability weighs heavy upon my conscience.

Enclosed is a copy of my Swedish residence permit, my Swedish residence card, my Italian marriage certificate, and my US passport.  If you desire any further information or documentation you need only ask.  I can be contacted at my Swedish address (above), via email (vickers.jaime@gmail.com), or on my Swedish mobile phone (011 46 070 ####).

God bless America,

Jaime Vickers

Migration ≠ Vacation

People at home sometimes mistakenly romanticize my life.  I've recently moved to Sweden with my Italian husband; until two months ago we lived in Italy.  For some of my peeps back home in California, these destinations fuel their dreams.

But make no mistake: living in Italy or Sweden is by no means a really really long version of a vacation in Europe.  And marriage to an Italian is not the plot of a steamy foreign film.  My husband is a very human man (though his Italian accent and small mistakes in spoken English do often make me smile), and Sweden and Italy are countries rather like America - different in their own ways, of course, but life here still involves those familiar life-elements of struggle, frustration, boredom, and disappointment.

Recently a friend wrote to me, Oh, wow, you've moved to Sweden? You're so lucky! I've always wanted to go there!  Maybe what she meant is that she herself is lucky that I have moved to Sweden, because now she knows a person in Sweden who can host her if she should find the opportunity and means to travel to her long-desired destination.  But I am in the midst of (1) a confusing but requisite interaction in a foreign language with a new bureaucratic system, (2) a job search despite an economic crisis in a country where I don't sufficiently speak the language and where my professional certifications from home are nearly meaningless, and (3) a struggle to create a social life from nothing amongst a society of introverts.  So I must admit I scoff a bit at being told I'm lucky. 

Now this is almost sounding negative, and that's not my intention.  I try to keep my cup half full, whether the cup holds coca-cola, espresso, or fläderblomssaft.  I'm sure that once I find my feet here it'll be easier for me to acquiesce to these accusations of luck.  But for now I feel the need to set the record straight: migration ain't no vacation.