hop, skip and a jump. across the puddle. whatever that body of water is called.

stockholm is a pretty relaxed ferry ride away from åbo/turku (if also a bit pricey), so the possibility of skipping over there for some shopping/movies/meeting swedish slashers is always around. and also for that reason of proximity wax already knows a handful of swedish slashers, like, for instance, flambeau. until now i've been slightly reluctant (not enough to veto the trip of course) because--well--meeting a cool bnf! (am i weird? would other people be like "HELL YES BRING ON THE COOL BNFS!"?)

but then today, in the car, wax was saying something about her and i was singing some swedish rock music under my breath¹ and suddenly i realised

that people in sweden pronounce the "sh" sound with a cute little whistling noise. all wax's stockholm acquaintances are swedish people, but i checked with her just to make sure:

yes! they all pronounce "själ", "ammunitionen"¹ and every other word with the sh sound with a funny little hard-to-duplicate whistly "h" noise! just like in the antique cassette tapes we listened to in swedish class!

all my reluctance is gone. bring on the stockholm, baby². does someone have a swedish tongue-twister we could make them say? perhaps the equivalent of "she sells sea shells by the seashore"?


1. kent - sundance kid [ammunitionen tog slut till sist/ nu kan du kalla mig the sundance kid - the ammuntion ran out at last/ now you can call me 'the sundance kid']⁴
2. "soul", "the ammunition"
3. after we have money⁵


4. sugar? mace? cupcake? anyone? if you were making a mix cd to introduce a non-swedish-speaker to kent... what would DEFINITELY go on it?
5. wax said, "your parents should finance your european travel habits!" but i don't think that means that they will.