Normal, Verdana, 12

2.   Learning Swedish: 1974-1976

 

My university life began in September 1974. Democracy had just returned, and the students, who could not protest like all the other European students in 1968, had their chance to do so. And it was too much, mainly by the older students. We hardly had any real courses without interruptions, as everything was characterized by everyday student protests, strikes, student trials of professors who had collaborated with the dictatorship, and continuous fights with the police.

Due to the chaotic traffic in Athens, the bus ride to the School of Business and Economics used to take at least an hour. Going there to find that the lecture was cancelled was not fun at all. Sometimes some fellow students who lived near the School called me and informed me that the lectures or seminars were cancelled and then I didn't have to go there.

Of course, the feelings of Sweden remained strong. I had some correspondence with my good friend Nikos who had moved to Stockholm. I once again followed Åtvidaberg's matches in Europe, but only via sports newspapers. Again, I was impressed that the team managed to get to the quarter-finals where they lost to Barcelona.

In parallel with my studies, I also studied French at the French Institute in Athens because my father wanted me to continue my studies in France. To cope with all this, I unfortunately had to give up my football. But every Sunday I sat in the stands and watched either Olympiakos' home games, or the sympathetic Panionios in Nea Smyrni where I lived.

Sweden week in the cinema

The first year at the School of Busines and Economics went quite well. During the autumn term of 1975, I started studying in the second year with a focus on Economics, as it was more interesting compared to Business Administration. There I chose, among other things, one of three optional courses, "Economic Systems". The teacher, who had been at the University of Oslo previously, was very lyrical about the superiority of the Scandinavian model compared to capitalism and socialism. But to claim this at a time when many students were strong leftists, was hardly successful. For me, on the other hand, who had had a certain embryo about Sweden for several years, it was wonderful to hear.

After the return of democracy in Greece, Sweden unconfined its "cultural" sanctions that had been introduced during the dictatorship and now you could watch Swedish films. During the autumn of 1975, some Swedish films were shown in a cinema in Athens, which was quite close to the School. There were two films by Ingemar Bergman, "The Silence" and "Whispers and Shouts", two by Vilgot Sjöman, "Curious yellow" and "Curious Blue", and Bo Widerberg's "Ådalen 31". The reviewers were of course talking about Bergman's great masterpiece and Sjöman's politically provocative works. I agreed after I had seen the first four films. At the same time, I thought Bergman's films were "too heavy" and was actually quite tired and a little disappointed, something I didn't dare to tell my friends about. I simply wanted to avoid their criticism that I was not capable of understanding these masterpieces.

The day before they showed "Ådalen 31" I read a review in a newspaper in the hobby room at the School, where we sat and played chess, about this particular movie. The reviewer talked about the true and moving story, about the Swedish working class, and about what the film meant for Sweden's political development that followed "Ådalen 31". He ended his review by urging people to go and watch it. I was both tired and broke from the other films. But I finally decided to go to the movies and asked for some money from my mother.

The movie was wonderful! It was not only the true story of the shots fired at striking demonstrators, but also the great contrast between the beautiful nature in the northern Sweden and poverty. There were many scenes that stuck with me, such as when the strikebreaker was bandaged up at the home of the striking father. And it was extremely touching when the mother who was doing the laundry out in the yard was informed by the eldest son who came running, that they shot the father to death. Probably this film is the reason why I moved to Sweden.

It was quite cold and dark when I left the cinema and I decided to walk home, a distance of at least ten kilometers. A thousand thoughts went through my head during the long walk. The sound of factory chimneys in the movie echoed in my head for a long time. In 1932 general elections, the social democrats came to power, reformed the country, started the social policies, introduced the welfare state and governed for 44 years! When I got home, my mother asked me if anything had happened, because I looked quite strange. I calmed her down and went to bed. I didn't sleep much that night and only thought about the movie. The next day I went straight to the Swedish embassy instead of going to School.

Visit to the Swedish Embassy in Athens

At that time, you did not need to book an appointment with the embassy. However, the exterior door on the ground floor was locked and I called to get in. They asked me what I wanted and I had to lie to let me in. I said that I was a student and was doing a work on the Swedish model and wanted some information about Sweden.

They opened and I went up to the second floor. Then I spoke to the secretary in Greek. She was quite friendly and willing to answer my questions. It was she who showed me on the map where Åtvidaberg is located. I received some material in English, published mostly by the Swedish Institute. I asked her if there was any opportunity in Athens to learn Swedish. She replied that the year before, the Swedish School Association was opened in Athens, which taught Swedish, but only for children whose parents worked in Swedish multinational companies in Greece and had Swedish as their mother tongue. She recommended instead that I try self-teaching, like audio cassettes from Linguaphone. I thanked her for all the help I received and walked towards the Linguaphone office which was located in the center, a couple of kilometers away.

When I got there, I told the secretary at the reception that I wanted to learn Swedish. I remember she laughed quite loudly and asked me why on earth I wanted to learn Swedish. As long as she had worked there, no one else had asked about a Swedish course. Furthermore, she said that if I could speak English, it was just as well, since all Swedes speak English and did not have to impress the Swedish girls when they were going on vacation to Greece next summer! I got really annoyed, I raised my voice and told her that I was interested in learning Swedish and if she didn't want to help me, I wanted to talk to her boss! At the same time, I showed all the papers I had just received from the Swedish embassy and it was the embassy that recommended Linguaphone. Then she understood that I was serious, she apologized and said that they didn't have Swedish in Athens, but they should order through the head office in London instead.

Linguaphone course in Swedish

A few weeks later the expensive package arrived which I picked up at the post office. The joy and excitement when I opened the package was probably higher compared to when I, as a child, opened the Christmas presents. There were four audio cassettes with all lessons recorded, a textbook, a small grammar book and a small Swedish-Greek dictionary.

Carefully I opened the textbook and put the first tape on the tape recorder. From a very slow and warm male voice was heard: "Lesson 1: Now we will learn Swedish. My name is Mr. Lind..." I tried in vain to follow the voice by looking at the textbook, which was half a page long. No, I didn't keep up after the second line. After a while there was a short pause and then "Lesson 2" was heard, and then I understood that the first lesson had finished.

This was the second time I heard someone speak Swedish. The first time was on Ingemar Bergman's films and it was almost impossible to hear clearly Ingrid Thulin's or Harriet Andersson's voices. Then I was concentrated on the strong scenes and the plot itself and I didn't care about the language. In addition, there were subtitles in Greek.

It got marginally better because I could only follow the first two sentences: "Now we're going to learn Swedish. My name is Mr. Lind." Then it was impossible, the voice went so fast I thought. Again, I had to turn the band back and restart from the beginning. I don't remember how many times I repeated this in each lesson. Once, my sister, who owned the Grundig tape recorder, protested. She was worried that the device and even the tape would break if I repeated it so many times. I calmed her down, since Grundig was an excellent German manufacturer and would make it!

To minimize wear and tear on the tape recorder and tape, I decided to first look at the text myself several times, before I put on the tape. It actually took a few weeks before it started to drop a bit.

On each new text, I had at least fifty new words to learn. I used to write down all the new words on a piece of paper and read when I took the hour-long bus ride to the School of Business and Economics in case I could find a seat, or when I went early to the football match. At the same time, I started with the few grammatical exercises that were in each text.

I didn't know that the book was so old-fashioned and thought that expressions like "Does the lady want a cup of coffee?", or "Would you please give me the newspaper?" were normal expressions. I thought that the Swedes were just like us or the French and Germans and used plurals, or elegant expressions in the third form to show respect to others. I simply had to memorize them and noticed that they were old-fashioned expressions when I moved to Sweden later.

As I mentioned earlier, I also studied French as well as Economics and didn't have much time for Swedish. I decided instead to study Swedish mainly during the weekends. There were often fights with my sister who worked and wanted to listen to music during the weekends. I couldn't afford to buy my own tape recorder, especially when I paid so much for the course package. The funny thing is that even my mother, who listened to the band while she cooked in the kitchen, noticed that Swedish has a certain rhythm and sounds like when you sing. But even my brother Giorgos learned a sentence "Mr. Lind has different kinds of flowers" and he still jokes with my children in the summers about how he learned it.

By the way, my friend Nikos told me that the Swedish Radio International program broadcast Swedish news and reports in Swedish, and also in other languages, late at night, but on shortwave. Of course, I tried to listen to it when I had time and was at home, to practice the language.

I had marked the frequency carefully, but there were at least two or three other Arabic stations that were on the same frequency and caused noise and interference. The Swedish news in English, which was broadcast half an hour before, was much easier to hear. Presumably, the Arabic news began to broadcast at the same time as the Swedish news. Sometimes, depending on the weather as I had understood, there were minor disturbances with Swedish news. At first, I didn't understand much, but since I had listened to the news in English, I was able to keep up a bit. However, I always remember the beautiful folk music with which the program ended its broadcasts.   

The King's wedding

Everyone knows that summer is very hot in Athens and people don't like to go by bus and crowd with a lot of other passengers. On the way home from the School, I first used to walk a few kilometers to Syntagma square and then I took the green bus to Piraeus. The bus stop was on the corner of the square near a kiosk. All kiosks in Athens sold not only tobacco and soft drinks or ice cream, but also daily and weekly newspapers that often hung around the kiosk to attract consumers.

It was an early summer evening, the bus had just arrived, but as I passed by the kiosk, my eyes were fixed on a Greek weekly newspaper that showed a beautiful picture of the Swedish king's wedding. I stopped and bought the expensive and glamorous weekly magazine. Immediately I began to dazzle among the beautiful pictures very slowly and admired not only His Majesty and the elegant queen, but also the wonderful pictures of Stockholm. Of course, I missed the bus but it didn't matter. I took the next bus, sat down and looked again at the pictures.

An older elegant lady sat next to me and also started looking at the pictures. She knew that King Carl-Gustaf had gotten married and wondered if all the beautiful pictures were about the wedding. Then she started talking a little about the monarchy, which she knew a lot about. She informed me that the Greek Queen Anne Marie, who was the Danish Queen Margrethe's little sister, was actually a cousin of Carl-Gustaf. She knew that both Anne Marie and King Constantine were at the wedding, and looked for them among the ten pictures that were in the magazine. Then she asked me how on earth, I, a young boy studying at university, bought a glamorous women's magazine that was about the Swedish king's wedding! I smiled at her and didn't know what to answer. Then she burst into joy that I was probably a crypto royalist, just like her! Then she fell silent and just before she was about to step down, she said that it was stupid that we in Greece voted out the monarchy and missed such glamorous ceremonies.

I got off a few stops later and wondered how I missed the king's wedding that had happened a couple of weeks earlier. Of course, the Greek media ignored this because it was a very sensitive subject, after we voted out the monarchy in December 1974. But the lady knew about the wedding and not me who was so committed about Sweden! I probably didn't listen to Swedish Radio during this period because June is a month full of exams at the universities in Greece.

When I got home, my mother sat in front of the TV as usual and watched some series. As soon as I showed her the pictures, she left the TV and started sucking them all up, one by one. My mother was a devoted royalist and of course voted for the monarchy. She naturally fell in love with the queen's elegant wedding dress and diadem, the cortège image, as well as the colorful dresses of all the queens and princesses. She was really happy and it was actually the first time she wasn't against me moving to Sweden and living in a peaceful country ruled by the monarchy! 

A few days later, I sat in a cafeteria with some friends and admired the young Björn Borg who won his first title at Wimbledon. Then I was not the only one who cheered when Björn crushed Ilie Nastase, but the entire cafeteria! It was a fantastic performance that was even better than I had expected. The rest of the summer I spent in Amfilochia with my family and friends and often with Swedish-Greek dictionaries by the beach.

The Swedish winter jacket

During Christmas, my friend Nikos came from Stockholm. I had written to him and asked to buy me a winter jacket, preferably in blue and yellow. Together with our mutual friend Tassos, we visited him at his mother's apartment in Athens. Of course, I was very happy about it. We hadn't seen each other for two years. He was allowed to talk freely about everything he wanted about life in Sweden. I listened like when a little boy listens to exciting stories.

He showed me the jacket. It was better than I had expected and paid the expensive price with great pleasure. The color was bright blue with long yellow bands along the sleeves. No one else had a jacket like it in all of Athens! Everyone I knew actually asked where I bought it. And I wore it every day until spring. When the semester started after the Christmas holidays, I noticed that my jacket caught a lot of eyes, out on the streets of Athens, or on the bus. People still smoked in the buses those times and I was really afraid that it could be burned by some cigarette. Of course, I also wore it when I went to the matches in Piraeus. Sometimes there was a bit of a fight with other Olympiakos football fans who sat close to me, because the color contrasted with the huge red-and-white wave that dominated the entire area there. When Olympiakos played other teams with blue colors, I had to wear thick and wide red-and-white necklaces around it so that the blue color would not be visible.

Nikos also mentioned that the Swedish Radio (SR) publishing house had published some Swedish books for foreigners. That was good news. I wrote a letter to SR and told them that I listened to their program, that I was starting to learn Swedish myself and wondered if I could get another book in easy Swedish from them. A few weeks later I was very happy when I got two small books. Both books are still on my shelf.