ENGLISH: Culture clash or merger?

Rule: You regard your own culture as everythings measure
Exception: When you lower your guard and experience a new culture

This is my fourth autumn back in Sweden so I should be used to it. My problem is of course that during the years I have been used to going back every now and then to Ireland. I have spent weeks there, working as well as renewing the friendship of my new Irish friends. But since November last year the door seems to have been closed.

I have received job offers, too many actually, but they have always clashed with something so I have had to turn them down.

During this time Ireland has insisted on keeping on changing, referendums have come and gone, the taoiseach has resigned and a new one has sworn the oath - the uninvitable flooding now affects new areas. And I am not there. The world keeps on turning - not regarding my presence at all.

It is a pity (and maybe a blessing) that we cannot be at two places at the same time. We have to make choices all the time. In the Narnia-books the Lion always cautions the children about aksing what could have happened had they made another choice. The choices we do make are the ones that matter.

I have made my choice but a part of me is yearning to go back.

ENGLISH Worst joke ever?

Rule: A joke will somehow surprise you
Exception: Well, sometimes you see the pun coming and it is still fun!

Stanley meeting Dr Livingstone in Africa. Famous first line of introduction:
- Dr Livingstone I presume?

Stanley meeting Dr Livingstone in Africa. Famous first Wizard of Oz-inspired line:
- I have a feeling we are not in Kansas anymore.

Stanley meeting Dr Livingstone in Africa. Famous first Star Wars-inspired line:
- I have a bad, bad feeling about this.

Stanley meeting Dr Livingstone in Africa. Famous first American movies about Ireland-inspired line:
- Top of the mornin' to you sir!

English: The importance of friends

Rule: Your friend and you will have something in common
Exception: When your friendship becomes the thing you have in common

One of my first days in Ireland I was crossing a street with my youngest, Stefan, in a pram, on our way home from school where we had left the other kids. A lady was waiting next to me at the lights with her toddler in another pram. She turned to me and said:
- Excuse me, are you not Isak's mum?

Isak, my boy, turned out to be in her boy Barney's class. She lived on my way home and thus Sally became my first friendly face in Ireland. Maybe she was that observant about my situation because her husband was non-native. A few days later another mum made a similar approach. Her boy Mikey was in my Kristoffer's class. Niamh turned out to be one of my very best friends in Ireland. And she had lived some years in the US.

In church the first one to really talk to me, not just polite chit-chat or handing out invitations that never got any closer to a real meeeting, was Ulrike. She comes from Germany but has been living in Ireland for many years. My other closest friends in germany were Stuart and Breda (with their children all living abroad) and Sara-Jane (with a Spanish husband).

That made me form a conclusion that the knowledge from sharing a life with an immigrant or sharing first-hand experiences of being a foreigner made you more aware of other foreigners. That is, until I came to know Elizabeth and her sister Bernadette. Both Irish. Both living in Ireland (and nowhere else). Well, Bernadette did have a daughter abroad but she only came to know me from Elizabeth, who came to know me through her daughter Karen who befriended my daughter Petra.

So, without having first or second-hand experience of being a foreigner, Elizabeth still gave me her hand of friendship and has stayed my friend through the years. It has even survived me moving back to Sweden. our friendship is what we have in common and from that point of view we learn things about eachother, and it works because she is as curious as I am about how it is to be on the other side.

Last, a word about Bernadette. She provides me with a home in Ireland whenever I go back, she does laugh at me when I am crying in front of the telly wathing how Len dies in Emmerdale...but she also shares my obsession for Casualty and Holby city. We buy the same kind of clothes from Penney's. I feel at home in her home. That - is a gift. A gift of friendship that she offers me.

English: Swedish-English or Swinglish

Rule: Swedes have exceptionally good English
Exception: But they cannot write properly

In Ireland one of the daily newspapers shared some jokes about the foreign staff working in the now booming tourist sector again: like, how do you know it is a Swede waiting on you?
The answer was: they will clean the table first - and speak correct English.

I heard the same while working in Ireland, many compliments for my English, sometimes delivered with a questioning look as if the person was wondering inside how that was possible. I had, however, to leave my posh British accent behind. The Irish pretended not to understand it. But when it came to writing - well, there I soon noticed that I had to struggle in order to keep it perfect. Suddenly the Swinglish tone would appear, or the Swinglish vocabulary, or the Swinglish syntax or grammar...

Now, after three years at the University studying English I have a different style, but still - the Swedish tone would appear even now. But, is that such a bad thing? The English I write would at least be understandable now, even if I would give myself away sometimes as not being native. However, as I enjoy reading Swedish novels written by mutlilingual people, I hope the same is true the other way around.

The English speaking world already enjoys the presence of people writing in English although they do not come from the US or Great Britain. Hiberno-English is different, Australian-English is different and Singapore-English is different.

That, my friends, is great! Enjoy a more diverse literature.