Northern Hemi Season Trip Report thingy - Sälen, Sweden
Cords’ Swedish Season ‘12/’13 bloggy thingy.
Well hello there BW readers. I’m going to be spending the northern hemisphere winter in the town of Sälen in Sweden. We leave Australia on November 27th. I thought I’d write a bit of a Trip report/blog style thingy here on BW and hopefully a few other members get some enjoyment out of it. Sweden is a place that most Aussies will never go & don’t know a lot about.
First of all, a bit of introduction…My name is Margie, I’m 30 and live with my Swedish husband Fredrik here in Australia. We’ve been here in oz since we were last in Sweden for the ‘08/’09 season. We did that season in a place called Åre (pronunciation lesson to come later!). That was my first and only season I’ve done. I managed to ride 86 days and got super in to park riding. I went from not being able to go off a jump at the start, to riding the smallest of the black park jumps at the end of the season, which I was pretty pleased with. I’m really excited about going back and getting to ride every day again and hopefully improving a lot again, although I am getting old so my idea of improving isn’t as lofty as it once was!
Here’s a vid I made of the season, if you haven’t already seen it:
If you have any questions about Sweden or things you’d like me to write about or are particularly interested in, then feel free to ask & I’ll do my best to answer/include them!
Background on Sweden:
Sweden has nearly 9.5 million people and geographically, most of those people live in the southern half or even third of the country. For many, ‘going up north’ means going roughly half way to northern tip of the country. Compared to other European countries, it is quite large. The longest distance from north to south is nearly 1600km….widest point is 500km. Here is a map of Sweden:
The most northern point that I’ve circled is Åre, where we did our first season. The middle circled point is Sälen, where we are going to be based this season. The bottom circled point is the village of Sjötorp, where Fredrik grew up. It is a tiny place of only 600 people & the surrounds are all farmland & heaps of pine forest. The lake that Sjötorp is situated on (Lake Vänern) is massive and takes over a day and a half to sail across. It is awesome for fishing, wakeboarding, sailing etc.
Freddy’s childhood was pretty idyllic with lots of the aforementioned activities as well as playing army men in the woods, riding motorbikes in the forest and he even built an ice yacht with his grandpa that they used in winter when the lake freezes over (or used to, it is pretty rare now). Lake Vänern has the best sunsets ever. In the middle of summer, it doesn’t really get dark, it sort of goes like dusk is here and then it is dawn again. I think this pic was taken at about 9 or 9.30pm sometime.
My favourite thing to do in summer there is go fishing/swimming on the lake and then bbq dinner on one of the islands. I never fished growing up, so lots of it is still new to me!
This is the biggest fish I’ve ever caught, by quite a long way. It is a pike - known over there as Gädda (pronounced Yed-da).
Sälen (pronounced ‘Sairlen’)
The reasons we chose to do our season in Sälen, rather than in Åre again are:
* So that we are closer to Freddy’s family. Sälen is a 5 hour drive from Sjötorp, whereas Åre is about 8.5hrs, meaning a weekend trip home is much more likely from Sälen. Fred hasn’t been home in 3.5 years, so it seems crazy to go back there and not hang out with his family as much as possible.
* Because I saw pictures of this park and fell in love with it. It just looks like so much fun!
http://www.freeride.se/blog/salenparks/12079_pink-park-pa-48-bilder/
* I’d never been there, and Freddy hadn’t for many years and we think it is pretty boring to always go to the same old place (even if that place is really good) when there are so many other cool places around that need seeing!
Sälen itself has 4 different ski areas, 116 descents and 86 lifts…and 13 magic carpets. The pink park above is in Lindvallen, we will be living in one of the areas called Tandådalen, which is about 15 mins drive away.
There is already snow there, and some lifts opened last weekend (Saturday 10th nov), and they have some features up in Pink park already. This pic was taken on November 2nd – no lifts yet then – just had to hike up.
To say I’m frothing to get there and get riding is an understatement. We paid our last rent for this house today, Freddy finishes work this Friday (16th) and then we have 10 days to pack up, get rid of and then move the remaining stuff to my mum’s garage (thanks, mum!) before we hand the keys in and have final inspection on the 26th and leave the following afternoon.
Pronunciation lesson!
Thought some people might be interested (and azz confirmed it) in how to pronounce some swedish.
Swedish has 3 extra letters in its alphabet. They are ä å ö
ä is pronounced as ‘air’
å is pronounced as ‘or’
ö is pronounced as ‘er’
Some examples:
Sälen sounded out in aussie english would be ‘Sairlen’
åre (where I did my last season) would be ‘Or-eh’
östersund (town where crackers lil bro troutface lives, not far from åre) is pronounced ‘Erster-shund’.
That is the basics….there are lots of other differences, but at least you’ll have a vague clue when you see those letters that we don’t have!
If you have any other questions about it or specifics you’d like to know, just ask me & I’ll try to answer 
My swedish is far from perfect but I’m really hoping to improve a lot this coming 8-9 months or so. I know lots of words, can pronounce them, read them and understand them when I hear them (most of the time) but my speaking is pretty average.
Most swedes speak excellent english & like having someone to speak english with, so it makes it very difficult to force myself to be disciplined and practise my swedish. I can spend 2 minutes trying to get a few sentences out, or I can just say them in English and be understood and be well down the track of the conversation! I’m still at the stage of thinking in English and just directly swapping the English words for Swedish ones in a sentence, which means I can sort of be understood - but the word order and phrases in a sentence are all out of kilter.
As an example, I wrote this sentence last night in an email to Freddy’s dad. Underneath is the direct translation word for word:
Vi tycker vi kan ta tåget til Töreboda och ankomst där nån tid på eftermiddagen.
We think we can take the train to Töreboda and arrive there some time after lunch.
So to me that makes perfect sense, but to a Swede it sounds like a baby or something, even if all the words are correct in meaning, they would use different words and phrasing to say the same thing.
When I arrive in Sweden this time, I’ll be a resident (fingers crossed! there will be another post about this) and eligible for the free Svenska för Invandrare (Swedish for Immigrants) classes and I’m really looking forward to going & being able to improve my swedish in all kinds of ways.
I am hooked already !!!!!!
You best be keeping this updated daily 
I demand to be entertained 
and when is the lesson in pronouncing all these gnarly words?
Can you please draw the arctic circle on the map for me please?
Yes trying to convince my gf to come to Sweden with me. Wanna hit the snow there. I’ve been to Stockholm and Helsingborg cos that’s where my back grounds from but yeah really interested to see how it goes. I will be following this thread
Can you please draw the arctic circle on the map for me please?
Done 
updated the pic so it is there, now.
Yes trying to convince my gf to come to Sweden with me. Wanna hit the snow there. I’ve been to Stockholm and Helsingborg cos that’s where my back grounds from but yeah really interested to see how it goes. I will be following this thread
What family have you got over there, redjames?
and when is the lesson in pronouncing all these gnarly words?
added it in to the last reserved spot
I’ve learned a lot already! Thanks Cords!
Keep it coming.
Awesome write up! Can’t wait to see more. Wish I could sneak a quick OS trip in this winter.. 
CANNN WAITTT TO SEEE MOREEE CORDDS!
Hellooooo swedish season passes, saved for without even noticing it!
I am over the moon because after collecting all my coins and notes where I could in my piggy bank, selling a few things and keeping the cash in the piggy bank, I banked it all this morning!
This much:
Turned out to be this much!
I try really, really hard not to waste my money, because I believe I am lucky to be in the position I am to get the money I do get (which isn’t much compared to others). The idea of wasting money on pokies or betting and whatnot just makes me want to throw up. I don’t earn much, but I try to do as much as I can of the things I love with the money that I do get.
A season pass that includes all 4 resorts of Sälen costs 4505 swedish kronor (crowns), but we’re going to buy ours before the end of november and get a 10% discount, so the price will be just over 4000kr….which at the current exchange rate is $567.
The piggy bank money then isn’t quite enough for both of our passes, but is pretty damn close