Pittsburgh, PA Sweden's FF thread!

While organizing the negotiations for CIII rooms, I've had the pleasure to talk to FF Sweden's CR (Enji, AKA Nina). Through our PM's we discussed having a thread on each other's boards. It would be like having a sister city. Though officially they had Indy as their sister city, Indy hasn't responded too much. Maybe we can. I think it's a cool idea and a way to learn about another country and their culture from the people themselves.

This thread is for the members of both Pittsburgh and Sweden to converse in and there will be a similar thread set-up on the Swedish boards for us (Pittsburgh FF) to post there as well.

Let's have some fun with this. Afterall, we are going to be meeting some of them next year at CIII. It would be nice to get to know them and vice-versa.

So please "välkommen" (welcome) our Swedish FF sisters and brothers.

-Sal

 

Hi Pittsburgh! Nice little forum you have... I might check it out more later, if you don't mind.

*looks around*

Well, I guess I'll see some of you at C3... and everyone is of course very welcome over to our forum as well.

 

Hello

*brings a plate of blueberrymuffins with yellow frosting(like the swedish flag you know)*

 

Here's the flag

[image=http://www.geocities.com/swsalerno/Swedish_flag_small.jpg]

or if you can't view it go here:

http://www.geocities.com/swsalerno/Swedish_flag_small.jpg



Ummmm, blueberry muffins......(slobbers on self like Homer Simpson) ha ha

I guess that explains why you have a muffin in your banner. I was going to ask that.

Thanks Cobblestone!
-Sal

 

Since Sweden has brought muffins over here, I think it's only proper that P'burgh brings pie over there. Am I right or am I right?

Oh, and hi to all the Swedish FFers!

 

That or a big Primanti's sandwich!

Primanti's is a restaurant here in Pittsburgh (we sometimes refer to Pittsburgh as "the 'Burgh" or Da' Burgh)

Primanti's is known for making a BIG greasey sandwich with coleslaw and french fires on it. Yeah it sounds gross to some, but it's a great sandwich.

The history of that sandwich stems from the fact that the original Primanti's is located in an area of our city known as the "Strip District" no not lady strippers, but a strip of land that is devoted to wholesale distribution of just about anything you can imagine. When Primanti's saw the amount of truck driver they were getting into their restaurant, (who delivered good to the strip district) they had to devise a way to make the sandwiches faster and yet give the truck drivers the whole meal of the sandwhich, coleslaw and french fries. So, they just piled everything together on one sandwich. It's a big tradition here to have one of their sandwiches. I know I try to take a friend who's not from here, to there everytime I get the chance.

-Sal

 

Greetings, blokes.

Mmmmmmmmm....

[image=http://www.eatsanddrinks.com/commentary/worst_0320.jpg]

...taaaaaaasty!

Could go for one of those right about now,
Yours Truly

 

Wow, now that doesn't look like any sandwich I'm used to... franch fries on a SANDWICH??? Very weird, but then, you are american, and therefore a bit weird.

Not like us Swedes, we're normal. So normal that tomorrow a large part of the population will dance around a big pole decorated with boughs, pretending to be frogs.

 

Ah, you must be talking about "Midsommarfest"! or "Midsommarafton"!

This is where they dance around a maypole or "midsommarstång or" (if I got that correct) and sing the 'Dance of the Little Green Frogs'.

Enji will you be picking 7 different flowers from 7 different areas, or are you not looking for a fellow. Ha ha.
(Swedish tradition is that if a lady does this, oh and makes it into a crown of sorts called a "midsommarkrans", then puts it under her pillow on Mid summer's eve, she will dream of the man she will marry.) Right Enji?

So is sill and prinskorv on the menu for the feast afterwards? (marinated herring and small sausages)

By the way Midsommarfest (Mid summer fest) is in direct opposite of Midvinterblot which if I remember correctly dates back to the Viking times and involved some gruesome stuff (which I won't repeat)

(Thank goodness for all of those travel shows I've watched over the years)

Anyway, if I got any of this wrong Enji, Cobblestone or any of the other Swedish folk out there, please don't hesitate to correct me.

-Sal

 

Hello!

If "Midsommarafton" has somthing to do with vikings i dont know, but we got our expert on that matter, namely Obi Anne. What i do know is that the Midsommarafton is a fest to celebrate the longest day of the year and right up in the North of Sweden the sun never return under the horizon, its just bounce on the horizon.
Im impress with Sal´s knowledge in the subject but he forgot one thing, a great thing.

"NUBBE" or snaps if u like. No "Midsommarafton" with out it.
There is a whole bunch of different kinds of snaps but these is what i would like to have on my menu.

"OP Anderson" but we just call it O,P
"Skåne"
"Aquavit"
And of course the boring one "Absolute vodka"

 

Wow Sal, that's impressive...

Although at least where I live, you don't have to make a crown out of the flowers you pick during the midsummer night and then put under your pillow (but you're not supposed to say a word while you pick them! You have to be absolutely quiet!), the crown is instead worn during the day and the flowers in that one aren't magical at all.

And Berg is right, you can't forget the schnaps... except that I most likely will this year. *sigh* Don't have any money, and well, I don't celebrate midsummer much anyway. But I would like a Skåne...

I'm gonna pick seven different flowers though. Want to dream of my future husband...

 

Ha, how could I forget the schnapps (that's how we refer to it here). I love drinking schnapps. We have all sorts of flavorful ones here.

So Berg, you don't like Absolut? I do. I guess it's probably a watered down version for you folks though.

Absolut Limon is my favorite of the Absolut line of beverages.

Well, have fun folks. I wish I could party with you.

Maybe when we meet you at CIII we could have a "pre" Midsommarafton. (Kind of like a prequel to the real thing) heh heh.

-Sal

 

Hello Sweden! I have a little connection to Sweden - my adopted father was Swedish, and my grandparents on his side came from Sweden to immigrate to the USA. So every Christmas had a smorgasbord with traditional food. My grandfather made the best sill, pickled herring, and glog (spelling?), a potent alcoholic drink. Then there was the lutefisk! They said the vikings left Sweden to escape the smell of the lutefisk. They have all passed away now, but I keep a painted swedish wooden horse on my mantel to remind me of their culture. Grandpa used to say dirty things in swedish, which we kids did not understand, then get us to repeat them. His favorite saying was, "yust as I learned to say yam, they changed it to yelly."

Later on in life, I had a letter of mine printed in a Star Wars comic book. My name is Brendon Wahlberg, so imagine my surprise when I got mail from a Bjorn Wahlberg from Sweden. He is no relation, but we remain friends and fellow fans of Star Wars. Together we worked on the "Starkiller" web site for old Star Wars scripts. Bjorn would also try to insult me in Swedish for fun, thinking I could not read it. But I got a Swedish coworker in the lab to translate, and took him by surprise!

So, greetings to our friends across the ocean, and may the Force be with you!

PS any fans of the moomintrolls among you? I have read all the books, and love them.

 

Americans weird? You bet. Here's a copy of an e-mail I received that shows the unique culture that is "Picksburgh." Note that the sandwich with fries on it is mentioned!

Ah yes! "Picksburgh." Yunz are from Picksburgh if . . .


You didn't have a spring break in high school.

You walk carefully when it is "slippy" outside.

You often go down to the "crick."

You've told your children to "red up" their rooms.

You can remember telling your little brother/sister to stop being so
"nebby."

You've gotten hurt by falling into a "jaggerbush."

Your mother or grandmother has been seen wearing a "babushka" on
her head.

You've "warshed" the clothes.

I ask you to hand me one of those "Gum-Bands" you actually know what
I'm talking about.

You know you can't drive too fast on the back roads, because of the
deer.

You know Beaver Valley, Turtle Creek, Moon, Mars, Slippery Rock,
Greentree and New Castle are names of towns. (and you've been to
most, if not all, of them.)

A girl walks up to three of her girl friends and says, HEY YENZ
GUYS"

You hear "you guyses," and don't think twice. (Example..."you
guyses house is nice")

You know the three rivers by name and understand that "The Point"
isn't just on a writing instrument.

Someone refers to "The Mon" or "The Yough" and you know exactly what
they're talking about.

You remember the blizzard of 1994 (or 1976, or 1939, or...) and
remember not being able to go outside because the snow was over your
head and you would have suffocated.

Someone starts the chant, "Here we go Still-ers!" and you join in.
In the proper cadence. Waving the appropriately colored towel.

Bob Prince and "There's a bug loose on the rug." hold special
meaning for you.

You've either eaten a Farkleberry Tart or know someone who has.

You drink pop, eat hoagies, love perogies and one of your favorite
sandwiches actually has french fries ON it.

You know what a "still mill" is.

You expect temps in the winter to be record breaking cold and temps
in the summer to be record breaking hot.

You know what Eat 'N Park is and frequently ate breakfast there at
2:00 AM after the bar closed and made fun of people.

You order "dippy eggs" in a restaurant and get exactly what you
wanted.

You spent your summers, or a school picnic, at Kennywood, Sand
Castle, or Idlewild.

You've been to the Braun's Bread Plant or Story Book Forest for a
school field trip.

"Chipped ham" was always in your refrigerator when you were growin
up.

You refuse to buy any condiments besides Heinz unless a Pittsburgh
athlete's picture is on the side of the container.

Franco, Roberto, and Mario don't need last names and you can recite
their exploits by heart.

Your last name has 8 or more letters in it (and you either have a
'Z,' 'U' or a 'ski' somewhere in there) and nobody can pronounce it.
And oft times, even if your name has fewer letters, folks still
can't pronounce it.

Food at a wedding reception consists of rigatoni, stuffed cabbage,
sauerkraut and polska kielbasa.

You'll send this on to family and friends who used to live in the
Pittsburgh Area as well as to those who have never lived there, just so they
can appreciate how different western PA really is!
I wonder how many of Yunz guys actually understood all dat? Some
folks just don't get dem things.

 

Apple, cranberry and raspberry schnapps. I dont Know..

is´t that kind of schnapps too sweet.

Hmm maby i have to bring a real OP to show what a schnapps is

 

Yes, they are rather sweet.

Hmm, might be nice to try the "real" stuff. ha ha.

 

Or why not a Bäska Droppar? (fyi, this is not a good schnapps to start with... it tastes so strong! I hate it... give me an OP or a Skåne any day.)


BonMothma, no, I didn't understand much from that list, except that you Pittsburghers are a weird lot...


Bwahl-the-Hutt, that's pretty cool. I guess a lot of Swedish people have distant relatives in America, because of the great emigration in the 19th century (1/4 of the Swedish population emigrated!) but it's always cool hearing from people in America with Swedish relatives. Ooh, that alcoholic beverage is glögg. Mmm. I love it. Sweet strong wine with spices, served hot, preferably with raisins and almonds.
Yes, I love the Moomin trolls... in Swedish they're called Mumintroll, and they live somewhere in Finland. (The writer, Tove Jansson, was Finnish, but spoke Swedish. Finland is a bilingual country.) I usually read the books once a year, at the proper times... so right now, at Midsummer, I'm reading the book "Farlig Midsommar" (it translates directly as "Dangerous Midsummer", although I do not know if that is the English title.) Wonderful book.


Well, Midsummer is over, and it was pretty fun, even without the schnapps. We did have some vodka though... and then I picked seven flowers and put under my pillow, unfortunately I never remember my dreams when I drink alcohol so I have no idea who my future husband is going to be...

 

Some of my relatives came from your neighbor, Finland, but I can't speak any language other than English (unless you count Elvish, which I speak a little bit!).

My mom can play "Finlandia" on the piano. My grandfather's name was Makynen. Now there's a name nobody can spell!

Namarie,

 

Well, Finnish is hard... really really hard. I only know a couple of things in Finnish, stuff like "ei sai peittää" (don't know if I've spelled it correctly). It means "do not cover" and it's written on the radiators here. Very useful phrase.

Ooh, another person who likes Elvish? I used to try to learn Elvish a couple of years ago, but didn't get very far, and now I've forgotten most of it. But Quenya is a beautiful language...

 

Moomin trolls.. (Mumintroll) lives in NÃ¥dendal (Ã…bo)

 

Oh, right. That was it.

Anyway, I know next to nothing about Pittsburgh... I know roughly where it is, and that it's a city in the US, and that you have a hockey team called the Pittsburgh Penguins, and now I know you eat weird sandwiches with french fries... but that's practically it... so, anything special in Pittsburgh? Any weird holidays, any weird customs, any weird people? (I like weird stuff... )

I've never been to the US, so everything over there is rather strange to me, but well. I'll probably get a culture shock when I go to Indianapolis for C3...

 

Enji
Anyway, I know next to nothing about Pittsburgh... I know roughly where it is, and that it's a city in the US, and that you have a hockey team called the Pittsburgh Penguins, and now I know you eat weird sandwiches with french fries... but that's practically it... so, anything special in Pittsburgh? Any weird holidays, any weird customs, any weird people? (I like weird stuff... )

I've never been to the US, so everything over there is rather strange to me, but well. I'll probably get a culture shock when I go to Indianapolis for C3...

Well, we have a great place to view the cityscape of Pittsburgh. It's called "Mount Washington". From there you can go onto any number of lookouts to see the city from above. Besides being know as the "Steel City", we are also known as the city of Bridges. We have one of th highest totals of bridges to area in the U.S.

Some people say we have an accent, though of course we don't recognize it to much amongst ourselves with the occasional "Pittsburghese" word, like Yinz, which mean "you all". If I had to guess, I'd say our accent is somewhere between, New York and Chicago, not as forceful as a New York accent, but not as much twang in a Chicago accent. Somewhere in between, but that's just my observation.

I can't think of any Pittsburgh specific holidays, but we do have a regatta on our rivers every year that draws a large crowd. It's also around this time of year that we have an annual Art show. It's hugs covering many city blocks, with lots of stuff to see and purchase.

Well, I'm off to see Spiderman 2, so I'll let someone else take it from here.

-Sal