Stockholm - Day 4
Comedy god
I noticed these newly formed creases in my shoes.
‘They are your battle scars,’ the comedy god whispered.
‘You suck!’ I replied with a chuckle.
Humor is tragedy plus time. Touche, Mr. Clemens. Touche.
Bye Stockholm
I went to the lobby and had the same breakfast but with a slight twist. The scrambled eggs were better than the sunny side up, but the coffee lost its magical touch.
As I said earlier, getting cash was a mistake – this is because Sweden is a cashless society. Nobody hardly ever used cash. So, instead of paying excessive transaction fees, I decided to give some of it away. I gave 500 kronas (about $50 USD) to two hardworking youngsters at the hotel bar. One of them was astonished and said, “but sir, you could keep it as a souvenir.” I told him that it would be a better use if they bought something with it.
Karolinska Institute
I went to Karolinska Institute to meet Dr. Gustafsson, but realized his office was thirty kilometers away from the main campus. He had previously given me the address, but I just assumed it was at the main campus.
Sigh…
We decided to meet up another day as I had to drive to Copenhagen, and he was busy for the rest of the day.
Sorry, Dr. Gustafsson!
Gas Station Caviar
I stopped for gas and ordered a hotdog from the gentleman who took his job very seriously. I respect that. It doesn’t matter what one does, what matters more in my eyes is that we do our work with pride and dignity.
In addition to the Danish hotdog, I ordered boiled eggs, to which the guy asked, “do you want caviar with the eggs?”
His question begot two questions in my mind:
1. Did he really say caviar? There is no way they sell fish eggs here. Maybe I misheard him. What other words sound like caviar?
Cigar?
Guitar?
Gaydar?
2. If he did say caviar, do I really want that from a gas station?
You see, I remembered watching this video and told myself never to get sushi from gas stations. Some may say it’s common sense, I say the word, common comes from the Latin word “communis” which means ‘hungry stomach has no ears.’
If I ever try to buy seafood from gas stations, I hope my conscience would examine the substructure of my consciousness for making such questionable life choices.
Not unlike how a religious mother in the Midwest would reprimand her son in a gentle yet firm voice, “Timmy, why do you feel the need to hit your brother in the head with your toy hammer?”
Despite his mother’s plea not to smash Joey, we all know Timmy continued his daily ritual of asserting dominance over his younger brother. Soon the spirit of “hold my beer and watch this” descended upon me like Timmy’s hammer. And I declared YES with great gusto – in that ‘why are you even asking me, you son of a gun?’ kind of way. But in reality, I was overcompensating to overcome my own trepidation. In my defense, one’s risk appetite often changes in a foreign land (often to one’s own detriment).
Soon, the guy handed me the food and what looked like a travel-sized toothpaste tube. In the back of my mind, I could see a headline: Stockholm Daily: Gas Station Caviar Gone Horribly Wrong. How A Korean American Tourist Had to Have His Big Toes Amputated.
The Swedish gas station hotdog… what can I say? On my cost-adjusted Epicurean happiness scale, the hotdog was the second-best meal I had during the trip, and it only lost by a minute margin. The tangy mustard, the savory onion flakes, the snappy sausage casing, the chewy buns; the hotdog won the silver medal fair and square. No need to review the play.
Enough with the toes! Get out of my head!
Satisfied, I continued my drive with the hulk eggs and fish condiment in the passenger seat. I called them hulk eggs because it made me question “did Hulk peel these?” They were good travel buddies during the long, boring seven-hour drive. I couldn’t listen to anything (even the car radio) so to pass the time, I had many profound dialogues with the hulk eggs and toothpaste caviar. Like how Tom Hanks talked to the volleyball in Cast Away. But unlike the actor, I ended up eating my travel companions. Okay, I admit that sounds morbid if taken out of context.
Lol, it looks like a worm.
Like any other fermented food (e.g., real Parmesan cheese or real miso), caviar requires trained/abused taste buds to fully appreciate its flavor. Kalles tasted exactly like the cod roes I ate growing up. It’s amazing how two cultures, thousands of miles apart with no contact produced the same preservation method prior to the advent of refrigeration.
Technically speaking, cod fish eggs are considered “caviar substitutes” and not caviar.
However, having spent so many years in Ohio, I certainly lost the appetite for the salted cod roe, and I estimated that it would take exactly thirteen tubes to retrain my palates and gut microbiota.
Ain't Nobody Got Time For That! or Maybe I will.
I call it gastrointestinal ambivalence.