The Legend of Fica

Okay, it’s time for a brief lesson in Swedish culture. I want you to imagine something that you do everyday. Something you do ritualistically. Imagine something that, if you were to somehow not do it, your whole day would fall out of stride. To everyone is Sweden, that thing is “Fica” (fee-ka). Each day of the week, at 10:00 am everybody at the school (and throughout Sweden) stops what they are doing and sits down for half of an hour to drink coffee and relax. Then, at 3:00 in the afternoon they repeat this with more coffee and more sitting. It’s almost a sacred word hear. It is an act universally revered and practiced. And it is not something that is just made to fit in with the larger things of the day…rather, the important things of the day our made to fit around Fica. For us “work, work, work” fast lane Americans it can be a real momentum killer. Though, our attitudes are slowly changing about Fica. It used to be for us like getting a red light when you expected a green. But now, we see it more as a roundabout…somewhere where you can just smile, slowly drive around it for awhile and then ease back into traffic. Maybe that’s not such a good analogy. Sorry. But some days, the kitchen staff bakes breads and cakes for fica. I like to think of this as SuperFica. SuperFica can be really nice.
(Below are a couple pictures of a model house that I made as part of an exericise in design. It's a "Friggebod", a 15 sq. meter Swedish summer home.)