I’m just trying to recall the face that my last Norwegian roommate made to me when after introducing myself to him I said “talar du svenska?”. Yep, he was surprised. He tried to help me with the language but… I just confused myself creating a new language that I called norwedish… or swegian if you prefer.

I live in the beautiful city of Rome, and when people ask me “where exactly?” I reply “near the new IKEA”.

Yes, because other than being the favourite place for Italians during the weekend, IKEA is also a very good point of reference when explaining to people where I live… since I’m a little bit far from the center.

via wikipedia

And there’s another fun fact about IKEA which I’d like to write you about…

Do you know what the “Raduno IKEA” or “IKEA gathering” used to be in the Roman underground culture?

You could guess it was something about people being passionate about furniture but you are wrong… it actually used to be related to people passionate about cars!

Yep, because the “IKEA gathering”, in Rome, used to be a huge meeting during nightime in the IKEA (huge) parking lot of tuned-up cars.

Do you remember the scene from “Fast & Furious” where people gather for some illegal street racing? It used to be quite like that (actually with a little less girls, since I’ve been there a couple times and I haven’t seen many of them).

Unfortunately there was a bad accident between a car and a motorbike and the police decided to intervene and the gathering ended for a while.

I remember one of the first times I went for lunch to the IKEA near my house, at the time I did not know one day I would decide to go to Sweden… but I was quite impressed when I read on a wall about the “right of access” also known as “Allemansrätt” in Swedish.

I already loved wildlife and I though that that was a very good thing about Sweden, there is nothing closer in the Italian culture than paying for a camping spot!

I hope with my articles and the blog to understand more about the Swedish culture, because at the moment for the Italians the knowledge stops at the “Raduno Ikea”.

Här står jag Swedish Freaks!