The Importance of Shoes

If you're visiting Sweden for the first time and you have absolutely no idea what to do or say, the number one rule to remember is to take off your shoes at the door when you enter someone's home.  This habit is so ingrained into Swedish culture that it's hard to explain.  It's also hard for me to explain to Swedes that yes, in the US we take our shoes off at the door if it's muddy or raining outside, but it's really not a big deal to leave them on if they're not filthy.  To a Swedish person, wearing your shoes inside the house is akin to something as barbaric and uncivilized as taking a dump on the lawn: you just don't do it. 

Because of the no-shoes-in-the-house rule, everyone I know has a couple pairs of träskor (literally "wooden shoes") that are always ready at the door and slip easily on and off:

M, his father, and his brother wear these clumpy, high-heeled shoes for almost all outdoor activities around the house, including chopping firewood, chasing after dogs through the forest, hauling in fishing nets, and jumping on and off boats on the dock all day.  Everyone seemed so comfortable running around in these things that I decided to pick up a pair for myself at the local hardware store.  As you can imagine, for me they're just about as awkward and uncomfortable as it gets without resorting to stilettos.  I guess it's one of those acquired cultural skills like eating rice with chopsticks or effortlessly carrying firewood on your head...if you didn't grow up doing it, you probably shouldn't start trying as a grownup.  I should have at least held out for something a little more girly for myself, because are some reasonably cute wooden-shoe options out there:

As for shoes that are appropriate for anything other than household chores, I'm starting to realize that my tendency to throw on a pair of old running sneakers to head to the store is decidedly un-Swedish and screams "YANKEE" to everyone around me.  Most people wear much more stylish shoes...these really pointy-toed type of leather soccer (sorry, fotboll) shoes are very popular with the men:

While most women wear normal dressy shoes or sandals in the summertime, almost every woman I saw when the weather was colder made me feel like a complete country bumpkin by strutting around in a pair of tall, crazy hot, shiny black knee-length leather boots:

All the ladies had these, from young girls to grandmothers...they made me feel SO boring.  And clumsy.  And short.   Okay, so I have some work to do in the European-shoe-fashion area.  But, I can promise that you will never, ever, ever, ever see me assimilating to the point of something like this: