Travel: Icons of Laundry, or The Symbology of Wash

Regular every day tasks can take on a whole other level of confusion. Take laundry for an example. So far, we've been able to understand the strange symbols on the machine. That's Italy, France and England down. Here is Sweden it is a whole other kettle of smoke fish. First off, the laundry room has to be booked in advance on line. Your key fob only works on the door for the 1.5 hours you've got to do your laundry. After that you and your laundry are no longer as one.

Anyone who has tried to decipher the arcane symbols on a garment's tag to determine how it wants to be laundered has an idea of what we face deciphering these arcania. I've actually spent quite a bit of time working out what a circle inside a triangle means (nothing, it is a mistake) for labelling the yarns that I spin. Canada's national government even has its own guide to laundry symbols. So, confronted with a washer asking for instructions in Swedish, not in symbols; we were both at a loss. Of the 3 washers, only one had symbols. That one I understood and used for washing our new wool blanket. The international symbol for wool was created by the British Wool Marketing board you've seen it before; the 3 loops made up of 3 loops.

In the end a Swedish student put us out of our misery. The machines are almost completely digital and self sensing. They decide on the basis of how much your wash weighs whether it is a large or small load, what temperature it needs and how long to wash it. It even adds the soap. Your only choice is whether to add fabric softener.

The coolest thing, and something we've never seen before is the hot air cupboard. It has 4 racks inside that swing out so you can hang your laundry on them, then swing them in, close the huge double doors and hit play (well, it was a thermometer of half or full heat). That thing rocks! It dries without tumbling, so things aren't beaten, just gently heated with blowing hot air.