Sweden

[redsquirrel]

Originally Posted by stardust2003

ENVISAGE a country where it is dark for most of the year. Imagine a place where the snow is so deep you can’t leave home without a snow-plough.
Imagine somewhere so cold that if you go out with wet hair it freezes and breaks off.
And a glass of beer costs. around £5 — if you can find one.

Welcome to Sweden; a country of nine million people but so dull that even Sven Goran Eriksson left.
He was reminded of his homeland when England played Sweden in the teams’ final game of the group stages of the World Cup.

I was born and brought up in Sweden. As a child, I thought it was perfectly normal that it snowed from October to April. I didn’t grumble when I was fed raw fish and bits of elk, or when I had to travel to and from school in the dark.
I thought, like all those around me, that Sweden was great. I imagined I would live there for ever, marry Thomas Ostman from the next village (even though he hated me) and have lots of little Annikas and Bjorns.
Until the age of 16, I knew no better.


Then I visited England. Suddenly jump- ing in a freezing lake at
the end of April to celebrate spring’s arrival seemed eccentric, if not insane.
Hurling myself naked from a sauna into a snowdrift no longer felt like a great way to spend the weekend.
I also discovered there was a world out there that we Swedes were rarely told about.

And that there was this thing called the sun that didn’t only come out in June, July and August.~


It didn’t take me long to decide to move permanently.
I would go home to Sweden for holidays, full of stories of London.
‘Do you want to stay here for the rest of your life ?’
I would ask my friends, looking around at the snowdrifts and elks.
‘Why not?’ they would reply. ‘There’s no place like home.’
The image of Swedes is that they resemble their most famous vehicle, the Volvo; reliable, steady and safe.

But unlike the Volvo, they are prone to eccentricity, like Sven’s fabled love life.
They are an unnerving mixture of deadly dull and totally eccentric.


Of course Sweden has its upsides. When it’s lovely, it really is divine. The sun shines, the air is fresh, the flowers are bright and the lakes are inviting.
There is hardly any traffic and it all feels clean and rich.


SWEDES do have reason to be patriotic and now, from a distance, it’s one of the things I most admire about them.
But how they can find so much to be pleased with themselves about is beyond me — especially now Volvo is owned by the Yanks !!!!

But good luck to them; we could do with a bit more of that pride in England.


I still go back there regularly.
My husband and I were married there .

For our honeymoon we went to an island close to Gothenburg. Of course it rained for the whole two weeks, but luckily we had the World Cup to watch.

Sweden is rather like a drug; you think you need it until you escape. People are brought up with the endless propaganda, which I suppose is why so many of my compatriots stay there.

As children we learned songs about snow. ‘Yippee, it’s snow- ing,’ run the lyrics of one gem.
‘Isn’t that fun? Hurrah. We’ll get our skis on and take our sleighs out and won’t we have a blast.’
Well, hello! It may seem like fun for a day or two, but it snows for seven months.

Call me perverse, but in my view there’s only so much fun you can have on a pair of skis.


Some enlightened Swedes know this and have left.
Ulrika Jonsson, Ingrid Bergman and Greta Garbo to name a few.
Interestingly, Swedes are taught from an early age that they are the only people in the world who can run anything.
I admit that if you look at Ikea they have a point. Where else can you get a plate, of meatballs, furnish your kitchen and stock up on aquavit all at the same time?
Though, of course, you won’t find any aquavit in Ikea stores in Sweden. Oh no. Alcohol is dangerous and is only sold from a state-owned shop called Systembolaget, which closes at 3.3Opm, so you need
to plan the fact that you’d like a bottle of wine with dinner before lunch.

Of course, Swedes don’t complain about it. They are used to being obedient.
For example, on September 3, 1967 at 5am, the whole country went from driving on the left to driving on the right, despite the fact that 80 per cent of the population had voted against the change in a referendum.
Sweden is the only place in the world where this could have happened because everyone there is used to doing as they’re told.


Imagine trying the same stunt in Italy or France.


It is a myth that Swedes are jolly, happy people. If this is what you think, it’s because you have probably only met Swedes abroad. And of course they’re happy overseas; they’re not in Sweden any more.
Or you have caught them just before one of the three main social events that punctuate the Swedish calendar and give Swedes a licence to drink as much as they like.
First, there is the last day of April, when Swedes congregate around lakes, break a hole in the ice if they are still frozen over, and jump in.
Then, on midsummer’s night eve, when it is light all night, the Swedes dance around a maypole.
Should you happen upon this festivity, you must be prepared to sing a song about little frogs which ends with everyone throwing themselves on the ground.


Finally, at the end of August, there is the big crayfish party which marks the end of summer and when — yes — you stuff yourself with this lobster-like creature while sitting outside in the cold and pretending to be in the Mediterranean.

Although Sweden for a child was rather nice — after all, you never tire of building snowmen when you’re five — for a teenager, it’s not such fun.
In the summer, there was lots of swimming — the country is full of lakes — but there were also lots of mosquitoes.
I spent most of my weekends as a teenager with friends drinking beer, or any other alcohol we could get hold of, by the local lake or hanging out in the only cafe within a 20-mile radius.


THE MOST exciting event was a dance held in the village hail every two months. We would spend hours getting dressed up, stealing alcohol and drinking it on the way there.
The disadvantage of this was that, for those of us who couldn’t hold our drink, we often ended up in a freezing ditch on the way to the dance. On a normal day in Sweden no one smiles.

If you do smile, people look at you as if you’re trying to steal their wallet.

I was amazed to find that England was so friendly. I wasn’t used to people chatting to me in the street or cracking’jokes.
When I took my children to Sweden on holiday last year, I was depressed by it. OK, so it rained for the two weeks, but I found the people so, well, sad.
It is well known that Sweden is always near the top of the suicide ratings for developed countries — even though they have a very good standard of living.
Win or lose against England in football, it won’t make any difference to most Swedes:
they’ll still be miserable!

I really hate cold gloomy weather, and I particularly detest snow so wouldn't like Sweden much. (Fortunately we don't get too much snow here (Southern England) which is probably why we are rubbish at dealing with it. Half an inch of the stuff brings the country grinding to a halt. We like to moan about the weather but ours is actually way better than most places on the same latitude due to the Gulf Stream coming across from the Caribbean, and I think I heard somewhere that south west England is technically sub-tropical.)

The British seem to have a reputation for being reserved but I don't think that is really true. I have heard so many people, particularly from the rest of Europe, say they find us polite and friendly. I have noticed that many people from northern and eastern Europe seem rather glum - I feel like saying "for God's sake cheer up", not in a nasty way, I would actually like them to be more cheerful.

Anyway, back to Sweden, for a long time I tended to think of it (and Scandinavia in general) as being as close to Utopian as you get but in recent years I have come to realise it has its share of problems like everyone else. One thing that really impresses me about Sweden is that despite being a tiny country with less than 10 million people it designs and manufactures its own jet fighters. Quite astounding.

[palo5]

Originally Posted by redsquirrel

I really hate cold gloomy weather, and I particularly detest snow so wouldn't like Sweden much

Sweden isn't cold and gloomy. It has clear, unpolluted air and the sun can be so bright that you actually need sunglasses in spring. Finland is the same

You shouldn't believe the stories about darkness & suicides etc. Swedes spread those stories themselves. The truth is that other countries have much higher suicide rates, and Sweden has little to worry about

As for darkness, they get as much sun as everyone else. It's just not so evenly spread. They get more darkness in winter, but much less in summer. The further north you are, the more extreme it gets, but most Swedes live in the south where it isn't extreme at all

I wouldn't call it a cold country either. It's true you need good winter clothing and the right tires for your car, but if you want real cold, go further east -- trust me on that

[stardust2003]

They are probably better placed to get hot high pressure weather coming up from
Europe, whereas here in UK we get endless wet weather coming in from the Atlantic

[palo5]

Yes, the Atlantic dumps a lot of water on Western Europe. And it's windy there. I don't know if I could survive that... not happily, anyway

On the other hand, the gulfstream keeps them warm

I didn't know how extreme the effect of the gulfstream was. I only discovered when I visited the site of the city of Tromsö in Norway. They say the coldest temperature ever recorded there is -18C

Huh? They're almost at the North Pole and never get colder than -18C

Well, if they say so

[Silklover]

[/QUOTE]

My credit to the original uploader.


In northern Sweden in Kiruna, optical aurora is being studied at the institute of space physics.
http://www.irf.se/Offices/Kiruna/?chosen=office_kiruna
http://www.irf.se/Overview/?dbfile=A...hosen=overview

[stardust2003]

so many Hollywood blondes..... Doris Day .... Jayne Mansfield... Marilyn Monroe etc
but they were all bottle blondes...

whereas Ulrika... a natural blonde ... Agnetha from Abba ... a natural blonde
Sweden must be .... Natural Blonde Central .....

[70sbuff]

Regardless of climate or a tendency toward depression, a country is clearly doing something right, for this to happen. Great inner quality, not just the outer..

[Dr Pepper]

Originally Posted by 70sbuff

Regardless of climate or a tendency toward depression, a country is clearly doing something right, for this to happen. Great inner quality, not just the outer..

Except perhaps in their national approach to covid-19....?

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by Dr Pepper

Except perhaps in their national approach to covid-19....?

The jury is still out on that one. Their national approach to people desperately ill in old folks homes is probably going to get a "Guilty" verdict; a really suspicious tendency for people over 70 to somehow not be admitted to a hospital no matter how hard their carers try. But the actual care home problem is similar in scale and nature to the one seen in the UK, France, Italy and Spain. As for the rest of it, their imposition of social distancing measures and ban on large gatherings as a light touch alternative to a full lockdown doesn't seem to have led to enormous casualties - so far.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by palo5

Yes, the Atlantic dumps a lot of water on Western Europe. And it's windy there. I don't know if I could survive that... not happily, anyway

On the other hand, the gulfstream keeps them warm

I didn't know how extreme the effect of the gulfstream was. I only discovered when I visited the site of the city of Tromsö in Norway. They say the coldest temperature ever recorded there is -18C

Huh? They're almost at the North Pole and never get colder than -18C

Well, if they say so

The coldest I have ever known it anywhere was minus 17C and of course that was in the garden of my parents house in Yorkshire. For ghastly weather and climate, look no further than the North of England.

But minus 17C wasn't too bad. As long as you wear good boots, two pairs of wool socks, warm clothes, a thick coat, scarf and a woolly hat, you'll be comfortable. It's when the wind blows and when the horizontal rain gets going that you really get the bad weather experience.

This house has been far out at sea all night,
The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,
Winds stampeding the fields under the window
Floundering black astride and blinding wet

Till day rose; then under an orange sky
The hills had new places, and wind wielded
Blade-light, luminous black and emerald,
Flexing like the lens of a mad eye.

At noon I scaled along the house-side as far as
The coal-house door. Once I looked up -
Through the brunt wind that dented the balls of my eyes
The tent of the hills drummed and strained its guyrope,

The fields quivering, the skyline a grimace,
At any second to bang and vanish with a flap;
The wind flung a magpie away and a black-
Back gull bent like an iron bar slowly. The house

Rang like some fine green goblet in the note
That any second would shatter it. Now deep
In chairs, in front of the great fire, we grip
Our hearts and cannot entertain book, thought,

Or each other. We watch the fire blazing,
And feel the roots of the house move, but sit on,
Seeing the window tremble to come in,
Hearing the stones cry out under the horizons.
Wind ~ Ted Hughes

Ted Hughes wrote that at his Yorkshire Pennine home of Lumb Bank, near the village of Heptonstall in the high Pennine hills, west of Halifax - just a few miles south of Haworth, where Emily Bronte wrote Wuthering Heights.

"Wuthering" or "whithering" comes from the Old Norse and means roaring like the wind on a stormy day. ~ Cambridge English Dictionary.

There was at least 125 years between the novel and the poem, but the Yorkshire winter weather had not changed one iota.