Sweden

**stardust2003** · January 27th, 2012, 02:26 PM

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!

**palo5** · January 27th, 2012, 03:38 PM

Quote:

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

The beer is much more expensive, you know. Only Norway is worse

But most Swedes live in the south, below 60N, and conditions are comfortable there. The trouble for a foreigner is that they speak Swedish, which does not always sound like a human language

So it's good that many of them speak English

Quote:

It is well known that Sweden is always near the top of the suicide ratings for developed countries

Is that what they say?

If yes, they're wrong, because Sweden is below the OECD average

I hope this link to an OECD excel table is allowed:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932507844

Follow the blue arrows - they show the rate for both genders together

**haroldeye** · January 27th, 2012, 04:13 PM

Cripes ! Palo what's happening in Russia. Those suicide levels are something else (or is it just Mr Putins way of accounting for chaps he didn't like).

**palo5** · January 27th, 2012, 04:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by haroldeye

Cripes ! Palo what's happening in Russia. Those suicide levels are something else (or is it just Mr Putins way of accounting for chaps he didn't like).

No, it means we should read the "definition" and "comparability" notes

Do you have them? If not, I can post

**otokonomidori** · January 27th, 2012, 05:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stardust2003

ENVISAGE a country where it is dark for most of the year.

I can easily - I live in a country where it's dark for half the year and raining on 265 days of that year.

**george anson** · January 27th, 2012, 05:10 PM

I did feel for quite a while that Sweden's hockey teams reflected their country in being rather staid and conservative and relying heavily on the offside trap.

But those Swedes I have met here in England are unfailingly polite and mild mannered people and often quite intelligent not to mention speaking better English than the indigenes.

I guess once a person has lived or been born in a country they get either innured to what they see as it's quirks or failings or disparage them. Whereas people looking in from the outside will hold views dependent on what they see of that country from the media and news.

I think it rather nice that Swedes hold onto their traditions though some of what they eat for instance is rather to our palate unpalatable.

They like the Dutch seem to have accepted that their period of greatness the Stormakstiden is over and are quite content for the most part.

They've produced their fair share of greats like Arvid Carlsson, Svante Arrehenius and Johannes Rydberg to name a few though in the field of music they've yet to produce a great composer though listening to Berwald or Atterberg is rather pleasant.

palo life expectancy for Russian men is appalling and that coupled with a low birth rate is not great for mother Russia.

**stardust2003** · January 27th, 2012, 06:00 PM

quote
They've produced their fair share of greats like Arvid Carlsson, Svante Arrehenius and Johannes Rydberg to name a few though in the field of music they've yet to produce a great composer though listening to Berwald or Atterberg is rather pleasant.
end quote...

Dont forget ........ ABBA !

.

**Greenman** · January 27th, 2012, 06:07 PM

F U N E X?

F U N E M?

S...VFX

V F 10 N E M !

(The Two Ronnies-How to speak Swedish)

MrKinkade · January 27th, 2012, 06:08 PM

Hey love where is that glass of beer consumed in a bar ? come to Rome I payed around €6 for a drought beer(medium) 500ml at some crummy bar served by a clown in a white jacket not even in the city center. I could make this into a rant about living in the southern med but I'll wont bother.

**otokonomidori** · January 27th, 2012, 06:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stardust2003

quote
They've produced their fair share of greats like Arvid Carlsson, Svante Arrehenius and Johannes Rydberg to name a few though in the field of music they've yet to produce a great composer though listening to Berwald or Atterberg is rather pleasant.
end quote...

Dont forget ........ ABBA !

.

Ronnie Peterson - another great Swede

January 27th, 2012, 02:26 PM	#1
stardust2003 Vintage Member Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 1,447 Thanks: 19,915 Thanked 13,927 Times in 1,352 Posts	Sweden 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! Last edited by stardust2003; January 27th, 2012 at 02:34 PM..

January 27th, 2012, 06:07 PM	#8
Greenman Live Legend of VEF Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Underground lair somewhere in the world Posts: 20,353 Thanks: 30,936 Thanked 383,590 Times in 19,356 Posts	F U N E X? F U N E M? S...VFX V F 10 N E M ! (The Two Ronnies-How to speak Swedish) __________________ There was only ONE Greenman, and you accepted no substitutes! To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. Rest in peace MaxJoker-you will be sorely missed. To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. 20,000: Milestone reached!

January 27th, 2012, 04:13 PM	#3
haroldeye Moderator Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Halfwitistan Posts: 5,717 Thanks: 113,617 Thanked 59,991 Times in 5,709 Posts	Cripes ! Palo what's happening in Russia. Those suicide levels are something else (or is it just Mr Putins way of accounting for chaps he didn't like).

January 27th, 2012, 05:10 PM	#6
george anson Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Watford Posts: 8,755 Thanks: 21,800 Thanked 293,614 Times in 8,932 Posts	I did feel for quite a while that Sweden's hockey teams reflected their country in being rather staid and conservative and relying heavily on the offside trap. But those Swedes I have met here in England are unfailingly polite and mild mannered people and often quite intelligent not to mention speaking better English than the indigenes. I guess once a person has lived or been born in a country they get either innured to what they see as it's quirks or failings or disparage them. Whereas people looking in from the outside will hold views dependent on what they see of that country from the media and news. I think it rather nice that Swedes hold onto their traditions though some of what they eat for instance is rather to our palate unpalatable. They like the Dutch seem to have accepted that their period of greatness the Stormakstiden is over and are quite content for the most part. They've produced their fair share of greats like Arvid Carlsson, Svante Arrehenius and Johannes Rydberg to name a few though in the field of music they've yet to produce a great composer though listening to Berwald or Atterberg is rather pleasant. palo life expectancy for Russian men is appalling and that coupled with a low birth rate is not great for mother Russia.

January 27th, 2012, 06:00 PM	#7
stardust2003 Vintage Member Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 1,447 Thanks: 19,915 Thanked 13,927 Times in 1,352 Posts	quote They've produced their fair share of greats like Arvid Carlsson, Svante Arrehenius and Johannes Rydberg to name a few though in the field of music they've yet to produce a great composer though listening to Berwald or Atterberg is rather pleasant. end quote... Dont forget ........ ABBA ! .

January 27th, 2012, 06:08 PM	#9
MrKinkade Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 211 Thanks: 467 Thanked 1,452 Times in 205 Posts	Hey love where is that glass of beer consumed in a bar ? come to Rome I payed around €6 for a drought beer(medium) 500ml at some crummy bar served by a clown in a white jacket not even in the city center. I could make this into a rant about living in the southern med but I'll wont bother.