More Observations about Sweden

So now it has been more than a week in Sweden. Classes are going ok and slowly I am able to remember a few names of my colleagues and have met a few more profs. So far so good. Miraculously as well the rain has been relegated to the evenings so far making biking to school that much less difficult. Of course the flat tire I have to keep pumping up every time I go somewhere creates some hassel, but hopefully my knight and shining bike fixing armor will make it to Sweden this weekend to help me resolve that issue ;-)

I've observed a few more interesting things about this place that I thought I'd share.
Although the Scandinavian countries have a lot in common their are subtle differences and rivalries that are initially hard to percieve, kind of the way I feel about Canada. I love Canada but MUST poke fun at the Quebec tourists that come to Maine every summer. I was clued into this when a Dane told me that they would mostly like cheer for the Swedish football team in the European Footbal (Soccer) Tournament (since Denmark didn't make it to the tourney) BUT that if Sweden lost it would still be ok and maybe even a bit funny.

The languages are very similar. In Denmark they learn to read Swedish, but as I wrote before the pronounciation is different. A Swedish girl I met compared the languages as follows: Danish is like drunk Swedish, and Norwegian (not New Norwegian) is like happy Swedish. My Danish friends would argue those points strongly I assure you.

Another interesting thing here is the working hours. In my attempts to set up a bank account here I have found out that banks are only open from 10 am to 3pm and not on Saturdays. What the heck do they do with the rest of their day? Party? Even the post office is a bit odd, their opening hours in my town are 8am-10am and 3pm-6pm. Seems a bit bizarre to me. Perhaps they have adopted the Spanish/italian concept of siesta?

Also, unlike Denmark, and similar to New Hampshire - you can only buy alcohol in state run liquor stores. This includes any beer over 3.4% alcohol. Liquor store shoppers can be immediately located by the bright purple bags that the stores use. Additionally, alcohol is much more expensive here than in Denmark - which is already expensive compared to the rest of Europe. Soo...it seems Sweden will be a sobering experience - probably not such a bad thing at the end of the day.

Ok that's all for now. Hope you are all having a good week, its nearly half over by now on this side of the Atlantic...