Facts about Sweden and Stockholm

• The total area of Sweden is 450,000 sq km with a population of 8.9 million. It is 1,600 kilometres from the northern-most point to the southern-most point. The population of Stockholm is 1.7 million.
• There are about 100,000 lakes in Sweden, and about 50% of the country is covered in forest.
• Stockholm is built on 14 islands in an archipelago of 24,000 islands. Stockholm has been called the “Venice of the North,” although the current tourist promotion is “The City on Water”. There are many other archipelagos situated around the coast of Sweden.
• Stockholm was founded by Birger Jarl in 1252 on the site of an old Viking settlement. King Gustav Vasa made it the capital city of Sweden in 1523.
• Stockholm is on the same latitude as Siberia, Alaska and the southern-most point of Greenland, yet has much milder weather due to the gulf stream.
• Sweden is a constitutional monarchy, and the royal family appear to be well respected (unlike another royal family I can think of, whose image is now improving after dropping very low in recent years!). The official symbol of Sweden is the three pointed crown.
• Wildlife in Sweden includes moose (250,000), deer (1,000,000), wolves (less than 40!), lynx, brown bears (few), wolverines (about 100), red foxes (very common), polar foxes (very rare), hares and squirrels. The moose is often used as a symbol of Swedish nature. There are about 250,000 moose found all over Sweden, with 100,000 shot during hunting season each year.
• Apart from the crown and moose, another traditional symbol of Sweden is the Dalarna horse, a carved and painted wooden horse, originating in the 18th century when woodcutters made them for their children. They come in many sizes but traditionally the Dalarna horse has a red base colour. Now they also come in black, white and blue. They even make chickens and pigs!
• Famous Swedes include the artists Carl Larsson, August Strindberg and Anders Zorn and sculpturist Carl Milles. Famous authors include August Strindberg (multi-skilled), Vilhelm Moberg and Astrid Lindgren, creator of the children’s character Pippi Longstocking. Ingmar Bergman is a famous Swedish film director and famous actors include Max von Sidow, Greta Garbo, Ingrid Bergman and Britt Ekland! Carl von Linne was a famous botanist. Probably the best known Swede (apart from ABBA and Roxette!) is Alfred Nobel. He left the greater part of his estate as an investment fund to be distributed annually to great achievers in the areas of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace-making.
• A Swede invented the tetra pack!

• Swedes are very punctual, and expect you to be also!
• In stores, post offices etc. you must always queue. Many have a queue machine which issues tickets of your number in the queue. Queue jumping is severely frowned upon.
• Swedes are more reserved and it takes years to become close friends with them.
• You should take you shoes off when entering someone’s house.
• You have to pay a $1 to use toilets at train stations, public places, even department stores. As a consequence, the lifts in the train stations often have urine in them. Avoid them if possible! (In Sweden people take prams on the escalators and we only use the lift when there is no escalator).
• There are numerous parks and playgrounds within the city and suburbs. Swedes spend as much time as possible outdoors, especially in the summer when it is light until 11pm. Children at daycare (dagis) spend at least 2 hours per day outdoors in all weather (rain, snow, cold), apart from the most extreme weather (hail, torrential rain, blizzard, temperatures of minus 20 or below).
• Swedes, particularly those in Stockholm, love sailing, particularly around the archipelago. The boats have to be brought into dry storage for the winter, when the water freezes. Swedes have a great affiliation with water, and do not like to live too far from it.
• You have to show ID everytime you use a credit card.
• If you live in Sweden (i.e. you are not just a tourist) you have to have a person number (personnummer*).
• The houses are all a similar style and  painted red or yellow.
• It isn’t really full of blondes, most people have light brown hair and many of the blondes are fake.
• When buying groceries, you have to pay for your shopping bags (paper bags are popular).
• Swedes have great fashion sense – in warmer weather Swedes wear socks with sandals, indoors and out!
• The dogs are always tiny (Chihuahua’s) or huge (German shepherds being the smallest of the big dogs).
• We have only seen very few cats since being in Sweden (perhaps they are around, but people keep them indoors?).
• Buses are free if you are pushing a pram or stroller. Mothers get one years paid maternity leave, and fathers also get paid paternity leave (not sure for how long).
• Sweden is a very expensive place to live e.g. male haircut $40, female cut, colour and blow-dry $110, child haircut $30, petrol nearly $2 litre, camera film $12 each (24 exp, 400 asa), restaurant meal (evening) main course $25-$40 (the same restaurants have lunch-time specials including bread, salad and drink for about $10-$18), cinema ticket $17.
• Swedes that live in apartments sometimes have separate garden plots. There are some near us, with little one room cabins. In spring and summer, you often see people gardening or just relaxing in their little garden plots.
• In Stockholm city, you can fish off of the bridges!
• Many Swedes also have “summer houses” in the countryside or archipelago, or there are about 7,000 cottages for hire. Many of these cottages are very basic – very small with outdoor dry toilets and sometimes no hot water. Swedes spend most of the summer in their summer houses, sometimes coming into the city for work during the week. They spend much of their “holiday” time doing maintenance to these houses. Even though they are known in English as summer houses, Swedes also go to them some times in the winter.
• Everyone speeds in Sweden. They usually go about 20km over the speed limit. For a city of 1.7 million people, there seems to be an awful lot of traffic in Stockholm. The shops are always very crowded too.
• Sweden doesn’t seem to have the same level of safety standards as Australia. They were doing building works on one of the shopping malls in suburban Stockholm with customers continuing to walk through the area. None of the workers had hard hats or special boots etc. The majority of infant high chairs do not have harnesses – they have to be purchased separately. This seems to be due to the fact that there is no suing.
• Sweden has strict rules regarding protection of the environment – it is illegal to wash your car at home – it must be done at the garage car wash (and it is very expensive – about $30 for an automatic car wash – cheaper if you wash by hand).

Swedish Food and Health

• Swedes are not as healthy living as we thought they would be (we must have had them mixed up with the Swiss!). They eat a lot of fatty meats (meatballs, sausages etc.), and very few vegetables apart from potatoes. They like to drink a lot, and there seems to be a lot of smokers also. However, they do eat a lot of salad instead of vegetables, and also lots of fish and seafood. They don’t tend to overeat, and we have not seen many obese people here, certainly much fewer than in Australia. They are much more active, walking around the local area to shops, schools etc. much more than we do in Australia.
• The Smörgåsbord (literally “sandwich table”) or buffet is the classic Swedish meal. A Swedish smörgåsbord contains herrings prepared in many different ways, plus other seafood such as smiled and marinated salmon, prawns, sardines, eels and other types of fish. Meat dishes include liver pate, ham, meatballs, and sausages, even smoked reindeer. Vegetable dishes are mainly salads, cabbage in vinegar, potatoes whole and mashed. Different types of cheeses, breads and krackerbreads are also found in a smörgåsbord.
• Swedish food specialties include: meatballs (köttbullar); pytt i panna - small cubes of meat and potato, fried, with a fried egg on top and served with beetroot (we have discovered that Jordan loves beetroot!); knäckebrod (like a huge round Ryvita with a hole in the middle); surströmming (stinking fermented herring – apparently it smells so bad you have to open it in a bucket of water!), shredded raw cabbage with vinegar and cracked black pepper, and Thursday lunch is traditionally pancakes with jam, and pea and ham soup.
• Swedes eat a lot of seafood – fish, shrimp, caviar, different kinds of herring.
• Swedes eat salad with most meals rather than vegetables, or usually only have potato plus one other vegetable (e.g. steak with an onion sauce served with fries and salad).  We hardly had any vegetables at all while we were buying our meals in the hotel restaurant.
• The bread is very small, and never very fresh; and the potatoes are usually small too.
• Swedes mainly drink very strong percolated coffee.  The only instant coffee available is Nescafe, but fortunately it is available in freeze-dried and decaffeinated (koffeinfritt) for Debby.
• The price of meat is very high.  Chicken breasts (kycklingfile) are about $19.40kg, although I have seen frozen ones on special for $14kg. Beef and lamb are more expensive, while pork and fish are cheaper.
• An apple is called äpple, but an orange is called apelsin.
• Swedes love oranges and pears. You get them in a variety of foods that we wouldn’t at home eg. yoghurts, rice cream, icecream, pear cider.
• For little get-togethers or parties, you can get a sandwich-cake (smörgåstorta I think it is called). It looks just like a great big pavlova. It is quite bizarre eating a seafood cake or beef cake complete with cucumber, lettuce etc.

Swedish Television and Radio

There are four free-to-air stations, one of which doesn’t start broadcasting until about 4pm or later. In our apartment we are also able to get “Z”, “MTV”, EuroNews, EuroSport, Channel 9 (“K”), and Channel 5.  Euronews is a 24 hour news channel, in English. Although it is called Euronews, it also reports on news outside Europe, but only the major stories. Australia rarely gets a mention.

There are quite a lot of Swedish game shows, including the Swedish version of “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” (although I think the amount must be higher than 1 million Swedish krona as that is only worth about $188,000 to $189,000 Australian), plus Swedish drama and comedy series. There are also some shows from the other Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Norway and Finland).

English language TV shows and movies are subtitled, but not dubbed. However, the names of some of the English language movies and TV shows are translated into Swedish in the advertising and TV guides, while some remain in English. They play a lot of B-Grade movies in the evening, and also movies that have big stars in them, but were flops – many you have never heard of. This is particularly true of Channel Z. As for the other stations, they keep repeating movies that they only showed 2, 3, 6 or 12 months ago.

There is very little sport on Swedish television, apart from the Eurosport channel, except for an occasional soccer or ice hockey game. Debby thinks that is wonderful – she doesn’t have to put up with Andrew spending hours and days watching cricket test matches, while doing nothing else! It is a pity to not be able to see any Aussie Rules footy though.

The radio stations play mainly English language songs and sound just like SA radio, except for the broadcasters! On one particular station there is a lot of Savage Garden and The Corrs played (there must be one song from both of these bands every hour!).

Swedish Weather and Seasons

We arrived in Sweden in late March in the spring. The average maximum at that time was about 8 degrees, but as low as 4 and up to 11 degrees.  It was mainly fine and often sunny, although we had one day of sleet all day, and one weekend of rain. Spring didn’t really arrive until the end of April, when the blossom started blossoming and the trees and flowers started blooming.

Summer was short but with better weather than they had the past couple of years. There would be a week or two of good weather, followed by a week or two of rain and low temperatures (under 20 degrees maximum). June was only about low 20’s, but in July there was about three weeks of temperatures in the high 20’s to low 30’s.  August was similar to June.

Autumn came suddenly (as do all the seasons in Sweden), with trees turning within a week or two. September brought more rain, but mild temperatures remained until the end of October. By mild we mean about 8-10 degrees maximum. It was an unusually warm October – temperatures are usually about 10 degrees lower.

Temperatures dropped in November down to 0-3 degree maximums (minimums just in the minus), but still with some days around 5-10 degrees.  We had our first snow on November 8, which is unusually early, despite the unusually mild temperatures. November is apparently the worst month, as in December there is Christmas to look forward to, January and February there is skiing and skating, and in March you can look forward to spring! However, this November was not too bad with mild temperatures and many sunny days.

In winter the temperature can drop as low as 20 to 30 degrees below zero, however we have been assured that there is only a week or so of such extreme cold weather. The Stockholm archipelago can be iced in for a couple of months, and skating on the lake is popular in January and February. Downhill and cross-country skiing are also popular in winter.

When indoors it is quite easy to forget that it is cold outside.  The worst thing about the cold weather is having to put on layers and layers to go out (jacket, coat, gloves, scarves etc), then having to take it all off again when you go back inside! While you are putting it on/taking it off, you are sweating in the warm indoors.

In Stockholm in mid-summer it is light from about 2am to 11pm, and in mid-winter it is only light from about 10am to 3pm apparently (we haven’t lived through mid-winter yet). In the far north of Sweden the sun never sets for a few weeks in mid-summer (the midnight sun). Conversely in mid-winter the sun never rises for a few weeks in the far north, however the snow apparently brightens the landscape.

Swedish Language

The Swedish language is very difficult to pronounce, as it is not spelt as it is said at all. Many words are similar to the English word in appearance, yet sound totally different. There are other words which look totally different, but are pronounced similarly to the English word. And there are many more words that have no relation to English at all!

There are many “sh” sounds in Swedish. The following letter combinations are pronounced “sh” when before certain vowels – sk, skj, stj, sj, tj, and even k! e.g. kyckling (chicken) is pronounced shickling. There are also many “y” sounds in Swedish. The following letter combinations are pronounced “y” when preceding certain vowels – g, dj, and lj.

Amusing anecdote re the Swedish language: “J” is always a “y” sound, so over here Jordan is called Yordan! (Julia is Yulia etc.). Jordan’s dagmamma once said to me “do you pronounce his name Yordan or Yordan?” I said “Jordan”. “Oh, Yordan”, she said!

If a vowel is followed by one consonant it has a long drawn out sound, if it is followed by two consonants, it has a short sound and the emphasis falls on the consonant.  Swedish has four extra vowels – å, ä, ö and y is also a vowel in Swedish.

In Swedish there is no masculine and feminine as in French and German, but there are “en” and “ett” words e.g. en stol (a chair), ett bord (a table). To make an article definite e.g. the table, you add letters to the end of the word. For “en” words, you add “en” or “n” if ending in a vowel e.g. stolen (the chair), or “et” or “t” to the end of an “ett” word e.g. bordet (the table).  The problem is there are no rules to tell you which words are “en” or “ett” – you just have to learn them all!

Plurals are even more difficult. There are six different endings for plurals, but I won’t go into all that! The good thing is that the verb conjugations are all the same for each tense. E.g. in English we say “I am, you are, he is, she is, they are” etc. In Swedish you say “jag är” (I am), “du är” (you are), “han är” (he is), “hon är” (she is) “de ¨är” (they are) – all the same verb in the present tense. (The pronunciation is something like this “jorg air, doo air, harn air,  hone air, dom air”).

I hope no Swedes or people with good knowledge of Swedish read this in case I have made some terrible mistakes!
 

Swedish Traditions and Holidays

Swedes usually celebrate events on the eve prior to the event, rather than on the day itself (or perhaps on both!). Even though the Swedes celebrate a lot of religious holidays, they aren’t particularly religious and treat every holiday as a good opportunity to get really drunk! Not surprisingly, Sweden’s worst social problem is alcoholism!

In summer everything stops for 2 ½ months (schools, playgroups, bible study group etc.), and most city/suburban dwelling Swedes go away to their “summer homes” (or “country houses”) or abroad. Apparently a lot of these summer homes are very basic, without hot water and with outside “dry” toilets (a seat over a whole in the ground).

January 1st and January 6th
January 1st is of course a public holiday and January 6th is another religious holiday for epiphany - celebrating the arrival of the wise men.

Easter
Witches are a part of the celebration of Easter!  Children dress up as witches or old hags and go from door to door asking for lollies. It is from a pagan belief that the witches are banished to hell along with the devil for the duration of Easter.
Easter eggs and bunnies are also available, but the most common thing seems to be purchasing cardboard eggs that you fill with your own choice of lollies and chocolates.  It is tradition to eat fish on Good Friday and lamb on Sunday or Monday.
At Easter, Swedes place coloured feathers into vases to display in their windows.

Walpurgis Night and May Day (Labour Day) – April 30th and May 1st
May 1st is the official Public Holiday, but most Swedes get the day before off as well. The evening of April 30th is when the official end of winter is celebrated with bonfires and fireworks (and drinking). May Day is observed by marches and labour movement events.

Ascension Day, Whitsunday and Whitmonday
There is a public holiday on a Thursday 40 days after Easter for Ascension Day (when Jesus went back to heaven 40 days after his resurrection). The Monday after that is also a public holiday for Whitsunday and Whitmonday (also known as Pentecost - when the Holy Spirit came). Many workplaces also give their staff the Friday off as well,  to make it a long, long weekend.

Swedish National Flag Day
Is on June 6th, but is not (yet) a public holiday. Flags are displayed on vehicles and buildings, and special events happen in various places during the day and evening.

Midsommar (Mid-summer) or the Feast of St. John
The weekend closest to the 24th of June is celebrated as “midsommar” (midsummer). In 2001 the 24th was a Sunday, but most of the celebrations were on the Friday. Even though it wasn’t a public holiday on Friday, most people got that day off work anyway. For midsommar, the Swedes leave the cities and head for the country (or at least to the local park!). In the morning the women collect leafy twigs and flowers. They then decorate a maypole with the leaves and flowers (some also make necklaces or floral wreaths to wear around their heads). In the afternoon they sing traditional songs while dancing around the maypole. In the evening, they eat a traditional meal of herrings, new potatoes and strawberries, have midsummer dances, and drink.

There is a romantic legend that if a girl picks seven (or nine, by a different account) different flowers in seven different fields, ties them in a bunch and puts them under her pillow on midsummer night, she will dream about the man she will marry. Tradition also says that the dew that falls on this night is a miraculous drug.

All-Saints Day
Is on the first Sunday in November, although most people get a day off on the Friday before.

Lucia
The 13th of December is the day of the death of St. Lucia, who was executed by the Romans at the beginning of the 4th century for refusing to renounce Christ and sacrifice to the emperor’s portrait. The Lucia festival has only been celebrated for about 60 years in Sweden. Today it is celebrated by dressing a girl in white robes with a crown of candles on her head. It is also a tradition to bake special buns called “Lussekatter” or “Lucia cats” in English. The girl goes from one room to another, offering the special buns, ginger biscuits, coffee and glögg. Competitions are held in various areas to chose the person who will represent Lucia for that region. The lit candles represent the light that conquers the evil forces of night and winter until the return of spring. It is not a public holiday.

Advent
Advent is celebrated in the four weeks preceding Christmas by lighting a new candle each Sunday during this period. By the fourth Sunday, four candles are burning and therefore Christmas is about to begin. Advent calendars are also popular.

Christmas (Jul – pronounced Yule)
Most homes have a Christmas tree decorated with stars, straw animals, tinsel and spangles. “Jultomten” is the Swedish version of St. Nicholas. In the 18th century before St. Nicholas got the job, it was handled by the “Christmas goat”, a man wearing a mask. The Christmas goat is still a common symbol and often a decoration made of straw. A bowl of porridge was set out for “tomten” at night.

Christmas is mainly celebrated on Christmas Eve. Traditional Christmas foods are ham, meatballs, herring, plums, salads, nuts and fruit. The Christmas dessert is usually boiled rice pudding with milk, sugar and cinnamon. Many families do the “dipping in the pot”, an old tradition where slices of bread are dipped into the broth of the boiled ham. Around Christmas, Swedes drink “glögg”, an alcoholic hot spiced fruit punch.
 

Joke: You know that you have been in Sweden too long when.........

1. It's acceptable to eat lunch at 11.00. (We usually eat lunch at 11.30).

2. You think Leif 'Loket' Olsson is entertaining (don’t know who he is).

3. You rummage through your plastic bag collection to see which ones you should keep to take to the store and which can be sacrificed to garbage. (You have to pay for your bags at the supermarket).

4. You associate pea soup with Thursday.

5. The first thing you do on entering a bank/post office/pharmacy etc. is look for the queue number machine.

6. You accept that you will have to queue to take a queue number.

7. A sharp intake of breath has become part of your vocabulary, as has the sound 'ahh'.

8. You associate Friday afternoon with a trip to the system bolaget (government alcohol shop – Swedes drink a lot).

9. You think nothing of paying $50 for a bottle of 'cheap' spirits at system bolaget (as above).

10. Silence is fun.

11. Your native language has seriously deteriorated; you begin to "eat medicine" and "hire videos" (we’ve always “hired” videos – perhaps Americans say rent?).

12. Your front door step is beginning to resemble a shoe shop. (It is Swedish custom to take off your shoes when entering a house).

13. When a stranger on the street smiles at you, you assume that: a. he is drunk; b. he is insane; c. he is American; d. he is all of the above.

14. You stay home on Saturday night to watch Bingolotto.

15. It seems sensible that the age limit at Stockholm night clubs is 23 or 25.

16. The reason you take the ferry to Finland is: a. duty free vodka  b. duty free beer  c. to party (again: Swedes drink a lot!).

17. The only reason for getting off the boat in Helsinki is to eat pizza.

18. It no longer seems excessive to spend $200 on alcohol in a single night.

19. The fact that all of the "v's" and the "w's" are together in the phone directory seems right. (“V’s” and “W’s” are interchangeable. In Visby they have the Wisby Hotell).

20. You care who wins 'Expedition: Robinson' (a show similar to Survivor).

21. Your old habit of being "fashionably late" is no longer acceptable. You are always on time.

22. You no longer see any problem wearing white socks with loafers.

23. You know that "religious holiday" means "let's get drunk" (as explained before…)

24. You are no longer scared of Volvos and Volvo drivers. (We drove a Volvo for the first six months. Now we have a VW Passat – or is that a WV?!!).

25. You have your own innebandy club. (A Swedish indoor sport similar to hockey – played outdoors it is called simply bandy).

26. You enjoy the taste of surströmming. (Raw fish conserved in cans and stinking).

27. You find yourself debating the politics of Carl Bildt. (Who?).

28. You use mmmm as a conversation filler.

29. An outside temperature of 9 degrees Celsius is mild.

30. When someone asks for "three cheers", you say "hoorah, hoorah, hoorah, hoorah".

31. You wear sandals with socks indoors, no matter what season it is.

32. You eat jam with savoury dishes. (Köttbullar, or Swedish meatballs, are traditionally eaten with lingon berry and boiled potatoes only).

33. You have only two facial expressions, smiling or blank.

34. You think riding a racing bike in the snow is a perfectly sensible thing to do.

35. You think it's more fun to stay at home and drink then go out. (And again…)

36. You wear warm clothing when it's 25 degrees plus in April - because it's April.

37. You wear shorts and T-shirt when it's barely 10 degrees in July - because it's July.

38. You get extremely annoyed when the bus is two minutes late.

39. You think women are more than equal than men and deserve to have better positions in the work place.

40. Your wife watches TV while you look after the kids.

41. You become a punctuality freak and dump your friends for being late more than once.

42. You spend the week's entertainment budget on a pack of cigarettes and a drink in Gamla Stan. (There seems to be a lot of smokers in Sweden also).

43. When a stranger asks you a question in the streets, you think it's normal to just keep walking, saying nothing.

44. You've been engaged for four years and don't have any plans to get married.

45. Americans start to look entertaining, witty and fun, and you just want to go to the U.S.A., travelling across country on a greyhound, because it's "romantic."

46. You and your friends know exactly the same information, and have the same attitudes and beliefs in the value of Social Democracy.

47. You lose any artistic talent whatsoever.

48. You wear a dress or skirt over your trousers and combine them with training shoes. [this is especially problematic if you're male] .

49. You jot down 'fisk fingrar' on your shopping list. (fish fingers)

50. You no longer look for Vegemite on supermarket shelves, even if it's your first time in that particular store.

51. You think black rimmed glasses are cool. Your wardrobe now consists of 20 different shades of black and grey.

52. You get excited watching a bunch of lame 'celebrities' on a fortress island playing games that are about as intelligent as mud-wrestling. (Not sure what show this is – we don’t watch any programs that are in Swedish).

53. You look forward to the next program about practical jokes done on lame celebrities/has-beens by other lame celebrities who don't really deserve air time.

54. It doesn't feel like lunch unless it's a hot, full course meal drenched in gravy. (Swedes have their main meal at lunchtime. A Swedish main course consists of meat and potatoes accompanied by a drink, bread and salad – see no. 57 for more on the salad. You will rarely be served vegetables, apart from some onions in the gravy perhaps!).

55. You eat unlimited amounts of sausage products without worrying about your nitrate intake.

56. You think that an unripe wedge of tomato on a limp leaf of iceberg lettuce can be called a salad (or vinegar drenched cabbage, which we actually like).

57. You don't question the concept of 'telephone time'. It seems reasonable that no business can be Conducted on Friday afternoons [or the entire month of July]. Most Swedes have the entire month off of work, and many go away for the whole summer, coming to work during the week and back to their summer houses on the weekend. (Many summer houses are basic, without hot water and with outside dry toilets).

58. You assume that anyone who apologises after bumping into you is a tourist.

59. You think it is normal that a huge restaurant has a smoking section which consists of three tables near the door.

60. You reach for your pocket 20 times a day as mobile phones ring all around you.

61. You actually care if your mobile phone meets the fashion standard - and so do your new Swedish friends!

62. It seems reasonable that even those asking you for money at T-Centralen (the city’s main underground station) reach for their pocket as the melodic music of the Swedish mobile phone resounds.

63. You get into a Mercedes taxi cab and think nothing of it.

64. Paying $5 for a cup of coffee seems reasonable.

65. You understand that when a colleague asks you out for "a drink," it will probably be a long night with a severe hangover the next day. (Do you get the point yet…).

66. You start to think that having a sauna in the nude with a bunch of strangers is a necessary part of daily life ... and a necessary part of business.

67. You believe that when you finally win your Nobel Prize, it is best to be modest and say "Oh really, it was nothing!"

68. You get offended if, at a dinner party, someone fails to look you in the eyes after raising their glass for a toast.

69. Seeing a young woman with lit candles stuck to her head no longer disturbs you. (Festival of St. Lucia on December 13 – see Swedish Traditions and Holidays).

70. You become extremely skilled at assembling pre-packaged furniture kits (from IKEA).

71. "Candles" are a permanent fixture on your weekly shopping list. (Swedes love to use lots of candles during the long, dark winter months).

72. You get to the movies early so that you can watch the commercials (it is very rude to walk in late, in fact entry may be refused to latecomers).

73. Most of your friends have the same names and you must use both names to distinguish between them. (There seems to be a lack of variety of names in Sweden. Look in the Stockholm phone book and you will see several people with exactly the same name e.g. Marie-Louise Berg is listed 7 times in the book, and that is only Stockholm. Imagine how many there are in the whole of Sweden!).

74. You regard it sensible to eat ice cream when it is -15C, and that the ice cream van comes around playing that annoying song when it is -15C.

75. Someone calls you a 'good moron' first thing in the morning and you smile acknowledgement. (God morgon means good morning).

76. You have conversations with people outside when its -10C, hopping from foot to foot rather than going inside to talk.

77. You stop saying 'how are you?' for fear of getting a complete medical rundown.

78. You think yourself lucky if you find a free public toilet. (It costs about $1 to use a toilet, even in many department stores, shopping centres and even in McDonalds).

79. You think yourself lucky if you enter a lift at a train station, and there isn’t a puddle of urine. (due to the point above, and also dogs which some people take wherever they go, including on trains).

80. You think it normal to pay $90 to fill your petrol tank.