The living standard in Sweden is so much higher than what I come across in England. I am sure there must be some poor people lurking about somewhere it’s just that I never see them. All my friends and family are firmly middleclass and live in nice houses or flats in amazing neighbourhoods.
Whenever I come to my sister’s house I can spend hours just playing with the water tap in the bathroom. The cheer joy of a tap that actually blends the water! With an easy press the water comes out, mixed to a comfortable temperature, not boiling hot or freezing cold just perfect mix of the two. The toilets always flush with a soft touch on a button. You don’t have to spend five minutes flushing and praying to God that your excrement will disappear!
The first day or so in Sweden, I struggle with the language and usually make words in half-English and half-Swedish. Luckily most people in Sweden do speak English so they are able to decode my homemade Swenglish. My nieces and nephew used to find it hilarious when they were little.
My sister also told me that I use an English sentence structure rather than a Swedish. Strangers must think I am retarded or something. I mean I look Swedish and normal but act as a moron.
The technology is also very advanced. I am not even sure I can manage to do food shopping on my own anymore. It’s too technically advanced for me. I therefore love to go to the supermarket with my sisters. Everybody bring their own bag, designed to fit perfectly into the shopping trolley.
You often start your shopping by going into a side room where you can dispose your empty pet bottles, glass bottles and cans in specially designed holes in the wall. Everybody do exactly as you are told and are very careful not to put the pet bottles in the can hole and so on. For the trouble you get paid in form of a receipt that can be deducted from your total bill at the till. You get about 0.10p per bottle.
When you disposed your bottles you walk into to the proper shop and there you grab a scanning machine from a wall full of scanners and then you simply scan your items before you pack them into to your purpose designed bag. When you come to the till you use another machine to read your scanner and then you slot your card into the machine and out comes a receipt and your shopping is completed. I am amazed!
You can also choose to use a manned till if you do not wish to use a scanner but even then you are met with machines where you slot your coins and so forth and I feel like I am at an attraction at Disney World or something. As a Swenglish person I always do all this things in the wrong order and get confused and that is when I feel like a moron.
My last visit to Sweden was over the New Year and the nature was fantastic. I went up North, about three hours car ride North of Stockholm to a county called Dalarna. My sister is part of a commune there. One of those shared homes that were so popular with the lefties during the seventies. This is a sort of commune second home. It is lovely located on the top of a mountain.
And the views are fantastic!
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We slept in bunker beds and each room can fit up to six people but I only shared with my sis and her hubby. You have cute little curtains on your bed and I felt like I was in the film Some Like it Hot with Marilyn Monroe.
The cute sink
My sis I woke up early and had breakfast to the most amazing sunrise in the quiet kitchen heated by a wood burner.
When I opened the cupboard I saw something in the corner of my eye and it turned out to be an exposed little mouse. Since I had opened the door the mouse couldn’t get away so we stood there looking at each other for a while until the mouse made a kamikaze jump down to the floor and disappeared under the sink.
After our breakfast sis went out to collect wood and sort out the pine tree that fell over an electric wire during the storm a few nights previous.
On New Year 's Eve we grilled our meat over the open fire in the dining room and had a great meal over a heated political debate. At twelve we went out and sent off lanterns over the woods and I was terrified we would cause a forest fire!
That’s it. 2011 is over and 2012 is here and my new life is supposed to start.
I’m still waiting...
