The Land of the Midnight Sun
I know this blog is about Greece, but I wanted to share some photos with you from my time abroad in Sweden, as well as some humble reflections on the Swedish culture.
First, here are some things that have surprised me about Sweden. (WARNING: Cultural generalizations ahead, so take these with a grain of salt and humor):
Local produce is limited in our town (Frösön/Östersund) and the imported food I buy in the grocery store is mostly tasteless. I got some variety of covid the first week we were in Sweden and I lost my sense of taste for about a week. When my taste returned, though, I was terrified that it had been damaged forever because everything was so bland! Until I returned to Greece a few months later and realized: Nope. It’s just the Swedish produce. Tasteless. (I’ve been spoiled in Greece; year-round, I could buy my produce directly from the farmer who grows it; he usually harvests it that morning.)
Even as environmentally-friendly as Sweden purports to be, there is an astounding amount of shopping, general consumption, and packaging. And because of the climate (we are technically in the subarctic), most of the food is being shipped from abroad and comes wrapped in incredible amounts of plastic. The amount of trash that I produce is at least double what I would have made in Greece. They have recycling and composting services in most places, and they burn their trash for energy, but still…it’s a lot of trash.
Everyone has a car and they drive a lot more than I expected. But keeping in line with the stereotype, Swedes also bike and walk A TON. There are very well-marked (and respected) lanes for bikers and pedestrians.
Sweden is a very active country and most people do at least one sport. In the town we stay, they really love cross-country skiing, so much that even in summer, they skate on special rollerblades that mimic cross-country so they can stay in shape for when the snow returns.
Although there’s a large tradition of berry and mushroom picking in Sweden, holistic healing and herbal knowledge are considered fringe. It’s very difficult to find holistic practitioners, I couldn’t find many herbal apothecaries, and most people rely/trust 100% the bio-medical complex. This seemed like a major contradiction to their nature-loving ethos. Where’s the herbal knowledge, folks?
The amount of sugar consumption; holy cow, they really love their lördagsgodis. Similar to the point above, this seemed like such a contradiction to the stereotype that they are a health/fitness-conscious culture.
No cash; they are quickly and steadily moving toward a cashless society. The only time I touched a Swedish Kronor was when we went to a festival and the vendors only took Swish (a Swedish banking app much like PayPal) or cash.
If you don’t fit in the system, the system gets confused. I cannot tell you how many times I was a conundrum just because I did not have a Swedish ID number.
Musical instruments everywhere! It seemed like every Swede I met could play at least 1 instrument or they’d been in a choir or they were learning to play something.
Allemansrätten — the Right of Public Access — really is a thing. It’s amazing and most people take advantage of it by spending large amounts of time outside, regardless of the weather — hiking or biking or camping or sportsing in one way or another.
The people are warm, friendly, and kind. We’d heard so many rumors before going that it was hard to make friends, hard to communicate, hard to connect. That was not my experience AT ALL. Maybe I have an advantage because I’m relatively outgoing — and maybe I lucked out because I joined an incredible coworking space with fantastic people — but I found it very easy to connect. (I made more friends in the on-and-off-again time we spent in Sweden than I have in several years of being in Greece!).
And here are some photos from my time in Sweden:
