WEDNESDAY, JUNE 04, 2014
You Don't Live in Texas Anymore Whenthe train station has an umbrella vending machine!
MONDAY, MAY 26, 2014
Suddenly Summer
In the park near our house, the city has planted thousands of tulips around the bases of all the trees. It is truly magnificent and our camera sadly didn’t do a good job of capturing the tulips-as-far-as-the-eye-can-see effect.
MONDAY, MAY 12, 2014
Foraging: Nettles
The first time that I had nettle soup was on the island of Gotland at
Carl’s second cousins’ house. It was amazingly, shockingly tasty. Who
knew that such a nasty prickly plant was edible and so incredibly
delicious to boot? I have been longing to forage our own nettles ever
since that trip in 2008, and this spring we finally did!
Last weekend, we took the bus about 20 minutes southwest of our apartment out to one of our favorite foraging islands. While walking around the island on our usual path, we kept our eye out for nettles and stopped to pick them whenever we saw them. Sometimes there were in large patches, and sometimes we picked them one by one. Over the course of the hike, we picked three huge grocery bags worth, totaling in several pounds of nettles. Next year, I will definitely invest in rubber gloves for our nettles foraging because they sure do sting!
Once home, we rinsed the nettles and then steamed them until they were wilted. We then pureed the wilted nettles, and most went into the freezer for future special meals.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 07, 2014
The Hardest Thing I Have Ever DoneThe Hardest Thing I Have Ever Done is work in a foreign language. Working in Swedish is harder than my very rigorous high school where I studied endlessly. Working in Swedish is harder than college where I stayed up way too late far too often to finish up my studio projects. Working in Swedish is harder than training for a marathon where the Saturday morning run is 20 miles long and the weekly mileage tops 40. Working in Swedish is harder than grad school where I stayed up way too late far too often to finish building our design-build competition house. Working in Swedish is harder than working at my office in the US where the talent is so intense that I often felt like a design-nobody despite proven design talent of my own. Working in Swedish is harder than learning Swedish where I memorized hundreds of flash cards every week.
Working in Swedish means that every little email I type is a grammatical minefield. Working in Swedish means that every phone conversation is a struggle for comprehension and effective communication. Working in Swedish means that every part of a building is a vocabulary bomb—it isn’t just a window, after all, but a simple window explodes into a window frame, a window sill, a window pane, a sash, a stile, a head, a mullion, a jamb, a latch, flashing, casing, cladding, glazing, hinges, blinds. Working in Swedish means that everything I describe with drawings or with words has a veiled legal meaning for which I have only a vague comprehension of the consequences. Working in Swedish means re-learning even the most fundamental processes of the architecture profession including what role the architect plays—overstepping your bounds is certainly not appreciated by the colleagues whose territory you have invaded, yet underperforming is equally perilous. Working in Swedish means that I must re-learn every fundamental thing about how buildings are put together—the climate, materials, and building methods here are so different that my professional arsenal is nearly null and void. Working in Swedish means that every meeting is a battleground where I must prove my merit and my right to participate.
Eleven months on the job, working in Swedish is the hardest thing I have ever done. I can only hope that it will become easier. I dream of a day when working in Swedish will be just as effortless as working in English.
Despite my struggles, I am apparently doing a good job. My one year contract was recently extended to permanent employment, and I even got a 10% raise. Yay! It feels good that all of my effort is yielding promising results, and it is encouraging that my employer sees promising developments in my working-in-Swedish skills, even if I don’t yet feel a bit difference. I am hoping that my big break-through is just around the corner and that the days will soon become less exhausting and a little more automatic, and that I will soon look back upon this time and wonder how it ever could have been so hard.
SUNDAY, MAY 04, 2014
Not Everything is Bigger in Texas
SATURDAY, MAY 03, 2014
Paid HolidaysExcept for people working as a school teacher, at a bank, or at a government agency, I get twice as many paid holidays in Sweden than most workers in the US. My list of paid holidays consists of:New Year’s Day
Epiphany (January 6th)
Good Friday
Easter Monday
Valborg/May Day (traditional first day of spring)
Ascension Day (40 days after Easter...)
June 6th (Sweden’s National Day)
Midsummer’s Eve
Midsummer’s Day
Christmas Eve
Christmas Day
Boxing Day (December 26th)
New Year’s Eve
Plus one or two “clam” days: when the official holiday falls on a Tuesday or a Thursday, the adjacent Monday or Friday is often a paid holiday, too, enabling lots of long-weekend fun.
The holidays are an interesting blend of Christian and Pagan (New Year’s, Valborg, Midsummer...) and there is only one patriotic holiday. Even though the average Swede isn't very religious, there is still a Church of Sweden (Lutheran) which strongly influences the holiday calendar.
As you can see, the holidays are clustered in the spring and at Christmastime. Between mid-April to mid-June, there is hardly a five day working week. Glorious! And at Christmas, taking a two and a half week break from the office requires the use of only a few days of vacation. Also Glorious!
The downside to the clustering of holidays is that there is a v-e-r-y l-o-n-g s-t-r-e-t-c-h after summer vacation in July until Christmas without a single day off.
Most of the holidays have names that translate pretty directly to English, but Ascension day has a name that just makes me laugh: Kristi himmelsfärdsdag literally translates to “Christ heaven journey day.” When Carl is speaking English, he calls the holiday “Christ take-off day,” and I can’t help but think of Jesus with a jet-pack. I have posted this photo before, but I just love Bromma Kyrka’s imagery of “Christ take-off day” with foot prints in the sand and feet ascending into the clouds.
FRIDAY, MAY 02, 2014
Keep your Feet off the Seat
THURSDAY, MAY 01, 2014
Early SpringAfter an extraordinarily warm winter, we are experiencing an unusually warm and early spring. Trees have already started to leaf out and the flowers are two or three weeks early. The sun has been brilliantly shining for about a month, bringing the dreary, grey winter to a warm and sunny end. Every weekend for the past month we have been spending as much time as possible out in the sun, taking day hikes in the forest, riding Stockholm’s ferries, and walking parts of Stockholm’s coastline that we hadn’t yet explored.
We had been planning a trip to Copenhagen for Easter, but at the last minute, we had to cancel the trip. It was a bummer, but we did enjoy our weekend adventures here in sunny Stockholm instead. One Swedish Easter tradition that I love is that people bring budding twigs from the forest home. Once in the steady warmth of the home, the twigs burst into leaf, filling the home with spring green. We generally don’t join in with this tradition because it is a bit sad to remove twigs from trees and bushes, but on one of our Easter day hikes, we stumbled across a recently fallen branch that was perfect for this purpose. The green leafiness has now lasted in our apartment for more than two weeks.
We spent one sunny day riding one of Stockholm’s commuter ferry routes.
Vitsippa is a small, white flower that carpets the forrest floor in
early spring. This winter I had been longing to find a “postcard”
worthy patch of Vitsippa, and I think we might have stumbled upon one!
On another dayhike, we took the bus five islands west of our apartment to the island of Ädelsö. There is no bridge to Ädelsö, but there is a ferry, so the bus continues across the water and around the island. Sadly, much of our hike was through clear-cut forest, which was extremely disappointing. There were a few highlights, however, including a field of bronze-age burial mounds and finding our dream cottage. Sitting on its own pennensula jutting into the water, the cottage has water views from every window. And a fireplace, and apple trees. Sadly, it is not for sale (as if we could afford it!). Another highlight was a beautiful stretch of intact forest through a small nature reserve. It was so warm that we even went “swimming”—up to our ankles.
Traditionally, Sweden’s spring starts on Valborg (See “Valborg 2013” and “Summer has arrived” ) with a
giant bonfire. This is one of my favorite Swedish holidays—I love the bonfires and I love the ancient, paganness of the
holiday. This year, we decided to visit a different bonfire and went to
the island of Riddarholmen in central Stockholm (see “Riddarholmen—The Knight’s Island” ).
We found the perfect perch above the fray and watched the bonfire
crackle with the water in the background. Magical!
Ironically, it has been summer-warm throughout April, but on Valborg, the official start of spring, the temperatures plunged. After standing in the biting wind watching the bonfire, we were chilled to the bone. Carl and I made our way through the old town Gamla Stan and found a cozy bar where we enjoyed a warming glass of red wine. Sitting in leather wingbacks, sipping wine, and chatting about the bonfire was a snug way to bring in the spring.
Continuing the ironic change in weather, it snowed this morning! The snow didn’t stick, but there was a swirling mass of it falling from the sky. Crazy! The weather is sure to warm up again soon, and Carl and I will surely be enjoying more springtime walks in the coming weekends.
MONDAY, APRIL 21, 2014
Sweden is Expensive Part IV
Upon moving to Sweden, I’ve had sticker chock for just about everything imaginable, but one of the things that I’m still chocked over is the price of pecans. This teeny little bag of pecans costs about $5 (that’s a tablespoon measure beside the pecan bag, for scale). I have only made one pecan pie since moving to Sweden, and it cost me about $70 in pecans! I do understand that the nuts have to be shipped over from the US, and that perhaps the demand for them isn’t so high, but wow! $5 for about 20 pecans!
SUNDAY, APRIL 06, 2014
Matches 
Not
too long ago I posted on Kalles Kaviar and the awesome logo on the
caviar tube (See “Food in a Tube” below). There are quite a few
fundamental Swedish products that still use their historical logo,
including Solstickan, or “The Sun Stick.” Safety matches were invented
in Sweden and were the source of a huge portion of Sweden’s sudden
wealth in the late 1800’s, so as ordinary as they seem in today’s world,
matches are an important part of the Swedish psyche. It seems that the
products that have a logo that hasn’t changed in decades are the
products that have a fundamental place in Swedish culture, like
caviar-in-a-tube (Sweden’s peanut butter) and matches.
To
continue the food packaging theme, I am also quite intrigued by how
chewing gum is packaged in Sweden. It either comes in a thin, shiny
re-closeable baggy or in little plastic bottles that are the shape and
size of Tylenol bottles. There are no sticks of gum here; instead, it
comes as little pellets which only reinforces the Tylenol look.
Swedes generally consider American food to be over-processed garbage. And I generally agree. But I do think it is worth mentioning that while America has Cheez-Whiz, Swedes have cheese-in-a-tube. The cheese-in-a-tube does not need refrigeration. And often, it is shrimp flavored.
And
while I do not know a single person who eats Cheez-Whiz, Swedish
cheese-in-a-tube is extraordinarily popular, at least judging from the
cheese-in-a-tube section of the grocery store which is so extensive that
I couldn’t fit it into one shot:
At least the pureed-caviar-in-a-tube has to be refrigerated! Pureed caviar is to Sweden as peanut butter is to America. It is the go-to snack and is overwhelmingly popular, and people grow up eating it as an after-school snack. People spread it on bread at breakfast and on crackers at the office to accompany their morning coffee. It is standard refrigerator stock and is just as ubiquitous as butter. Personally, I think that pureed caviar is pretty darn gross, but in the quest for fairness, my husband didn’t grow up eating peanut butter and he thinks that that is pretty darn weird, too.
While I'm really not a fan of the contents of the pureed caviar tube, I do love the label. I’m pretty sure that it hasn’t changed in 50 years:
If you’re thinking about having a baby, you should move to Sweden. Here are the reasons why:
-All pregnancy health care is free as is the birth.
-After giving birth, mothers are not immediately kicked out of the hospital. Instead, the mothers and babies are moved to an adjacent “hospital hotel” where they stay under the care and supervision of nurses for a few days.
-Once parents have gone home after the birth, a nurse makes a housecall to check on the health of the baby and to answer questions about how to care for the baby.
-Parents have 13 months of paid leave. Parents may divide up the leave however they like as long as each parent takes at least two of the months. When on parental leave, the government pays you 80% of your salary and depending on your job and contract, you probably also receive 10 or 20% from your employer. Parents may take the parental leave at any time up until the child is eight years old. So you can take a year off at the beginning if you like, or you can take an extra two months of vacation ever summer if you like, or you can work only 3 days a week for years on end if you like. (Interestingly, couples who equally share the parental leave are statistically more likely to stay together than couples where the mother takes most of the parental leave.)
-Parents can take another 90 days off with a small stipend of about $30 per day.
-Parents receive the above 16 months of parental leave for each child. So if you decide to have more than one child, the government will pay you a great salary for being a parent for years on end.
-Until your child is eight years old, an employer is required by law to allow you to work between 75% and 100% of full time without any loss of responsibility, seniority, etc. You are paid 75% or 80% or whatever of your real, full-time salary (unlike in the US where part time employees often don’t receive comparable, real salaries). There are several people in my office with preschool or elementary-aged kids who work 80% at six hours a day. Another person works 90% and takes every other Friday off to spend with her kids (and her husband takes the other Fridays off).
-While your employer does not pay you to take care of your sick kids, the government reimburses you 80% of your lost wages. You also get reimbursed for the time you spend taking your kids to the doctor, dentist, etc. And if your kids’ school has the day off but your office doesn’t, you get reimbursed for that, too. All of this “care of child” time is called “vård av barn” which has been made into a verb, vabba. When someone is out of the office due to a sick child, they are vabba-ing.
-Discrimination in the workplace in any way against parents is absolutely illegal and is taken very seriously.
-Parents receive a cash payment every month just for having a child, until that child is 16. The payment comes out to something like $150/month, so it’s probably fairly equivalent to the yearly tax deduction that a parent gets to make on a dependent in the US. Starting with the third child, you get a “big family bonus” and get paid extra.
-Starting at age 1, preschool is basically free. Families pay a small contribution on the order of about $100 a month ($100 is the max rate as the payment is based on household income), but that is nothing compared to the cost of childcare in the US. Parents get a 50% discount on the second child and I believe that all additional children are free. Preschools are required to be open from at least 6:30 am till at least 6:30 pm and parents may choose their own drop off/pick up schedule. Breakfast, lunch, and snacks are provided, for free, by the preschools.
-Even parents on parental leave get to take advantage of the preschools. A parent who is on parental leave with a newborn may send their preschool-aged child(ren) to preschool 15 hours per week.
-Afterschool and summer programs for kids with working parents are very cheap and cost a maximum of $140/month (fees are based on household income). The government also subsidizes things like music lessons, dance classes, and photography courses for kids 22 and under. Parents pay only $120/per semester but the lessons/classes/courses meet weekly.
-Of course elementary, middle, and high school is free. School lunch is free, and not just if you are poor.
-Even university is free. Not only that, but students receive a monthly stipend. The stipend is on the order of $500-2000 depending on course load—probably not enough to live on but the stipend puts a big dent in the amount that parents have to contribute or that students have to borrow.
-All healthcare and vaccinations are free for minors (although emergency room visits cost about $20 each).
-Until age 20, all dental care is free (but this does not include braces).
-In Stockholm, parents with a child in a stroller ride all buses for free (this is mostly a logistics and flow issue as strollers don’t fit through the front door and the ticket check is at the front door). In addition, kids under 7 ride all public transportation for free. Kids aged 7-11 ride free on the weekends with a paying adult.
-Of course, all of the above benefits apply to parents who adopt.
Why does Sweden have such generous parental benefits? I’ve thought about this question a lot, and I believe that there are two main reasons.
First, Sweden works very, very hard to have a completely equal and non-discriminatory society. By making parenthood easier, more economical, and more acceptable in the workplace, Sweden is actively striving to foster equality between men and women and between parents and non-parents.
Secondly, Sweden needs babies. Throughout the 20th century, Sweden’s birthrate was less than sustainable, and a stable birthrate is needed to keep the system going. Without enough new people being born, there would be not enough of a tax base to support the older generations later. Sweden has partly solved the problem with generous immigration policies, but generous parental policies are another active way to keep the tax base stable.
This also partly answers the question of why the US has such lousy parental benefits. The US has always had a strong birthrate, so a stable tax base has never been in question. The minute that the US starts to have a negative birthrate will be the minute that the US gets serious about significant parental leave.
All of these benefits have really paid off for Sweden. Today, Sweden has the highest rate of working mothers in the EU as well as the lowest rate of childhood poverty. Sweden also has one of the highest birthrates in the EU (the rates in the UK and Ireland are significantly higher, but Sweden’s rate is 25% higher than Italy’s and 33% higher than Germany’s) as well as in Europe as a whole.
Sweden is clearly a great place to have and raise children, but I do wish that these benefits extended in some way to working people who do not wish to have children. It would be nice to get a paid year off every now and then! What if I wanted to give birth to a novel instead of a child?
My statistics came from:
http://europa.eu/epic/countries/sweden/index_en.htm
http://www.landguiden.se/Statistik/BefolkningSprak?id=537#countries=SWE
Here’s the proof of our unusually warm winter thus far: Sweden’s weather website published this diagram showing that most of Sweden was more than 10 degrees Celcius warmer than usual in December!
We adopted a cat! Meet Sir Gordon Purr-a-Lot de la Montana! (We were married at Gordon Ranch in Montana, hence the name.)
Carl
and I have been on the look-out for a kitty to adopt for a while now,
but the shelters in Stockholm are pretty darn picky. I know that the
cats appreciate being adopted by families with just the right
conditions—yards or no yards, kids or no kids, dogs or no dogs, with
their cat buddies if they have them—but finding just the right
combination makes finding a cat to adopt challenging! Our requirements
were that we wanted a “used” cat that is not a kitten but who will be
around for many years to come. We only wanted to adopt one cat,
preferably a male, and we don’t have a yard for the cat to run around
in. We didn’t want a “project” cat but wanted one who is already
friendly and cuddly.
Our friends Jessica and Johan are a foster home for cats that don’t fit into the shelter. We told them to be on the lookout for a cat that met our specifications, and one day, Jessica mentioned that they were taking care of a really cool cat. After a few visits and a good deal of time and negotiations with the shelter, Carl and I were allowed to adopt him, and we are now the proud parents of the cute and cuddly and quick-to-purr Sir Gordon.
Sir Gordon seems to be easing into life in our apartment. It has taken him a while to fully relax, and he still perks up any time there is a noise in the stairwell, which is often—you can hear all the apartment doors opening and closing, the elevator motor as the elevator goes up and down, the elevator doors slamming, kids banging their way down the stair railing, everyone walking up and down the staircase… These are noises that Carl and I have learned to block out and we hardly hear them anymore, but Sir Gordon is still a bit threatened by all the foreign sounds. However, after exploring every nook and cranny of the apartment, he has found a perfect perch on the living room window sill and he has claimed his spot on the couch, so he seems to be settling into a contented existence despite all the commotion out in the stairwell.
I have now learned a bit of Swedish cat vocabulary and I particularly like the word for “purr.” Spinna literally means “to spin” and calls to mind the sound of a spinning wheel. Interesting that in English, similar similies are used when we say that the motor is spinning or that the motor is purring. One Swedish word that doesn’t seem to fit at all is the verb “to meow.” Jama (pronounced “yama”) just doesn’t sound at all like a meow to me!
With only two snowy days so far, we are having a very unwintry winter in Stockholm this year. In fact, late fall weather conditions have extended through early and mid winter with temperatures in the upper 30’s, steel grey skies, and near constant drizzle. When Carl and I left for our two week vacation over Christmas, we were hoping to come back to a wintery Stockholm with skiable snow and skateable lakes. Sadly, we returned last night to the same dripping conditions that we had left.
There is some hope that we may get some winter after all as the forecast calls for well below freezing temperatures all next week. We’ll see…
In the mean time, we’ll have a chance to recover from our vacation (our vacations are always more exhausting than daily life!) by reading on the sofa until the weather discovers that winter is past due.
I
have mentioned before that my office gets weekly fruit baskets
delivered to the office so that employees have something healthy to
snack on during the day (see ”Fika” below). The fruit baskets are
immensely popular and they are quite empty by the end of the week. It
seems that fruit basket delivery is the standard norm for a Swedish
office.
Another sign that Swedes generally have healthier snacking habits than Americans is that convenience stores usually sell fruit, and better yet, the fruit display is right by the front door enticing people to stop in and to pick up a small snack. Can you imagine? Instead of 2-for-1 bags of chips, or snack-sized bags of M-‘n-M’s, Sweden’s convenience mart impulse buy is a banana.
It has occurred to me that in Stockholm, 2:30 in the afternoon in December is very much like 2:30 in the morning in June.
Thank goodness the tide will soon be turning and we will soon be gaining daylight instead of losing it! This winter has been very dark, grey, rainy, and depressing so far. It has been too warm for snow except for a brief two days when we had a light dusting of snow on the ground. Obviously, there has been no cross country skiing or ice skating so far. We are beginning to think that we didn’t move far enough north.
SATURDAY, MARCH 29, 2014
Chewing Gum
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19, 2014
Food in a TubeSwedes generally consider American food to be over-processed garbage. And I generally agree. But I do think it is worth mentioning that while America has Cheez-Whiz, Swedes have cheese-in-a-tube. The cheese-in-a-tube does not need refrigeration. And often, it is shrimp flavored.
Cheese-in-a-tube is just the beginning (but perhaps the most alarming)
of the foods packaged in tubes in Sweden. Before I moved here, I had
thought that tubes were for toothpaste. Boy, was I wrong. Tubes are
apparently also for mustard:
And tomato puree:
And horseradish:
And all kinds of mayonnaise and dressings:
And just as popular and nearly as disturbing as the cheese-in-a-tube, may I present pureed-caviar-in-a-tube:
At least the pureed-caviar-in-a-tube has to be refrigerated! Pureed caviar is to Sweden as peanut butter is to America. It is the go-to snack and is overwhelmingly popular, and people grow up eating it as an after-school snack. People spread it on bread at breakfast and on crackers at the office to accompany their morning coffee. It is standard refrigerator stock and is just as ubiquitous as butter. Personally, I think that pureed caviar is pretty darn gross, but in the quest for fairness, my husband didn’t grow up eating peanut butter and he thinks that that is pretty darn weird, too.
While I'm really not a fan of the contents of the pureed caviar tube, I do love the label. I’m pretty sure that it hasn’t changed in 50 years:
TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2014
Parental Benefits in SwedenIf you’re thinking about having a baby, you should move to Sweden. Here are the reasons why:
-All pregnancy health care is free as is the birth.
-After giving birth, mothers are not immediately kicked out of the hospital. Instead, the mothers and babies are moved to an adjacent “hospital hotel” where they stay under the care and supervision of nurses for a few days.
-Once parents have gone home after the birth, a nurse makes a housecall to check on the health of the baby and to answer questions about how to care for the baby.
-Parents have 13 months of paid leave. Parents may divide up the leave however they like as long as each parent takes at least two of the months. When on parental leave, the government pays you 80% of your salary and depending on your job and contract, you probably also receive 10 or 20% from your employer. Parents may take the parental leave at any time up until the child is eight years old. So you can take a year off at the beginning if you like, or you can take an extra two months of vacation ever summer if you like, or you can work only 3 days a week for years on end if you like. (Interestingly, couples who equally share the parental leave are statistically more likely to stay together than couples where the mother takes most of the parental leave.)
-Parents can take another 90 days off with a small stipend of about $30 per day.
-Parents receive the above 16 months of parental leave for each child. So if you decide to have more than one child, the government will pay you a great salary for being a parent for years on end.
-Until your child is eight years old, an employer is required by law to allow you to work between 75% and 100% of full time without any loss of responsibility, seniority, etc. You are paid 75% or 80% or whatever of your real, full-time salary (unlike in the US where part time employees often don’t receive comparable, real salaries). There are several people in my office with preschool or elementary-aged kids who work 80% at six hours a day. Another person works 90% and takes every other Friday off to spend with her kids (and her husband takes the other Fridays off).
-While your employer does not pay you to take care of your sick kids, the government reimburses you 80% of your lost wages. You also get reimbursed for the time you spend taking your kids to the doctor, dentist, etc. And if your kids’ school has the day off but your office doesn’t, you get reimbursed for that, too. All of this “care of child” time is called “vård av barn” which has been made into a verb, vabba. When someone is out of the office due to a sick child, they are vabba-ing.
-Discrimination in the workplace in any way against parents is absolutely illegal and is taken very seriously.
-Parents receive a cash payment every month just for having a child, until that child is 16. The payment comes out to something like $150/month, so it’s probably fairly equivalent to the yearly tax deduction that a parent gets to make on a dependent in the US. Starting with the third child, you get a “big family bonus” and get paid extra.
-Starting at age 1, preschool is basically free. Families pay a small contribution on the order of about $100 a month ($100 is the max rate as the payment is based on household income), but that is nothing compared to the cost of childcare in the US. Parents get a 50% discount on the second child and I believe that all additional children are free. Preschools are required to be open from at least 6:30 am till at least 6:30 pm and parents may choose their own drop off/pick up schedule. Breakfast, lunch, and snacks are provided, for free, by the preschools.
-Even parents on parental leave get to take advantage of the preschools. A parent who is on parental leave with a newborn may send their preschool-aged child(ren) to preschool 15 hours per week.
-Afterschool and summer programs for kids with working parents are very cheap and cost a maximum of $140/month (fees are based on household income). The government also subsidizes things like music lessons, dance classes, and photography courses for kids 22 and under. Parents pay only $120/per semester but the lessons/classes/courses meet weekly.
-Of course elementary, middle, and high school is free. School lunch is free, and not just if you are poor.
-Even university is free. Not only that, but students receive a monthly stipend. The stipend is on the order of $500-2000 depending on course load—probably not enough to live on but the stipend puts a big dent in the amount that parents have to contribute or that students have to borrow.
-All healthcare and vaccinations are free for minors (although emergency room visits cost about $20 each).
-Until age 20, all dental care is free (but this does not include braces).
-In Stockholm, parents with a child in a stroller ride all buses for free (this is mostly a logistics and flow issue as strollers don’t fit through the front door and the ticket check is at the front door). In addition, kids under 7 ride all public transportation for free. Kids aged 7-11 ride free on the weekends with a paying adult.
-Of course, all of the above benefits apply to parents who adopt.
Why does Sweden have such generous parental benefits? I’ve thought about this question a lot, and I believe that there are two main reasons.
First, Sweden works very, very hard to have a completely equal and non-discriminatory society. By making parenthood easier, more economical, and more acceptable in the workplace, Sweden is actively striving to foster equality between men and women and between parents and non-parents.
Secondly, Sweden needs babies. Throughout the 20th century, Sweden’s birthrate was less than sustainable, and a stable birthrate is needed to keep the system going. Without enough new people being born, there would be not enough of a tax base to support the older generations later. Sweden has partly solved the problem with generous immigration policies, but generous parental policies are another active way to keep the tax base stable.
This also partly answers the question of why the US has such lousy parental benefits. The US has always had a strong birthrate, so a stable tax base has never been in question. The minute that the US starts to have a negative birthrate will be the minute that the US gets serious about significant parental leave.
All of these benefits have really paid off for Sweden. Today, Sweden has the highest rate of working mothers in the EU as well as the lowest rate of childhood poverty. Sweden also has one of the highest birthrates in the EU (the rates in the UK and Ireland are significantly higher, but Sweden’s rate is 25% higher than Italy’s and 33% higher than Germany’s) as well as in Europe as a whole.
Sweden is clearly a great place to have and raise children, but I do wish that these benefits extended in some way to working people who do not wish to have children. It would be nice to get a paid year off every now and then! What if I wanted to give birth to a novel instead of a child?
My statistics came from:
http://europa.eu/epic/countries/sweden/index_en.htm
http://www.landguiden.se/Statistik/BefolkningSprak?id=537#countries=SWE
FRIDAY, JANUARY 10, 2014
Our Unwintry Winter ContinuedHere’s the proof of our unusually warm winter thus far: Sweden’s weather website published this diagram showing that most of Sweden was more than 10 degrees Celcius warmer than usual in December!
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 08, 2014
Sir GordonWe adopted a cat! Meet Sir Gordon Purr-a-Lot de la Montana! (We were married at Gordon Ranch in Montana, hence the name.)
Our friends Jessica and Johan are a foster home for cats that don’t fit into the shelter. We told them to be on the lookout for a cat that met our specifications, and one day, Jessica mentioned that they were taking care of a really cool cat. After a few visits and a good deal of time and negotiations with the shelter, Carl and I were allowed to adopt him, and we are now the proud parents of the cute and cuddly and quick-to-purr Sir Gordon.
Sir Gordon seems to be easing into life in our apartment. It has taken him a while to fully relax, and he still perks up any time there is a noise in the stairwell, which is often—you can hear all the apartment doors opening and closing, the elevator motor as the elevator goes up and down, the elevator doors slamming, kids banging their way down the stair railing, everyone walking up and down the staircase… These are noises that Carl and I have learned to block out and we hardly hear them anymore, but Sir Gordon is still a bit threatened by all the foreign sounds. However, after exploring every nook and cranny of the apartment, he has found a perfect perch on the living room window sill and he has claimed his spot on the couch, so he seems to be settling into a contented existence despite all the commotion out in the stairwell.
I have now learned a bit of Swedish cat vocabulary and I particularly like the word for “purr.” Spinna literally means “to spin” and calls to mind the sound of a spinning wheel. Interesting that in English, similar similies are used when we say that the motor is spinning or that the motor is purring. One Swedish word that doesn’t seem to fit at all is the verb “to meow.” Jama (pronounced “yama”) just doesn’t sound at all like a meow to me!
TUESDAY, JANUARY 07, 2014
Our Unwintry WinterWith only two snowy days so far, we are having a very unwintry winter in Stockholm this year. In fact, late fall weather conditions have extended through early and mid winter with temperatures in the upper 30’s, steel grey skies, and near constant drizzle. When Carl and I left for our two week vacation over Christmas, we were hoping to come back to a wintery Stockholm with skiable snow and skateable lakes. Sadly, we returned last night to the same dripping conditions that we had left.
There is some hope that we may get some winter after all as the forecast calls for well below freezing temperatures all next week. We’ll see…
In the mean time, we’ll have a chance to recover from our vacation (our vacations are always more exhausting than daily life!) by reading on the sofa until the weather discovers that winter is past due.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2013
Healthy Snackage
Another sign that Swedes generally have healthier snacking habits than Americans is that convenience stores usually sell fruit, and better yet, the fruit display is right by the front door enticing people to stop in and to pick up a small snack. Can you imagine? Instead of 2-for-1 bags of chips, or snack-sized bags of M-‘n-M’s, Sweden’s convenience mart impulse buy is a banana.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2013
Dark
Thank goodness the tide will soon be turning and we will soon be gaining daylight instead of losing it! This winter has been very dark, grey, rainy, and depressing so far. It has been too warm for snow except for a brief two days when we had a light dusting of snow on the ground. Obviously, there has been no cross country skiing or ice skating so far. We are beginning to think that we didn’t move far enough north.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2013
Teen Spinach
 |
| I've heard of baby spinach, but teen spinach? |
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2013
Safety First
This
piece of news made me laugh all day: The Ice Hotel in northern Sweden
has been told by Sweden’s building authority that it must install fire
alarms. Yes, a hotel that is 100% completely constructed of ice,
including all the furniture, must install fire alarms.
In a land where eight story apartment buildings have no fire stairs (like my apartment building) and exterior spiral staircases are an acceptable means of egress from schools and office buildings (like the school renovation I am working on), I am astounded that the building authority is being so picky with a hotel made of ice.
Link to the news item in the newspaper: http://www.dn.se/Pages/Article.aspx?id=1057112&epslanguage=sv
Photos above from the Ice Hotel's website.In a land where eight story apartment buildings have no fire stairs (like my apartment building) and exterior spiral staircases are an acceptable means of egress from schools and office buildings (like the school renovation I am working on), I am astounded that the building authority is being so picky with a hotel made of ice.
Link to the news item in the newspaper: http://www.dn.se/Pages/Article.aspx?id=1057112&epslanguage=sv
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 09, 2013
The Blue Light of Winter
Even
though the temperatures haven’t plummeted and snow hasn’t yet
blanketed the ground, I can tell through my camera lens that winter has
already enveloped Stockholm. There is something about the winter light
in Stockholm that turns everything blue, even on a sunny day and even
when there is no snow casting icy blue reflections. I would have
thought that the low winter sun would warm up the light, much like
sunset gives a fiery red-orange hue to the world. But this is not the
case and my camera captures Stockholm’s blue winter sheen.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 04, 2013
My Love Affair with Stockholm Continues Part II
 |
| Yttersta Tvärgrand. One last fall flower before winter sets in. |
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 03, 2013
My Love Affair with Stockholm Continues
 |
| Katarina Church |
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2013
The Speed of Seasons
 |
| Photo from our hike on Ekerö |
The true time warp
is age. The older one becomes, the faster time flies. However, I have
also discovered that the more seasons a year holds, the faster time goes
by.
In
Texas, we had two seasons: Hot and Hotter. There were a few months of
“winter” where it was seldom cold enough to wear a coat and then eight
to nine months of summer. Spring and fall lasted about a week
each—there was really no transition between summer and winter. Having
only two seasons, and especially having such a very long summer, meant
that there was very little that marked time. There was not much
variation, just month after month of the same unbearably hot conditions.
Here
in Sweden, I LOVE the fact that we have four real seasons. Summer is
warm and generally pretty sunny. Fall means crisp, cool days and
colorful foliage. We have snow in the winter, and it generally sticks
around for a few months. Spring’s budding trees and colorful blossoms
bring relief from the dreary cold as well as anticipations of summer.
It’s like living in a kid’s book. Or a clothing catalog.
When
the year suddenly has four seasons and four major turning points
instead of two, time moves much faster. Suddenly I notice that
oh-my-gosh-summer-is-almost-over and then I blink and winter has already
arrived. I cannot believe how quickly time has passed since moving to
Sweden, but I am not complaining! I love love love having four seasons
even if they are so speedy! It’s wonderful to feel like I didn’t get
enough of a season instead of wishing that summer would just hurry up
and get it over with—longing for time to slow down feels much more positive than wishing for time to speed up and pass.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2013
Wild Week
 |
| Photos from my blog post Hundreds of Reindeer, 269 Kilometers, 24 Days, 1 Fox, and 0 Sunsets in Lappland Part I: On and around Kungsleden |
It was wild week at the grocery store, and Carl and I stocked up our freezer with:
-4 quail
-2 pheasants
-1 elk roast
-1 moose roast
-1 reindeer roast
-4 quail
-2 pheasants
-1 elk roast
-1 moose roast
-1 reindeer roast
What we didn’t buy:
-Unfortunately the wild duck was already sold out.
-We decided to forego the deer roasts—compared to elk, moose, and reindeer, the deer just seemed ordinary!
-We also left the bear steaks behind. Coming from a land where bears are on the threatened species list, it is hard for me to comprehend that it is “ok” to hunt and eat bear.
Last night, Carl prepared the reindeer roast according to a combination of traditional Swedish recipes and his mom’s advice. First, the roast soaked for 24 hours in a marinade primarily of yogurt, onions, and juniper berries. Then, instead of roasting the meat in the oven, he roasted it in a pot on the stove in a thin layer of lingonberry glaze. He kept the lid on the pot during the whole process, and the result was succulently tender and moist. It was seriously one of the tastiest meals I have ever eaten!
-Unfortunately the wild duck was already sold out.
-We decided to forego the deer roasts—compared to elk, moose, and reindeer, the deer just seemed ordinary!
-We also left the bear steaks behind. Coming from a land where bears are on the threatened species list, it is hard for me to comprehend that it is “ok” to hunt and eat bear.
Last night, Carl prepared the reindeer roast according to a combination of traditional Swedish recipes and his mom’s advice. First, the roast soaked for 24 hours in a marinade primarily of yogurt, onions, and juniper berries. Then, instead of roasting the meat in the oven, he roasted it in a pot on the stove in a thin layer of lingonberry glaze. He kept the lid on the pot during the whole process, and the result was succulently tender and moist. It was seriously one of the tastiest meals I have ever eaten!
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2013
Table Manners
Have
you ever wondered why the fork goes to the left of the plate and the
knife goes on the right side of the plate when the great majority are
right-handed? I have finally figured it out: Swedes, and perhaps
Europeans in general, hold their fork in their left hand. Why? Because
they constantly hold their knife in their right hand, using it to scoop
food onto their forks. As a kid, my Swedish husband Carl learned that
it was rude to “stab” food with the tines of the fork, while I learned
that it was rude not to put my knife down in between bites.
All this time I thought that my husband had a bad habit of constantly holding onto his knife while eating. Otherwise his table manners are perfect, so it never really bothered me. But now that I have started working and eat lunch everyday with other Swedes, I realize that everyone does exactly what Carl does with their knife and fork. It is interesting how something so strictly forbidden according to American table manners is the norm here. It just goes to show just how arbitrary cultural norms and taboos really are.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2013
The Sauna in the Land of Lagom
Last weekend, my friend Jessica invited us and several other friends to
her workplace. Most workplaces wouldn’t be so exciting to visit, but
hers was awesome because she works at a high ropes course! She squeezed
us in at the end of the workday when paying groups were through but
before it got (toooo) dark. First we played on the fabulous zipline,
which starts 60 feet up in a huge pine tree and ends 500 feet away after
a speedy journey at more than 30mph. 30mph might not sound so fast,
but really speedy biking is in the neighborhood of 20mph, so the zipline
is more than 50% faster than a racing bike! Stepping off the platform
into thin air was a little disconcerting, but honestly, the climb up the
tree made me way more nervous than the actual zipping. Super fun!
After the zipline, the high ropes course was next. Also about 60 feet
up in the trees, you follow the ropes course from tree to tree by way of
a series of obstacle-ridden rope “pathways.” Some of them were harder
than others, but the sheer height makes all of them turn your stomach.
We only had time to do about half the course before darkness descended
and Jessica had to belay us down to the ground. I was one of the last
to descend and by that time, you couldn’t even see the ground from the
platform!
 |
| Climbing up and one of the easier stretches on the ropes course. |
The
disappointment in not being able to complete the high ropes course was
allayed by the next activity: grilling over a campfire. We hiked about
20 minutes through the dark forest to reach a large lake and made a huge
campfire at the lake’s edge. Carl and I just grilled a few lamb
sausages, but the winning gourmet contribution was definitely
bacon-wrapped asparagus. Desert wasn’t so bad, either—Carl and I
provided banana boats: grilled bananas still in their peels and stuffed
with marshmallows and chocolate chips. You wouldn’t think that bananas
would benefit from the smoky flavoring, but yummmm!
And then, as if the evening hadn’t been exciting enough already, it was time for the wood-fired sauna.
I have to admit that I’ve never really been a fan of the sauna. After living in Texas and suffering through seven and a half blistering summers of 100+ degree humid heat that lasts for more than 90 days straight, the thought of getting hot and sweaty on purpose just doesn’t get me excited. Coupling the hot and sweaty sauna with cold dips in icy lakes is nothing short of insane in my opinion.
I am actually surprised that sauna-ing is such a popular activity in Sweden. And by popular, I mean that there are about 2 million saunas in a country of 10 million people. I’ll help you with the math: there is ONE sauna for every FIVE people in Sweden. Many apartment buildings have a shared sauna in the basement. Every gym, even school gymnasiums, has at least two saunas. Many of the mountain hiking cabins have saunas. A sauna is a popular amenity in single family houses, and just about every lake or archipelago house has a sauna on the dock. Sauna-ing is a huge part of Swedish culture, especially outdoorsy Swedish culture.
Sitting in the 185-194°F (which isn’t all that far from the boiling point at 212°F…) sauna is only half the experience. The nearly boiling sauna is repeatedly alternated with jumping into icy-cold water. I’m not sure which is worse part of the experience.
Why am I surprised that Swedes are so into saunas? Because Sweden is the Land of Lagom. Lagom is a term that doesn’t have a direct English translation but roughly means “just enough.” “Moderation” would also be an inadequate translation. The Swedish ideal in just about every arena is lagom. Students should be lagom talented—not so smart as to be show-offy, but not anywhere near stupid. Families should have a lagom amount of money—enough to be comfortable but not enough to be vulgar. Adults should drink a lagom amount of alcohol at a party—enough to feel happy and social but not so much as to become drunk.
(The concept of lagom is definitely related to the Swedish mentality of Jantelagen that I wrote about in this post: http://walkingstockholm.blogspot.se/2013/03/flames-and-consequencescity-building.html.)
The etymology of the word lagom is unclear, but the popular myth is that the word stems back to Viking times. The word “lag” means “team” or “group”, and the word ”om” means ”around.” Vikings would pass around a goblet of mead, and each person in the circle was supposed to take a drink of just the right size so that everyone got a sip but none was left in the cup after the last person had drunk. Hence the idea that lagom might have come from ”around the group.”
(In other etymological news, the Swedish word for sauna is bastu, a shortening of the words bad (bath) and stuga (cabin).)
Wherever the word came from, there is absolutely nothing lagom about sweating in a 185°F room, sprinting outside with steaming skin, and plunging into an icy lake. The Swedish sauna experience is the antithesis of lagom.
I am pretty sure that Swedes would never have come up with the anti-lagom sauna concept on their own. I am relieved to learn that saunas originally come from Finland, and that they were imported into Swedish culture relatively recently during the middle ages.
Back to last weekend… So after our zipline and ropes course and gourmet campfire grilling experiences, it was time for the sauna. Our friends had hiked out to the sauna several hours ahead of time to get the fire going so that the cabin would be nice and steamy when we were ready. Hot and steamy it was! At first the warmth felt nice after a chilly dinner, but the nice feeling subsided into hot and sticky within just a couple of minutes. After twenty minutes or so, the heat was unbearable and we, like good Swedes, ran out into the darkness, following the pasty, steaming body in front of us, and plunged into the icy lake. The next round in the sauna lasted much longer as it took a while to warm up after the icy dip. And then it was time for another heart-stopping plunge. And then back into the sauna for continued steaming and sweating.
And then, as if the evening hadn’t been exciting enough already, it was time for the wood-fired sauna.
I have to admit that I’ve never really been a fan of the sauna. After living in Texas and suffering through seven and a half blistering summers of 100+ degree humid heat that lasts for more than 90 days straight, the thought of getting hot and sweaty on purpose just doesn’t get me excited. Coupling the hot and sweaty sauna with cold dips in icy lakes is nothing short of insane in my opinion.
I am actually surprised that sauna-ing is such a popular activity in Sweden. And by popular, I mean that there are about 2 million saunas in a country of 10 million people. I’ll help you with the math: there is ONE sauna for every FIVE people in Sweden. Many apartment buildings have a shared sauna in the basement. Every gym, even school gymnasiums, has at least two saunas. Many of the mountain hiking cabins have saunas. A sauna is a popular amenity in single family houses, and just about every lake or archipelago house has a sauna on the dock. Sauna-ing is a huge part of Swedish culture, especially outdoorsy Swedish culture.
Sitting in the 185-194°F (which isn’t all that far from the boiling point at 212°F…) sauna is only half the experience. The nearly boiling sauna is repeatedly alternated with jumping into icy-cold water. I’m not sure which is worse part of the experience.
Why am I surprised that Swedes are so into saunas? Because Sweden is the Land of Lagom. Lagom is a term that doesn’t have a direct English translation but roughly means “just enough.” “Moderation” would also be an inadequate translation. The Swedish ideal in just about every arena is lagom. Students should be lagom talented—not so smart as to be show-offy, but not anywhere near stupid. Families should have a lagom amount of money—enough to be comfortable but not enough to be vulgar. Adults should drink a lagom amount of alcohol at a party—enough to feel happy and social but not so much as to become drunk.
(The concept of lagom is definitely related to the Swedish mentality of Jantelagen that I wrote about in this post: http://walkingstockholm.blogspot.se/2013/03/flames-and-consequencescity-building.html.)
The etymology of the word lagom is unclear, but the popular myth is that the word stems back to Viking times. The word “lag” means “team” or “group”, and the word ”om” means ”around.” Vikings would pass around a goblet of mead, and each person in the circle was supposed to take a drink of just the right size so that everyone got a sip but none was left in the cup after the last person had drunk. Hence the idea that lagom might have come from ”around the group.”
(In other etymological news, the Swedish word for sauna is bastu, a shortening of the words bad (bath) and stuga (cabin).)
Wherever the word came from, there is absolutely nothing lagom about sweating in a 185°F room, sprinting outside with steaming skin, and plunging into an icy lake. The Swedish sauna experience is the antithesis of lagom.
I am pretty sure that Swedes would never have come up with the anti-lagom sauna concept on their own. I am relieved to learn that saunas originally come from Finland, and that they were imported into Swedish culture relatively recently during the middle ages.
Back to last weekend… So after our zipline and ropes course and gourmet campfire grilling experiences, it was time for the sauna. Our friends had hiked out to the sauna several hours ahead of time to get the fire going so that the cabin would be nice and steamy when we were ready. Hot and steamy it was! At first the warmth felt nice after a chilly dinner, but the nice feeling subsided into hot and sticky within just a couple of minutes. After twenty minutes or so, the heat was unbearable and we, like good Swedes, ran out into the darkness, following the pasty, steaming body in front of us, and plunged into the icy lake. The next round in the sauna lasted much longer as it took a while to warm up after the icy dip. And then it was time for another heart-stopping plunge. And then back into the sauna for continued steaming and sweating.
 |
| The ropes course sauna and swimming dock by day. |
I can now say that I have sauna-ed as the Swedes do, and I still don’t really get it. I imagine I’ll find myself sauna-ing in the future, though, because it is a highly social event and a good chunk of Swedish social life happens in the sauna. It’s kind of like drinking beer at a party even if you don’t really like beer.
In any case, deep thoughts about the un-Swedishness of the sauna aside, it was an unforgettable evening. Thanks Jessica!
P.S. Photos came from Äventyrsbana’s website: http://www.aventyrsbanan.se
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2013
Waiting for the 6am Train to Göteborg
Admittedly
I took this photo a few weeks ago when it was still light outside when I
caught the 6am train to Göteborg. This week when I got on the train,
dawn was just starting to think about breaking—a sign that fall is
officially here. Other signs are that the leaves have begun to turn, we
had our first frost about two weeks ago, and the days are getting
shorter and shorter. We lost 40 minutes of daylight in the last week
alone! The positive side to the shorter days and longer, darker
evenings is that we get to light lots of candles to make the darkness
cozy. We have started wearing jackets to work every day, and last
weekend, we unpacked all of our winter clothes and put all of our summer
shorts (which I only wore about three or four times the entire summer!)
and other light clothing into storage bins.
 |
| Fall colors on my walk between my hotel and the office in Göteborg |
In a
couple of months when I wait for the 6am train to Göteborg, it will be
completely dark outside. The entire three hour journey to Göteborg will
be in the dark, and dawn will only be starting to break when I arrive
at 9am. Despite the candles, I am not so excited about the darkness;
however, I am very excited about the turning of the leaves and the
possibility of snow in the near future!
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2013
Dancing with the King
Last
Sunday was the King of Sweden’s 40th anniversary on the throne. To
celebrate, the city of Stockholm spent a half a million dollars to throw
a party. Everyone in the city was invited, and about fifteen
bands—swing, disco, tango—were hired to play for the king and public
from noon until midnight. There were several stages—two in the
courtyard of the Royal Palace and one on the closed-to-traffic bridge
connecting the Old Town with downtown Stockholm.
It
isn’t often that the football-field sized courtyard in the middle of
the Royal Palace is open to the public, and even more seldom does the
public get to dance to live music there! It was super cool to dance the
lindy hop in such swanky surroundings among such swanky company. I
imagine that it was a very fun surprise for any tourists that happened
to be in the vicinity that day.
The
King and Queen didn’t dance the entire day, but they did make regular
appearances out in the courtyard throughout the celebration. I was
struck by how little (visible) security there was in the courtyard. We
did notice a few police, but the courtyard certainly wasn’t swarming
with them. There was no metal detector or bag search to get into the
courtyard, and the public was free to come and go as they pleased. Even
more remarkable, the King and Queen weren’t surrounded by security when
they made their appearances out in the courtyard. Someone could easily
have assasinated the King if they had wanted to.
I
suppose that there really is very little threat to the King and Queen
of Sweden, especially compared to the leaders of other lands. However,
there are crazy people everywhere, and crazy people sometimes do crazy
and terrible things. I believe that the small/invisible security force
is an effort to make the royal family seem more like everyday people,
more accessible to everyday people. Since about 50% of Swedes would
rather not have a king or queen, the very existence of royalty in Sweden
is in danger, and not because of terrorists. The minimized security
force is one of many measures in a concerted effort to close the gap
between the royalty and the public-at-large.
This
is, of course, in stark contrast to the American philosophy on
security. The contrast was brought into even sharper focus recently
when President Obama visited Stockholm. He was only in Stockholm for 24
hours, but his visit made front page news for at least a week.
Initially, the front page articles were focused on all the security
measures that the Swedish government was forced to supply in order to
have the honor of the President’s visit.
The
airport and all traffic near the airport, including trains, were shut
down. The entire island of Gamla Stan (The Old Town) as well as large
swaths of downtown were completely closed off to the public. Many bus
lines were completely shut down and hundreds of police spent the day
enforcing the barricades. Before the President’s visit, all sewer
manholes were welded shut. The President’s security force was granted
special permission to bring in weapons that are completely illegal in
Sweden. In addition to the American security forces, Sweden provided
several security units to protect the President. Security helicopters
constantly circled overhead throughout the day. The list goes on and on
and on.
The
newspapers I read didn’t estimate the combined expense of these
security measures to Sweden, but I imagine that it amounted to many
millions of dollars. All of that effort and money for a 24 hour visit!
During
and after the President’s visit, the newspaper headlines switched focus
from the crazy level of security measures to decry a lack of debate.
The prime minister had released to the press the scheduled topics that
he and Obama were to discuss, but there was very little of real
importance in the schedule. Russia and Syria were not going to be
discussed. The environment was not to be discussed. Guantanamo Bay was
not to be discussed. I actually do not remember what was to be
discussed, but apparently, Sweden spent millions upon millions of
dollars on the president’s visit and didn’t even get to talk to him
about anything important.
Anyway,
I find it interesting that the bridge between the Old Town and downtown
was closed to traffic two times in a two week period. The first time
was to keep the public away from the President of the United States. The second time was to invite the public to the King of Sweden.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2013
Stockholm is Just so Darn Pretty
 |
| from my after-work stroll yesterday |
No comments:
Post a Comment