Sweden: from the limited perspective of an American

I've been in Sweden for one month now and think I've observed the culture enough to make some generalizations that may be at least somewhat accurate.  On the whole, Sweden is very easy to adjust to and there isn't much of a culture shock, although I have a somewhat biased perspective having lived in Germany for a year and a half.  For Americans, there is no language barrier; everybody except for the very elderly speak English fluently.  The Swedes begin learning English in primary school at age 10 and, unlike the majority of suburban Americans who took Spanish classes in high school, they actually learn the language.  The majority of products you can find in an American supermarket, you can find here.  If you've no interest in trying new food and want to confirm negative stereotypes about Americans, you can easily live off of french fries and frozen hamburgers for your entire stay (which is what I'm told an American who lived here last semester did).  That being said, Swedish food culture leaves much to be desired.  The only thing they're really known for is Swedish meatballs, but its not like I can live off of meatballs like I could live off of bread and beer if I were in Germany.  I think the dearth of delicate cuisine leaves the Swedes craving for something sweeter, which may be why you can find an entire wall of candy like this in literally every grocery store, even the smallest corner stores:

Swedish fish are nowhere to be found

It's also possible the Swedes turned to candy to fill the cavity left by their inability to fulfill another innate desire: alcohol. At the risk of sounding like a typical college student (or an alcoholic, if you're feeling particularly judgmental), the price of alcohol has been one of the hardest thing to adjust to.  Grocery stores can sell beer or cider up to 3.5% alcohol, but anything of higher percentage can only be bought in a governmental monopoly store called System Bolaget.   Prices are usually two to three times more expensive than at home depending on what you buy; you can buy god awful beer and box wine for pretty cheap, but even the most vile vodka will be no cheaper than 180 kronor, which is about $30.  And this is for a 700 ml bottle (for comparison, a handle is 1750 ml).  Being the cheap college student that I am, I spent an hour in the store writing down the prices, volumes, and percent alcohol of half of the store's contents.  The absolute cheapest thing I could find was this unholy creation:

Hangover guaranteed with every box!

I assume "Il Barone" means The Baron, but I think the only Baron who could whip up such a horrific concoction belongs to the Doom franchise.

God I hope at least one of you gets this

Anyways, I bought it, of course.  Aside from tasting absolutely awful and being the first drink to give me a hangover while I was still drunk, it dyed my lips and mouth black.  Even after all of the maladies, Il Barone came out to be about 2.79 ml of alcohol per kronor.  For reference, a $12 case of Busch Lite is about 4.5.

Obviously, the high price isn't without reason.  I'm sure it's closely related to one of the other elements of Swedish life that has been difficult to adjust to: the lack of sunlight.  Alcoholism was a substantial problem in the past, as the Swedes could drink the darkness away; now, though, it simply isn't financially feasible for the average person to be an alcoholic.  The increased difficulty of acquiring alcohol has visible positive impacts on all aspects of society: alcoholism, drunk driving, crime, and domestic violence are all lower because of it (if you're really interested, you can learn more here: http://www.systembolagetkampanj.se/forskarrapport_en/)

I haven't even been here through the darkest days of Winter and I can confidently say that my perspective and motivation have been impacted by having only 7-8 hours of overcast sunlight every day.  The lack of sun, however, is made up for with exposure to all of the radiant Swedish women.  No but seriously, the stereotype of beautiful Scandinavian women isn't a "grass is always greener on the other side" kind of thing nor was it made up as an attempt to lure more tourists here.  People here are gorgeous.  The running joke is that the Vikings never took back any ugly women.  I'm stupid enough to think there may be an ounce of truth to it.  Making it even more unfair, they seem to have an innate 6th sense for fashion.  So they're naturally more beautiful and more fashionable than me.  Not fair.

To me, though, the most attractive quality of all is that it doesn't go to their heads.  One generalization I am confident in making is that Swedes are very naturally reserved and introverted.  American culture reveres qualities like leadership and the entrepreneurial spirit, which are much more prevalent in extroverts.  As a result, we feel that in order to be successful we need to be the center of attention and earn the approval of others.  Essentially, we want to be the life of the party (This video explains the bias American culture has against introverts much better than I ever could: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar1kEN_ZPNM).  In Sweden, modesty and humility are valued much more, which is something I truly admire.

I had intended on just making one post about my impression of Swedish culture but I can see this is dragging on to be much longer than I intended so I'm going to leave it on this thought.  For some reason I feel the need to make some witty or clever conclusion to this post to wrap everything together but I'm not feeling particularly witty or clever tonight, so this is all you get.