Archive for 'Living in Sweden'
The countdown to Christmas! Posted by jennie on Dec 1, 2011
Finally! December is here and today we are properly kicking off the countdown to Christmas. Well, this is not entirely true, since first of Advent was last Sunday (November 27) and that’s the day when most Swedes goes candles-and-stars-mental and decorate every window possible. You know the story, Sweden is pretty dark and miserably around…
Christmas in preparation Posted by Katja on Nov 22, 2011
Christmas means different things to different people, I’m sure that that is a commonly agreed on fact by now. For a lot of people christmas has no longer anything to do with the birth of Jesus, it can be summed up with presents, Santa, snow and holidays. In Sweden food and family are huge contributing…
Monopoly, but just not the board game! Posted by Katja on Nov 15, 2011
As many, if not all of you know, Sweden has a strict monopoly on its alcohol sales. It is only “Systembolaget”, the name of the organization, that is allowed to sell alcohol over 3,5% in all of Sweden. There are a total of 416 stores and 508 agents who are allowed to sell alcohol…
Popular names in Sweden Posted by jennie on Nov 9, 2011
Names are always an interesting topic and they often reflects a country’s culture and trends quite well. Sweden’s beloved Astrid Lindgren has for example had lots of influence on children’s name in the past – before her books there were hardly any children named Ronja or Rasmus, names that exploded in the 80ies. According to…
Halloween in Sweden Posted by Katja on Nov 8, 2011
This past week there has been big confusion over what day Halloween actually should be celebrated on. So a lot of people just started celebrating on the 30th and continued to just about the day before yesterday i.e. 6th of November. The reason for this most likely being the Swedish holiday “Alla helgons dag” which…
Allt för Sverige Posted by jennie on Nov 2, 2011
Last Sunday, the first episode of a brand new entertainment show aired on SVT, Sweden’s public television. It is called “Allt för Sverige” (Everything for Sweden) and the plot is pretty…well not simple but the concept is certainly recognizable: Take 10 Americans with Swedish roots to Sweden. Teach them everything they need to know about…
Allemansrätten Posted by Katja on Oct 24, 2011
Have you ever heard of “Allemansrätten”? Translated to english we would call it something along the lines of “Right of Public Access”. It is almost universally seen as a symbol for Sweden, or maybe at least for most of Europe’s nordic countries. The right to walk freely in the woods, (even private ones) picking berries…