{"id":5173,"date":"2012-03-16T19:03:57","date_gmt":"2012-03-16T19:03:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/?p=5173"},"modified":"2014-06-26T22:38:13","modified_gmt":"2014-06-26T22:38:13","slug":"lived-in-sweden-too-long","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/lived-in-sweden-too-long\/","title":{"rendered":"Lived in Sweden too long?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Humerous way of looking at Sweden and Swedes<\/p>\n<p>Most of these phenomenon are probably known to you, I as a Swede know of them but still enjoyed reading, so I thought I\u2019d share.\u00a0Either you know you have lived in Sweden too long, or you know you\u2019re a true Swede when you recognize yourself in most of the following:<\/p>\n<p>When a stranger on the street smiles at you, you assume:<\/p>\n<p>a: he is drunk<\/p>\n<p>b: he is insane<\/p>\n<p>c: he&#8217;s an American<\/p>\n<p>d: he&#8217;s all of the above<\/p>\n<p>Your coffee consumption exceeds 6 cups a day and coffee is too weak if there is less than 10 scoops per pot.<\/p>\n<p>The first thing you do upon entering a bank\/post office\/chemist etc. is to look for the queue number machine.<\/p>\n<p>You accept that you have to queue to take a queue number.<\/p>\n<p>You associate pea soup with Thursday. (You have to be Swedish or at least live in Sweden to get that one)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No comment&#8221; becomes a conversation strategy.<\/p>\n<p>Your front step is beginning to resemble a shoe shop.<\/p>\n<p>You are no longer scared of Volvos and Volvo drivers<\/p>\n<p>You know that &#8220;religious holiday&#8221; means &#8220;let&#8217;s get pissed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>When you&#8217;re hungry you can peel a boiled potato like lightning.<\/p>\n<p>You have conversations with people outside when it is \u201310C.<\/p>\n<p>It no longer seems excessive to spend 1,000kr on alcohol in a single night<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s acceptable to eat lunch at 11.00. (Isn&#8217;t it?)<\/p>\n<p>You find yourself debating the politics of the social democrats.<\/p>\n<p>You have only two facial expressions, smiling or blank.<\/p>\n<p>You wear warm clothing when it&#8217;s 25 degrees plus in April &#8211; because it&#8217;s April.<\/p>\n<p>You wear shorts and t-shirt when it&#8217;s barely 10 degrees in July &#8211; because it&#8217;s July.<\/p>\n<p>You get extremely annoyed when the bus is two minutes late.<\/p>\n<p>Your wife watches TV while you look after the kids.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ve been engaged for four years and don&#8217;t have any plans to get married.<\/p>\n<p>You assume that anyone who apologieses after bumping into you is a tourist.<\/p>\n<p>You get into a Mercedes taxi cab and think nothing of it.<\/p>\n<p>You understand that when a colleague asks you out for &#8220;a drink,&#8221; it will probably be a long night with a severe hangover the next day.<\/p>\n<p>Seeing a young woman with lit candles stuck to her head no longer disturbs you.<\/p>\n<p>You start to differentiate between types of snow.<\/p>\n<p>When offered a bottle of beer the first thing you look at is the alcoholic percentage.<\/p>\n<p>You think it is normal EVERYTHING is regulated and you obey the rules voluntarily.<\/p>\n<p>You no longer snigger when your kids ask for a Plopp when you&#8217;re out shopping.<\/p>\n<p>Hearing the words f*ck, wh*re, shag and Swedish curses on daytime TV seems perfectly normal.<\/p>\n<p>You expect to find the glove you dropped in February hanging on a post in June.<\/p>\n<p>Pigs say \u201dnerf nerf\u201d, frogs say \u201dkvack, kvack\u201d and roosters say \u201dkuckeliku\u201d<\/p>\n<p>You know that \u201dExtrapris\u201d goods are cheaper, even though your English mind translates the word as \u201dextra price\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Your husband is very long instead of being very tall<\/p>\n<p>You ringed somebody yesterday instead of you rang them.<\/p>\n<p>You start looking at socialbidrag (welfare) less as an absolutely desperate last resort and more as a way of life.<\/p>\n<p>You take two hour naps at work and the idea of losing your job never crosses your mind.<\/p>\n<p>You take your shoes off when entering a house while visiting your family in Australia.<\/p>\n<p>You think horse meat is a totally acceptable sandwich topping.<\/p>\n<p>If a friend says that he\/she would like to get together with you, you instinctively reach for your pocket calendar.<\/p>\n<p>You ask for a Big Mac and company outside of Sweden.<\/p>\n<p>You say \u201cI\u2019m almost annoyed\u201d when you\u2019re as furious as humanly possible.<\/p>\n<p>A 25 % sales tax on just about everything is no big deal.<\/p>\n<p>VD is the boss, not something you need to get medical treatment for.<\/p>\n<p>You can use bra, fart, and slut in the same sentence without giggling.<\/p>\n<p>You refer to weeks by their number.<\/p>\n<p>You don&#8217;t understand why your friend from Mississipi took offence when you referred to him as a yankee.<\/p>\n<p>You have learned how to schedule your bouts of illness so you don&#8217;t get sick on weekends. Because if you do get sick on a weekend you have a hard time getting to see a doctor and you&#8217;ve wasted a weekend. It&#8217;s much better to be sick on a Monday so you can call in sick. That way you can extend your weekend!<\/p>\n<p>You stop thinking you&#8217;re being yelled at every time you hear &#8220;Hey!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It is your birthday YOU have to make the cake<\/p>\n<p>You either run for the last pendelt\u00e5g at 1 am or choose to party on until 5 am when they start again rather than endure the horrific night bus home, as a taxi ride would require taking out a 2nd mortgage.<\/p>\n<p>You find yourself eating bay-con for breakfast and talking about Bill Clin-ton and taking a trip to Lon-don.<\/p>\n<p>A dime is yummy not currency<\/p>\n<p>You know that &#8220;fan&#8221; is a swearword, and not an admirer or an air conditioner.<\/p>\n<p>All of your conversations resemble a chess game, with each participant quietly and patiently awaiting the other to finish their turn.<\/p>\n<p>A seven-year-old with his own mobile phone seems perfectly sensible.<\/p>\n<p>Your wallet contains more plastic than a Hollywood superstar.<\/p>\n<p>You can tell the difference between the different radio stations.<\/p>\n<p>You aimlessly chat using SMS.<\/p>\n<p>When someone asks you &#8220;Hi, how are you?&#8221; you actually take time out to explain how you are.<\/p>\n<p>You are no longer surprised when you see full-frontal male nudity in a commercial or on TV.<\/p>\n<p>You can pick out the real blondes from the fake blondes.<\/p>\n<p>You accept that the best answer for a question is always &#8220;Jag vet inte&#8221; meaning &#8220;I don&#8217;t know&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>You think it&#8217;s acceptable that builders start banging and hammering at 5.30am.<\/p>\n<p>You are accustomed to every other front page headline in Expressen or Aftonbladet being about some food\/drink\/activity being dangerous for your health.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;re used to seeing dog owners picking up the dogs\u2019 heaps in little black plastic bags.<\/p>\n<p>You know that twenty hundred is a year, not an hour.<\/p>\n<p>You don&#8217;t even think about what you are saying when you are off to the shop to buy your\u00a0favorite\u00a0brand of cat food, and you say, &#8220;Be right back love, I&#8217;m just gonna go get some Pussi&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>You think an hour and a half cycle on your washing machine is a &#8220;quick wash&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>You talk of \u201310C as \u201d10 degrees cold\u201d, when in Australia +10C would be considered cold. And who else calls +1C, \u201done degree warm\u201d!<\/p>\n<p>*Note: Most of this text is found online, therefore credit to them, for putting together a humorous view of Swedes, Cheers!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Humerous way of looking at Sweden and Swedes Most of these phenomenon are probably known to you, I as a Swede know of them but still enjoyed reading, so I thought I\u2019d share.\u00a0Either you know you have lived in Sweden too long, or you know you\u2019re a true Swede when you recognize yourself in most&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/lived-in-sweden-too-long\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3,9979,3079],"tags":[191760],"class_list":["post-5173","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-culture","category-living-in-sweden","category-swedish-language","tag-jokes-about-swedes-and-sweden"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5173"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5176,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5173\/revisions\/5176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}