I love shopping in Sweden. It is like everything is permanently on sale. We have a cabin waaaay up north (haven’t been there in ages) but it is up on the Norway/Finland border. A short car ride to the grocery store means going over a bridge to Finland where we can buy cheap beer and groceries, but the language there is so amazingly difficult, I have no idea if I am buying cottage cheese, yoghurt or sour cream. It is a fun, fun challenge for a girl from a hick town in Wisconsin. Most of the Finlanders speak a form of Swedish, so we can sort of understand each other if they lack English, but there are still many differences in what things are called. I go a bit nuts and try different foods there because it is so cheap.
Oh, the food here is not only expensive it is icky. It makes me miss New Zealand. Most cafe’s don’t know how to serve good food and you pay through the nose for it, so it is rather heartbreaking. My idea of ‘going out to lunch’ is buying a salad from the grocery store in a ready-pack and sitting on a park bench or on a bench in the mall when the weather is bad. I won’t buy a stale over priced sandwich just so I can sit in their section of seating. Also, be prepared for some form of food poisoning. We had bad-burger at a place I went for ‘Mothers Day/Valentines Day with my little man. We both got sick. Little man insisted he ‘take me out’ for Mother’s Day, but I think we leaned our lesson. My wallet and our intestines both felt overly relieved that day.
Not all kids would be mature enough to leave home alone, but some are. My neighbours have left their 17 year old son home alone this week. They have been playing loud music, but they turn it off at or before 10pm. There is one kid that comes around and has one of those horrible stereo systems in his car that shakes our windows. Hubby went out and had a chat with them, and now, if they see our heads in the window when they pull up, they turn it down. The kid had no idea out plants and windows were shaking and he looked proud and horrified all at the same time. They are pretty respectful, nice kids.
I think kids grow up a bit faster here. There is sad amount of material spoiling that goes on and those kids are starting to grow up pretty materialistic. There is an odd thing here in the culture. If someone has on a new jacket, they tell you and if it was expensive, they tell you how much it cost. Where I grew up, that is rude, but here, it is what they do. People like to tell you what kind of house they have, what they spent on improvements, how much their boat cost, how many cabins they have… it sounds odd to me.
Little man and I like to do the opposite. We like to brag about what a good deal we got on something and how it was 50% off the 50% off tag, that sort of thing. That is how I grew up. I found him a brand new jacket at the Sal. Army store that was 70% it’s already low low price. 17kr for a brand new jacket in the right colour and right size! Score!
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