Living with a Swede: 10 Things You Have to Deal With

Honestly? I never thought I would live in Sweden. Despite its geographical proximity to my home country, Sweden is so different that I still feel like I am on the other side of the world. The exotic atmosphere is certainly fueled by the fact that I live with a Swedish citizen. I've gathered a few things that I always have to consider because of this. Always.

1. Shoes are evil. Have you seen how many types of shoe cabinets and shelves there are in IKEA? It's no coincidence. In Sweden, you must take off your shoes. EVERYWHERE. At friends' apartments, when dropping your child off at preschool, at the hairdresser's and beautician's, at the gym, even in some cafes. Plastic bags for shoes lying around at the entrance are standard - Swedes must use tons of them. Felt stickers on heels during cocktail parties don't surprise anyone either. Swedes will resort to any means to protect their floors.

2. If it's freezing outside, it must be a desert inside. I'm dying in my own apartment, seriously. I have fits of anger, headaches, and general stupor. Because here it MUST be 25 degrees Celsius and 25% humidity. The heating is there so that you don't have to go to a sauna, and when I recently showed the air humidity indicator to the ventilation specialist, the nice gentleman, standing in the middle of my living room with a funny device and in socks, concluded that the air filters are working great. THEY MUST be working since my apartment is probably heated by burning waste.

3. You must have a lamp on the windowsill. Just because. Because the normal place for a lamp is, of course, the windowsill. Lighting the sidewalks for passersby is every Swede's hobby. If you don't have a lamp in the window, you're just a bad, bad person.

4. Get used to the flag. This is the Swedish flag. Do you remember what it looks like? How could you forget, you see it EVERYWHERE. Look around - over buildings, on masts, on most product packaging, on toothpicks stuck in food, on jackets and backpacks, and if you look closely, probably even on your Swede's underwear.

5. There is no bad weather, only bad clothing. Look out the window, see how nicely the freezing air is blowing from the land - let's go to the beach! We'll take a basket with food, tea in a thermos, a shovel, rakes, and have a picnic. It's so wonderful when your face and fingers are freezing, and your child is happily splashing in the ice hole by the shore. Oh dear, your feet are cold? That means you have the wrong shoes. Take off your hat, you'll stop thinking about your feet then.

6. A bike is a must. Everyone has a bike. A bike is like a family member or a third hand for a Swede. Car parks are bursting at the seams because all Swedes ride bikes anyway. Black ice, snowstorm? Too bad. Put on spiked tires and ski clothes. Children have a better chance of survival if you put them in a closed trailer. Oh, and you have an unwritten right to run over anyone who steps even half a foot on the bike path. If you don't have an electric bike at the moment, survival rates are higher.

7. “Ska vi fika?” is not a question. Swedes are half coffee and half cinnamon buns. Coffee is an isotonic drink for Swedes - in every corner of each cafe there is a special table with a coffee pot and cinnamon buns, in case you are starting to stop being Swedish because the caffeine level in your blood has dropped since the last fika. My Swede compulsively boils water for coffee several times a day and it doesn't matter if he actually makes the coffee - it's a reflex.

8. Food in Sweden must be Swedish. And it doesn't matter if it's spaghetti, nasi goreng, or reindeer steak - all ingredients must come from Sweden. They must graze on Swedish soil, drink Swedish water, eat Swedish grass, be herded by Swedish shepherds, be slaughtered by Swedish butchers according to Swedish law, and be delivered to the Swedish store by a Swedish truck (even if it’s a German store - then the logo must be in Swedish flag colors). Remember that Swedish yellow cheese is sliced with a peeler and you must not make a "ski slope," and Swedish bacon is cut with scissors. And forget about Milka - here they eat the Swedish Marabou. Period.

9. Nervous breakdown at the dumpster. In Sweden, 97% of waste is recycled. So, under the sink, you don't keep potatoes, onions, and CIF, but five or more garbage bins, depending on your level of Swedishness. When you go to the dumpster to get rid of the garbage from under the sink, you wander like a white mouse in a maze, trying to find the right container and somehow manage leaking paper bags for organic waste. You feel the piercing gaze of an elderly lady who happened to be nearby and decided to check if you are properly sorting your waste.

10. Time is a relative concept. When are we going on vacation? It turns out not from July 16th to 22nd, but in the 29th week! And when are we going to the doctor? Not on April 3rd, but on Tuesday of the 14th week of 2018. Even if months are used, the date is written starting with the month, or possibly the year. Recently, when I asked my Swede what we were doing in June, he started counting something on his fingers like a preschooler - it turned out he first had to think about which month it was, then check the calendar to see which week of the year it was. When I ask him why this is, he seriously claims that it makes a lot of sense. What sense? I don't know. Well, I gave up and turned on the "week numbers" option in my phone's calendar.

This article is, of course, written with a wink, but you know... Seriously.