We explain Sweden
A full week of Teams-Zoom-Hangouts-Meet-Skype-Slack and Friday is coming up. Time to slow down, you think, but your Swedish colleagues have a different opinion. Friday is the very culmination of the week and an opportunity to get high on sugar after a full five days of Lutheran discipline. Forget about casual Friday In normal times, […]
For a person with a non-Scandinavian background, with no knowledge of Swedish language, coming to Sweden and settling down could be bit difficult, especially when you are coming here for work or shifting with your family. This becomes a much more overwhelming experience if you are arriving here in winter when there is almost no […]
I have all the Mexicans, and all other sensible people out there, screaming at me through their screens now, but I’m afraid Sweden has claimed and appropriated tacos. This is old news, I assume, but this blog post is to confirm it: there is no food more Swedish than tacos. What does gunpowder have to […]
Whereas water dominates the summer months in Sweden, come September it’s time to pivot inland towards the forest and all its hidden delights. Time for exercise more rigorous than lolling in a boat or on one of the archipelago’s myriad islands with walking opportunities unbounded, but also for some really good, earthy hunter-gathering. This is […]
August is a poignant time in Sweden. As elsewhere the nights begin to draw in, the scent of the evening air turns heavier and more reflective, the sceptre of autumn beckons and with it, the promise of another long winter. So each remaining summer evening becomes ever more precious, more sacred. And what is more […]
Midsummer eve (midsommarafton) is one of the biggest celebrated days in Sweden. So let’s play one step forward, one step back. Fast forward one day Fast forward one day, the Midsummer day – not that it is important (by now we all know that it is the eve that counts) but it puts the post […]
If you had just moved to Sweden, with small kids, it’s just a matter of time until your kids gushing about Swedish children’s books icons relentlessly. Like me, three years back, you may never have heard some of them. So here I compile the list of Swedish children’s books icons you may need to know […]
Sometimes the best way to understand what you like and dislike about a country is to leave it for some time. The cultural translation, bracketing, brokerage; the cultural shocks one experiences in transitioning between two places, allow to understand deeper what we cherish and what we abhor about them. Every year I travel to India […]
Like many other countries, Sweden has plenty of expressions, idioms and sayings rooted in history and tradition. Some of them can be found in other languages, or at least share similar meaning like “Beat around the bush” and “Gå som katten kring het gröt” (English: walks like the cat around hot porridge). Some others are […]
Living in a new country brings its own excitement and challenges. The first years are usually dubbed as the honeymoon phase. This is the moment when everything seems so bright, fresh and exciting. Then soon, things become routine and less fascinating than before. In a matter of time, we started to settle and eventually adopted […]
