Well it's been about a week since I moved to Sweden from Los Angeles. Currently based out of small town of Skovde. It's been a surreal experience so far, very different from anywhere else in my life having been born/raised in Barcelona and recently living in California for a few years. I thought it might be interesting to share some of my initial impressions of life in Sweden, especially since it is constantly named one of the best places to live.
My picture album - https://photos.app.goo.gl/NqKU7Vrvx7zdZbXYA
Impressions so far:
In many ways, Swedes live up to my stereotypes, most are blonde blue-eyed, “beautiful people”, dressing stylishly. The language still gets me all the time, I feel like I’m listening to the Swedish chef from The Muppet Show lol! I think it's the inflections, very sing song compared to Norwegian.
Swedish people are incredibly friendly and eager to please and help. Maybe the most nice people I have ever met. This is so different from Spanish people to the point where I was quite suspicious the first few times I encountered Swedish friendliness.
Ikea is quite difficult to find in Sweden, I thought the country would be full of them but this is not the case. I had to drive 1:30 hr to a neighboring region to get to Ikea to buy furniture for my new apartment.
The Swedish countryside is quite similar to parts of the USA in particular it reminds me of images I’ve seen of rural Pennsylvania or upstate New York, typical red farmhouses, forests, and rolling farmland.
Outside the big cities, Sweden feels very isolated and primeval, the drive from Malmo to Jonkoping was basically one giant forest for 2 hours with not much in terms of towns or settlements. I’ve only felt this same sense of isolation in the US South West and the Amazon rainforest in Brazil.
Roads are extremely well maintained, with almost no potholes. It was almost impossible to know that there had been heavy rains here only a week ago, if the same thing happened in California the roads would be Swiss cheese. Also, drivers are very courteous and patient in Sweden, unlike in Poland who are quite aggressive!
Not everyone speaks perfect English as I was led to believe lol! Most native Swedes speak very good English, however a significant chunk of the population of Sweden are non-native immigrants from Africa and the Middle East, even outside major cities they make up a good portion of the service sector, and they appear to have a lower level of English spoken, if at all. I guess this is because of not growing up with the Swedish school system where they start learning English from a young age.
Most of the signage, menus, and information is only in Swedish, so one uses the google translate app all the time.
There seems to be some kind of segregation in the big cities of Sweden, in the older parts there are more immigrants from Africa and the Middle East while in the new modern parts of town, it seems to be more native born Swedes.
In the Malmo airport police seemingly outnumbered passengers arriving, I must have walked by 50 heavily armed police with dogs. I am guessing this is because of contraband or the recent travel alerts about a potential terrorist attack in Sweden.
In general, the food in Sweden is very sophisticated and multicultural, which reminds me of the food in Los Angeles. From Spanish pork cheek, to Lebanese falafel, to Italian gelato, to Japanese Poke, and Argentine steaks. I’m afraid I have not had much opportunity to try traditional Swedish food, actually quite difficult to find, though I did have the shrimp sandwich which was quite good.
The most surprising thing to me is how consistently salty all the food is in Sweden! To the point of being almost inedible a few times. My understanding is that in Sweden salt is used liberally as a flavor-enhancing additive, like sugar in the USA.
