that's sweden!

Hello again,

Yesterday morning, I woke up, I had a sudden craving for some orange juice... I checked the fridge... ahh.. i was all out. So, just few minutes after waking up, I decided to walk to the "plaza" where there is food stores and some various stores to buy some orange juice. Mind you, I just woke up, still had pillow crease on my face and my hair was standing up in an awkward manner, I was still wearing my "pajamas" (basketball shorts and t-shirt) with sandals.

As I walked to the food store for some apelsin (orange juice, dont let the name fool you thinking its apple juice, that happened to me heh) anyway... I felt something was out of the bounds around on way to the store... I couldn't exactly place it so I shrugged it off and went into the store. Yup, I got my orange juice along with some other stuff... then walked back to my apartment... I had this eerie feeling again...

WHAM!! it hit me, I realized it,... "what in the hell??"... there were like dozens of people walking around me... and they ALL were wearing a winter coat, even some had winter hat and mittens... Jeez, I thought -- is there something wrong with me? -- I was wearing nothing but a thin t-shirt, underwear and shorts and sandals, there weren't even any socks accompanying my sandals.

It must have been only uh 14 celisus or something at the time,... yeah yeah... I know some of you might be eager to point out that after Laing, I would be the last person to wear a winter coat or pants in the winter even in Canada but... it was only 14 celisus!!...

Maybe the swedes are just excited to show off their stylish winter wardrobe even though they might be few months too early. Yeah, it wasn't just this one time, ever since then I've noticed more and more people wearing winter coats now :S Making me feel like a black sheep :p

Then I thought, I might as well write some humorous facts about the Swedes from a story I read.

-The Government has spent years trying to convince Swedes that their money is not actually their own money :) (for some of you who might not understand this,... Sweden is a very Socialist country, so a fairly large amount of your income goes to the government)

- In other countries, if people see a dude driving a flashy sports car, they will say "cool guy!"... but in Sweden, they'll say "what a tax dodger"

- In sweden business world (and academic world as I am my own witness) everybody wants to be called by their first name, saying Mr. Andersson will just make you look strange.

-Sweden's summer is the hottest day of the year :)

- Swedes love to write everything into their dayplanner calendars, even things that they have already did few days ago and had forgotten to write it down before and everything from now and 6 months later is ridculously and meticulously written down...

- Swedish doesnt have a word for 'please'... they substinate that by saying thanks more than usual "tack tack" or "tusen tack"

Here's one from someone at JIBS who said... If today was monday, and you invite 20 americans to a party this saturday... 20 will show up... If you invited 20 Swedes, only 5 or 6 might show up (a week's notice is not enough time)... and If you invited 20 Italians, come saturday, 150 will show up :)

Here is another saying about how the world doesnt need to be too perfect...

If the world was perfect, all policemen will be from Great Britain, all organizers will be from Switzerland, all automechanics will be from Germany, all chefs will be from France and all Lovers will be from Italy... that would sound nice... but Imagine if we lived in a world where all policemen are from Germany, all chefs are from Great Britain, all lovers from Switzerland, all automechanics from France and all organizers from Italy (CHAOS!!)...

Its a nice point, the world could be much worse off but the world we live in ain't so bad :)

anyway.-.. I'm just blabbing now... my clothes are in the dryer now I'm just writing to kill sometime... yeah.. I think I have had more success with my laundry this time around :)

I'll write some more interesting anecdotes on Swedish people sometime later. :)

have fun, (heading to Göteborg tomorrow if you guys have forgot)
bg0ur3