Tuesday, February 19, 2013

You know you have lived too long in Sweden when by Deni Alexander





You know you have lived too long in Sweden when:

1. It's acceptable to eat lunch at 11.00. 
2. You rummage through your plastic bag collection to see which ones you should keep to take to the store and which can be sacrificed to garbage. 
3. You associate pea soup with Thursday. 
4. The first thing you do on entering a bank/post office/pharmacy etc. is look for the queue number machine. 
5. You accept that you will have to queue to take a queue number. 
6. A sharp intake of breath has become part of your vocabulary, as has the sound 'ahh'. 
7. You associate Friday afternoon with a trip to system bolaget. 
8. Your native language has seriously deteriorated; you begin to "eat medicine" and "hire videos". 
9. Your front door step is beginning to resemble a shoe shop. 
10. When a stranger on the street smiles at you, you assume that:
a. he is drunk;
b. he is insane; 
c. he is American;
d. he is all of the above. 
11. The only reason for getting of the boat in Helsinki is to eat pizza and cheap alcohol. 
12. Your old habit of being "fashionably late" is no longer acceptable. You are always on time. 
13. When you don´t think you get any help from the doctor.
14. When it doesn´t disturb you that people have their feet up on the seat next to you on trams, trains and buses.
15. You take off your shoes in libraries.
16. You know that "religious holiday" means "let's get pissed." 
17. You use mmmm as a conversation filler. 
18. An outside temperature of 9 degrees Celsius is mild. 
19. When someone asks for "three cheers", you say "hoorah, hoorah, hoorah, hoorah". 
20. You have only two facial expressions, smiling or blank. 
21. You think riding a racing bike in the snow is a perfectly sensible thing to do. 
22. You think it's more fun to stay at home and drink then go out. 
23. You wear warm clothing when it's 25 degrees plus in April - because it's April. 
24. You wear shorts and t-shirt when it's barely 10 degrees in July - because it's July. 
25. You get extremely annoyed when the bus is two minutes late. 
26. You become a punctuality freak and dump your friends for being late more than once. 
27. When a stranger asks you a question in the streets, you think it's normal to just keep walking, saying nothing. 
28. You've been engaged for four years and don't have any plans to get married. 
29. You and your friends know exactly the same information, and have the same attitudes and beliefs in the value of Social Democracy. 
30. You think black rimmed glasses are cool. 
31. Your wardrobe now consists of 20 different shades of black and grey. 
33. You don't question the concept of 'telephone time'. 
34. It seems reasonable that no business can be conducted on Friday afternoons. [or the entire month of July] 
35. You assume that anyone who apologies after bumping into you is a tourist. 
36. You actually care if your mobile phone meets the fashion standard - and so do your new Swedish friends! 
37. You get into a Mercedes taxi cab and think nothing of it. 
38. Paying $10 for a cup of coffee seems reasonable. 
39. You understand that when a colleague asks you out for "a drink," it will probably be a long night with a severe hangover the next day. 
40. You start to think that having a sauna in the nude with a bunch of strangers is a necessary part of daily life ... and a necessary part of business. 
41. You believe that when you finally win your Nobel Prize, it is best to be modest and say "Oh really, it was nothing!" 
42. You get offended if, at a dinner party, someone fails to look you in the eyes after raising their glass for a toast. 
43. You become extremely skilled at assembling pre-packaged furniture kits. 
44. "Candles" are a permanent fixture on your weekly shopping list. 
45. Most of your friends have the same names and you must use both names to distinguish between them.