Sweden

Constitution: Monarchy

But, as in Britain, the royal family is just representative. Ruling is currently done, as often before, by a government led by the Social Democratic Party. They keep losing votes every election though, and public interest in politics and elections is constantly decreasing.

Population: Above 8,5 Million.

... but not as much as nine million, and the number is currently decreasing. The magic figure for births-per-family seems to be 2,1 (for some reason), and we're currently below that. It's the culture, they say. People like to get an education, work a lot, travel and do everything else they think they won't be able to do after getting children before they get children. And we're really good at divorcing too by the way.

Perpetual winter: no.

And, like I've said before, no polar bears on the streets, or anywhere else for that matter. Actually, the last few winters haven't been much to remember either. Is snow for Christmas too much to ask for? Bet it's the government who decided to cut some of the winter to save money ...

Constantly losing value during the last twenty years, it really broke down a few years ago. Currently something like eight Crowns goes to one USD, but I won't say anything more precise (hey, you are surfing the 'net after all! There are current exchange rates one search away!). Commonly abbrevated kr or SEK.

Swedish Chef: No.

In case you didn't know, that guy doesn't speak swedish. Swedish is said to be one of the more difficult languages to learn, more difficult than German. So happy I'll never have to learn Swedish as second language ...

Boring People: Ummm ...

Swedes are considered law-abiding, tidy and boring. Swedish men are considered bad at talking to women by all European nations except the Finnish (it's true, they find Swedish men girlish and silly because they consider them good at talking to women ...). There is something to most of this. We Swedes like to keep to ourselves a bit more than many other people. Many young people drink far too much way too often, and you can interprent that any way you like, it probably says something about our society ... But I wouldn't call us boring. It seems we have the same type of humour as the British, Monty Python is a huge success in Sweden, and probably everyone has seen something with John Cleese in it and liked it.

Germans like to come here to buy cottages, enjoy the nature and steal our moose-warning signs. Our "allemansrätt"-law gives you the right to wander, pick flowers and berries and camp anywhere, except on someone else's lawn, without having to ask for permission first. We also have constitutional rights to freedom of speech, printing and so on, but the government like to try and decrease that whenever they can. So far, it hasn't been too bad, but no-one knows what they'll think of next ... Some laws actually are good.

Virtually everyone speak English, to some degree at least, and we're not as reluctant to speak it as some people (mustn't write the French, mustn't write ...) are. They say we are americanised, that may be true, McDonalds and Disney always makes me feel at home ... The US, by the way, is a place where people can't drink a fine wine, don't know any geography, and get all worked up about silly things. And also, British English is much nicer to listen to than American English. Don't kill me for writing this ;-) ... The US is still the great country in the West, I wouldn't mind living there some time. But all this influence from English means people make all sorts of stupid mistakes when writing in Swedish.

IKEA, Roxette, the word smorgasboard and the Cardigans are all from Sweden, and the shape of the Coca-Cola bottle was thought up by a man from Sweden, but you should know important stuff like this already ;-) ...

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