The 51:st State

This post is part of the USA versus SWE everyday Life Contest.

My stay in the US is nearing its end and it is time to wrap up the US versus SWE everyday life competition. There are many differences that, while notable, still really would not make up a whole blog post on their own. So I have decided to lump them together in one post. After sketching the list of all these "minors", I realized they added up to quite a few, so this may well be the longest post of all. So stay with me. Here we go.

Turn signal and brake lights

In Sweden (as in the rest of Europe I beleive) cars have red rear brake lights and orange turn signal lights. It is easy to immediately tell by color, even in the corner of your eye, whether the car in the next lane in front of you is braking, or wants to make a turn into your lane. In the US, many cars have both red turning and braking lights. Sometimes even combined into the same physical lamp. So turn your head and look at BOTH rear lights of the other car FOR A WHILE to determine whether it is braking or turning. Time is precious and ambiguity is bad in traffic.

0 USA : SWE 1

Advertisement opt out

Being in San Diego just for a relatively short time, I don't get very much important mail in my mail box (The physical one outside the house, not e-mail). As a consequence I don't check it very often. Once in a while I get something important though, like for example my Californian driver's licence. Too bad you get a ton of junk advertisment mail. In my case it happenned to fill up my mail box the day before the driver's license was about to be delivered, so it got returned to the sender as undeliverable. I asked the mail man the if it was possible to opt out of advertisement mail. The answer I got was: "Nope sir, I will get fired if I don't deliver".
I don't know if I am the only person who just takes all the advertisments and put them in the recycling bin, but I suspect not.
Unwanted advertisement is a waste of resources and time (mail man's, mine, and the recycling technician).

Here's how it works in Sweden: You put a sticker on your door or mail box saying "No ads please". That's it. The distributor has to respect that. The advertisement companies (I think) adapt the amount of ads printed based on how much ads did not get delivered in the previous dispatch.

0 USA : SWE 1

Passing on the right (but wrong) side

In Sweden, passsing on the right is only allowed if traffic in all lanes is slow, i.e. you are in the middle of a traffic jam.
If you want to pass, you do it on the left, and when safe you go back to the lane on your right, in turn letting faster traffic pass you.

In California, the left lane IS the fast lane, BUT passing on the right is not explicitly prohibited. So while a lot of people stick to a sane driving style, many don't and switch back and forth between lanes in a very opportunistic, but unfortunately somewhat unpredictable and unsafe way. You can in fact get into weird situations where someone is camping in the left lane, someone wants to pass, and does so in the middle lane, yet another car wants to pass the second car and passes in the right lane. We now have the slowest car to the left, afaster car in the middle and the fastest car to the right - Reversed order. Wonderful.

0 USA : SWE 1

Where to eat?

No matter where you are or how late it is you can count on being able to find an affordable place to eat within 5 minutes from where you are. If you are in the US that is. Every community within a city will have a center, or plaza with shops and a food court full of eateries. You will find a nice mix of Japanese, Mexican, Italian, American grills, Vietnamese and many other cusines. When travelling or biking I have been saved from hunger so many times by the closest eatery of the block. In Sweden, some neighbourhoods will also have their local grill hangout, but the choice of places is so much more limited. Also, if at a US hotel, you can always trust the vending machine to be there, ready to serve you (or play a trick on you keeping both your money and your soda) 24/7.

2 USA : SWE 0

Door knobs

Now we are getting to the really important stuff that will have a deep impact on your life. Door knobs. Swedish doors always have levers. Doors in USA a lot of the time have round knobs, that you don't know which way to turn and that will slip if you or the person before you had a sweaty hand, or, in case of a external door, it was raining on the knob. Aestethically pleasing? Yes, maybe. Useful? No.

0 USA : SWE 1

Shower knobs and toilets

Shower knobs in the US fortunately are not round as their door counterparts are. But they generally don't allow you to regulate the amount of water that comes out, just the temperature. As a collegue of mine puts it "Those showers are made for cattle!". Sweden has had water preserving nozzles for decades, in addition to knobs that allow to adjust the amount of water flow. Ah, and as a side note, since many years it is common to have water preserving toilets that have two flush buttons. One small and one normal to choose from depending on if you did #1 or #2.
I know this is changing in the US though which is a good thing. Keep it up!

0 USA : SWE 1

Greeting phrases

If you go to school in Sweden and you have a teacher in English worthy of her title, she will prepare and teach you how Americans greet each other. There are several variations:

How are you?
How are you doing?
What's up?
What's going on? (I've actually been asked this by a total stranger as we randomly walked by each other, catching me completely off guard ;-).
Howdy y'all! (She may or may not know of this one depending on whether she has encountered a Southerner)

All variations can optionally be prefixed with "Hey!" or "Hey <your name>!" and optionally postfixed with "today" or "this morning" etc. Like:

"Hey Robert, how are you this morning?"

She will also let you know that the correct answer is way different from typical Swedish answers "Good", "So-so" or "Ok" or anything else like that. If you answer like that or just hesitate for a split second with your answer, Americans will consider you either rude or simply mentally challenged. The correct answer is one of:

"[Good/Great/Excellent] How are you [doing]?"
"What's up"

For all you americans out there, which at this point are totally perplexed and wonder how in the world people would ever greet otherwise, here's the short summary of how Swedes greet:

Person A: "Hej" (Hi)
Person B: "Hej" (Hi)

Done. Ok, I admit there is another common variant which is slightly more verbose, and which to the fullest shows the expressiveness of Swedish greeting phrases:

Person A: "Läget?" (Situation?)
Person B: "Bra. Själv?" (Good, you?)
Person A: "Ok" (Ok)

As you see, Swedes are not only less talkative but also slightly melancholic. This is actually a trait that is more often attributed to our dear neighbors to the east, the Finnish. Beleive it or not, they are known for using even fewer (but longer) words!

Swedes will actually find the American way of greeting as somewhat superficial or even false, especially since anything but a glorious "Excellent" response is not even an option. Personally, after getting used to it, I find it fun and actually a good way to start up almost any conversation. Amazing what a difference few extra words can make! :)

2 USA : SWE 0

Wrapping up

As much as Swedes like to make fun of the US and Americans (I mean just look at my posts in this blog), we at the same time are in awe. What Swede does not want to visit the US sometime or try his or her luck in Silicon Valley or LA or NY for that matter? Sweden IS the 51:st state, probably airing more US TV shows, dramas and movies than any other nation in the world. Always undubbed of course. Swedes are huge consumers and fans of US culture, sometimes without realizing. You Americans might even consider annexing Sweden as a US territory. Trust me, it will be easy. Resistance will be scarce. :)

Despite all the score I have handed out to the two contending nations in the past posts, I would say the difference between living in the US and Sweden is not that big in terms of the mindset of people. Maybe not surprizing for two modern and industrialized countries which even share a common history of migration.

Anyway, it is time for what you all have been waiting for: To find out the final score!

Topic	USA	SWE
Power plugs	1	0
Trash bags	2	1
Money money money	0	2
Bike Roads	1	3
Turn signal and brake lights	0	1
Natural Scenery	5	2
Advertisment opt out	0	1
Passing on the right hand side	0	1
Where to eat?	2	0
Door knobs	0	1
Shower knobs and toilets	0	1
Greeting phrases	2	0

What??? It is a draw! 13 - 13. I am not joking when I say I am surprised. When I started this series of posts almost six months ago I had decided to be very open minded, but I still somehow believed Sweden would be the clear winner. What can I say... Both places apparently have their respective merits and drawbacks.

In any case, if you are an American who has never been to Sweden, the only way for you to know how right I am ;-), is to come over to visit the 51:st state and find out for yourself. And reversed, if you are a Swede who has never been in the US, but think you know all about it, I suggest you make a trip overseas and try to leave your prejudices at home.

Thank you all for following this series of posts. Hope you had as much fun reading as I had writing. Regardless of which side you have cheered for, I can only wish that you, just as me, had your habits and ideas challenged at some point.

Now, all there is left for me, is to say is goodbye America and many thanks for this time. I have met so many nice and friendly people and really enjoyed my stay. I just hope to be back sometime soon!

/Robert

San Diego, May 14 2009

Natural Scenery

This post is part of the USA versus SWE everyday Life Contest.

I love enjoying the countryside outside the big cities. By bike, by foot or by car. So where to find the most amazing sceneries?
Easy one. It has to US by far. There is also such a big variety in the landscape, and that is said from me who has only been to a fraction of the unique environments within US borders.
Ok, this this is not a fair one, USA has way bigger territory than Sweden (which is roughly the size of California), so the mere mathematical chance for having stunning natural sceneries is larger... But that really was not the question here :)

Sweden also has a fantastic country side. With its big pine forests, gently rolling hills and open or semi-open farmland and beautiful archipelagos. The beautiful lush spring and light summer nights summer stand in stark contrast to the colorful autumn and white but short winter days. While there are parts of US that have big seasonal changes, there is something special with the light during Swedish summers!

5 USA : SWE 2

Everyday Life Contest: Bike Roads

This post is part of the USA versus SWE everyday Life Contest.

It has been far too long since the last post. And it's all because I have just been too lazy to edit my drafts into something actually readable. But fear not, fellow explorers - I there is more to come! Anyway, here is today's reflection:

I am an enthusiastic bicyclist. My passion for bicycling probably has its roots from when I was a kid and me and my friends started biking to each other's places. For me it was, and still is, freedom on two wheels.

Actually, school did not allow us to bike to school before 3rd grade, at which point all children get practical safe bike riding education. (Major event that year). No one ever said anything about our spare time though... :)
The route for getting to school was only 1.2 km (0.75 miles), but I thought it was more than long enough. The biggest challenge was climbing a 200 m stretch up a hill. The joy I felt the day I could climb it without stepping off the bike!

I continued to bike and in 7th and 9th grade I did 20-50 km bike rides with a good friend every now and then, exploring the roads and forests around our town.

During my days at university, bicycling mainly became a means of getting to and from campus. My dormant interest finally got revived thanks to a couple of biking devoted collegues, now friends, who I met at work.

The bottom line is, I as many other Swedes, bike and have biked a lot. But we are fortunate, and maybe spoiled. Sweden has one of the best bicycle road networks in the world. We are only surpassed by the Netherlands and possibly Switzerland. When I say "bike road network" I mean just that. Bike roads are for the most part separated from the streets by grass or a raised curb. They are not sharing asphalt with the roads for cars. Great effort is put into making crowded bike and car road intersections separate by using over- and underpasses. If following a major bike route, you can get from point A to point B without ever needing to cross a car road. In other cases, bike roads don't follow the car roads at all. For example they can connect neighborhoods by taking convenient shortcuts that are not possible for car roads simply because of space requirements. This is the result of decades of city planning where the needs of bicyclists have been an integral part. It is simply put darn close to bicycling Nirvana.


In the US the situation is unfortunately a little bit different. Dedicated bike roads are scarce, although I have seen fine exceptions in Boston and San Francisco. I am sure there are many other cities which have put extra effort in designing safe bike roads (I hear the state of Oregon is progressive also in this area). For the most part though, bike paths are just an extra lane on the side of the road, only separated from the cars (travelling at 2 or 3 times bike speed) by a white painted line. At intersections, cars are allowed to enter the bike lane to do a right turn. No wonder I see so few bicyclists around. If you are a beginner or casual biker, there is a big chance traffic will scare you off.


To the defense of today's America you must say that it suffers from decisions made 50 years ago. I think the situation today greatly has to do with the big real estate boom in the 50's and 60's. Everyone should have the opportunity to live the American Dream, and have their own house with a yard. Oil was cheap and the result was far stretching neighborhoods which required a car to navigate, not to mention getting to and from work.

On the good side, I find that a great majority of American car drivers act with extra caution around bicyclists. In Sweden I sometimes find the opposite, maybe just because Swedish drivers are not as used to seeing bicyclist on the street - Normally they are on the bike road!
An even better thing with America is that you will find wide bike paths (lanes) even in the back country. Here, lanes work really well because of the lower traffic. Makes for great weekend tours through beautiful landscape!

So, how to distribute the scores this round? It is tougher than I first imagined. The last weeks I have felt increasingly positive about bike roads in America. Maybe just because of the sheer amount of miles, but that is just me loving long rides :). Bike lanes in the back country are really great, but I think most people would benefit from and enjoy safe bike roads inside towns and cities. The winner thus, is Sweden. But keep it up America!

1 USA : SWE 3

Everyday Life Contest: Money Money Money

This post is part of the USA versus SWE everyday Life Contest.


In the old times, some coins in Sweden were named "Daler". The origins of this coin were German, and they were called "Thaler" after the place were they were manufactured: Joachimsthal - Joachim's Valley. If you recall from the first match, Sweden uses power plugs with German origins. It's striking how much German technology Sweden has inherited and profited from through the years and yet today many Swedes ridicule Germans. Shame on us! Anyway, when the "Thaler" reached the New World, it was dubbed - you guessed it - "Dollar"!

For years, the Thaler was an internationally recognized coin. Now wasn't that an idea way ahead of its time? Today, as we know, most countries or regions have their own currency. And while modern electronic means of payment in many cases have superseded coins and bills, there are still many occasions where nothing beats the good old Thaler. Part of the charm of coins and bills is how different they look from nation to nation and how each nation's history is reflected in their design.

Regardless, there are some aspects that affect the level of convenience of different coins and bills. Let us make a side-by-side visual comparison of US Dollars (USD) and Swedish Kronor (SEK). As an added bonus, this match contains a third competitor: The Euro (EUR)! Oh, and by the way, Krona means Crown. Sweden is a constitutional monarchy.


In the picture above, the top row contains US coins that are in wide use. From left to right, 25 cents (quarter), 10 cents (dime), 5 cents (nickel), 1 cent (penny).
In the middle row, we see the Swedish coins: 10 kronor, 5 kronor, 1 krona, 50 öre.
Bottom row contains the Euro coins: 2 Euro, 1 Euro, 50 cents, 20 cents, 5 cents, 1 cent.

Note that scales differ from row to row. In reality the 25 cent is just slightly smaller than 1 krona and 2 Euro.

When paying with cash, I find it very important to instantly be able to recognize the coins or bills in my wallet. I don't like standing like an idiot and fumbling to get the amount right. After some time in the USA I still find the coins to be too similar. That is except for the copper coloured 1 cent, but that is a miserable and useless coin anyway. Please, Department of The Treasury, ditch the 1 cent coin and do everyone a favor! And why is it that the dime is smaller than the nickel? Oh, must be the same logic as the one behind the US date format: 05/08/09. Month, Day, Year. Yes, I know that it is tied to the way dates are spoken, but still...

To be completely fair, the 10 kronor is smaller than 5 kronor, also breaking the logic. But that coin is way thicker and has a different color, so it is extremely easy to tell from the other Swedish coins. Sweden has in stages gotten rid of the less valued coins, like 1 öre and 10 öre, and I find the current lineup to be reasonable.

The Euro is the youngest currency and the European Union obviously has taken the opportunity to do things right. The coins are very easily distinguishable from each other and the relative sizes reflect the value.

Next, let us look at the bills of the three currencies.


Here, the pattern from the coin comparison repeats. The US bills are hard to tell from each other at a quick peek. Same color, almost same size, similar print.

Sweden has done a fair effort to both make the bills in different colors and sizes. They are a lot more fun to look at too - aren't they?

And finally we have the Euro, which again is best-in-class. Bills have distinct and different colors, the value is written in clear large print, sizes are different and still they have a consistent look.

Rounding up, the Dollar was crushed in this match. The Swedish Krona performed well, but was ultimately beaten by the outsider Euro's flawless performance.

So summing up, the scores this match were:
USD: 0 points
SEK: 2 points
EUR: 3 points

In this historic match of the USA versus SWE everyday Life Contest, Sweden scored its first victory against USA! Has Sweden finally reached a turning point? The only way to find out is to stay around for the next match!

Everyday Life Contest: Trash Bags

This post is part of the USA versus SWE everyday Life Contest.

It has been a while since the first post, and I have had plenty of opportunities to "discover" subjects for the everyday life contest. Today's post is about trash bags. Yep, you heard it right: trash bags. It is admittedly not the most exciting thing to write about, and probably not a hot topic for your cocktail party conversation. However, I don't think it is an overstatement to say that trash bags are more or less indispensable and actually play an important role in keeping your home clean and neat. Like it or not, you use them daily and once in a while you need to dispose of them.

Now I would not be writing all this if I had not found an interesting difference between Trash Bag Universe in Sweden and the US, would I? Of course not.

In Sweden you typically re-use the plastic bags from the grocery store as trash bags once they have fulfilled their primary purpose. This is simply not possible in the US for two reasons:

• The plastic bags from US grocery stores are completely inadequate for carrying trash. They are tiny, tear easily and are sometimes semi-transparent - who wants to see that three day old banana peel at the bottom of the bag when carrying it out?
• The trash bins are huge compared to the grocery bags. A standard trash bin appears to be 13 gallons, roughly 49 liters.

So, in the US, it seems common to actually buy trash bags to a greater extent. Now, this may seem wasteful (pun not intended), but let us stop for a while and imagine a better world where everyone brought their reusable grocery bags made from fabric when shopping. Yes - even then there would still be a need for trash bags! Ok, I agree, in a perfect world there would be no excess packaging, everyone would compost and there would be no trash, but let's stay realistic. So, accepting that we need trash bags, let us have a look at a Swedish and a US trash bag.


A typical Swedish plastic grocery bag reused as trash bag. Plain, effective and always available.


The US trash bag is more elaborate. It has a plastic strip that you pull out, effectively closing the bag while at the same time acting as a convenient handle. Neat!

So, what is the score of this round?

2 USA : SWE 1

Amazing, USA takes its second consecutive win, with Sweden now lagging behind in the totals! Is this still a game? Come back for the next post to find out! In the meanwhile, be a good world citizen and use reusable bags for your grocery shopping!

Everyday Life Contest: Power Plugs

This post is part of the USA versus SWE everyday Life Contest.


No matter whether you are interested in technology or not, you somehow have to deal with the fact that USA and Sweden have different power plugs. Either you use adapters, or, if like me you will stay a longer period, you go ahead and get new cables for your gadgets.

Sweden uses the 250V "Schuko" plug which was invented in the mid 1920s in Germany. Today it is in use in several European countries.

The most commonly used connector in the USA is the 125V NEMA 5 which was designed about 30 years after the Schuko.

As much as I dislike cables (they are ugly, collect dust and are generally in the way) and wish that we had something better, the reality is they are still needed. So, let us look at which plug type at the end of our cables makes everyday life easier.


The NEMA 5 plug is only 2/3 of the width and height of the Schuko, almost 1 cm / 0.39" shorter, it is lighter and overall more manageable.
NEMA 5 wins!

1 USA : SWE 0

Although at least one side may be disappointed with the outcome of this round, we can all at least agree to be happy that neither team has the humongous British power plug!

Wow, USA scored the first point in this contest! Will Sweden be able to respond? Be sure not to miss the next round of The USA versus SWE everyday Life Contest!

USA versus SWE everyday Life Contest

It is funny how you get used to how certain things in are your everyday life. It may not be until you are forced to face them in a different way that you question your habits and expectations. An occasion to stop and think about these little things is when you stay in a foreign country for a while.

In this post I will write about different things that I come across in everyday life in the US that catch my attention. I will compare how they differ between USA and Sweden. For each "round", points will be awarded to the two contending nations. At the end of my stay in the US, I will proclaim a winner nation. Note that awarded points may be subject to change as I learn more about life in the US.
Of course this post is totally fair, completely unbiased and free from personal views.
Yeah right.

Stay tuned for the first round!