Nowadays

My study group met at one of my classmate's house today. Her children were at home, so she needed to be there. As we sat discussing our presentation for Friday, her eight year old son came down to the kitchen with his girlfriend, offered her a seat, and poured her a glass of passion fruit soda. Seven women watched him tenderly from the other side of the room. 
 
There is hope for the next generation.

Living in another country means getting used to new things and forming new habits. No one would consider that strange. But when you come back home after having been away for a while and find you have forgotten how things are here, fewer are sympathetic. 
  
One thing that is particularly annoying is the issue with grocery bags. In the States, grocery bags are free, and placed at the end of the cashier counter. You also often get help packing your groceries, in which case you end up with many more bags than you need. The packers are for some reason not very environmental. Bottom line: you never have to think about grocery bags.
 
In Sweden, grocery bags cost and are placed before the cashier counter. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since it makes people use fewer bags. But it requires you to know how many you need. Many bring their own fabric bags and disregard the plastic ones completely. I am all in favor of that.
 
Now, my problem is that I usually forget to bring my own bags when buying groceries. On top of that, I also forget the plastic bags. I pay, and then go down the counter to pack, only to discover I have nothing to pack in. Here I have two options. Either I try to get the cashier's attention and quickly buy a plastic bag, even if it means getting in the way of the costumer after me; or I pack as much as I can in my purse and carry the rest in my hands. Usually, I do the latter. And as people wonder about the twenty items I balance in my arms, I tell myself it's better to be considered cheap than stupid...

During a walk with Lina last Saturday I suddenly realized I had dropped my cell phone. It had been in my pocket last time I'd checked (which had been a while) but was no longer there. We had walked across damp fields, by lakes and almost swampland, an area with few marked paths and to us unknown enough not to definitely know our way around. There was not much else we could do than turn around and try to walk back the same way we had come. I had Lina call my phone hoping we would be able to locate it from the ringer but the fields were as quiet as ever no matter how many signals she let through. Up till recently, the fields hade been used as grazing land and a few times we had had to watch our steps. I pictured my phone laying deep in a big piece of cow dropping, on the bottom of a water puddle or somewhere else electronically unfriendly. And wherever it was it would take looking at the exact right spot to even find it.

BUT - after searching the ground for every step we took, for twenty minutes or so, I saw it! On the top of a small tuft of grass my phone laid on its back, dry and unhurt. How happy was I?! 

Really, how happy was I?

Picture that I had not found the phone. Picture the frustration I would have felt, the self-blaming for putting it in a pocket clearly not deep enough. It would have bugged me for days, weeks. I would have had to get a new one, restore the phone book etc, etc. The second I found it my bad luck turned into good dito, my frustration turned into relief. The question is though if that relief equals the hypothetical frustration I would have felt if I had not found the phone.

Americans usually do not know a ton about Sweden. At best they list SAAB, Volvo, ABBA, IKEA, and Björn Borg. Many confuse Sweden with Switzerland, which apparently is the country of clocks and chocolate. Some think it snows all the time and a few seem to think it's likely to see polar bears around, none of which is true. Another image is the one of tall, blond, free-minded people. Especially guys like to picture the Swedish girls that way. Compared to an American average it is true Swedes are often blond, although many are not.

Things Americans do not know about Sweden and Swedes:  

In general Swedes believe United States is like on TV. Depending on if they look at soap operas or watch the news, their pictures differ. Europeans tend to be critical of American politics and Swedes are no exception. In particular republicans - and more so Bush - are frequently harshed on. Too often, Americans in general are judged from the appearance of their president and at the moment that is never good. In any case USA is always present, in music, TV, movies, stores, food etc. Sweden is in many ways Americanized and English is our second language, much more influenced by the States than England.