Is Rudeness Relative?

Along with the very real possibility of being impaled by 6-foot-long icicles I have been thinking lately about whether or not rudeness is always relative. I tend to think about this most after I have become extremely annoyed by a Swede doing something I perceive to be super rude and they seem positively astonished by if I say anything. These incidents tend to involve:

• People cutting in front of me or the kids as we go into the library, get on a bus, etc.
  
• People bumping into me or the kids in the street and not saying anything
• People pushing by us to get somewhere without saying excuse me or whatever

Now Swedes, unless they have lived abroad for a long time, would not think any of the above are rude or out of the ordinary. Notice that all of these involve pretending you don't see the other person you are pushing, bumping, etc. The norm in Sweden, in public spaces, is to not see anyone and not speak to anyone you don't know, and that includes people you injure. The weird thing about this to me is that Swedes, when you've met them, are truly the humblest, most egalitarian people I've ever met, and that's perhaps why the public behavior is so bizarre.

My theory is that this all relates back to the Swedish value/norm of "lagom," which translates badly to just enough. Swedes are often worried about being too much of anything -- too loud, too smart, too outgoing, too fat, whatever ... they want to be just enough of everything. They are most comfortable when everyone is the same. And when everyone is the same, I guess you don't have to say excuse me when you push by someone because why the heck should you apologize to them because they're not any more special that you and shit happens, right?

Anyway, this is the clearest example I have in Sweden of rudeness being relative. What is rude to me is clearly the norm for the Swedes, and so I go around muttering to myself about rude Swedes when of course in their minds they aren't at all.

So are there some things that are ALWAYS rude across all cultures? Well, you gotta figure that making jokes about someone else's country that refer to sensitive political or historical events are up there. Take the participant I had in my cultural understanding course this week. His jokes over the two days included jokes about:

• The French letting the Germans walk right into Paris
  
• The Germans not being welcome in Holland in large numbers when they wear green
• Not going to Venezuela because you'll never come out again
• It's better not to have oil in your country because the U.S. will invade you

This guy had no edit feature and, as far as I could tell, no practice in putting himself in others' shoes, so we worked on both of those things. We'll see if he can hold back on the Stalin jokes when he goes to Russia next week. Sigh.

The System

I can't believe I haven't posted about this before, but in Sweden alcoholic drinks (with an alcohol content greater than 3.5%) are sold to the public only in state-run stores called the Systembolaget. Of course you can also buy drinks in pubs, cafes and restaurants (because who doesn't want to pay $10 for a beer and $15 for a cosmo?), but if you want to drink something at home you've got to go to the "System" (pronounced approximately "sis-tame"). Aside from the limited opening times (closed around 2pm on Saturday and closed on Sunday), and the prices, which are probably more a result of tax than anything to do with the System itself, the whole thing seems to work pretty well. The stores are bright, modern, well-stocked, conveniently located (for us anyway), and apparently they'll order any bottle of anything for you from all over the world. Just get ready to hand over the SEK.

What is most fascinating to me about the System monopoly is what is represents about the Swedish relationship to alcohol. I don't pretend to understand this relationship fully, but it seems to me as a casual observer that Swedes have a love/hate relationship with alcohol that strikes me as not too dissimilar to the American relationship with the bottle. It's that same puritanical thing about booze being evil because it makes you lose control while at the same time loving to have a drink (or two or fifteen). Friends tell me that it's still considered a bit unseemly to drink wine during the week, but that the attitude has relaxed a lot in the last 10 years.

This "ad" (I don't know what else you'd call it) by the Systembolaget was recently in the paper: The title, on either side of the bifurcated viking dude, says "We Swedes came up with the smartest way of selling alcohol (maybe because we needed it more than others)." I love this. It's so Swedish to think the Swedish way is best and to be so self-reflective at the same time. The "ad" goes on to say that before the monopoly was formed in 1955 people drank 4 times as much as today and the problem was "enormous." It claims that studies show if alcohol were sold in grocery stores, consumption would go up by 30%, which would lead to about 1600 more deaths and 16 million more sick days every year.

I have no doubt the stats are true. Maybe after we get a public option for health care Obama should try to form a national alcohol monopoly? Or else he could just shoot himself in the foot and hand the presidency to the Republicans for the next century.

Germish

Earlier this week I facilitated a workshop for a bunch of Germans on working successfully in Sweden. I spoke mostly English and some German, and was sort of horrified to realize that my German is sounding a bit Swedish (a bit too sing-songy with too many "-ning" noun endings when they should be "-ung") and that Swedish words are coming to my mind faster than the German equivalent. In short, I realized I now speak Germish instead of German. So sad, my German was so good ... and that was so many years ago.

For the workshop I used Geert Hofstede's cultural dimensions and it's the perfect model for Germans and Swedes working together because there are huge gaps in two of the dimensions: Masculinity (how assertive people are), and Uncertainty Avoidance (how comfortable people are with ambiguity). Sweden is the least masculine (or most feminine) culture in the world according to Hofstede, and so Germans tend to perceive Swedes as, well, girly men, and Swedes perceive Germans as overbearing, immodest and aggressive. Swedes are much more comfortable than the Germans with ambiguity and so they need fewer rules designed to eliminate uncertainty. As a result, they tend to view Germans as process-obsessed and unwilling to listen to different opinions. Germans tend to think Swedes are slow and wishy-washy.

As you can imagine, this led to some great discussions. Since they were German, it was all very frank and helpful I thought. I did my cultural adaptation part and prepared lots of graphs and data. (You Germans out there might be rolling your eyes, but there are not too many cultures out there in which people tell you they don't agree with various parts of your model and that they are going to change it so that it "makes more sense".)

Having had so many Swedes in my workshops lately, I was almost taken aback by the energy of the Germans -- lots of talking, side conversations, jokes, and just more body energy. Very un-Swedish. Sort of refreshing, actually. It was like the undercurrent in the room was buzzing, when usually it is, well, very low-key and Swedish and everyone listens calmly and politely and doesn't question too much and quietly enters and exits the room.

At the end of the day the participants said they were going to involve their Swedish colleagues in decision-making more, expect longer decision-making timelines, stay calm when they disagree and ask open questions to get the other person's perspective, and make an effort to go to more coffee breaks (fikas) to build relationships with colleagues. So I think some of what we talked about sunk in. But somehow I don't expect Jens and Hans to be dancing around the maypole by next mid-summer. Naja.

I still think Swedes are weird because ...

• They love pear and licorice ice cream
  
• They will wait patiently in line while the girl behind the counter picks the stickers off some apples and pretends they don't exist
  
• They use snus (probably deserves its own post, must get pix first)
  
• They frequently tell foreigners how boring they are as a people
• They think it's normal to pay $30 for an entree at a mediocre restaurant
• They refer to time in the future by what week of the year something will happen (Classes start week 34! When the heck is that?)
• The telesales people give up without really trying ("Oh, so I guess you don't want our new service then ..."
• They think falukorv is a) actually sausage and b) yummy (see picture above)
• They love big sing-a-longs and actually televise them nationally
• They watch the Euro Vision Song Contest without a wink wink nudge nudge
• They must actually order pizza with peanuts, banana, curry sauce and ground beef because it's on most pizza menus
• They will bump into you, knocking off your purse and stepping on your feet, and never once look at you or in any other way acknowledge the event
• They are obsessed with their children being outdoors as much as possible, snow and rain be damned

Un-American Summer

Adrian and I are finally getting used to the fact that Sweden shuts down in July. Businesses stop, schools close, restaurants post signs saying "closed - happy summer!", and the cities empty out as Swedes run to their ubiquitous stugas in the forest or on some beautiful stretch of lakefront or coast. And in fact the shutdown really begins mid-June and work doesn't really get going again until mid-August. When you have a consensus-oriented decision-making process, you kind of need to wait until everyone is there to get things done.

This is so unbelievably un-American. I mean, first of all you'd never take 4 weeks off in one go because if you did people might notice that the world didn't end when you weren't at the office and then they might fire you because you're not essential. Secondly, it's just not apple pie to not be open all the time so you can make as much money as possible. Close your office or restaurant when a customer might need something?! But they might go to a competitor?! (But wait, the competitor is closed too ...). And finally, it's just not American to relax and enjoy your life. Much better to run around like a crazy person with your Crackberry beeping, picking up multiple children in your big SUV after working 50 hours a week while you drink your 50-oz iced latte from Starbucks. Sigh. I miss the U.S. Ha!

Baby shower

This weekend Sandy and I hosted a baby shower for Traci, who is due with her second son in a few weeks. It never occurred to me that the baby shower is a distinctly American tradition, and that the non-Americans we invited would be so excited/curious to experience said tradition. Their excitement was actually really cute, though it did induce minor panic in Sandy and I to do a really good shower (which led me to totally undercook my cake and overcook my cookies, both of which I've made many times before. Luckily Sandy's panic did not affect her cooking and her carrot cake was perfectly done). Despite the baked goods situation, I think the Swedish, British, Aussie and Dutch contingent had a good time and enjoyed the match-the-mommy-animal-with-the-baby-animal and remember-as-many-weird-baby-items-as-you-can-on-the-tray games.

It strikes me now as very American to celebrate a baby BEFORE it's born when in most cultures around the world they celebrate the baby after it's arrived. Apparently it was only after WWII when, presumably, the rate of infant mortality went down, that the pre-birth shower really took off in the U.S. Perhaps this counting of chickens before they're hatched is a reflection of our very optimistic (naive?) nature.

My favorite nationality is ...

Dutch! Yes, I've decided the Dutch are the most fun, friendly, outgoing and pleasant people on the planet. Merel is fantastic of course, but so is my buddy Dineke from Swedish class, and my new friend Ans, a Mom from Ava and Julian's school who, happily, has a daughter in Ava's class and a son in Julian's class.

Now it could be that I really only like Dutch people who have moved to Sweden, but I prefer to think that there's a whole country of fabulous, optimistic and energetic people just a short plane ride away. Forget joining the circus, maybe I'll run away and become Dutch. I could just speak a mixture of German, English and Swedish and maybe they'd never know.

Cleaning

I have been giving some thought lately to the very important issue of cleanliness. Well, it's actually not that important to me (bring on the germs people!), but it appears to be VERY important to the Swedes. When noted cross-culturalist Richard Lewis surveyed a bunch of Swedes for his book "When Cultures Collide" about their cultural values, "cleanliness" was up there with honesty, tolerance and equality. (I just noticed that Lewis didn't include any values in his section on the United States. Nice.)

Cleanliness seems to be particularly important to Swedish women over the age of about 40. Or rather, the act of cleaning seems to be important. Merel tells me she knows a number of Swedish women with high-paying jobs who spend their Sundays cleaning the house. We're talking cleaning, not straightening up for the week. How many female directors in the U.S. or Britain do you think there are who scrub their own kitchen floors? And Karin says women who do pay someone to clean their house would prefer than no one knew, especially not their mothers or grandmothers.

How to explain all this self-mopping? Well, it's got to be connected to what the Scandinavians call the Jante Law. The Jante Law (Jantelagen in Swedish anyway) is a phrase coined by Danish author Akzel Sandermose in 1933 to describe the egalitarian/restrictive pressures of small-town life in Scandinavia. Briefly, the tenants of the Jante Law are:

• Don't think that you are special
  
• Don't think you're better than anyone else
  
• Don't think you're smarter than anyone else
• Don't think you'll amount to anything
  

Chipper, right? Don't you read those and wish you could live in small-town Sweden in 1930? But my real point is that it's not a huge leap to read between the lines and see this other tenant:

• Wash your floors yourself, missy
  

Frankly the Jante Law thing gives me the heeby-geebies, and not just because I really, really hate mopping. It's my rah-rah-individualist-American value poking up his head and going "No way Jose!!" Interesting, I didn't really even know he was there.

Bunnies and Lions

Yesterday Julian became a Bunny. He joined the Bunny classroom at ABC Preschool, the same school where Ava is a Lion. The classes are divided by the year the children were born (i.e. all 2005 kids together, all 2006 kids, etc.), and I suppose "Lions" sounds better than "2005 room." For some reason the Bunnies are comprised of kids born in 2006 and 2007. Not sure why they have the biggest age range for the kids where the age range makes the most difference ... and I'm not even going to ask. I think the answer would be something like: it just IS that way. And it's the BEST way, because it is that way. This, in my admittedly still limited experience, is the dark side of "the Swedish way." It's sort of an unquestioning commitment to the way things are done, regardless of your opinion of it.

I'm beginning to understand why Swedish women are ranked as the most trendy in the world -- in the literal sense that they follow the fashion trends like lemmings running off a cliff. Sometimes I feel like a telegram was hand-delivered to every woman in Sweden reading:

Skinny jeans and black boots still in. Stop. Huge scarves to be added to wardrobe, preferably in white. Stop. Keep wearing black and gray everywhere else unless forced by foreigner to do otherwise. Stop.

And God help me, today I wore exactly that!

No, you can't say "lovely"

Some of you may be familiar with Madonna. Or maybe not. And maybe you know she married a British guy named Guy and soon afterward started spouting Briticisms with a bad British half-accent on TV. For the American public, this was bad news for Madonna because Americans don't like, in fact they really really really don't like, a snob, and anyone trying to sound British is, by definition, a snob.

I sort of feel for Madonna. Perhaps she was trying to be all poncey, but maybe, just maybe, she was just living 24 hours a day with an Englishman surrounded by English serving people (or whatever she has) and the Briticisms just sort of happened. (Not sure about the accent, that seems highly suspect.) This is my defense anyway, for the fact that I've caught myself saying someone was a "git" or the cake was "nice" as in yummy or "I would do, but..." when, in fact, these are not acceptable American English terms and there are many nice American ways of saying these things.

However, there is a limit to what is acceptable if you are an American married to a Brit or living in Britain. And here it is: You may never, under any circumstances, say "cheers" or "ta" instead of "thanks." (My big pet peeve is people who go to England or Australia for 5 minutes and come home saying "cheers" like it just SLIPPED into their vocabulary and they didn't even notice. Oh, you're SO international!) You may also never, ever say "lovely." It may be acceptable to write "lovely" on certain occasions, as in "that would be lovely" or "it would be lovely to see you," but I'm sorry, it never sounds right with an American accent (and worse with a fake English accent) and what's so bad about "that would be nice" anyhow?

Halloween

The Halloween season is my favorite time of year. I love fall colors, fall foods and fall weather (no jokes about San Francisco not having any seasons please -- we have seasons, they're just sort of casual, like Californians). And I love a good 'ol American harvest fair, complete with pumpkin patches, scarecrows, hay rides, pumpkin pie and little craft booths filled with stuff you'd never actually buy. And then of course there's Halloween itself, which when you're a kid is the best night of the year except for the night before Christmas morning because of the ridiculous amounts of candy you get to collect and consume in a single night.

Anyway, long story short, there's no Halloween in Sweden and I'm confused. I'm not ready for the stores to have all their Christmas Crap on display yet. In the U.S. we have the Halloween Crap and the Thanksgiving Crap to prime the pump for Santa. I'm like: "You want me to think about Christmas? Hello! I'm still mourning summer! Give me a little candy corn and pumpkin pie and then we'll talk." The American Women's Club of Gothenburg did a nice job of putting on a fun kiddie event at a local school (complete with crafts, mini trick or treating, games and a "cake walk," which I'd never heard of before coming to Sweden) the Sunday before Halloween. Here's Ava and Julian peacefully enjoying the decorate-a-skull craft table. This lasted all of 2.32 minutes by the way:And here's a shot of the main hall:
Ava's school, ABC, also had a little Halloween party on the 31st (see pic below), so the kids weren't totally Halloweenless this year, but I think Ava and I were feeling a little down about the whole thing.
It was probably NOT the best idea then to show Ava online pictures of her buddies Everett and Miles celebrating Halloween (in, I must say, very excellent home-made tiger and bat costumes). The slideshow went over like a tone of bricks and you could just see her face droop and her eyes start to tear up. She was fine 20 minutes later, but that was definitely a bad-mama move.

Now what could possibly cheer us up after missing our Halloween traditions? Hmmm. I'm thinking, just maybe, the one thing that could do it would be... GOOOBAMA!!!!!!!!!!! TWO MORE DAYS! TWO MORE DAYS!

Cross-cultural communication

The workshop in Lund I co-facilitated, called Communication and Cultural Differences, was a great success, despite the fact I lost my wallet on the way to Lund. Yes, I somehow managed to lose my very big wallet around 10pm on Sunday at the gas station in Ängelholm, about 45 minutes north of Lund. Not a great way to start the week to be sure. Luckily it was turned in with nothing missing and I ended up just picking it up on the way home.

Despite the inauspicious beginning, the course went really well and I learned a lot from the lead facilitator, a Brit named Trevor. He has lots of good stories to tell about holding the course around the world. I guess in China they had a guy who apparently really needed to take a phone call but didn't want to be rude and leave the room so he just went under one of the tables and had his phone call there. 10 points for creativity.

The course incorporates a section on understanding cultures based on 7 cultural dimensions (from Fons Trompenaars work) as well as a section on understanding personality types or temperaments. The idea being you need both pieces of the puzzle to understand where the person you're communicating with is coming from so you can shift your communication style to ensure your message is understood.

The course was my first chance to see a bunch of Swedes in a work(ish) setting, and it was eye opening. I'm still digesting some of it, but it was just so clear how collaborative and consensus-oriented the Swedes are in everything they do, even in something small like a team quiz in a training class. Unlike in the U.S., there was NO chance of someone shouting (amiably) "LOSER!!" to the other team and pumping their V-fingers in the air because they won. There was just lots of quiet checking in with everyone at the table and then a quiet hand-raise to answer the quiz question.

The physical reserve of the Swedish attendees also struck me. I think ideally Swedes would just nod at you when being introduced instead of having to touch you by shaking hands. I'd just love to see a Swede at a French party with all that kissing. This one man, Peter, asked what "touchy-feely" meant and I demonstrated in good old American fashion, and I think he nearly passed out. It was a classic cross-cultural moment. And of course, in true Swedish fashion, everyone was so darned nice you just want to take them all home for a cinnamon bun.

Swimming in Sweden

I've mentioned before that there's a great Olympic pool by our house called Valhallabadet. It's great. I love it. I also love the fact there's a big sign outside that says "Bad," which means "pool" in Swedish, but just makes me chuckle every time I see it.

The other amusing thing about swimming in Sweden is that the vast majority of people here only swim breaststroke. Breaststroke is the only stroke taught in school (do American kids even get taught swimming in school anymore??) and so you get a whole cadre of grown-ups who come to the pool with no intention of getting their hair wet. I routinely see people swimming with their glasses on. This picture is taken from the cafe next to the pool and doesn't do justice to the breaststroke-only phenomenon, but you can sort of get the idea. The other half of the pool is usually mostly empty because those lanes are reserved for "fast motion crawl" swimming. So I often get a lane to myself. Joy.

The Sev

My sister informs me that people in the know call the convenience chain store 7-Eleven "The Sev." Apparently it is THE place for teens to hang out in many small towns across the U.S. where there is little else to do on a Saturday night (or a Monday or Tuesday night for that matter).

Well, The Sev has quite a presence in Sweden, with small stores located every couple of blocks or so. But these 7-Elevens don't just sell blue slushies, chips, Beer Nuts and bad hot dogs. No no! At the Swedish 7-Elevens you can:

• Wire money abroad
  
• Pick up your train tickets you ordered online
• Get a tram pass
  
• Use a computer to surf the Web or print documents
• Rent movies
• Get a passable cappuccino
• Pick up a package that the mailman couldn't deliver
• Buy stamps
• Get money (some have ATMs)
  

They're like little one-stop wonders. I wonder how long it takes to train the person (and there's only ever 1 person in a store as far as I can tell) behind the counter?

Carbon footprints

I just calculated our family's carbon footprint for our life in the U.S. vs. in Sweden and, no surprise, Sweden kicked our U.S. butts. Our total U.S. footprint was 32.605 tonnes, thanks to 2 well-used cars, a single-family home, low use of public transportation and me not buying enough locally produced food. In comparison, our Swedish footprint was 11.700 tonnes. Sadly, the calculator didn't even want to know about our groovy Soda Stream machine that lets us make our own bubbly water so we don't buy drinks in plastic bottles anymore (I was feeling really good about that one) or the fact we've stopped ordering random crap from Amazon.com every other day just because it's so cool that it shows up the next day.

A big part of the footprint reduction over here is thanks to great public transportation. The service network is excellent, so you can get almost anywhere. The trams and buses run frequently and are on time (or early, believe it or not, which is actually really annoying). And you can wheel your big 'ol stroller easily onboard and park it next to the other huge strollers in the special places marked for "barnvagn." The monthly all-access pass is 415 SEK or about $70. I have no idea how much the state subsidizes public transport (I'll put it on my long list of questions entitled "How on Earth Does Sweden Do It?"), but can you imagine this in the SF Bay Area?? For $70?? Sigh.

Kulturkalas

A cultural tsunami has been riding through Gothenburg over the past few weeks. It started with a big outdoor music festival called Way Out West (think L'il Kim and Neil Young) and continued with Kulturkalas, a 6-day humdinger mix of music, dance and then anything else happening around town that could be called cultural. This included a "learn to do graffiti" workshop, a little track where kids could drive around 1 mini electric car, and a collection of stalls with food from the middle ages. Anyway, the most interesting cultural event for me was the outdoor production of West Side Story right around the corner from our house. This classic tale of rival white and Puerto Rican gangs in New York in the 1950's was, wait for it, performed completely in Swedish and performed by two very blond, very white people dressed completely in white.

Now don't get me wrong, the singing was lovely, but hearing the, er, "Puerto Rican" women singing "America" in Swedish was a mindbender and frankly, the whole thing gave me the non-culturally-sensitive shivers by being so, well, white. Would this bug me if I were in Turkey and it was a totally Turkish production? Probably not. So I am left a little stumped about where I stand on making art accessible vs. cultural awareness. And this -- having things happen all the time that make me question my cultural norms and assumptions -- is for me the real beauty of expat living. Can't wait to see what the dance festival unearths.

Spinning in Swedish

I went to my first Spin (indoor cycling) class in Sweden yesterday at the gym around the corner called SATS. It was just like a class at home except it sounded like this to me for 55 minutes:

"Blah blah blah BLAH BLAH BLAH, ett, tva, TRE!!! Blah blah blah, ett, tva, TRE!!" (Ett, tva, tre being one, two, three as you probably guessed.)

Aside from the funny talking, the gym is pretty much the same here. Well, except for the shoe situation. People take off their outdoor shoes by the front door and then put on their indoor workout shoes. Now this totally makes sense because it keeps the floors clean, but when I see all those shoes lined up like that I just feel like I'm in kindergarten.

And what do you do if you don't have any indoor shoes with you? Well, apparently you just lift weights without shoes on as I saw a few people doing, to my horror. I've been so brainwashed by our If-I-Hurt-Myself-It's-Your-Fault culture that my brain was going haywire when I saw those bare feet. I swear there were little flashing lights and sirens going off in my brain with a robotic voice saying: "Liability alert, liability alert ... please call personal injury attorney immediately ... liability alert, liability alert ... loss of big toe $2 million, loss of little toe $1 million ... please call attorney immediately."

Laundry

Check out this handy system for sharing a small laundry room in a 6-story apartment building. You move your assigned key-lock to the a.m. or p.m. slot on this board, thereby avoiding the following scenario: running down to see if the machines are in use, running upstairs and throwing kids and laundry in a basket, and running down again only to find some guy on the 1st floor got there before you.

Cultural notes

I wanted to meet Sweden with an open mind. So before we arrived I decided to try to disregard peoples' generalizations about Sweden or the Swedes. (Not that there were that many generalizations to disregard since lots of people we told thought we were going to Switzerland, and the rest said "Oh, Swedes are so nice!") Having no familial or other connection to Sweden I thought it would be best to just wait and see what cultural surprises awaited us. So, having been here a whopping 7 weeks, here are some of the things we've noticed:

• Swedes like to take a number for everything. At the library you take a number to return your books. At the little store up the street, you take a number to pay. It's actually very practical because then there's never any confusion about who is first in line and therefore no need to ever say to anyone "Hey, buddy, you cut!" which would be MYCKET un-Swedish.
• Swedish technology is awesome. At the tax office, you walk in and a guy with a mobile tablet asks how he can help, then taps away, gives you a number (of course) and Bob's your uncle. And when you get a prescription, the doctor just sends an e-prescription to all pharmacies and within 15 minutes you can pick it up at whichever location you like.
• Swedes loves their sweets. Man! Ice cream, bulk candy, cinnamon rolls, muffins, chocolate. They love 'em ... multiple times a day.
• Swedish food is tasty but pretty basic and not varied. Potatoes, fish, sandwiches, strawberries. Ho hum. We are spoiled in San Francisco.
• The concept of "lagom," translated something like "good enough" or "adequate," is a very Swedish idea and pops its head up in lots of places. For example, you don't wear super showy clothes, because a Gucci handbag would mean that you maybe have a little too much extra money, and that you are trying to stand out, a no-no in many ways. This can create some weird internal strife when, say, you want a promotion at work -- I mean you're not supposed to stand out, but you want to be recognized for your performance at the same time. What to do??
• There's no cheap labor. This means manicures cost $50 and a cleaning lady will cost you $600/month. I'm all for a living wage in principle, but you should see my poor feet and the state of our kitchen! I really hate cleaning.

Eurovision Song Contest 2008

Well, clearly the best reason to live in Europe is the EUROVISION SONG CONTEST! This year's contest, LIVE from Belgrade, included finalists from 25 European countries that, well, there are no words to describe the insanity. Perhaps this video from Spain's finalist will help:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLWk_1oSUqI It's actually MORE offensive when you know the words, so my apologies. But can you imagine 25 of these hum-dingers in one fabulous televised broadcast, LIVE from Belgrade!!?? Our favorite was the Latvian entry with their catchy diddy "Wolves of the Sea," performed by "Pirates of the Sea" dressed as in the photo above. Our second favorite was Ani Lorak from the Ukraine (see above as well), mostly because her publicity people say she is "most beautiful and sexiest woman in Ukraine." She also writes poetry and books, including "How to be a Princess," which we will order shortly.