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.

November is horrible

For the past few weeks my life has consisted of:

• Dressing and undressing children in rain and/or snow gear
• Schlepping children through the rain to and from school, the grocery store and the library
• Procrastinating doing anything useful
  
• Trying to pretend the sun might come out
• Trying to not check email 100 times a day out of boredom

Yes, the expat life is like one big vacation.

Swedes and other longer-term Scandinavian expats assure me that November is the worst month. Last year I must have still been riding the wave of expat adrenalin because it didn't seem so bad, but this year I feel like someone dropped a bag of bricks on my head and I can't squirm out from underneath. The result of this is a Mom with a less than sunny outlook on life (at least it's consistent with the weather), in which all things positive are now hideous and inconvenient:

Our great apartment? Horrible! If I have to haul 2 kids and 5 bags of groceries up this mini elevator one more time I'll die! The terrific public transportation? Heinous! What is wrong with these crazy people stepping on my children and not apologizing?! My favorite cafe near the kids' school? The tables always tip over and the chairs are broken! Etc.

So you see, I am doing a very poor job of dealing with November this year. Only 10 more days until Advent. Here's hoping the Christmas lights and glögg improve my mood (for the whole family's sake). Bah humbug.

Swedish justice

Last week I was in Lund again doing the Cultural Understanding course with a chatty group at Sony Ericsson. One of the models I use in the course to represent the difficulty of changing deeply held cultural beliefs is a drawing of a buoy. The buoy floating on top of the water that you can see represents behaviors -- they're observable and can change pretty easily. Below the water, hidden from view, is the buoy's tether -- this represents the norms we live by and the values we hold, which are more difficult for us to change. And where the tether is anchored to the ground at the bottom of the ocean, that's where our core assumptions about life are. These are nearly impossible to change and make us very uncomfortable when they are challenged.

I bring up this model because I was surprised by my angry reaction to a piece in the paper today about the murder of a teenage girl a few months ago here in Sweden. The 15-year-old girl was strangled to death in a forest by 2 other teenagers (a girl and a boy), both 16 and mentally fit i.e. they weren't psychotic or on drugs when this happened. Yesterday they were sentenced to a mere 20 months in a youth facility ("undomsvård" -- have no idea if this is prison type situation or a tennis camp in Solna. Please tell me it's not cozy or I might be ill).

In the paper an expert says that 20 months is a reasonable sentence because children are very sensitive and if they served a long sentence the perpetrators might never recover and "have a future." It's best for society, she argues, that they received a short sentence. Now, if you ever wanted an explicit example of the fact that Sweden prioritizes the needs of society over the needs of the individual, here it is. As an American I wonder where on earth is the justice for the victim and her family? How are they supposed to cope with the fact that these murderers are going to be out running the streets in their tight pants and died blond hair in 20 months? In Sweden are they really expected to accept this verdict for the greater good of society? Personally, I think this is way too much to expect of these parents, Swedish or otherwise, and in my rock at the bottom of the tether, justice has not been served.

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.

Copenhagen

For my birthday we went to Copenhagen for the weekend. I'm still amazed that we could just hop in the car and drive to another major European city in 3 hours on a Friday evening. I'm even more amazed that it's taken us a year and a half to actually do it.

To get to Denmark from Gothenburg you can either drive down to Malmö (Sweden's 3rd largest city after Stockholm and Gothenburg in case you were wondering) and cross the very long and very expensive bridge ($70 toll -- and you thought the Golden Gate Bridge was expensive!) or you can take the ferry from Helsingborg and poodle down to Copenhagen from there. We took the bridge on the way over and the ferry back, thus ensuring that we paid large tolls in both directions.

Similar to when we were in Rome, our strategy was to aim low and just get a feel for the city and not try to see everything. Luckily for us, Copenhagen is charming and compact, so that you can walk around most of it in a day or two. The canal tour was a hit with Julian:
He especially liked standing right by the side of the boat and jumping up and down on his seat so that we thought he was going to fall into the (apparently very clean) canals. Happily, we all survived AND got to see some of the amazing modern architecture that city can boast about. The new opera house (behind Julian in the picture above) is terrific, as is the new modern theater building across the water and the huge state library (I think that's what it was) that people refer to as the Black Diamond.

Our hotel was a hit with the kids because of the huge indoor pool, the cool outdoor area in front of the hotel that had kid-friendly sculpture and climbing equipment, and the Danish breakfast spread (nope, no Danish pastries to speak of). Here's Ava enjoying a sculpture:

Before we left the U.S. I would have said that the U.S. is pretty kid friendly, but it's got nothin' on the Scandinavians. In the pool in Copenhagen, there are:

• Bumbo seats for babies to use while moms shower
• Playpens in the changing rooms for toddlers
• Free strollers sitting around so you can push your baby from the changing room to the exit
• Multiple changing stations
  
• Ridiculous numbers of floaties and toys in the pool area
• Roped off areas of the pool just for little babies so they don't get splashed
  

Almost makes me want to have another baby. Not! But I do think it's great.

My friend Gen came to Copenhagen on Saturday with her 2 girls, mom and aunt, and we all ate at Wagamama, the fabulous Asian-inspired chain restaurant that I fell in love with years ago in London. I had a new appreciation for it this time because no one seemed to notice/mind the insanity that was occurring at our end of the table with 4 kids running all around and throwing noodles and moms chasing them down one after the other.

Now that we saw how easy it was to visit Copenhagen for the weekend, I think we'll head back pretty soon. Next time we might just aim for a sunny weekend.

Work work work

It's been a bit quiet on the blog lately, I know. I'm blaming it on being a lot more busy with work and having less to say now that we've been here awhile. I've been working on this big virtual training project with a global manufacturing client that has been one of those consulting engagements that makes you wonder:

a) why the hell you don't have a 9-to-5 job after all, and
b) how you ever said yes to this when your entire being was screaming "run away run away!!"

Adrian is the only other person more happy than I am that most of the kinks are now worked out and the training is going well.

Centimeter marathon

Today Ava and Julian participated in their first charity running race (a so-called centimeter marathon because it was 42,195 centimeters long) benefiting Queen Silvia's Children's Hospital. Ava is not much for ball sports or sports requiring any kind of concentrated practice come to think of it, but she does really like running, so it was great to see her excited about competing. She told us afterwards all about an English-speaking 4-year-old she "met during the race," so I don't think her competitive instinct is about to override her social butterfly personality any time soon, but we were so proud of her for running with the big kids in the front of the group and feeling confident enough to go out and run with so many kids without really getting what was going on. The second picture, above, shows her about to cross the finish line. She has been really enjoying her medal since the race, as you can imagine: Julian didn't end up running because the race was during his usual nap time and he was exhausted, but he seemed to have an OK time being carried by Adrian across the finish line. His passion at the moment is his new blue helmet, which he has insisted on wearing around town more as a fashion accessory than a practical aid. I was getting irritated by his obsession with the helmet until I realized that a 2-year-old in a helmet is probably a really good idea and now I ask him all the time if he wants to wear it. Eating croissants can be dangerous if you're 2 you know.