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Saturday, April 6, 2013

Observing Sweden - 6 April 2013


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Name day

Each day has a persons’s name attached to it. Actrually two or three names now; the keep adding.Today’s names are Vilhelm and William. There is no Bruce day. What about Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Lee, Bruce Wayne, and Robert the Bruce? A sad omission. People send e-mails to friends celebrating their name days.

Cell phones.

250,000 Swedes do not have cell phones. They are all dead. All living Swedes have at least one and call someone every ten or fifteen minutes-at restaurants, at home, at the bank, in the car . . . wherever. Unending conversations with each other. Swedes are very big on communication. There are more cellphones per meter here than any other place on earth.

Weapons

After giving up my beloved guns I thought I was now a law abiding alien. Yesterday at a department store a clerk was trying to unwrap a battery charger I wanted to look at. “I need a knife,” he said. He came back with a tiny thing the size of a nail clipper. “That’s not a knife. This is a knife,” I told him in a Crocodile Dundee impersonation. He freaked out when I opened my pocket knife. “Those are illegal here!” he told me. It’s not a big knife, just an average pocket knife. Shall I remain defenseless or risk jail?

Moose Lights

Many cars here have a pair or trio of huge spotlights that cast a glare equal to that of a landing passenger aircraft. These are to enable night time out of town drivers to spot a moose that has decided to cross the road. A dozen or more drivers are killed each year by running into a moose.
Once a year there it's moose hunting season here. Driver’s revenge!


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