The Language
I'll start with this hilarious commercial from Tele2 a Swedish/European mobile company, it sums up how I feel about the Swedish language through a talking sheep. Watch it!
Overall I think Swedish is a nice sounding language for a Germanic language. It isn't as harsh as German or as strange sounding as Dutch. I find that when I'm walking I sometimes think I hear people speaking English only to find they are speaking Swedish. Because it is Germanic like English some of the words look and sound very similar to English. I am not talking Swedish class, but have learned some basic phrases and recognize more words now, particularly food based ones. Their verb structure is more simple than English as you don't have to conjugate the verb differently for different subjects like I, you, he, she, we, they. For example the verb "to be" in English is conjugated to I am, you are, he is, we are, they are. In Swedish it is jag ar, du ar, hon/han ar, vi ar, de ar. Of course the verb changes with different tenses, but not having to conjugate differently for different subjects simplifies things greatly. The Swedish alphabet has 3 extra letters of å, ä, and ö which have just slightly different pronunciations than their cousins of a and o.
Swedes in general can speak English very well, even 10 year old kids can speak it well enough to easily communicate with us non-Swedish speakers. English in Uppsala I think is overall better than most of the country, but I have only met one or two Swedes who truly struggled to speak English to me since I've been here. The country has been aggressively teaching English to its students for the past 70 years and it makes since as Sweden is only a country of 9 million people. English is found occasionally in advertisements and Swedes watch a lot of English TV and movies with Swedish subtitles, it is also casually mixed into their conversations sometimes kind of like Swenglish. People here will first speak Swedish to you, but can most often easily switch to English once you show you don't understand and they aren't offended that you don't speak Swedish and are happy to speak English with you.
The People
The stereotype of Swedes is tall, blond, and beautiful. This is exaggerated in some ways, but true in others. I immediately noticed that this is a taller country, especially as someone who was already a bit short in the US. I have since gotten used to the overall height of people being taller and think that when I return to the US I won't feel quite as short comparatively. Of course there is a mix of height and many of the girls are still rather short, but not as many as in the US. The population has become more mixed over the years from immigration and not all Swedes are natural blondes either. That being said their are plenty of brunettes around and blondes are probably still in the minority, but more common than back home. Even if I were to count all of the fake blondes in the States there would still be a larger proportion of naturally blonde people in Sweden. On the beauty aspect, Sweden is a country of beautiful people there is no doubt about that in my mind, of course large college towns anywhere probably more often have a good amount of young and attractive people. Obesity is very rare in this fit and active country so this too adds to the beauty of the population.
Swedes are rather reserved people at first. On my flight over from Chicago to Stockholm I may have never got to know the first Swede I met on my trip, Josie, if I didn't first say something to her first. Small talk or breaking the ice with strangers is very rare, but if you do start a conversation with a Swede (and you most likely will have to start the conversation) you will find that they are very friendly, polite people and they are happy to talk to you in English. This reserved behavior of course does loosen up with alcohol as it does for anyone. Because Swedes are more reserved and more inclined to hang with Swedish friends and speak Swedish they are a bit harder to become good friends with quickly especially compared to the large amount of international students who are eager to make new friends fast in their new country.
The Scenery
Flying into Sweden on January 14th at 8AM it looked a lot like I pictured it. It was still very dark and there was a solid foot or more layer of snow everywhere. Traveling to Stockholm and then later to Uppsala Sweden was overall very flat with a lot of sparse trees interrupted by some agriculture fields. Around the cities there are typical industrial buildings. The downtown areas are a mix of historic and modern, but not as much ultramodern, minimalism you might associate with Scandinavian design and architecture. The historic buildings have nice bright Scandinavian architecture and coloring with many having tiled roofs. The colors have some Mediterranean like colors and pastel colors of pink, yellow, orange, and light green and blue.
The Weather
Swedes in general can speak English very well, even 10 year old kids can speak it well enough to easily communicate with us non-Swedish speakers. English in Uppsala I think is overall better than most of the country, but I have only met one or two Swedes who truly struggled to speak English to me since I've been here. The country has been aggressively teaching English to its students for the past 70 years and it makes since as Sweden is only a country of 9 million people. English is found occasionally in advertisements and Swedes watch a lot of English TV and movies with Swedish subtitles, it is also casually mixed into their conversations sometimes kind of like Swenglish. People here will first speak Swedish to you, but can most often easily switch to English once you show you don't understand and they aren't offended that you don't speak Swedish and are happy to speak English with you.
The People
The stereotype of Swedes is tall, blond, and beautiful. This is exaggerated in some ways, but true in others. I immediately noticed that this is a taller country, especially as someone who was already a bit short in the US. I have since gotten used to the overall height of people being taller and think that when I return to the US I won't feel quite as short comparatively. Of course there is a mix of height and many of the girls are still rather short, but not as many as in the US. The population has become more mixed over the years from immigration and not all Swedes are natural blondes either. That being said their are plenty of brunettes around and blondes are probably still in the minority, but more common than back home. Even if I were to count all of the fake blondes in the States there would still be a larger proportion of naturally blonde people in Sweden. On the beauty aspect, Sweden is a country of beautiful people there is no doubt about that in my mind, of course large college towns anywhere probably more often have a good amount of young and attractive people. Obesity is very rare in this fit and active country so this too adds to the beauty of the population.
Swedes are rather reserved people at first. On my flight over from Chicago to Stockholm I may have never got to know the first Swede I met on my trip, Josie, if I didn't first say something to her first. Small talk or breaking the ice with strangers is very rare, but if you do start a conversation with a Swede (and you most likely will have to start the conversation) you will find that they are very friendly, polite people and they are happy to talk to you in English. This reserved behavior of course does loosen up with alcohol as it does for anyone. Because Swedes are more reserved and more inclined to hang with Swedish friends and speak Swedish they are a bit harder to become good friends with quickly especially compared to the large amount of international students who are eager to make new friends fast in their new country.
The Scenery
Flying into Sweden on January 14th at 8AM it looked a lot like I pictured it. It was still very dark and there was a solid foot or more layer of snow everywhere. Traveling to Stockholm and then later to Uppsala Sweden was overall very flat with a lot of sparse trees interrupted by some agriculture fields. Around the cities there are typical industrial buildings. The downtown areas are a mix of historic and modern, but not as much ultramodern, minimalism you might associate with Scandinavian design and architecture. The historic buildings have nice bright Scandinavian architecture and coloring with many having tiled roofs. The colors have some Mediterranean like colors and pastel colors of pink, yellow, orange, and light green and blue.
The Weather
When I first arrived the days were about 7 hours long, there was snow everywhere and it was cold. The length of the days gets longer by about 5 minutes everyday so it wasn't too long before the days didn't feel so short. It isn't as severely cold in most of the Sweden despite being so far north because of the proximity of the Baltic Sea. An average day in January and February would probably see an average temperature of -5 to -10 (15-25 F) degrees C with not too much variation from day to day. It is overcast and cloudy about half the time, but it is sunny and clear more often than I thought it would be too. The coldest temperature in Uppsala since I've been here has been about -22 degrees C (-8 F), but it only approached this temperature a few times. There isn't too much precipitation, there have only been a couple snow storms and some very light sleet and rain. It is cold enough to keep snow on the ground all winter and the few storms accumulate snow. Being near the ocean also keeps the air very humid in the 90% range most of the time so when it is cold it is more of a biting cold. The overall consistency of the weather and temperature allows you to adapt to the temperatures and is why 10 degrees C (50 F) seems very nice currently. Spring is coming slowly with the daily temperatures slowly creeping up, but there are still areas with over a foot of snow near the end of March.
