Just a little different

Like John Travolta said about Europe in the movie Pulp Fiction: ‘They got the same shit over there as they got over here, but it’s just a little different’. The same goes for Stockholm. Many things work exactly the same way as back home in the Netherlands. There are, however, little differences…

- It is the most common thing to encounter fathers on the sidewalk walking one or two babies in a carriage whilst doing business through his hands-free phone set.
- I regularly see mothers that breastfeed their baby while they have lunch in one of the cities fine lunchrooms.
- On warm days, half of the employees that work in the offices around Stureplan buy a pasta salad and have lunch in the beautiful Humlegården. In the evenings, the park is swamped with youngsters that light a so-called engångsgrill (that you trash after one-time use), grill chicken wings and drink beer or overpriced wine.
- There’s a rich coffee and tea culture, with home baked carrot and apple pies that one can order to go with a latte. If you order regular coffee, however, you get the second cup for half of the price or even for free. There even exists a word for that: påtår.
- One of Östermalms (the richest and most fancy city centre area) fast food restaurants, Max, smartly adapted to the type of people that lives there. It has a red carpet at the entrance, the most fashionable furniture and low calorie salads and fruit cocktails.
- No smoke that makes your clothes and hair smell in a café, restaurant or club ever again! The parliament decided that no ciggie may be lighted in any of these places. Stockholm must be one of the healthiest capitals to live in. Smokers patiently take their cigarette outside and smoke on the sidewalk. Would a large percentage of the smokers quit when the winter arrives?

So far for cultural observations. Selling coffee still brings in enough money to live by and last Saturday, we had a special event in Norrköping, a place some 100 km to the north of Stockholm. All Hillbillies of Sweden gathered to watch American cars, drink beer, drink some more beer and of course…buy our coffee. This was the kind of public that we had to shout to like market people in order to get them to understand what we were doing there: “Kaffe! Kaffe finns! Svart som synden, het som helvete! Bara tjugo späm, kakan ingår!” It was a fun day and I enjoyed seeing a different side of Swedish society than I regularly see in Stockholm. This week, the Stockholm jazz festival takes place and we expect to sell a lot of coffee out there, because the public is a little older and wealthier.

If you (think you can) read Swedish, check out this article on Coffeecow, the company I work with: http://www.realtid.se/ArticlePages/200506/22/20050622085340_Realtid365/20050622085340_Realtid365.dbp.asp

Last but not least…I have fallen a little bit in love with Michael, a Swedish guy that lives in my corridor (see picture in the gallery). He is a mathematics PhD and we have a great time whenever we are together. In two weeks, he will be on holiday, so we will see how this evolves. I do not know if any of you have put bets on this, but I sure do know that many of you predicted it ;)