10 Things Americans LOVE about Sweden!
– Welcome back, everyone.
– Hello!
– This video is gonna be 10 things Americans- -or the 10 things this American loves about Sweden. The last video we did was 10 things I hate about Sweden.
– Or that you feel frustrated about.
– Sort of frustrated me. To be fair, we’re going to do 10 Things I Love About Sweden because I really do like it here. For such a small country, it has such a big impact on the world. Famous musicians that come out of here, the international companies like Volvo and Spotify. The Swedish ideals that come out of a small country… known internationally. Name another country of 10 million people that so many people know about. Or can associate with. I think it’s a pretty great place.
Here are 10 things Americans or 10 things this American loves about Sweden.
So this is a little thing relatively, but I had never seen this in America. I don’t think this exists in America. This is like Swedish ingenuity, Swedish engineering marvel and it’s- -the thing that divides food on the conveyor belt at a store checkout. So Swedes know exactly what I’m talking about. Americans have no clue what I’m talking about. At a supermarket when you check out and pay, the food goes down the conveyor belt. Instead of just kind of accumulating at the end getting stacked up and then the next person’s food coming getting stacked up. There’s a little arm that swings open and guides the food into one channel or into the other channel. That way the food from the person behind you doesn’t get mixed up. When I saw this I just thought “How have we not thought of this? How does America not have this?”. It’s a really small little thing. It’s something that America doesn’t have.
The thing number two I love about Sweden:
Are these little stickers that you take when you get to a store.
Is there a word for it? If you know the word for it, leave it in the comment section…
“Nummerlapp”. (Queue ticket).
Let’s say you go to the bank, the post office, the police station, a bakery, whatever. When you get there, you pull this little tape out and it has a number on it and that correlates with a number on the wall and that’s the number that is being served.
– You just take your number then you can walk around in the store, get some groceries or whatever- -you’re doing. Just look around. Then when you see your number on the sign, it’s your turn.
– Actually, the only place… there’s a place that does in America, in Santa Monica, Bay Cities Deli’s. You take a number…
– Is that next to the Vons?
– Yes. Shout out to Bay Cities Deli’s. That’s one thing I love about Sweden is just the order in stores and other places like that. Because of the queue number.
Third thing I love about Sweden is the public transportation. Especially compared to L.A where in L.A you’re going half a mile. “Oh, I got to get an uber”. I have to drive my car for five minutes, and then spend twenty minutes looking for parking. In Sweden, or at least in Gothenburg you walk to the nearest corner basically, there’s either a bus or a tram station. You don’t even need to check the timetables. You just know that there’s gonna be a bus coming every five minutes and it’ll take you where you need to go. It’s so convenient. It’s amazing.
– People have cars and people commute sometimes to work and stuff. The amount [number] of buses and trams there… it’s just great, you can go anywhere you want.
– The train system too, if you want to go to Norway or Copenhagen, you just go down to the train station. There’s a train leaving every half an hour, you jump on the train.
– It’s 20 bucks or something to go to Norway, 20 bucks to go to Stockholm and Copenhagen as well.
– One thing I love about Sweden is the public transportation. We need better of it in L.A. for sure.
Forth thing I absolutely love about Sweden is healthcare. Free healthcare. It just blows my mind that America still not have free health care. I know people are pushing for it. It’s a right of every human I feel like. I mean you have a free Police Service, a free fire service, effectively free post service, free schools. Free education. I had a minor operation just a couple weeks ago and I went to the “Vårdcentral”. It’s like the local hospital. I went to go pay and the girl’s like: “It’s a 100 SEK”. “Okay, hundred dollars”. They’re like: “No, 100 SEK”, which is nine US dollar. No questions asked.
– And that’s for a surgery. 9 bucks.
– I already know what the haters are saying like “Oh, but what about all the taxes you pay over there?” “You damn socialist!” The funny thing is and this is not an exaggeration – I paid more in taxes in California, in Santa Monica. Between the federal tax, the state income tax- Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, payroll tax and other tax that Santa Monica has.
The fifth thing I love about Sweden is another small thing, but I love it:
You can drink out of the tap. The tap water is so clean and safe that you don’t have to buy bottled water. If you go skiing in the U.S you’re up in the Rocky Mountains or Sierra Nevada, you can drink out of the tap. Well, that’s like what all of Sweden is like, just super clean. Tasty, cold tap water.
– Yeah, I love how cold it is. That’s what I noticed the difference when I lived in America that if you are drinking from the tap it never gets cold and it tastes really bad.
– The water in L.A is, I don’t know how many chemicals…
The sixth thing I love about Sweden is that everyone takes off their shoes when you go inside. I love that. When I was living in LA I try to get my roommates to do it and try to get everyone I know when they’re coming over. It’s just a no-brainer for me. You’re treading around in the dirt and the asphalt and all the oil that the cars drip around. You don’t want your shoes inside the house getting on your rug and on your hardwood floor. For whatever reason, it’s a Swedish tradition. Much like in Asia where you take off your shoes and when you come into a house. For that reason the house is sparkling. It’s always clean.
– I think that in California at least it’s always good weather so maybe people don’t… Like in Sweden for example, if it’s raining or snowing. Of course, you can’t wear those shoes inside. Whereas in California it’s good weather so people don’t think about it.
– It’s so funny to go to a Swede’s house if they’re having a party. 30 pairs of shoes at the front door, you would walk over them just to get inside.
– If you would ever walk in with shoes at a party like that people would be like: “What the hell is that guy doing? He’s mental!”
– Such a small simple thing. I absolutely love it. In Sweden, you take off your shoes before you go inside.
Seventh thing I love about Sweden is that it’s safe. It’s really safe. There’s barely any guns here so you don’t really ever… In L.A for example, even in Santa Monica, a wealthy area of L.A, you’re walking around and you think: “Why is there so many homeless people here?”, “Is someone gonna rob me at gunpoint?” You’re kind of always on the edge of like the crime and everything. In Sweden it’s just so safe just in general, there’s just not that much crime.
– I think there’s a few murders happening every year. I don’t know the exact number.
– In L.A there’s like 15 murders a day. The gun thing is just out of control. And again, that’s like a whole other video I could go on about. Before we go to the next thing I just want to say if you’re enjoying this video, don’t forget to click subscribe. Click the like button. If you have any questions or any comments, leave them in the comment section below.
The eighth thing I love about Sweden:
I don’t know if it goes for all of Sweden, but Gothenburg is very international. I play soccer on Saturdays down at the local park and I’m playing with people from South Africa, Mexico, Chile, China, Indonesia, India, Saudi Arabia. It’s very international. This city is very international. At work, I’m not the only foreigner. I’d say more than half the company is foreign. So it’s pretty easy for a foreigner to fit in here, English is spoken wildly.
The ninth thing I love about Sweden is work-life balance. Basically the vacation days, in the States you get two weeks of vacation a year. I mean think about that, that is insane.
– 2 out of 52. That’s insane.
– Me and most people I know love to travel and if you want to enjoy a country to its utmost you have to spend at least two weeks in a country to really get to know it. So it’s basically impossible to be a traveler and live in the United States.
– And to see the world. How are you supposed to go from the U.S to South East Asia or to Europe or Africa, if you only have two weeks?
– Like the day before Christmas you take off the day, after Thanksgiving you take off, one day here and there. Just to make a three-day weekend. So you spend a week doing that and you have a week left.
– A week! You don’t even get to calm down in a week.
– In Sweden, the very minimum is five weeks and in most jobs gets six weeks. That’s why Swedes are so well-traveled. The other thing too is, in the U.S the taboo around traveling. You write to your boss: “Hey, I’m thinking about taking a week off to go to Mexico.” They’re like “Oh you’re gonna take a whole week off?” “Alright, go ahead you’re entitled to it”. It’s like a big deal to take a week off work. Whereas here in Sweden people are like: “I’m going to Costa Rica for two weeks not gonna be on email. See you.”
The boss is like: “Damn you – I’ll go too actually”.
– Go relax, take a few weeks off and just come back with new energy.
– The work-life balance here is better.
– That’s another thing, you’re doing your job better if you get some new perspective, you get to see another country, you get some more energy from travelling and you know, you’ll do your job better when you get back. Yeah, you are more refreshed, more productive. More D-vitamin in your face.
– Yeah, exactly. Again the two-week vacation thing in America just wasn’t working for me.
– I have six weeks at my job and it’s pretty amazing.
– The tenth and final thing I love about Sweden is:
Swish. It’s like Venmo. It’s an app that you can use to pay people, but not only can you pay your friends you can also pay -restaurants, you can pay your bills. You can pay stores. The adoption rate is 100%. Every single person has Swish.
– Everyone has Swish.
– It’s not weird to use Swish, “I’ll just Swish you for that” when you’re at a restaurant. I have been here three months. I haven’t even seen physical paper cash like physical paper currency. It’s becoming like a cashless society. Which is cool. It’s convenient. Yeah, you just swish everything.
– I think that’s all for today.
– That’s the 10 things that Americans or that this American loves about Sweden. What should we do for the next video? If you have an idea for our next video leave it in the comment section. We read all the comments. We’ll do that video next.
– I have a good one.
– What is it?
– Maybe how we met?
– Okay. That’ll be a cool one. Isn’t that like a 30-second video? I guess we could make it like 10 minutes.
– 30 seconds? I have a lot of things to say.
– All right, that could be our next video. But anyway, if you like this video click subscribe. Like the video and leave us a question or comment in the comment section below.
