I live in a suburb of Stockholm that has a bad reputation. That reputation is based around there being immigrants here. I have had people visit me and look nervous when walking outside. The thing is though, it just isn’t dangerous. In twelve years I have seen next to nothing. I used to live in London and Birmingham in the UK, those two cities have far more dangerous areas. It is all relative. For a Swede areas of Gothenburg may seem dangerous, but to many foreigners they just aren’t.
I am a cyclist. I cycle all year round, so you’ll see me in the middle of winter cycling with my snow tyres in -15C. My bike isn’t the best in town, but it cost me about 7000 SEK (about 850 USD according to xe.com), so it isn’t a piece of shit. I’ll lock it anywhere. On many occasions I’ve locked it in the street, gone to the pub and picked it up the next day because I don’t like to cycle drunk.
I still haven’t had my bike stolen.
A more likely scenario is the bikes you thought were a piece of shit weren’t, they just weren’t sport cycling bikes. Very few people ride those. Very few have drop handlebars. In a city you’ll have mainly two types. The first, of which I am one, cycle flat bar hybrid bikes, which look kind of mountain bikeish. The others cycle an older style of bike where you sit more upright. This is a style choice, those bikes can be pretty expensive. As an example, the basic Kronan bike, of which I see multiple ones on a daily basis, start at 7000 SEK (cite). There are other brands, but the Kronan is the classic one that most people want. They do look nice, but they weigh a tonne (I bought one years back for a now ex). Have a look at a few pictures.
:::Shrug:::
First off I also ride bike both road and mountain. I know bikes
Secondly I can only report on what I have seen parked outside the Central Station in Gothenburg. Old single speeds and three speeds as far as I could see. Hell I saw one bike that was so old the front brake that was activated by a series of rods and levers that pushed a curved shoe onto the outer edge of the tire. It was olive drab and someone told it was from WWII.
I don’t think I saw more than one or two that had dérailleurs. They were all flat bar, upright seating, old and scratched.
Third I was just repeating what the local Swedish citizens told me.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Sweden. Beautiful country, wonderful friendly people. The highlight of my career with Volvo was my trips to Sweden.
I am just passing on what I have seen and have been told by the locals.
Thing is in Denmark they tax damn near everything. For example my relatives kids went nuts over the fact they could drink so much soda here because in Denmark soda is taxed like beer is here. In restaurants in Denmark the “large” is about a US size medium and there are no free refills.
Cigarettes dont seem to be taxed though.
I think Danes though have a long tradition of not being complainers and are happy with just the basics.
I’m sure it would and many in the US are pushing for higher taxes and restrictions on soda with just this in mind like in New York City last year where they banned extra large sodas.
I’ve heard that the strawberries in Denmark are the best in the world. Why? Denmark gets lots of sun but little heat so strawberries grow slowly and absorb more of the sun so they are the sweetest strawberries in the world almost exploding with flavor.
I have traveled to most of them in the last few years and I can’t really see why anyone would say they are unhappy. Certainly, Norway is extremely expensive, but I understand they (as in residents) get benefits in subsided education etc.
In all the countries we found lovely, friendly people who could not do more for you.
I’d really love to live in Finland. Except I can’t ski. And I wouldn’t know how to feed a reindeer.
The second type of bike that I mentioned are generally single or three speed. In fact, the Kronan that I linked to only come in those types. Gothenburg is also very flat, meaning multiple gears isn’t entirely necessary.
Seriously, it is a stylistic choice. I see them here all the time, I know people that own them.
I’d just like to inform you that since April 1:st as of last year it is once again illegal to have sex with pigs (and other non-human animals). So if you were planning a pig-fucking trip to Sweden, you might as well cancel. Hopefully this won’t impact our tourism too much, after all, we are known almost equally as much for our beautiful and sexually open minded women as we are for our attractive pigs.
Norweigans are happy because they are rich, Danes are happy because they are drunk, Swedes are happy because they are so good looking and Finns are happy because they’re not metrosexual pig fucking creeps like us Swedes.
Well, Scandinavia isn’t a perfect Utopia. Speaking as a Norwegian who has lived and worked in other countries, including the US and the UK, we do pretty well in most areas though.
I do think we are happier on the average though. Its no that your average person is any happier, or that there are any deliriously happy people tottering around. Rather, there is a lower incidence of really bad things that severely impairs happiness. The ceiling is much the same, but the floor is raised quite a bit, if you follow.
Also, especially compared to the US, there is a lot more freedom.
I’ve read the book. There are two issues with it, as I see it.
First,it takes a group of different countries, and lists negative issues with each as if they were features of all of them.
If I wrote a book about North America, listing only the bad things about Canada, the US and Mexico, and pretended each of them applied to all three…Mexican cartels, US healthcare, Canadian weather etc…To someone without background knowledge about the place it would come across as quite a horrific place.
Second, it is not a serious book. It is British humour. I mean the bits about feral packs of children roaming the streets of Reykjavik should have been a bit of a hint that it and reality only intersects by appointment.
No. There are fairly orthodox economic reasons for why that just don’t work.
I’ve heard the same thing about strawberries from Northern Norway.
As a Norwegian who has lived in a number of other countries, I must disagree heavily with this. The total amount medically necessary healthcare can cost you in a year, is capped at about 300 dollars. Or one days work at an average wage. Including taxes.
Try comparing that to US health insurance. Or compare the way you do taxes by SMS to the way they struggle with the IRS. Or compare NAV to the UKs DSS.
The complaints about healthcare, bureaucracy and the safety net are not reality-based. They are stuff the papers run to outrage-sell. Upon comparison with most of the worlds standards, it melts away.
I think this mainly shows what kind of standards we’ve come to expect. Totally, free healthcare, even more efficient bureaucracy (my girlfriend just moved in with me from the UK, and shes still stunned at how simple and efficient she finds things), social security that doesn’t require you to spend any of your own money if you are rich. (Which is actually the case for a lot of it. Unemployment, child benefits, maternity leave etc)
Am quoting the following – as I understand it – from the Danish / British author and comedian Sandi Toksvig. One gathers that (spoken- rather than written-wise) Danish is one of Europe’s most difficult languages for non-native-speakers to learn. Sandi cites a reputedly famous short, but for non-Danophones fiendishly difficult to say, sentence: English translation, “I am the King of Denmark, and I like strawberries”.
Actually Danish as a language seems fairly easy, at least for me as a Swede. The language that is a total bitch is Finnish.
epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellänsäkäänköhän <— This is not a typo, this is a real finnish word.
This weird language has very little similarities with any other language and some really messed up grammar ideas. Not to mention that the word for “meet” is tapaan and the word for “kill” is tapan. What the hell kind of language does that?
They may be stupid, but are any of them so stupid as to NOT know how to post a thread in the appropriate forum after using a particular message board for 15 years?
This is all typical of urban bikes everywhere. There is a preference for non derailleur bikes in an urban environment; e.g. brands such as Linus are very popular, and many brands have built similar bikes in recent years to meet the riding demands of urban bike commuters. Also, every major bikesharing system that I know of uses internally geared bikes - usually 3 speed.
Those old 3 speeds are still around because they function so well; I have worked on many bikes with the old (original) Sturmy Archer hubs that are around 50 years old (production dates are stamped on the hub shell so you can always see exactly how old it is) and still function perfectly even after many years of regular use. Even the old Shimano hubs work pretty well most of the time.
My point is people are just using the right tool for the job, and there is nothing further to be extrapolated from your observation.
I wondered when an American would show up to defend the Greatest Country on Earth™ from the charge that Scandinavians are more content. It’s so appropriate as to be almost poetic that the defense is based on soft-drink sizing. :eek:
In Denmark there is something called “law of the bean” which means people dont try and stand out. I guess that applies to complaining about things also but then what’s to complain about if all your basics like food, housing, education, healthcare, and public safety are all covered?
