The Nordic countries is composed of an official group called the Nordic Council. The Nordic Council includes the three Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Norway and Denmark), Iceland, Finland, and three autonomous regions (Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland Islands.

Below is a table of the Nordic region nations:

Flag	Country	Governance	Capital	Population
Official Scandinavian countries
	Denmark	Kingdom	Copenhagen	5,519,287
	Norway	Independence 1905	Oslo	4,836,183
	Sweden	Kingdom	Stockholm	9,336,487
The additional Nordic nations
	Finland	Independence 1917	Helsinki	5,349,829
	Iceland	Independence 1944*	Reykjavík	319,756
Nordic autonomous regions
	Faroe Islands	Self-governance 1948	Tórshavn	49,006
	Greenland	Self-governance 1979	Nuuk	57,600
	Åland Islands	Autonomous province 1920*	Mariehamn	27,456

Together, the Nordic region is 25 million people with some member states in the European Union, NATO, Eurozone, and Schengan.

To make the definitions more complicated, in terms of geography, the Scandinavian Peninsula includes mainland Sweden and mainland Norway, and also a part of Finland. The Jutland Peninsula includes mainland Denmark and a small part of Germany. But Denmark proper has not had any territory on the Scandinavian Peninsula since 1658. Alas, Scandinavia is still Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Forget Germany.

So you can call a Swede a Scandinavian or Nordic person but a Finn is a Nordic person not Scandinavian. Stick to Nordic region for anything relating to those cold, Norse god loving, vodka infused nations of the north. Well, minus Russia.

And hey, nothing beats curling.

Or men’s hockey.

Or giant slalom.

Or the Super-G.

Now I have Swedish Olympics Withdrawal. And it’s made worse by SAD (seasonal affected disorder). Can you imagine SOW and SAD get together??!

On the fun/tragic/entertaining side, this year, Sweden set an Olympic record. Not official but the Swedes managed to have some of the most spectacular crashes. Anja Pärson crashed on her last jump on the Olympic Downhill skiing.

But she showed everyone off by winning the Bronze medal in the Super G Alpine race.

Then, the oldest Olympic competitor in skiing, Patrik Järbyn crash during the men’s Super G. It was a pretty horrible blasting apart of skis.

(can only be seen in Sweden, boo)
Patrik could not return to compete. He luckily suffered no major damages. Considering this was supposed to be his last Olympics, I wonder if he will return again.

On Sunday, the men’s hockey match battled between the North Americans: Canada and USA. Never fear though, a Swede felt it necessary to appear at the gold medal hockey game. An amazingly awesome game; well done to both team.

And here’s the list of medals Sweden received at the 2010 Vancouver Games:
Gold
Björn Ferry – 12.5km Biatholan Pursuit
Charlotte Kalla – 10km mass start
Marcus Hellner – Men’s 30 km Pursuit (15C+15F)
Daniel Richardsson, Johan Olsson, Anders Södergren, Marcus Hellner – Men’s 4×10 km Relay Classic/Free
Anette Norberg, Eva Lund, Christine Lindahl, Anna Le Moine, Kajsa Bergström – Women’s Curling

Silver
Anna Haag – Ladies’ 15 km Pursuit (7.5km Classic + 7.5km Free)
Anna Haag, Charlotte Kalla – Ladies’ Team Sprint Free

Bronze
Johan Olsson – Men’s 30 km Pursuit (15C+15F)
Joan Olsson – Bronze Men’s 50 km, Mass Start Classic
Anja Pärson – Alpine Supercombination (Super G)
André Myhrer – Alpine Slalom

4th Place
Curling – Mens
Ice hockey – Ladies
Marcus Hellner – 15km long mass start
Anna Haag – 10km mass start
Anna Olsson – Sprint
Maria Pietilä-Holmner – Alpine Slalom
Anna Carin Olofsson-Zidek – Biathlon

Tied 8th place with 11 medals against the other countries. Too bad Norway beat us with 23 medals.

And to that, the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games are over. Back to our real social lives.

UPDATE: Canada scores first and “the place goes bananas.” USA ties the game with 24 seconds left in regulation. Canada wins the Gold medal in an overtime match against the US. Very awesome. Crosby puts it in. People are going crazy in Vancouver!

What about our Swedo? Evidently he wore this outfit so that his wife could find him on tv. Smart little Swede.

Medal Ceremony at the Hockey game. You can still spot the Swede.

Some Canadian fans know how to dress in style

What a way to end the Olympics!

The flight was at 21hr (9pm) and I decided to take the Ryan Air bus at 17hr to get to the airport by 18.30. That would give me plenty of time to relax at the airport. Normally, I’m not the on time sort of person at the airports, but this time I felt it prudent to get there in a timely manner.

At 16.55, everyone has queued up at the bus area at Gate 15. At least this time, there was no City Terminalen chaos as the gate checkers were oblivious to bus passengers. At 17.05, a Ryan Air transfer bus passed came into the station, passed us, and went back out again. It never came back.

The Ryan Air bus in Stockholms station was empty. The ticket checker, of course sitting INSIDE the station said the bus was full. Because you know, being inside gives you better visibility to things outside than people standing outside.

She was pretty annoying and after 30min, we all got refunds and went to search for the next bus. Hell if I would trust the next Ryan Air bus at 18.15. It doesn’t beat the 0.00€ flights that Jason found, but a cash return is better than losing the bus ticket.

So I went downstairs to the lower gates to wait for Flygbussarna. At 17.30 people started boarding the bus for the departing 17.50. The bus filled. Another bus came to handle the overflow. That bus filled. So another came to take passengers, one of them being me. I got on the bus and it filled too. So guess what, Flygbussarna sent another bus to fill it in.

Finally at 19.30 I arrived to Skavsta. Checked in bag, had my passport checked. And the check-in counter man said, “You do know the flight is delayed, right?”

“Really?”

“Yea, it will leave at 23.25″ … Boo … At Skavsta.

At 23.25 I boarded the plane, at a little past midnight we took off. We managed to get out of the airport and into the air, on the way to London. Better than the Skavsta airport chaos two weeks ago when Ryanair had the airport close. THAT was stupid.

And at 04.00, I was sleeping in my bed. Finally. In London.

That is, I should now be master of the dairy section of a grocery store. Because I failed that, I am crawling back to become the master of the milk section of the Swedish grocery store. Folks, take heed, learning the different types of milk (mjölk på svenska) takes a highly skilled, milk loving ninja to figure it out. And so, I tried.

Just at the Coop (one of the local grocery stores), I counted 20 different milk-esque items (including different fat levels of the same type). Yes, madness. Bear with me as I try to explain all the pretty cartons of milk varietals.

Regular milks comes in 1 liter cartons or 1.5 liter cartons. Easy to fit in the fridge, but a bitch to keep fresh. I noticed, once opened, this milk stays good for 5-6 days. But hey, they are recyclable, easy to break down, and stores neatly in the fridge. Just use a chip clip to keep it closed tight once the carton is open.
Milk also comes in different color boxes, in case you are lazy, just know the color.
Mjölk – The Red Box - The all american Swedish milk. It’s the regular milk at 3% fat.
Mellanmjölk – The Green Box - Slightly lower fat at 1.5% and literally means “middle milk”
Lättmjölk – The Blue Box – We would call this skim milk at .5% fat.
Minimjolk – The Yellow Box – Almost fat free milk at .1%.
Gammaldagsmjölk – “Old time milk” which is to say, this milk is pasteurized but not homogenized, which means the fat floats to the surface and you have to give it a good shake. (Thanks Melissa for this) Raw milk is pretty delicious stuff and slightly higher in fat than regular 3% milk.
Latte Art – As you can guess, this milk (in cartons that are blue or brown) is used to make lattes and hot drinks. Definitely worth it if you love lattes and hot chocolates.

Important Note: Emma pointed out that the colors don’t correspond to regional milks, like Skåne milk. The colors listed above are for the company Arla.

Matlagninsgrädde – Orange container – Light cream, ie. half and half in the US, that is 15% fat.
Vispgrädde – Red container – Heavy cream or heavy whipping cream that is 36% fat.

The Filmjölk Family

The wonder of Wikipedia is awesome yet again. I’ll summarize what they say though.

Fil is like yogurt but less thick and a bit less sour. Fil is a major part of Nordic dairy culture, not just Sweden. But they all basically taste the same some more fatty, some with flavors, some plain. People eat fil with musli, very tasty stuff. But some folks have filmjölk with knäckebröd or just with jam. Up to you.

a-fil- Comes unflavored and flavored and anywhere from 0.5-3% fat. The “A” comes from lactobacillus acidophilus, a probiotic bateria. It’s advertised as a more digestive friendly fil.
Långfil- Has a slightly elastic feel to it because of the Lactococcus bacteria. This fil comes only as unflavored and in 3% fat.
Aktivfil- Has active cultures in the fil.

Filmjölk – The standard fil that comes flavored and unflavored. This fil ranges from 2.5-3% in fat.
Mellanfil – Middle fil as you can call it. Comes only in unflavored version and is 1.5% fat.
Lättfil – Light fil that is .5% fat and comes in a variety of flavors. There is blåbär/hallon (blueberry/raspberry), persika/hallon (peach/raspberry), jordgubb (strawberry), smultron/jordgubb/vinbär, and lime/banana (umm, strangest combination).
f-fil -

Onaka – Made with bacteria that is supposedly popular in Japan, which never made any sense to me since the Japanese didn’t really drink dairy until recently.
Thanks to Melissa of HuntGatherLove for some of these updates.
Kefir – Eastern-style fil, popular in Russia. There’s a similar style fil in Iceland called Skyr. It is truly delicious goodness.
Fjäll – This is not fil, it is a thin rich yogurt. Hjortron (cloudberry) is supposedly delightful.
Hälsofil – Literally ‘healthy fil.’ It’s been approved by the Swedish Medicinal Products Agency since this fil helps with immune and digestive systems.

And for kicks…
Turkisk yogurt
Greek Yogurt
Skyr
On your next visit to the grocery store with your recyclable plastic bag, experiment with some crazy milk or fil.

I collected some photos of the hot swedish women and posted them up. It’s summertime in these photos; surely it would be nice if our snowy dark weather ended and we could have this kind of fun.

Male readers out there, this should inspire you on how to find a Swedish women and also how to pick up girls. Or at the very least, enjoy the photos.

And to us mere mortals out there, we are still damn hot, not just in that Swedish way.

At Midsommar party:

Swedish Party Tjejer:

Three Hot Girls and Roses: A little weird but okay!

The Hottest Swedish Lingerie Model

Bikinis, bikinis, bikinis: Stop staring at the screen

Another beautiful blond

Swedish Girls Celebrating Stockholm’s Summer

This is third part to my series about the Stockholm Sweden Day Game Workshop I attended under the dating coach Jeremy Soul and under the Love Systems Corporation.
Part I: Umm, you wanna be a Pick Up Artist?
Part II: Playing THE Game by Challenging Darwin’s Game

On a side note, Love Systems is the company that evolved from Mystery Method, as made famous by Neil Strauss’ book, The Game. Love Systems is today riding high on crack because of its ability of taking the pick up artist industry (PUA) and turning it into a scientific method.

The training
Four hours in the classroom and four hours in the field. For those counting beans, the whole workshop is $1495 for the day. Yes, US Dollars. C’mom boys, give me your Benjamins and i will teach you the way into a woman’s universe. While it is pricey for a cheap bastard like me, I highly recommend it if your love life is in a rut and needs to be kicked started again.

And what did we learn? I created my list that is inspired by Jeremy Soul. ALL these commandments are important for even the Swedish man to find a girl; after all, we do spend plenty of time complaining that Swedish men are bad at picking up Swedish girls.

Sapphire’s 10 Commandments of Meeting Women:

1. 1. Accept Rejection -  It happens to all of us: we are rejected by some pretty guy or girl.  Don’t be disheartened; throw out the negative thoughts and move on.  And while you may have sulked and cried about it in the past, don’t do that now.  It’s wasted tears and energy.
2. 2. Don’t Expect to Get Every Girl – Going hand in hand with Commandment 1, not every girl is attracted to you and vice versa.  Sometimes you will see a beautiful girl and then start talking to her and realize, “blaggg, this one is emotionally vacant for me.”  That’s cool, just go talk to another girl.
3. 3. Be Confident – Working through the rejection part is the first step of being confident.  Love your work, your hobbies, your friends, your family and you will be confident. Exuding confidence is akin to pheromones; women go crazy when they see men who are sure of themselves.
4. 4. Have a Personality -  Have you spoke to someone who had the personality of a cardboard box?  It was so painful that you wanted to recycle them or crumple them up right away.  Be creative and excited about your life.  If you don’t know how to have fun with your life, why should any girl care about you?  And be sure to demonstrate that you have a personality, ie. “I love running everyday” or “Hiking on the glaciers was the best sport I ever did” Whatever it is, show the girl that you have a personality.
5. 5. Don’t Be Drunk – Biggest turnoff ever. EVER.  Drunk guys do not produce good pick up lines.
6. 6. Have a Good Wingman - Wingmen are the guys that you go with when meeting women, especially in the evening.  Having a wingman will allow you to have a higher status and meet girls in groups.  And a good wingman is a guy who can back you up, know when to step down, entertain the other girls, and overall, make you look good.
7. 7. Try, Try, Try Again – Don’t give on picking up women, it is tantamount to romantic suicide.  Be confident that you have the ability to speak to women and that you are decent guy just trying to make his way.
8. 8. Travel -  Traveling away from your comfort zone will force you to interact and meet new people.  You will also have fun stories to share and broaden your knowledge of the word.
9. 9. Poor Posture will Kill You, Literally – Stop slouching and stand up straight.  Remember when your mom bugged you to not hunch over?  Keep you back straight, shoulders back, and stomach tucked in (not sucked in).  Poor body language sends a subconscious message that you have low self esteem.  If you are approaching Swedish girls especially, they love confident looking men.  A slouchy guy who doesn’t stand properly is not that.
10. 10. Pick Up Lines Must Not Be Lame – The “Hey baby, how’s it going?” line is so lame is makes me laugh and cry every time I hear it used.  Or the “What’s your name sweetheart?  Can I get your number?” Nooo, why the fuck should I give you my number, I have no idea who you are creepy bastard.

The founders of Bleeding Espresso, Ms. Adventures in Italy, and At Home in Rome have set up feb 5th to be international nutella day. What does mean for those in Sweden? Skip the sugary Swedish Nötcreme, it has nothing on our delicious goodness from Italy.

Why is Nutella better than Nötcreme?

• Nutella is made from hazelnuts and chocolate, nötcrème is made from hazelnuts and vegetable fat and sugar.
• Nutella comes in a delicious jar, nötcreme comes in a 20 gram plastic bag
• Nötcreme, is light brown and looks a lot like something that came from the toilet….ewww.

Alright Swedes, so let’s Nutella Day tomorrow!

To celebrate Nutella day, eat Nutella on crêpes, waffles, or pancakes. Or make Nutella cupcakes. Mumms! And of course, share the love with friends.

And you can buy Nutella in Sweden at any grocery store. It’s usually found in the jams (sylt) section.

If you take photos, be sure to post a link here.

In a country where the government controls how you drink because of a dictatorial alcohol monopoly system, it’s fun to see that all bets are off when it comes to advertising online poker, bingo, lotto, and other gambling products on the TV. Because you know, watching gaming ads is a good thing for your mental health. Play with Partypoker.se and become a top winner. Or with Betsson 24 or even Unibet or Full Tilt or Mr. Green. Or to the stupid bingo ads which are so many I can’t remember anymore. I watch at least 5-10 poker commercials every night and frankly they so horrible because as a non-better, I don’t want to know how I can waste my money on a system that’s built against winning money.

Honestly, please stop with those playing online poker or finding bingo friends online, it’s not just totally annoying but stupid too. Now I understand that some of the these appear on television channels controlled outside of Sweden (how did you think they got away with showing alcohol commercials, the Swedish government can’t touch them), but really, there is a limit. There is a rational limit to how many gambling ads I have to suffer through on television.

I’ll put the money on black that we will continue to see commercials for online poker in Sweden until there is a gambling crisis.

This week I was reminded that just because the world perceives Sweden as a safe country, crazy people still exist.  Bat shit violent crazy.

A week ago, I was planning a business trip abroad and so the night before was working late, putting my papers together, cleaning the kitchen and doing laundry (i am a good housewife).  The little Swede was still at the office with his coworkers because of a project.

At midnight, I finally finished my chores and sat down to watch “How I Met Your Mother.” I can’t remember the episode, but it was funny, as always.

Some fifteen minutes later, the door burst open and I could hear Porbjórn screaming ‘honey, honey’.

That was when things got fuzzy in my head.

I ran to the living room and there was blood all over his face.

I started cleaning his face thinking he had a terrible fall on the sidewalk. The fucking Stockholm City does not clean the goddamn streets of ice, even the most trafficked streets in the city.  The only street cleaned is the one block on Drottningsgatan; it’s been cleaned so well, you would never know snow existed.  The Stockholm government is pretty stupid at actually shoveling the snow, because probably that would be too hard for the workers.  Idiots…

But falling on the ice was not the reason.

He was beaten.

He was on his way home and crossed the street from the tunnelbana station exit. As in usual Stockholm car driver asshole-ness, the driver didn’t really want to yield to him even though the pedestrian had the right of way.

And Porbjorn crossed the street like any normal person does when they see a green light.

Then the driver turned his car and drove after him.

Crazy driver drove onto the sidewalk.

He jumped out of the car, and chased down my little Swede.

And then the crazy fucking man grabbed Porbjorn and then starting punching him.

Not with his fists, but with a gun.

A gun.

The love of my life was beaten by a fucking asshole, who was probably high on meth, with a gun.

After spending the night in the hospital getting stitches, the police escorted us back home.  The Swedish police (polis) were also in shock, this doesn’t happen in the city, especially with a gun. We don’t know if this fucker will ever be caught but if so, he will be charged with attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon.  Ghastly words: attempted murder.

As a side note, guns are illegal in Sweden except for certain hunting ones which require taking a long exam and background check in order to obtain.  This is the not the stupid philosophy of waiting 7 days for an automatic gun in the US.  You wait months for a hunting gun.  And a handgun? Forget it.

Our Porbjorn will require surgery to fix some of the broken bones.  But I am thankful because he has no neurological damage.  He may have a small scar.  The sad part is that our emotional damage will last a long time.  As of now, I’m still living in the surrealistic world of comprehending and processing the trauma.

And just a week after he proposed, life gave us a bitter pill of reality to swallow.  I can’t even think of more words to write because it’s so personal and heartbreaking.  But I know that through the help of family and friends, we will get through the trauma; my love will be stronger for him.  And we will make stronger bonds as partners.

If you ever thought violent crimes are uncommon in Sweden, they are… until you meet someone who experienced it.