Hej,
I lived and worked in Scotland for many years before moving back to Sweden, dragging my now-husband along with me. When we left in 2015, we said we would try to go back once a year – but then the pandemic happened, children happened, and you know how it goes.
But this summer we got a chance to finally go back for the first time in years, to spend a week in the East Neuk of Fife, the place in Scotland where I still feel the most at home, despite also having stayed for quite a bit of time in the Western Isles and Aberdeen.
With its fishing villages, art communities, strong focus on local produce, and relatively elderly population, it's probably as close to the part of Sweden I live in today (Österlen) as you get.
But there are still some things that are very different.
On our way from the airport, walking down the aisle of a busy train from Edinburgh and finding only single seats, it didn't take long for a man (with crutches!) to get up to offer me his, so my daughters and I could sit together. Just a bit later, someone immediately got up without hesitation to help my husband drag our three heavy suitcases off the bus.
It's not that you never get helped in Sweden (and I often talk about how Swedes are much more friendly and helpful than our reserved reputation suggests – you just have to ask before we step into your personal zone), but you feel more welcome when it's spontaneously offered, without a pause to see if anyone else in the vicinity is going to make the first move.
The next morning I got pulled into conversation with a couple from another part of Scotland, who had just wrapped up their holiday and were about to head home. I spent an hour on an ill-advised day trip to Edinburgh chatting with a grandmother about life, work and grandchildren. An artist whose studio we visited overheard our family's mix of Swedish, Italian and English and curiously asked what languages we were speaking, sparking another conversation.
It didn't happen on this visit, but I fondly remember one train ride during the Five Nations rugby tournament when I was randomly offered champagne by the family next to me who were celebrating Scotland's win over… someone (I don't follow rugby myself).
My four-year-old who doesn't speak English quickly learned to communicate with the Fife grannies, gesticulating wildly when they admired her colourful nails to show that it was her mummy who had painted them. She also figured out that "how old are you" tended to be one of the standard questions, so she'd gregariously point at herself to say "four" and her sister to say "one". And of course the most important words in the English language: "Chocolate ice cream". Very handy to be able to bypass your parents (we're still working on "please").
There are a great many things I appreciate about Sweden. Not feeling like I'm defying death every time I get on a bus is one of them ("Where are the seatbelts," my daughter enquired). I don't need the kind of action in my life where the driver is reversing around the corner of a narrow street at way too many miles per hour, because you happened to come face to face with a tractor.
But a week of chatting with strangers left me feeling happier and warmer on the inside than I had in a long time. Again, it's not that it never happens in Sweden, and I find my part of the country pretty friendly, but it doesn't happen this often or this enthusiastically.
Now, I'm an introvert even as Swedes go. I like my privacy and being left alone. But human interaction is part of the glue that holds society together, and I can't help thinking we could use more of these random, friendly encounters with strangers in Sweden.
For one thing, it could reduce loneliness and build stronger communities. It also challenges the fear of awkwardness and "The Other" – while equal rights for groups and individuals are important in Sweden, unspoken social norms about what one does and doesn't are strong, and there's a tendency to punish those who step outside the norm (whether they are too loud, too chatty, too foreign or just too much) as well as a fear of getting it wrong yourself.
I think that's also why we talk less to strangers, because we're scared of being awkward, of annoying them, of embarrassing ourselves. But the more you open yourself up, the more you realise it's not so bad. If we're awkward, we can take comfort in being awkward together.
These little, everyday human interactions help us feel part of something bigger and more at ease around people who aren't exactly like us. We find out that in a lot of ways they are. And in the ways they're not, well, talking to each other helps us get used to those things too.
It creates a warmer and more open society, and isn't that what we all need right now?
Swedish election news
Early voting for the September 13th election opened this week and there was record turnout on the first day. Here's The Local's guide to voting in the early election, and emember that even if you're not a Swedish citizen, you may be eligible to vote in the local and regional elections. I posted a video of myself heading to the polling station to cast my own vote.
We continued our series of guides to Sweden's eight parties, this week looking at the Moderates and the Sweden Democrats.
In our Sweden in Focus podcast, we spoke about why the Sweden Democrats refuse to rescue their Liberal allies, who look set to drop out of parliament.
With two weeks to go until Sweden's general election, two new polls suggest that the gap between the governing Tidö parties and the opposition is narrowing.
Left Party leader Nooshi Dadgostar again confirmed that her party will reject any government that does not include the Left.
The opposition Social Democrats have proposed combining vocational training with Swedish for Immigrants (SFI) classes to help new arrivals in Sweden get into work faster.
Immigration news
Three and a half months after John and Caroline Sellers got married, John was deported from Sweden, a country he had lived in since he was ten years old. They are one of many couples separated by Sweden's strict application of Brexit rules. We continue our work to try to highlight these incidents and hold decision-makers to account.
In an interview with The Local, Green Party immigration spokesperson Annika Hirvonen called for Sweden to reinstate the humanitarian safety clause abolished in 2023, arguing that this would prevent the deportation of elderly British citizens like Horace 'George' Mason and Joyce Thomas.
Time and again, Swedish migration laws lead to people whom nearly everyone agrees should be allowed to stay being forced out the country. Sweden needs to do better, argues The Local's James Savage.
In other news
Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf paid tribute to Norway's King Harald V, whose death at the age of 89 was announced on Friday.
Stockholm and Gothenburg remain the hardest cities for students to find housing in, according to the annual housing report of Swedish National Union of Students, although the availability of student housing has increased since last year.
Train company European Sleeper announced plans to start a new direct night train service from Brussels and Amsterdam to Copenhagen and Malmö. I'm personally very excited about this news.
Stockholm is one of several regions making the measles vaccine free for adults in the wake of an outbreak at the Urkult festival.
If you're in the area of Stockholm or Gotland on September and suddenly get a loud emergency alert to your phone on September 7th – don't worry, it's just a test.
And I took a look at what changes in Sweden in September.
As always, there's much more to read on the rest of The Local's website.
I'd love to hear some of your thoughts about chatting with strangers, so please feel free to comment or drop me an email, but I'm off over the weekend so I won't reply until Monday.
Have a lovely weekend and speak again soon,
Emma Löfgren
Editor, The Local Sweden