My friends in southern Sweden regularly ask me what it is like up here. How do we deal with the six months of darkness? How do we cope with the legendarily unfriendly and xenophobic northern Swedes?
When will we move down south to be with all the normal people?
I tell them to come up and visit and see for themselves. Not many have taken us up on the offer. I think for many southern residents the map of Sweden north of Uppsala may as well be tagged ’Here be dragons (and polar bears stranded on ice floes)”.
However, I spent a few months in southern Sweden a decade or so ago. I lived in a small city there. And I’ve recently had to travel down to Stockholm and Malmö for work reasons. My girlfriend and I even embarked on Swedish road trips before our kids arrived eight years ago. I know Sweden. I know north and south. And you know what? I prefer it up north. And here’s why.
1. Weather
The last two winters have been doozies – loads of snow and good winter temperatures. Until March the mercury barely climbed above -10c.
Southern Sweden endures drab, dull and damp winters, much the same as those I endured when living in the UK.
Northern winters are usually bright, snowy and dry. Most years we don’t have any rain from December through to April or May. No rain – imagine that. We get less precipitation than Miami, Istanbul, Madrid and Sydney.
It’s not even that much darker than Stockholm up here in the depths of winter and the presence of snow makes it seem a good deal lighter too.
And by the end of February the days are significantly brighter and sunnier.
What’s more, the winter landscape in the north is regularly illuminated by displays of the Northern Lights. The summers up here with the midnight sun are, of course, spectacular too.
2. Accents
I enjoy Swedish radio, especially P3 which plays mostly excellent music and P1, the serious. high-quality station. But I find the accents of the southern presenters that predominate, on P3 especially, almost unlistenable. Their accents are so nasal they may as well have no mouths.
They don’t speak, they honk – living in the north, I find the southern accent very hard to understand. And what on earth do southerners do with words such as sju’ and ‘sjö’ and ‘sjukhus’?
‘Sju’ is pronounced ‘shoe’ by most of my northern friends – this is a much more pleasant sound than the southern coughing, whistling and spluttering that mars many words beginning with ‘s’ , making the speakers sound like coughing geese.
3. People
Ah, those taciturn northern xenophobes of southern lore. All complete balderdash of course. The northern Swedes I’ve met have been unfailingly friendly and welcoming.
As I mentioned last month, the northern Swedes are almost too friendly. When I’ve been down south, the frostiness of the locals has been palpable.
Perhaps, though, that’s a big city thing – I’ve not spent much time in the rural south, so can’t offer any comparisons.
What I can be certain of, however, is that even in big towns up here, most people are very friendly and not at all the raging xenophobes some southerners like to portray them as.
4. Activities
We live on a lake. In the summer our two girls can go swimming in the shallows. My girlfriend can indulge her love of open water swimming and swim out a kilometre or so to an island. We have access to all the usual summer pursuits. In winter, it’s even better with snowmobiling, dog-sledding, skiing and ice-fishing all either right on our doorstep or within a 15-minute drive. Down south, they probably have umbrella-opening championships in December.
5. Snobbery
Nothing makes a certain type of southerner angrier than a non-Swede praising the friendliness of the northerners. Many southerners find the northern Swedes’ openness positively embarrassing. “They don’t know how to behave,” was the gist of one comment I heard from a southern friend of a friend a few years ago. He didn’t seem to understand that I liked this openness. But it’s telling – southern Swedes find the north mildly embarrassing. This embarrassment is indicative of a lack of confidence in southern Swedes. They know that Swedes are supposed to be cool but they’re scared that their square northern brethren will give the game away.
The northern Swedes, on the other hand, couldn’t care less what the south thinks. They are not in the least bit bothered that they’re seen as the balding, cardigan-wearing uncles to the cool southern Swedes’ beard-toting hipsters. And that is another reason why I live up here. Southern Swedes think they’re the bee’s knees. Northern Swedes know they are.
A version of this article previously appeared on thelocal.com
