Exotic insights - US vs Sweden

Tailgating - an american fenomena

An amazing experience, after just 4 weeks in Newport, RI, I got the opportunity to experience something really exotic - tailgating! Never heard of this fenomena before. We went on this sunny afternoon me, husband, kids and a really good  friend from Boston to a game of polo. I thought we prepared nicely with homemade key lime pie and coffee (typically Suedes, we have to drink strong coffee all the time).When we arrived I saw the amazing efforts all the american families had put into their pic-nics, wonderful food creations, wine coolers, camping chairs, tents, BBQ´s and friends invited to their party tents! The best part of it all was the tailgating area. Cars driving up with the trunk towards the game plan - fantastic picnic devises, porcelain with small painted horses. This was truly an amazing evening - I felt beeing part of a completely new world!

Yes - we accept cheques!
So surprised, in the part of US where we are living you need to have cheques to pay the school, the rent, at restaurants, well you pay almost everything with a cheque. For an alien like me that was not expected. We had to ask our wonderful neighbours (just love them!) how to do. In Scandivavia the usage of cheques do not exist any more, I think I wrote my last cheque by early 1990 's or so.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Shopping for fish - came home with a lobster!
Well that was not really the case but the truth is - at our town, so beautiful by the way you should visit Newport, every grocery store has got a lobster pond, even the smallest shed selling fish has a lobster pond. It´s easier to get hold of a couple of nice lobsters (cheap) that getting hold of fish...we are not spoiled with this luxury from Sweden so we´d better enjoy while staying here in New England!

Getting to know each other - beer or coffee?

Whether you are getting to know a new person, meeting with a friend, waking up in the morning, having a break, after dinner...like always.. you invite a friend to join you for coffee in Sweden. Declining a coffee invitation is viewed upon as extremely strange/almost impolite. Our experience up until today in the US is that beer is the coffee substitute in the States. By the way, if ever thinking about opening an office in Sweden, you will not get any employees if there is not a decent coffee machine serving free coffee all day long....an average Suede consumes 3,5 cups of strong coffee per day, or 42 gallons per year.