Scandinavian Sneapsters!

[TesticleMilkshake]

Let's discuss Scandinavia, the culture, history, music, etc.

At some point, I would like to travel to Iceland or Finland, maybe even do an assistantship for a university.

Also:

These delicious little motherfuckers!

 

[vespiz]

Spent one summer vacation with my parents picking up those^ in Lapland.
Bloody swamps, mosquitoes, sun and/or rain and I don't even like them!

 

[Brandon E.]

Neither Iceland nor Finland are in Scandinavia...but, I have been to Sweden a couple of times and it is always awesome. Actually had some cloudberries when I was over there, but I forget what they tasted like, hahaha. Really cool languages too, I need to find some motivation to continue learning Swedish, I'm jealous of all you swedes on here hahah. I used to want to move there so bad, study abroad and all. They don't have the most lenient immigration policy for countries outside of the EU though, and there was almost no way to do it.

 

[TesticleMilkshake]

Neither Iceland nor Finland are in Scandinavia...

I actually did not know that. Apparently though the term can be extended on a socio-political construct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandanavia#Terminology_and_use

Edit: On second thought, I'm going to change the topic name to "Nordic Sneapsters" as it is more inclusive and makes more sense.

 

[StefTD]

Went to Sweden and Norway a few times as child and went to Denmark pretty often, like at least 15 times
until now, every time for at least 2 weeks so I think you get that I love it there

 

[Boerboel666]

I am half Swedish and love the place , spent all my holidays as a kid there and got married in the Artic circle at the Ice Hotel which was pretty sweet . Those cloud berries are fucking weird though , I prefer Lingonberries and the wild blue berries . The bread/baking rocks but some of the traditional fish dishes are plain wrong . It is a shame the food isn't better known as some of it is pretty tasty .

 

[Plankis]

Really cool languages too, I need to find some motivation to continue learning Swedish, I'm jealous of all you swedes on here hahah. .

Here's a motivational vid for you:

 

[sprack]

I miss nyponsoppa, the dehydrated crap they sell at Ikea sucks. Severely missing the climate right now.

 

[Skinny Viking]

Edit: On second thought, I'm going to change the topic name to "Nordic Sneapsters" as it is more inclusive and makes more sense.

You may need to include the north germans in on this then

 

[updog]

welcome! in finland the cities are small and uninteresting, nothing ever happens and 3/4 of the year the weather is shitty - and everyone will say the same. the truth or just finnish mentality, guess you'll have to find out for yourself.

honestly though, finland is definitely one of the safest countries in the planet. almost everything slightly unusual makes the news in some form. finland is a bilingual country because we were under sweden's rule until 18th century and swedish is still mandatory in finnish schools, which nobody seems to find a good thing. we have no polar bears. we drink too much and only share our true feelings with friends when we're drunk.

you didn't ask anything specific so here are some tidbits

 

[Skinny Viking]

we drink too much and only share our true feelings with friends when we're drunk.

so the you guys are constantly spilling your guts to each other I take it?

sounds like the nordic equivalent to the Lifetime network or something

 

[TravisW]

I spent a month in Scandinavia some 15 years ago. I can read Norwegian, so Denmark drove me nuts because I could read everything easily but couldn't understand a word. Sweden was kind of the opposite - I could understand most of it, but I had to sound out the words on every street sign. Got hammered on the ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki, which was apparently appropriate because those things are designed to get you hammered - so I entered Finland drunk (which was quite appropriate, and I definitely wasn't the only one). I grew up with a certain portion of my diet being somewhat based on 19th century Norwegian and Swedish food - it was nice to see that you guys have upgraded the menu since then.

I could barely stand American bread when I got back - it just seemed like a spongy, flavorless way to get butter into your diet.

 

[StefTD]

I could barely stand American bread when I got back - it just seemed like a spongy, flavorless way to get butter into your diet.

come to Germany and eat some real bread

BTT:
Like I already told you, I love Denmark-Sweden and Norway are nice, never been to Finland so I can't
tell you much about that, but I am just sooo used to Denmark that it feels like a second home to me.
I would describe myself as a nice, friendly and open minded person (not on this board, fuckers!) and I know
lots of people around here that think that I am almost too generous if you get what I mean-but everytime
I visit Denmark it seems like the people there are just nicer overall.
Sweden and Norway are similar, but the more north you get the "quieter" the people are, the bigger cities
are a bit less friendly, but every big city is that way and it's still nicer than here imho.

For example, I went to Kopenhagen a few years ago, didn't shave for like 6 weeks, looked like a drunken
bastard who's all about getting high, walked through the city, saw a shop with some guitars-so I thought
"yeah-guitars!" the guys in there (around 40-60 years old, looking pretty normal) started talking to me
in Danish, I just told them, that I was a tourist and that my Danish sucks, so they tried their best to talk
German to me and asked me if I want to try out some guitars, no problem that I won't buy one.
But that wasn't a normal guitar shop, just vintage and high priced stuff, old Vox amps and what not
so the owner went to another room, grabbed an old Gibson with a pricetag above 5k€ and gave it
to me as it was my guitar, they even asked me if I wanted a coffee...

 

[Boerboel666]

^ you were probably the first person they had in their shop for months

 

[StefTD]

na, there were a few other guys and I went to that shop again 2 times, they were almost that nice
I was fishing once when I went to Denmark with my parents when I was 16, sitting near the harbor,
started raining, I smoked a cig and no fish bit the bait.
After some time I went to a fish store and asked if I am allowed to go to the toilet, no problem, as I
wanted to leave they asked me if I already caught some fish, I said no and they gave some shrimps
and stuff to me as a bait.
After 2 more hours, I wanted to leave-saw the fisherman and said goodbye, he told me to wait and
gave me a fish for free-so imho that's pretty nice, too

Another thing I really like-most of the farms sell eggs, apples and so on, so you can go there, there's
a table with all the stuff and a box for the money, nobody who checks if you pay it or not, they just
trust you-believe me or not, it works, I saw boxes with hundreds of Danish krones in there.
Never saw or heard that something was stolen there-you get good quality food for low prices because
you buy it directly so everything is fine, even the drunken homeless guys who are sometimes pretty
crazy in my area were nice
There was a bum in Sweden a few years ago when I was there the last time who even asked my Dad
if we need a umbrella while it was raining-my Dad asked him what he wanted for it and he just said that
he had another one, it's fine...

Sure, there maybe bad areas, dumbasses and so on, too, but I experienced some really nice things there.

 

[TesticleMilkshake]

we have no polar bears. we drink too much and only share our true feelings with friends when we're drunk.

Sounds like my kind of country! How is the language? I hear Finnish is incredibly difficult. Also, immigration, how does that work?

 

[updog]

Sounds like my kind of country! How is the language? I hear Finnish is incredibly difficult. Also, immigration, how does that work?

it is pretty difficult... compared to most languages it's structurally pretty strange, and it won't help that the spoken language is usually somewhat different from the written language - we often shorten words while talking because the language itself is pretty choppy when spoken(i can't say i consider finnish a beautiful language in any way). generally people speak english pretty well though so language barrier probably wouldn't become a problem in most cases. i have a friend who moved from the US to finland some years ago and she's been fine just using english during that period of time.

about immigration, for staying one would need a residence permit which can be granted through study, work, self-employment or family ties. for visits that last under 3 months there's a visa.