The Conical Glass: Stockholm Diary #3

Sunday, August 03, 2008

Stockholm Diary #3

Internet access is supposed to be turned on tomorrow morning. Am looking forward to not having to poach someone's horribly inconsistent wi-fi.

Every time Joe and I have gone overseas (this is trip #4), he has immediately come down with a horrible cold. The worst was in 2001 when we visited England for a week and he spent at least half the time in our rented apartment watching TV and feeling ill. Of course, the minute we set foot on Swedish soil he got a sore throat and a runny nose. I feel like the world's biggest idiot for not packing a couple boxes of NyQuil and DayQuil -- you'd think I'd know better by now. You can't get any decent OTC (receptfritt) cold meds here, probably because everyone can go see a doctor for free thanks to their socialized medicine and get a prescription for something. The only remedies for sale in the pharmacy are nose drops and various natural and homeopathic remedies.

To compensate for the complaining, here are 3 things that are better in Sweden than in the U.S.:

1. Tipping and taxes are included in your purchase price. What a blessing it is to take a cab and pay exactly what it says on the meter without having to do math in your head or worry that the cab driver or waiter thinks you're a cheap bastard. Also, if you buy, say, a book for 100 kronor, that's what you pay at the register -- the sales tax is already factored in.

2. There is only one commercial break during TV shows on cable TV, unlike the 3-4 breaks during the average 30-minute U.S. TV show. (The two channels that existed when I was a kid, TV 1 & 2, are still commercial-free.) Halfway through, you get five minutes of commercials. Time for a bathroom or snack break! Bonus: none of those annoying network "bugs" that pop up to promote upcoming shows.

3. You can buy a transit pass and it covers every form of public transportation -- subway, buses, streetcar, ferry, commuter trains, etc. In San Francisco, you need to pay separately for BART, MUNI, Caltrain, SamTrans or whatever. Wouldn't it be super-convenient to pay $110 (the approximate cost of a monthly adult pass in Stockholm -- retirees pay around $80) and be able to flash it everywhere you go in the Bay Area?

posted by 125records @ 12:37 PM

2 Comments:

At 7:22 PM, yellojkt said…

I LOVE the European practice of what you see is the price you pay. The US system of endless tips, taxes, and fees is ultra-annoying.
At 11:58 AM, Anonymous said…

You should try the homeopathy. It has been in use for 150 years now. It works for Kathy and I.

Do you think you caught a cold on the way over (planes are notorius for viruses) or allergies?

a votre sante! (sorry, I don't know the swedish "cheers")
--john