Sweden so far......

I moved to Sweden at the start of september, leaving behind a grey, rainy, wet and windy Sheffield, for a grey, wet, cold and small orkelljunga. The town is about the size of meadowhall shopping centre in Sheffield. I think there is about 7,000 people that live in this small town, which is about half an hour north of Helsingborg.

Luckly for me, I have come to Sweden for their worst winter (as i keep being told by everyone) since the ice age. It started snowing around the end of November and it seems like it can not be bothered to stop...even now in the middle of Febuary it still snows and snows and snows. Anyway I came here to play volleyball not build snowmen. So far the volleyball is going good, pre-season way back in september was good, but then things came crashing down just in time for the start of the regular season. We lost our first couple of games and got knocked out of Nordic Club Cup. It was difficult first month, especially for the past 2 seasons in England were I was used to winning! haha. Anyway things have picked up, the team has got closer and better as a unit, we came 2nd at the grand prix in January and are looking good to qulify as the 4th seed for the playoffs.

Over the past few months I have decided about the things i like and dislike about sweden so here goes

What I hate about Sweden-

Zlatan- Firstly he is not even swedish, yet if he breaks a nail, he gets a whole newspaper to himself about it, if anything worse would happen to him, I think sweden would come to a stand still for at least 6 years of mourning. Oh yeah and he isnt that good at football as people (swedes) think he is.

Henrik Lundqvist- He is an ice hockey goalie, that plays for the New York Rangers, I dont like the rangers therefore i dont like him, also he seems to almost be at the same status as Zlatan.

The Swedish Mile- Everywhere else in the world a mile is a mile, in sweden a mile = 10km! so when someone says something is a few miles away they actually mean 20-30km

Swedish CRISPS!!!- Firstly they call them chips, this is wrong, chips are hot and deep fried and served with burgers, Secondly the flavour of crisps are rubbish (sour cream and onion, sourcream and herb, sourcream and cheese, sourcream and sourcream) you get the picture

Swedish Alphabet- they have the normal 26 letters then a few of there own, with weird dots and circles above them, which in turn makes the sound of the words utterly retarded.

Swedish chocolate- apart from Daim bar, everything else is not cadburys standard

Swedish time- if you say half 5, to them it means 4.30, how?????

Alcohol- You cant buy any strong alcohol in supermarkets, you have to go the 'system' which in the small towns around here are open 10-6 mon-friday, and then 10-2pm on saturday, then closed on sunday. So if you want to get drunk you must plan it 3 months in advance to make sure the shop is open. Then when it is open you get charged a kings ransom for a small bottle of vodka. The price of alcohol in bars is a disgrace and means you have to rob a bank if you want a decent night out on the hard stuff.

Think thats all my dislikes so far

The likes...

Kebab- They serve it with chips, on pizza, with pasta basically you can get kebab on just about anything, and it tastes good.

Blackjack- They have blackjack tables in bars and nightclubs, which means you dont have to look for a casino to lose all your money in.

Heated seats- In orkelljunga at the bus stop they have heated benches, which means while the rest of you is freezing your arse and part of your legs are cooking.

English football on tv- In England on saturdays none of the 3pm kick offs are allowed to be shown on english tv, however in sweden they are allowed to be shown, which means on my day off from volleyball, which is a saturday, i can sit in the bar all day and watch at least 3 games back to back.

Thats about it so far

If anyone reads this, hope you enjoy it