I woke up this morning with inspiration to write to you and to see a light frost on the grass outside. Fall is definitely here! Sweden is absolutely beautiful in the fall. When you go for walks, there are fallen leaves on the paths and the sky and trees are an awesome sight! The sky the last two days has been clear and very blue! The sunshine lights up my house and makes it feel bright and warm! However, the amount of daylight is starting to get shorter. It will not be long before we only are getting about 6 hours of daylight per day. That will be a big change for me.
Anyhow, I thought I would tell you some more about Sweden.
By now, you all know that merchandise, groceries and the like are very expensive here. However, the one thing that is not expensive is milk! Milk is only about $1.15 for a litre. Compare that to the almost $4 for a gallon in the U.S. or the $3.69 I was paying for a half gallon.
On the other hand, gas is very expensive here. Comparatively, it is about 4 times the price in the U.S. For ethanol, which is the cheapest gas, but all cars do not use it, the cost is about 9 SEK or about $1.40 per litre. A litre is about a 25% of a gallon. The more expensive gas is about 15 SEK a litre. So it is not really prudent to drive too much. Interestingly enough, the gas stations are not manned! There are 3 gas stations in Almhult and none of them have employees. You just pay for your gas with your credit or debit card. In other places, they do have some 7-Elevens and Shells that are convenience stores with gas, but the majority of them are just pumps with no store or anything.
The few times that we have gone out for burgers at a place called Max's, it was more than $20 dollars for two meals. Max's is comparable to Wendy's. We do have McDonald's here, but it is pretty expensive as well. We do not have any of these places in Almhult. Perhaps with the expansion of Almhult that is coming in the next few years, we might get something like this. Speaking of restaurants, the Swedish people like a lot of sauces on their food. Their burgers come covered in sauce, all the dishes at the restaurants are served with sauces and all the grocery stores sell all these sauces. For example, a burger at Max's comes covered in this Thousand Island like sauce and ketchup. You need a boatload of napkins just to eat it.
One other interesting thing I found here is that many of the larger stores actually have wrapping stations located near the exit. So if you go and buy a gift you can wrap it right there at the store. One of the electronics stores has red paper, one has a striped blue paper. I have also seen them at the grocery stores! Some of them are free, some cost 5 kroner to get 1 meter of paper. They have all that you need right there to wrap a gift. Here are a couple of pictures from one of the stores:
Quite interesting!
Life so far in Sweden has been a learning experience. I keep looking for new experiences to share with you and I have to tell you, there are several. So I will keep collecting and sharing with you.
Have a wonderful day!
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