We have recieved a lot of questions from readers around the world, most of them are about the differences and similarities between our three countries. So in this post we will make a short comparing between them.

We start comparing religion. The majority of the people in all three countries are Christians. In the U.S most of the Christians are catholics but in Scotland and Australia the majority is Protestants. All three countries have laws based on Christian valuations. But in all of these countries the other four dominating world religions are represented too. Catholics in the U.S are very religious compared to Australia and Scotland, where religion isn’t as big part of their lives.

All of the countries have the same Christian valuations some traditions are very much like each other. For example, all three countries celebrate Christmas but in different ways. In Australia they celebrate Christmas on 24th while the U.S. and Scotland celebrate on 25th. Similarities are for example, eating ham/turkey, pudding and sweets. The aussies like to eat giant prawns too, which never would happen in the U.S or Scotland.

All three countries have different food, Scotland’s national dish is Haggis and the aussies have their vegemete. But all in all you eat almost the same thing in all three countries, possibly you eat more seefood in Australia but otherwise it’s almost the same. Comparing to Sweden we all are convinced that our countries food is fatter, and that the Swedish breakfast is something special.

A difference is mabye the way of acting, people from Scotland are very polite, for the people I U.S is sucsess important, the new yorkers live very stressfull lifes, and the aussies favourite quotation is “carpe diem”.

If you want to read more about the differences and the similarities, you have the blog, everything can be found in the other posts.


This is our last post, hope you have found it interesting and funny to read about our different countries.

Good Bye!

//Linnea R, Linnea J, Linda J

Midsummer, Valborg ?

Hey bloggers !

When I was in Sweden I discovered how they celebrate Christmas so i kept asking my sister about other traditions. For example in Australia we celebrate Halloween and I found out that swedes does the same thing but they call it “alla helgon” and if you translate that it’s the same as “all hallowes”. In both Australia and Sweden we go trick or treat but for the grown ups in Sweden it’s more usual that people visit a grave yard and put candles on the graves of some one they miss that’s passed away. I really think that is a nicer gesture than go and ask your neighbors for candy. Even though I understand children because Halloween was one of my favourite holidays most because I got so much candy that I became sick the next day.
Anyway, in sweden they have something called “midsommar” and the translation is midsummer. This is like christmas in the summer except there’s often no gifts. The swedes eat much food like, herring, potatoes, meet balls, herring sallad, candy and drink sodas. I’d never heard of this holiday before I came here. Then many families gather and they dance together in a ring around a pole shaped like a cross full with flowers and sing “little frogs” which I, by the way, won’t join because it looks redicullus!
Another holiday is called “valborg”, that I can’t translate, but what they do is do put together a big bon-fire and shoot away rockets. It reminds about new years eve but this tradition is actually the last of april. Families eat dinner and then go to look at the nearest bon-fire, the teenagers go out and meet their friends and party ! The reason why we in Australia don’t have this much holidays is because we’re not that religious. We stick to Christmas, new year,

Well, I better stop writing before I get cramp in my fingers, good night and sleep tight !

freedom of religion = Australia

I’m back again!

What surprised me the most while i was in Sweden was that almost every swede belongs to some kind of religion. You might think : “so what ?”. I just have to tell you that Australia is the land that has biggest freedom of religion. I don’t belong to a religion and I’m not an atheist either, in australia we just don’t care so much about things that happened thousands of years ago. Now I’m not talking about all aussies but at least the majority. Christianity is the biggest religion.
In Sweden it also seems like Christianity is the biggest religion that most of the population belongs to, but tight after is Islam. Most of those that belongs to Islam are immigrants that came many years ago and spread their religion. In Australia I found out that Buddhism is the fastest growing religion followed by hinduism. Why isn’t Australia a religious country when almost all other countries are ? We don’t think that religion is an important part of the aussies lives. What we worship most is surfing, having fun and enjoing the life, our religion is “carpe diem” capture the day. I think a reason might be that we are very isolates from the rest of the world, Australia is an island in the middle of the ocean surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Antarctic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean so what can I say … we are a group of our own.
I don’t mind religions but I do consider living in the now instead of wondering about what will happen after I’m dead.

Now I expect a lot of comments so keep visiting our blog about three girls from different places ! Bye Bye

Like day and night

God day mate!

This time it’s notit ain’t Linnéa or Linnéa, it’s Linda! I’m going to continue this blog by talking about my journey to Sweden too.

The reason that I visited Sweden was because my sister transfered to Halmstad which is a city in south Sweden on the west coast. She studies social psycology at Halmstad University. Since I hadn’t seen her for almost a year I figured now was the time. She really enjoys it here so I thought I might too. As fast as I landed on Arlanda Airport I asked myself; why did my sister move here? It’s cold, it’s raining and it’s nothing else but grey! Don’t judge me as fast as I judged Sweden, because I’m from Australia and where I’m from we only have sunshine and warmth.

But what I really enjoyed was the food! Back home I’m used to lots of meet, meet pies, steaks, sausages and such. In sweden, meet is as usual as in Australia. They got meet balls, sausages, chop and the list goes on. The biggest differ was that in Sweden they only got one kind of milk while in Australia you can find 20 differents flavours of milk. It can be with strawberry, banana, pear and so on. The same thing about sodas, Australia got hundreds of different flavours while in sweden they got the basics like, coke, sprite and tropical. In Australia we like to mix the flavours that already are and make new out of them, we mix coke and orange soda and that’s a great flavour.
Since I came here in the middle of november the preparations for christmas was already in motion. My sister told me that the thought behind Christmas is the same as in Australia and the Christmas food reminds of the Australian. Back home we got turky or ham, giant prawns, potatoes, herring and lots of home made candy for example ice chocolate and toffee.



Th most famous dessert in in Australia is of course "Vegemite". It's a chocolaty, sticky and spreadable. The aussies use it on bread and toast. If you really want to fit in in Australia you have to like Vegemite. Everybody eats it and if you won't like it ... well, find out yourself what happens. This has become more of a national dish in Australia.


I like the swedish food just as much as back home in australia ! I went to Sweden just in time to see the snow, which we never have in Australia except some parts. I got really cheery when I saw the snow and it was just like in a movie so when I went back home we bought fake-snow and puted it on our front lawn. Well, I would love to go back there again during christmas time.

Bye Bye then ! Linda

Main religion in U.S and Sweden

Hi blog!

It’s me Linnéa J again. I hope you missed me, because here comes another exciting post written by me. This time I’m will write about something I thought of during the evening worship. Religion and religious people. How is it that I’m as religious as I am? What has shaped me? My family and I goes to church every Sunday. We have done it so long as I can remember. I think it’s cozy and very atmospheric. The local priest is a very good friend of my family. We use to invite him and his family on dinner and it’s very nice. We pray and thank God for the food he gives us.

I have never thought about why we actually do it or why we pray before dinner. So I asked my mom who gave me a realistic explanation. The reason we go to church is because we are faithful Catholics, we believe in God . You show your gratitude to God by going to church or to pray before dinner. Catholics have always gone to church for hundreds of years and that’s something we are going to continue with. It’s like a tradition and traditrons are there to be followed, she said. I think it’s a great tradition and I will not stop doing it.

There are two types of Christians. Catholic, like I am and great parts of U.S, and Protestans like many are in Sweden for examlpe. I noticed that Swedish Protestans are not as faithful as Catholics. Most Protestans don’t go to church on Sundays, and they not pray before dinner. I asked my host family in Sweden why they didn’t go to church. They said that they never goes to church, only if it’s an event or such there. She explain that for a long time ago protested a man namned Martin Luther against the values of the church. He wanted a change. The king of Sweden thought that Luther’s ideas were good and brought them to Sweden. That’s why most Swedes became unfaithful Protestans.

During my time in Sweden, I realized that religion is something which is really important for me. I missed going to church and pray before dinner. We went to church once, but it wasn’t like it is at home.
I’ve been thinking and I realize now that through church and God, I have found an inner calm and I think it is something everyone should find in life. I’ve learned not to take anything for granted and to be greatful for my life. God is like a friend of mine and I can talk to him whenever I wanted. By reading this I might sound like an idiot to you… But this is how I live and how I became the one I am today. Religion has a profound effect on me, and I like it.

Inside the local church where I live.

That was all from me this time, have a nice day!

Cheers, Linnéa J

Traditrons in U.S and Sweden

Hello blog!

It’s Linnéa J who’s writing again. Do you remember my last post? I said that I had thought about the similarities and differences between the U.S and Sweden. I wrote about food, especially Christmas food. This time I’m going to write about something else. Traditions. I asked my host familiy in Sweden which holiday they associate with U.S. They said directly Thanksgiving Day. Thanksgiving Day is a day we celebrate in the U.S to show appreciation and gratitude. It’s a very poular holiday in the U.S. The holiday falls on a Thursday, and it then becomes a long weekend for most people. I love this weekend though it organized many sports activities such as football matches near where I live. We usually give each other fruit and flowers as gifts and send postcards to show our gratitude. Food is something that is really important during Thanksging Day. We always eat lots of turkey, pumpkin pie and fruits. These things eat almost all Americans during this day. I can tell you that my mom makes the most delicious pumpkin pie in the entire U.S! The rectepie is top secret of course.

My mom's pumpkin pie served with whipped cream

Durig my time in Sweden, I noticed that Thanksgiving Day is somethig that is not celebrated there. I noticed theirs Midsummer acquttial instead. My host family and I celebrated Midsummer with dance around the midsummer pole (see picture) and by eating food like herring and potatoes. I must say I liked it very much (although I didn't understand why we were dancing around a pole decorated with flowers...), but Thanksgiving Day is a much better holiday. I really don’t know why. Perhaps because of its cosiness and that it lasts longer than Midsummer. Or maybe it is because of my mom’s pumpkin pie... Anyway, this was all from me this time. But look out in the blog for more exciting posts from me, Linnéa or Linda.

Cheers, Linnéa J

Lovely food

Hi there blog!

It's Linnéa J who's writing. This thing with having a blog is a totally new experience for me. But I believe this's going to be alot of fun!A couple years ago I was in Sweden for the first time in my life. I was there as an exchange student. You might think, why in Sweden? Once my grandfather was in Sweden and he met a beautiful woman there. This beautiful woman is now my grandmother. He first brought her to the U.S, and they lived here for about twenty years. Then my grandmother became home sick, so they decided to move to Sweden. They're now resident there. During my time in Sweden, there was two questions that was going through my mind the whole time.What does the U.S and Sweden have in common? And what are the differences? I've been thinking a lot for a while, and I've found numerous of answers on my questions. I decided to share some of the answers with you, our curious readers!

Food is something that we all need. Even if we like it or not. But who dosen’t like it?? Anyway, yesterday I was going to prepare macarone and cheese, one of the most easiest dishes to make. And then I started to think about how much I miss the food in Sweden. I really enjoyed it there. When we celebrated Christmas in Sweden we ate a lot of food and they called it Christmas smorgasbord (see picture). It’s many different dishes which are typical for Sweden. There was meat balls, herring, salmon, boiled potatoes, eggs, herring sallad, Christmas ham, etc. I liked the meat balls most. You can almost hear what it is by just reading it. It is small round balls made of minced meat and spices. I ate thousands of those small deliciuos meat balls. I couldn’t get enough of them!

Then I started to compare the food we eat here in the U.S during Christmas and what they eat in Sweden during the same holiday. In the U.S we eat turkey instead of theirs Christmas ham we also eat pudding instead of theirs “rice a la malta”. The truth is that I like turkey more than Christmas ham, but I like “rice a la malta” more than pudding.
It’s a lot of Christmas sweets in Sweden and they make it themselves. For example toffee, Mozart balls, nougat and chocolate. All these sweets are delicious! We don’t eat as much candy for Christmas in the U.S, of course we eat some, but not as much as Swedes do. We are eating more cakes and pastries as gingerbread and sugar cookies. Oh, I just love gingerbread! I can eat tons of it, especially my aunt’s. Now I want to eat gingerbread, what a pity that’s only summer…

Thinking of the food in Sweden make me want to go back, it’s so much tastier than what it’s here. I miss the Swedish food so much that I’m actually going to buy a Swedish cook book in the near future.

Good night, Linnéa J

Differences and similarities Sweden vs. Scotland

Hello!



This is the answer to sweedishgirl15’s question directly from Scotland. To all the other fabulous readers, a girl wrote me and asked about differences between Sweden and Scotland and here is my answer.

There aren’t a lot of differences between the two countries, both of them have the same Christian valuation and the culture is the same. I’ve heard that the Scottish rock band Franz Ferdinand played in Sweden this summer. It’s the same music on the radio I both Sweden and Scotland. You can't see if a person is from Sweden or Scotland when you look at them, and we are quite the same when it comes to our quietness.


The biggest difference that I recognised is how people treat each other. Like in school, the school in Scotland are NOT the same as I Sweden, firstly Swedes don’t wear school uniforms secondly they call the teachers by their first name and thirdly the students are aloud to bee cheeky. Yes, cheeky, I visited a school with pupils in the age 13-15 and some of them were really cheeky against the teachers, I’ve never seen that in Scotland. When I told one of the students that I thought it was rude to call the teacher Alfred instead of Mr Andersson, they laughed at me and called me old-fashioned.

And old-fashioned is maybe the right expression for a Scot, because comparing to Swedes we are very polite and old fashioned, at least on the country. A special thing with Scotland and the United Kingdom are that you can see a big difference in how you act against other people between the country and the big cities. For example when you take the bus here on the country you always say thank you, when you walk off, for me that’s a matter of course, but you don’t say it in Sweden and you don’t in the big cities like London or Edinburgh either.

So to sum up, Swedes and Scots are almost the same but in Scotland and the United Kingdom, politeness are very important, if you want to consider it old-fashioned all right, but in the same time, think about how cheered up you as a bus driver would be if the passengers thanked you? But all in all, I could live in Sweden without feeling like a stranger at all.
Hope that's an answer to your question, otherwise feel free to ask again, and again, and again it's just fun.

That’s all from me by now!

Bye / Linnea R

Haggis, yummy

Hi blog-reader!

I try to do some school work, but I can’t. I’M STARVING! I can smell the taste of my favourite food, a traditional Scottish meal, Haggis with mashed potatoes and root vegetables, it’s so good food!!

My mother doesn’t make it very often because you know, you can’t just cook it and serve it. You have to boil it for around 5 hours. But today mother had a day off so she thought cook haggis was a good occupy. I’m glad she thought so, because nothing tastes as good as a well cooked piece of haggis and some mashed-potatoes, yummy! To all your readers from countries abroad Scotland and to you Linnea and Linda; Haggis is a mixture of guts like liver, heart, stomach, lungs, tallow from the kidneys, oats, different kind of spices and onion. It might sound a bit disgusting, but it NOT disgusting, it the best most tasteful and wonderful food in the world, I think so anyway. And the fact is that every country has a special dish. Sweden hasn’t only got the wonderful meatballs, they also eats rotten raw, fish, they call it “Surströming” or in English, “Fermented Baltic Herring” and it smells like rotten shit or worse. I couldn’t try it when I was in Sweden, it smelled so badly. If you reader will visit Scotland, I recommend you to try Haggis even though it sounds strange, because if you don’t dare to try it when you’re here, you will never do it, and you will regret it. If you want to consider yourself a real Schott, put on a kilt and listen to some bagpipe music… Sometimes when my father feels very patriotic, like when Scotland successes with something, some sport or anything, he always put his kilt on and start to listen to some bagpipe. You can really se how proud he is!

Mother just called for me, time for food!
See you later guys!

XX

Traditional food from Scotland, yummy!!

Argumentation about religion!

Linnea R is writing again!

Today in School we had a very interesting argumentation about religion. It was a task in school and we were supposed to do some research and then have a debate about how different religions affect the community.

Here in Scotland almost every people are Christian and the law is based on Christian valuations, but since the world is getting smaller, and we have many immigrants from different places all over the world are many of my classmates both Jewish and Muslims. In my class we haven’t got any Buddhists or Hindus but I think there is one girl in one of the other classes who is Buddhist. And my brother has a friend who is Hindu, so all the big religions are represented here in Scotland.

To get to the point, our debate was extremely interesting and I think it was horrible to here how some my classmates has become discriminated and humiliated because of there origin. It’s not that any of my classmates are racist or anything, but racists exist here, and so they did in Sweden. Even though Swedes always claim that they don’t have any prejudices I recognized a few persons when I was there, who looked exactly like Nazis, especially when I visited a small village called Hallstahammar I think that was the name of the village but I’m not sure. Well anyway, there I saw at least 3 or four persons with a suspected look. Anyhow I think it’s bullshit and the debate today made me even surer that we are all the same.

Cheers!

Christmas day-evening!

Hello!

The schottish girl again!!

It’s been a great day; I’m satisfied with my presents. I received the new twilight book and I have already started to read it, so far it’s as good as the fist one. Next week it’s Hogmanay as we call New Years Eve here in Scotland. I loooove hogmanay! It’s definitely the best Scottish tradition ever! This year I’ll eat some good food with my family and later meet my friends and party with them. Luckily my friend Maria has her own apartment with some fabulous neighbours. So before midnight we will go over to their place and hopefully drink a glass of whiskey or maybe two. I really wish that I will end up beside a good looking guy when we all hold hands and sing “ Alud lang Sang”, which we scots always do. We’re going to have so much fun!
Time to wacht Tv!

XX
Best book ever!

Hello everybody!

This is Linnea R who's writing. I remember my last Christmas which I celebrated in Sweden. The biggest difference from here was that they celebrated Christmas the 24th of December instead of the 25th, weird huh?

Tomorrow all my relatives will come to visit me and my family. I’m really looking forward to the lunch with turkey, some good wine, and the fabulous dessert, pudding or yule log. I hadn’t got any clue that yule log was a Swedish desert until I was there last Christmas; I thought it was developed in Scotland and look how wrong I was… I’m a bit disappointed, because normally we always watch the Wizard of Oz every Christmas evening, but this year my family has received some stupid idea to make a change and watch Sound of Music instead, Actually it was my little brother who came up with the stupid idea. All right, I know that most people watch Sound of music, but we always watch Wizard of Oz, and I don’t like to change traditions!

Anyhow, that makes me think about another really funny thing with the Swedish Christmas. They watch Donald Duck in the afternoon I’m not sure what time exactly, I think three a clock, but I might be wrong on that one. Donald Duck on Christmas? How strange isn’t that? Well, maybe it’s time to go to bed now, so Christmas day arrives quickly. I’m expectant to see what my presents will contain.

Good Night from the Scottish girl!

Who are we?

Hello every curious reader!
We are three girls from different places from all over the world. We met eachother a couple of month ago when we all were exchange students in Sweden. This blog is going to be about our different life styles and about our vistit in Sweden. The only thing we have in common is our language.

Linnéa Rapp - Scotland
Linnéa Jansson - USA
Linda Jonsson - Australia

Cheers!