A lady in a church in Pistoia

Shouldn't the US and many more countries follow Sweden's lead? Read on...


As of 2004 you can pay your Swedish taxes by sending an SMS message from your cell phone.

The government sends you a completely filled out tax form and if it looks good you just go online and click okay to pay your taxes.

Taxes are generally between 50 and 70% of your income. (Of course your employer already pays the full amount of your salary to the government in taxes before you even get anything.)

Companies must lay off employees in first-in-last-out order when they are downsizing.

You can take sick leave during your vacation if you are ill.

Parents get a total of 13 months of paid maternity leave and the father is required to take at least 1 month of it. (There has been a discussion about changing this to 15 months and requiring the father and mother to each take 5 and then split the last 5 as they feel appropriate.)

Parental leave can be used to take off time for parenting classes before your child is born.

Parents can save up their maternity leave for more than 5 years (i.e., use it for doctor's appointments, school visit days, etc.).

Daycare cost is based on your family income with a government imposed maximum. (Currently about 1/10th as much as in the U.S.!)

If you have a new child, your other children get a month of free daycare so you can concentrate on the new one.

All employees (including graduate students) get 5 weeks of paid vacation a year.

All employers (as of 2004) are required to provide free massage.

The transportation department of the Swedish government works actively to reduce the number of traffic deaths each year to zero. (Mainly by reducing the speed limits.)

Any product you purchase is guaranteed for 1 year, and the retailer must exchange it if it fails in that time. (This includes things like clothes and shoes.)

All non-military property that is not fenced in, or is not a farm or someone's personal garden is open to anyone for hiking through or camping for one night.

Swedish university students are required to pay a membership fee in the student union, but no tuition.

American textbooks are cheaper in Sweden than in the U.S..

In Sweden IKEA is a cheap store, not a trendy store. (And they are only open until 8pm on special days.)

Recycling is taken so seriously that one company (FTI) is trying to put up video cameras to make sure people sort their recyclables correctly. (June 2006)

Privacy is taken so seriously that putting up video cameras in laundry rooms to catch vandals is illegal.

Drawn by its liberal asylum rules and generous social benefits, 18,559 Iraqis sought refuge here in 2007 alone – far more than in any other Western country.

Sweden

My last trip to Sweden was 18 years ago and it has been 28 years since I was an exchange student there. Almost 30 years-unbelievable. We left Firenze at around 4 pm to catch our Ryanair flight from the Pisa airport. Ryanair is amazingly cheap. Our round trip ticket to Sweden from Italy was about $150 a person. We ended up staying longer so we paid more than this but it was still very cheap. The flight is very basic. If you want food, you pay for it. If you want priority seating, you pay extra. There are no assigned seats so it's first come first serve. We lucked out because Jonathan was on crutches so they blocked two seats for us so we didn't have to wait in the line. Well, we did in Italy but not in Sweden or course. Our flight left at 8:30 and we arrived at an airport I had never heard of 80 minutes from Stockholm. We didn't get to our hotel until well after one. You get what you pay for!

We had to take a taxi to our hotel as it was too late for the tunnelbana (subway). Our hotel was perfectly located taking just minutes to get downtown. The rooms were very simple and small and we shared a shower with the entire floor which didn't mean much because I hardly saw anyone take a shower. Swedes don't shower much as I remember. We had a very decent breakfast. The people running the hotel were all very sweet and I miss them all already.

On the way to the tunnelbana station from our hotel we always passed this wonderful candy shop. I had never seen so many sweets in one place before. Jonathan has a major muscle strain so we bought stampella (crutches) to see if that would help. He is slowly getting better.

Our first stop was gamla stan (the old town). This is one of my favorite parts of town. Full of shops and restaurants. We woke up to a beautiful blue sky the first day in Sweden and that never changed for an entire week. This is very unusal for Sweden. It had been raining a lot all summer and the day we left we had a downpour. We really lucked out.
Splashing water at Jonathan.

It was Europride and Stockholm pride the entire week we were there so there were rainbow flags EVERYWHERE. Even on the buses. One city in Europe hosts Europride every year.

I always loved the color of this church in the King's garden.

Having a salmon open faced sandwich in the King's park. It was so good!!

After I finished my meal a leaf landed right on my plate so I took a picture.

Only in Sweden do you see half naked men walking the streets of the capital city. When it's sunny and warm, Swedes take advantage of it.

...and Jonathan did too!!

...as did lots of people.

Ok, I take strange pictures!

Taking a little break at the Grand Hotel. Writing a post card home.

Beautiful Stockholm!!

Now you see it...

...now you don't. It's the same picture. (the magic of photoshop!)

Stranvagen. A street which was copied after the streets of Paris.




Me on Djurgarden. We are about to visit the Wasa Musuem.




The Wasa ship that sailed a total of 20 minutes before it sank in the Stockholm harbor. They found the ship about 50 years ago in excellent condition as it was buried in mud.

There were people there in period costumes!



A wonderful ad on the platform of the subway station. It says
"Stockholm celebrates the use of condoms"


A restuarant in gamla stan. It was just getting dark and it was 10:15.

A bee in Djurgarden

Some of my favorite paintings that I remember from 28 years ago at the National Museum.

Dad, I lit a candle for you at the Cathedral in Uppsala.

Jonathan got to experience the real Sweden. Skinny dipping in Stockholm! Yes, it really is in the city but it's a very secluded place surrounded by rocks and trees.

On the train to Uppsala. It's a university city about and hour north of Stockholm.

My friend Olof Eden who was in my high school class 28 years ago! He said I hadn't changed at all. Yea, right!

We caught up over wine at his apartment in St. Eriksplan. It was great seeing him and hearing all the news.

from Jonathan:

Maddalena penitente

(The Penitent Magdalene)

(second draft)

For the last five weeks here in Florence, I’ve studied Art History at the British Institute, attending lectures and visiting churches among the fresh blooms of upper-class British womanhood, faultlessly gorgeous, designer-clad, twenty year olds adding Florence, adding art, to their pedigrees. This rite of passage has changed little since EM Forster was here: Miss Lucy Honeychurch now shows her navel.

Among such flowers I feel hairy, middle-aged, and depraved. Obviously some miscalculation has been made, as if I went out to the local leather bar -- for Bondage Night -- but wound up here instead, at The Museum of the Works of the Duomo.

This was where we toured yesterday, admiring the work of Arnolfo diCambio, the Cathedral’s first architect, as well as Ghiberti’s Doors of Paradise and Michelangelo’s last sculpture, which he tried to destroy with a hammer.

The lecturers at the British Institute are admirably serious. Even if they suspect we might be better served by tips on glossy hair and strong nails, they persist in untangling the Medici family tree, and explaining the lost wax technique, and why Vasari matters, and exactly what Mannerism is.

Over the last month I have not been educated so much as converted. For the Renaissance I now display frightening zeal. Previously at the Uffizi I was only interested in determining which naked Jesus was the hottest. Now even the countless Virgin altar pieces are compelling and I always want to see another church, another fresco, another sculpture Michelangelo didn’t finish, another sketch Leonardo didn’t paint even though he got paid for it.

That said, it was possible that, by Week Five, I’d become somewhat inured to masterpieces. After all, you can’t by a quart of milk without seeing one, and you’re likely to see half a dozen or more as you frantically search out a toilet you don’t have to pay for. Even an old Cimabue is easier to find than a decent pizza in Florence, this city of masterpieces, over which has been superimposed a god-awful tourist trap.

Our tour leader explained that the Museum was a particularly fine place to see the work of Donatello. Now, I have a soft spot for Donatello, who was apparently half-mad and hopelessly disorganized, and who sculpted male nudes with entirely more enthusiasm than the 15th century was really ready for. Dutifully, I admired some lovely works in marble; I admit I was only half paying attention -- my legs hurt, I thought it must be time for beer -- as I was lead into another room and the tour leader said, “There’s lots of Donatello here but this seems to be the one people remember.”

At the center of the room was a statue made of wood: a gaunt Magdalene with her hands joined in front of her, fingertips just touching. She looked like hell. Like a crack whore with sunken cheeks, like a junky with filthy matted hair. I have seen many Magdalenes, but this one was appallingly familiar: she could have been one of my hustling friends, whispering to the john -- twenty bucks, you can do anything -- one of my friends on meth or almost dead of AIDS.

For this five weeks of marble and gold had not prepared me. I found myself crying in a crowd of rich daughters, lucky girls who were not for sale, who washed their hair every day. Decorous young women, they looked away; they hurried on to the reliquaries.

I eyed the guard slumped in the corner. I wanted his job. I wanted to sit, as long as I lived, a vigil with Magdalene, and make sure no harm ever came to her. The guide had said that the statue was terribly fragile, and had been badly damaged by the Flood of 1966 when it was buried in mud and shit. Very well, I thought, let me stay here with Magdalene.

Someone else would look after Michelangelo’s musclebound David. Someone else would protect King Jesus on the ceiling of the Baptistery and Gianbologna’s fine bronze birds nesting upstairs at the Bargello. I would stay here, in a side room at the Museum of the Works of the Duomo. I would look after Maddalena penitente, the Penitent Magdalene. This was an image I’d looked for all my life. Now, we recognized each other.

In my early twenties, I lived in Denver, Colorado, on Colfax Avenue, where the great basilica sits amid pawn shops and payday loans and terminal bars. I am not a Christian but I used to drop by the basilica to pray to the Mother whenever I was off to do something exceptionally foolhardy, whether because I was adventurous or just needed the money.

Outside the basilica in Denver is a bronze statue of Mary ascending to Heaven. She looks to be about 15, a perfect doll. She looks like she could star in a musical. The benches around Mary were always occupied by sleeping homeless people. I always thought, how much more useful it would be, if Mary were shown ascending into Heaven as a grief-stricken ravaged hag, a woman who’d attended the murder of her son. How were all of us, so profoundly damaged, ever supposed to relate to a woman who got off scot-free?

And here was Mary Magdalene, the greatest sinner, our guide reminded us, usually shown fleshy and beautifully dressed. Now she was almost a skeleton, covered either by a camel skin or by her own hair grown long in the desert. And Magdalene had been redeemed -- the guide emphasized this. This Magdalene was meant to be the object of praise and veneration, not a chronicle of failure, not a pious warning. This was Magdalene set free.

I would be standing there still, except I was afraid of making a scene and haven’t figured out yet how to get a job upstairs at the Museum of the Works of the Duomo. For starters, my Italian’s gonna have to get a lot better. And probably I’d fail the background check, as would Magdalene herself, so she’d better hope that no one checks.

In the meantime, I see her here on the streets of Florence, as Donatello must have seen her, Magdalene among the junkies who huddle at the end of Borgo Pinti, or the sex addicts at the Florence Baths, in all of us buried in ravenous hungers and the steep price paid for them. Magdalene, among us.

Tonight Marta, Maria (Marta's friend who works at the airport) Julianne, Cathrina and Andrea are meeting at Odeon Theater to see "Sex In The City". The theater is gorgeous. I went to a movie last week with Marta and Maria. Some of them are coming over for a bite to eat before we go. It should be fun.

I feel a little blue today. I didn't help our teacher, Gianni, was just horrible again. Yes, we got stuck with him another two weeks. This time for grammar. I didn't think he could destroy grammar. Well, he is. Today as we were going around the room trying to fill in the correct congugations he was preparing for his next class. He actually sat there with a pair of scissors and was cutting out something. When he's not doing that, he's doodling. I had to leave the last ten minutes of class before I screamed. This may be the best education for me this year as I'm learning exactly what NOT to do when I am teaching.
We are thinking about living in Amsterdam for the month of September. We think it would be a nice break from wonderful but stressful Italy. Last night we were on the steps of Santa Croce talking about this. I started thinking about perfectly organized Holland and how nice that will be but then as I looked around watching the Italian people I wondered how great it really would be. Let me explain.
I think something positive comes out of a rather disorganized, corrupt country- people really need to support each other. People have to be tolerant and flexible. If you are 30 minutes late to an appointment it's OK because you were probably stuck in traffic or you had to help your 95 year old grandmother who lives with you because there are no homes for old people, or you were arguing with the lady at the supermarket because the line was so long but then you ended up liking each her because they both agreed it was horrible or you were simply trying to get your hair just right because "fare la bella figura" (making a good impression) is the most important thing of all. (Although being 30 minutes is not making a good impression at all in my book.) Or the train was on strike and you needed to find a bus. You can see there are many good excuses for being late. We don't have these excuses in perfectly organized Japan where the trains are never a minute late, where the supermarkets are perfectly organized. Japanese will also come with perfect hair and clothes but they will have spent all morning doing that, never waiting to the last minute.
To be continued...

Finally woke up to a cloudy day. We've had weeks and weeks of hot and sunny weather. It was a great relief to have clouds, a nice breeze and a lower temperature. A couple hours later we had a huge electrical storm. The Arno River was looking pretty low so I'm sure it was happy. A crazy thing happened as I watched the storm from the window. As I was standing there I heard some sort of cracking noise but didn't think much of it. About a minute later I screamed when I heard a huge smashing sound. The glass cover to our stove smashed into a million pieces. It happened just when there was a big bolt of lightening but I don't know if it had anything to do with that. It's more likely it exploded because I tried making coffee on top of the glass cover thinking it was made for that. I did it once before when we moved here but then only cooked directly on top of the burners. The glass of course heated up and then during the storm the air cooled just enough to make the entire glass shatter. Thank goodness it didn't shatter all over the place. It stayed right on the counter. Hardly one piece of glass made it to the floor. Anyway, I'm not sure if our landlord will believe lightening struck it. The storm let up, the sun came out and I decided to go see the most famous tower in the world. THE LEANING TOWER OF PISA. It's only about an hour away. Jonathan's leg is still bothering him so he's walking around on crutches so he decided to skip this trip. I quickly looked on line to check train times and chose the 1;57 becasue it stops at the station nearest the tower which ended up being stupid because this station was in the middle of nowhere and there were no signs. I recharged my camera battery, and ran off to the station.
After searching for the tower for about 45 minutes I finally came upon it. You would think the most famous tower in the world would have signs leading to it. NOTHING. Where I was walking around not one store or bar or anything was open. I knew it had to be somewhere because I saw it from the train window and I was in PISA after all!! Oh well, it was fun to find it this way. It was as if I was discovering it for the first time.
I don't know about you but when I see something as famous as the LEANING TOWER OF PISA I'm never impressed. I mean, how many times have I seen this thing? The amazing thing is- it's only famous becuase it LEANS. Just because they didn't realize how loose the soil was there is an international airport in this little town in the middle of nowehere!!! And it didn't take centuries for it to start leaning. It started sinking once they built the third floor. At one point it started leaning too much and they didn't let people into it so they spent millions of dollars to support the tower so it wouldn't fall over as tourists are climbing up it. Of course they spent millions to support the lean. What would have happened if they had totally straightened it out? Would more people have started coming to see the corrected tower or would it have been ignored? Hmm. It was a nice afternoon, not too hot, lots of grass and beautiful buildings. The tower really is the most uninteresting thing about this collection of buildings. I did want to go up it but they next available climbing was two hours later. Oh well.
Had a late lunch. Read a book and watched people go by on double tandem bikes. They were the thing to do for the tourists. Before going back home I decided to check out the historic area of town. I thought it was beautiful even though it doesn't have a great reputation. A big river runs through it with colorful buildings on either side. I just continued walking aroung until eventually I found the stazione centrale. The next train was in about 20 minutes. Had a nice ride home and went to Hong Kong for dinner with Jonathan.

I couldn't resist. Everyone else takes a picture of them holding up the building but NOT ME!