Hey, I thought Sweden...

[Panda]

Before you ever set foot in Sweden, what were your impressions and assumptions of the country?

I thought Sweden would have much more snow and would be really cold. Living in Wisconsin, I find the winters here colder and snowier.

I didn't think much beforehand about what Sweden would be like, but I was pleasantly surprised by the country and people. I hope everyone else was also pleasantly surprised!

[Carolyn]

I first visited Sweden in 1968 to see relatives, and I don't know that I had too many preconceived notions before I went.

Now it's been my home since 2000 and I guess the biggest thing has been the snow or lack thereof. We live in the southern third of the country, and I guess I did expect more snow than we actually received. Mostly the winter seemed to be grey and rainy, although there were some very nice snows, which I loved because they lightened up the darkness, but they didn't stay around all winter.

I guess the things that did surprise me the most was:

1. The music. The Swedes are an incredibly music-loving people and I never knew that before.

2. The language is learnable (especially with a love of music, because it's a sing-songy language), and in a lot of ways, it's much more precise than English.

3. Design. I'd always heard about Scandinavian design and how great it was. I generally find a lot of Swedish design boring. I think what a lot of people think of when they hear that is actually Finnish design. I could have spent some serious money in Helsinki (if I'd have had serious money to spend).