Hello from Sweden

It's my last evening in Sweden. Tomorrow I fly off for a couple of days in Iceland before returning to Minneapolis.

I'm getting tired of living out of a suitcase, and I miss a lot of things about home, but I just made the mistake of looking at the Strib website, and I realized how wonderful it has been to be away from U.S. politics. Ugh. As the Norway shootings demonstrate, Scandinavia has its wing nuts, but they don't run things or even come close to assuming power.

Here's a telling incident. On Sunday, I attended services at the Stockholm Anglican Church. Although the Church of England has these branches in every European capital, the actual members come from all over the world, and during coffee hour, I ended up talking to an expat from New York. He said that the church wanted to do more charitable work, but the Swedish safety net is so good that only late-stage alcoholics and late-stage drug addicts fall through the cracks. There are more churches willing to help than there are people in need.

For that reason, the Stockholm Anglican Church cooperates with the one in Riga, Latvia (one of the countries that underwent the shock doctrine), where the economic problems have been particularly hard on the elderly.

Yup, not enough people in Sweden need help, so they go abroad to set up soup kitchens.

In the meantime, I think I'll visit the graves of my Swedish great-grandparents and "discuss" the terrible mistake their families made when they left Sweden.

:hi:

It's good to see you. :hi:

Safe travels, Lydia.