Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Climate-wise, Scandinavia has four distinct seasons. With Alaska-like lat-
itudes, it's the “land of the midnight sun” in summer (18 hours of daylight)
and of mid-afternoon darkness in winter (when there are just six hours
between sunrise and sunset).
Most of Scandinavia is sparsely populated and very big. Sweden is the size
of California, but has only a quarter the people (9.5 million). Nearly 5 million
Norwegians stretch out in Norway, where Oslo is as far from the northern tip
of Norway as it is from Rome. The exception is Denmark, which packs 5.5
million fun-loving Danes into a flat land the size of Switzerland.
Though each of the Scandinavian countries has its own language, there are
some common threads. Danes and Norwegians can read each other's newspa-
persandcanconversesomewhat(butwithdifficultybecauseofthickaccents).
Swedes (whose written language is different) have a hard time with printed
Danish and Norwegian, but can carry on simple conversations in those lan-
guages. Finns (whose language is not related at all) learn Swedish in school,
thanks to Sweden's long historical presence in Finland. Estonian is similar to
Finnish. Despite these common denominators, communication can be difficult
due to one more factor—national pride. A Dane may simply pretend not to
understand a Swede's request, and vice versa. If there's ever a language barri-
er, though, most Scandinavians can easily revert to their common second lan-
guage—English.
It's not easy (and probably unwise) to make sweeping generalizations
about a region's people, but here goes: In general, Scandinavians are confid-
ent, happy, healthy, and tall. They speak their minds frankly, even about taboo
subjects like sex. They're strong individualists who cut others slack for their
own eccentricities. They don't fawn on the rich and famous or look down on
the down and out. At work, they're efficient and conscientious. They don't
take cuts in line. They're well-educated, well-traveled, and worldly. Though
reserved and super-polite at first, they have a good sense of humor and don't
take life or themselves too seriously.
