The $20 Biscotti

I know that prices in Stockholm are generally 40% more than anywhere else in the world and I've been trying hard to be as frugal as possible while I still don't have a Swedish job.  Our only indulgences are going out to fika once or twice a week with friends (you still have to be social!) and Papa Razzi pizza every other week or so.  I wouldn't say that we are busting the budget, but we have an aggressive savings plan in place so that we can afford to live in Stockholm once we get kicked out of our corporate housing.

So far, I've been doing really really well at saving money.  Mostly because I'm cheap and force Jon to bring lunch from home.  We compared our first month's expenses and we are under budget without really having to try too hard.

About once a week, I get together with my Italian friend, Loredana, and we hit up a new cafe around town.  This past week we went to the Moderna Museet of Modern Art which has one of the most spectacular views from their restaurant.

Yes. The view is incredible!

It was a beautiful day outside but the restaurant's patio was already in the shade.  We had a 2 minute debate between sun or view...sun or view...? Hmmm... we wanted some SUN!  We headed to the back cafe where there is an outdoor patio and managed to pull our strollers/prams outside to feed our squawky kids.  It was so nice just to relax in the sun.

No view but directly in the SUN

I decided to go into the cafe back in the museum to get a sweet treat and a biscotti for Calvin to chew on (he's so European now).  I found a yummy looking blueberry pie square for myself and proceeded to check out.  (Note: There were no prices of items posted anywhere in the cafe.) The cashier woman told me that would be 185 SEK.  My head nearly spun around --- uhhh, what?!?  I know this is a museum cafe and all and we're surrounded by modern architecture but really?  A piece of pie and a crusty piece of bread costs $27??  That's generally my grocery budget for half a week!  I handed over 200 SEK and hustled Calvin out of there before she could charge us for a glass of water.  I mean, I know that Stockholm is expensive but man! Determined not to let it foul my mood and precious time with my friends, I just ignored the astronomical price and figured I would really really enjoy this blueberry pie.

A few minutes later, Loredana asked me how much my blueberry pie cost because it looked so delicious.  I pulled out my receipt only to discover that the cashier had not only charged me for a blueberry pie but also for 15 biscottis! One biscotti was 10 SEK and I was charged for 15!  How on earth does that happen?  I immediately marched back into the cafe to point out her mistake and got my 150 kronor back.  She apologized and all was forgiven but I realized a few things.

1. Save your receipt and double check everything before you leave the store/cafe
1. Emelie then told us all a story about how a butcher shop erroneously charged her for 5 shepherd's pies when she only ordered (and received) 3.  Without a receipt, you have no grounds for contention.
2. Don't be too lazy, embarrassed or rushed to do the conversion in your head.
1. Most days I'm too overwhelmed by the prices in general to even worry about converting them into USD where I would most surely cry thereafter.  Sometimes you just don't want to know how much your coffee costs.  My general thought is, "Do you want it? Yes.  Then pay the lady the money."  That's not always the best approach when your cashier is bad at math.
3. Cashiers are bad at math.
1. This is universal.  I've met cashiers in all towns, cities, states and countries who cannot add, subtract, divide or multiply.  It is mind boggling to me since they handle money every day but I have found it to be the exception, not the rule, the cashiers who can provide proper change without a calculator.

Now, its easy to blame myself.  I should've been more aware, astute or alarmed that a piece of pie and a biscotti cost more than 4 days worth of groceries and said something right away.  Blah blah blah.  But what about the cashier who works in the cafe every day?? If you worked in a cafe, wouldn't YOU notice if someone purchased two items and the price was WAY too high?  Wouldn't you think to yourself, "Hey -- that's a lot of money for what she is buying. I think I might've made a mistake?"  That's what I would've done. So I'm placing partial blame on her.  I ordered in English, fumbled with my kronor and change and appeared fairly "new" to the area.  Asking for 185 SEK for two items should've raised a few more flags for her than it did.

Regardless, all ended well and I got my money back.  Calvin got to chew on a free biscotti and I learned a valuable lesson: it pays to be cheap.

Sigtuna -- a trip to a viking town

We have been exploring Stockholm and have actually ventured beyond the city limits and explored a few of the neighboring towns.  Mostly because we want to see more of Sweden but also because we are in the death spiral search for a "proper suburb" to live in post our corporate housing stint.  Our distaste for the suburbs mainly revolves around the necessity to drive EVERYWHERE.  We have really gotten used to walking to the grocery store every day, post office, etc.  We aren't worried about the restaurant scene since we don't really go out to eat anymore since Calvin is not only loud but enjoys throwing his food, so that's not a real consideration.

In our search for a non-suburb-non-Stockholm town, we found Sigtuna, a viking village!  This could be really promising!  Who wouldn't want to live in the oldest town in Sweden complete with rune stones from the 9th century!  Jon and I loaded up Calvin for the day and headed up north on the T-bana.  Take us as far north as you can T!  We went to the most northern stop and hopped on a bus to Sigtuna.  We got off the bus 30 long, Calvin-shriek filled minutes, onto a cobble stone street with 15 other tourists from Stockholm.  We looked around and sadly discovered that there wasn't much to see.  There was one street with cute buildings that was pedestrian only.  Being a Sunday, nothing was open except two cafes and the Sigtuna Museum.  Some of the bead shops looked cute but mostly quiet and slightly boring. (P.S. we went to Sigtuna on Feb 26th, not the date of this post).

Determined to make the most of our trip, we started exploring.  Sigtuna is situated on the northern part of beautiful Lake Mälaren (that spans down to Stockholm) and this part of the lake was still solidly frozen.  People were strapping on skates and skating on the plowed portions of the lake.  We saw a large group of people with backpacks on skating away.  It looked akin to a large hiking group heading out on a trail.  The sun was out which made the cold weather bearable as it was far below freezing.

Off on a skate on the lake

After enjoying the sun and the lake, we ventured towards the older viking ruins and churches built in the 16th century ("new" churches).  Since it was a viking town, most of the original buildings were destroyed by age, fire and other viking awesomeness.  Needless to say, it is still pretty neat to walk around buildings that were built hundreds of years before America was founded.

The Sigtuna Museum is not really worth visiting.  Aside from a few random viking artifacts and a reproduction of what the town looked like a few hundred years ago, it's really too small to capture your attention for longer than 10 minutes (and that included the time it took us to take off our coats).  The people were extremely nice and a woman in period costume practiced her English with me for a solid 12 minutes.  Of course, Calvin is always a conversation starter so we talked about him for a while.

We explored some of the old churches and ventured in where we could.  I kept having flashbacks to the movie Willow and expected a crow to fly over cawing a warning message that "they're coming, cawww, they're coming!" or something.  If you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about.  It just had that cold, barren feel and still felt very much like a castle (even though it was a church).  I kept doing the crow's voice but Jon hadn't seen the movie and just thought I was acting weird again.

St Olofs Church ruin

St Pers church ruin

Checking out a rune stone

Warning: "Falling stones"

"Willoowwww!"

The viking rune stones were interesting -- mostly because the sign next to them provided a descriptive paragraph in Swedish and then one line in English saying, "This rune is hastily drawn and contains many misspellings."  Really?  That's what it says in Swedish too? I doubt it.  I really need to learn SWEDISH. AHH.

We spent some time in a nice cafe, enjoying an absolutely delicious meal of pasta and chili.  It was the perfect fix for a really cold day.  We finished the day walking by the lake again and Jon picked up some deep fried waffles and hot chocolate.  He ventured onto the very frozen lake "just to see" but freaked out a bit when it started crackling near the stairs.

It really was a beautiful day and despite it being a solid hour commute outside of Stockholm, we had a very fun time.  The lake was beautiful in the winter and I can only imagine how wonderful it is in the summer.  Its so nice to see people enjoying it regardless of the weather.  So many people in the States only venture out when the weather is "nice" and warm.  If the Swedes stayed inside all winter, they would need much larger houses.  Winter here is long but fortunately, most days, its also beautiful.

new sport -- ice sailing!

Then and Now

3.5 months old

10.5 months old

Latest Developments -- 9-10 months

Looking back at old videos of Calvin, I realize how quickly he is developing in such a short amount of time.  Unfortunately, I haven't been keeping my usual OCD-like track of all of his developments like I would want to because I've been busy chasing after him -- he's quick!

Since we've moved to Stockholm (at 9 mo), here is a brief overview of his latest milestones:

• Clapping his hands when he sees other people clapping or hears the word, "clap" or "klappa" (Swedish)
• Waving good bye/opening and closing his hands
• Deliberately dropping food off his high chair to watch the dogs scramble (is that a milestone?)
• Pulling himself to standing and walking around objects while holding on
• Crawling very quickly -- he has what we call a "crip" crawl because he drags his right leg behind him sort of like a "Crip walk" only more baby-ish and less likely to result in shootings in east LA.  He can crawl properly too but he prefers to be gangstah



eatin' bananas

• Eating "real"food  - no more baby purees for this little man. He prefers taking his toothless bites from bananas whole and loves sucking on oranges.  Cheerios are still his favorite though...
• Saying "goo gur" after I say "good girls" to the dogs.  Or at least I think he is saying that.  It's his first hard "g" sound.  
• Buzzes his lips (resulting in tons of spit everywhere) after a prompt

• Putting himself to sleep -- he enjoys going to sleep now and will "dive" for his crib, grab his pacifiers (2) and curl up waiting for us to turn off the light and say goodnight.  If you linger too long, he'll look up at you expectantly like, "Hello! I'm trying to sleep here!"
• He also sits with his feet hooked together -- not sure if any other babies do that but he seems to sit more securely that way. Smart kid.



Sitting so securely

• He loves playing "chase" where we will either chase him around the apartment or he'll chase us.  Mostly it turns into us chasing him because its so much more fun for him to squeal and crawl away.

Casino Visit - Part Deuce

After being shut down last week when I tried to get my gamble on, I showed up prepared this time. I strolled up and paid my 100 SEK ($13) – now I was good to go to at the Casino Cosmopol for a year.

Walking in, it was definitely a busy scene, and I wanted to make sure I didn’t waste any opportunities, so I decided to explore first. The casino is in a really nice, older building in downtown Stockholm – maybe used to be a theater, or something similar. There seemed to be three floors, so I did a quick sweep of the main level first. A lot of table games – blackjack, craps, roulette, etc. There were a few seats available at the 50 SEK blackjack tables, which I took note of. There was a bar in the back, a smoking room that reminded me of the Atlanta airport and a ton of euro-fashion – what could be better? In general, the crowd was 90% european dudes - mostly UK, Finnish or Dutch from my quick conversations. The other 10% was all older asian ladies - NOT there to mess around.

Downstairs was pretty boring – just a ton of slot machines. Only interesting part there was that it was crowded and I almost bumped into some guy coming around the corner. As soon as I did, I recognized that he had “the crazy eye” and probably would have slugged me if we had knocked into each other. Considering that him and his other 22yr old buddies were roided up, had neck tattoos and were being shown around the casino by a manager, I’m assuming they were some type of professional athletes. Or I’m just becoming old…

Upstairs was pretty sweet. They have some additional table games – much less crowded and without any minimums info, so I’m assuming more of a high roller area. The best part was the big opening in the middle that looked down into the main level – I hadn’t noticed it from below, but it is a great spot to get your card counting on. Its kind of a fun way to get the birds eye view of the casino – I definitely tried to “catch” cheaters, to no avail. A fancy / overpriced restaurant was up there as well – if you want to get some food, but not leave the casino for any reason whatsoever.

Once I checked everything out, I found a seat at the blackjack table and found out a few other “differentiators” from vegas:

1) the dealers CANNOT accept tips. One of the guys left the table and left the dealer a few crowns – probably a buck or two. The dealer had to stop the cards and called his manager over to clearly put the tips in a separate box. We discussed it afterwards, and I explained that I would normally go balla style in vegas and leave a few small tips after good hands, etc. He explained that the casino was gov’t owned and that the dealers were paid a legitimate wage, so tips weren’t allowed. He thought about and realized that in vegas, income per shift probably fluctuated pretty significantly – he then decided that he was good with the business model in Sweden.

2) They don’t let you make “crazy” gambles (crazy like a fox!) – the dealer had a hand that was going to bust, and I had a decent hand, so was going to double my money. He politely let me know that that was not allowed unless I had a very specific set of cards showing. I think he did not actually bust that hand, so he probably saved me some money on that one, but in the long term, really decreased the potential of calvin’s college fund.

3) No cocktail waitresses NOR complimentary drinks. This was obviously a major downer for me, but I persevered. When you want a drink, you tell your dealer who hits a button on the table. The waiter then comes over and takes your order. When they come back with the beer you can pay in chips, which is nice – and then they give you change in currency.

Overall, I’d say it was a fun time – but the stratosphere is still safely in my “favorite casino” ranking. I’ll show up a handful of times I’m sure, but probably mostly when folks are in town – gambling solo (outside of 3am after coming back after drinking) is a little much for me I think.

Luckily – Lis and I found a horse track today though, so it might be time to go hat shopping!

Melodifestivalen 2012 -- UPDATE

Last Saturday Sweden crowned Loreen the winner of the Melodifestivalen (Swedish Eurovision) competition.  Jon was really pulling for Danny but alas, his LED tracksuit and 'NSYNC-lite dance moves were no match for Loreen's wind machine highlighting her MC Hammer moves across the dance floor.  The Swedes are so brave to vote for non-boy band choice.  We'll be pulling for her in the Eurovision contest because we don't have a personal stake in any other performer.

The other competitors received a fraction of the votes that divided Loreen and Danny.  But you could put "Melodifestivalen 2012 Finalen" into youtube.com and watch some of the other performances if you have a boring afternoon.

Also, after speaking with some of the parents at open preschool, they all officially agree that Melodifestivalen is somewhat of a joke but people love watching it anyway.  It's just like American Idol only, unlike my American friends,  they actually admit to watching it.  I would like to see American Idol incorporate the donations via text like Melodifestivalen does.  Melodi donates 90% of their text proceeds to a charity each year.  Two phone lines are open for voting so you can still choose the "cheaper" text and not donate to charity so the mechanism doesn't hinder voting attendance.  In fact, probably more people DO vote because they know that a huge chunk of it goes to charity.  This year, the proceeds went to UNICEF.  American Idol could do something similar and make the world a better place instead of launching someone's career for 2 weeks until they fall into obscurity like all of the previous winners with the exception of Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood.

Loreen! The winner!

Danny -- the sad runner up

Loreen needs to remember to bring her wind machine with her when she competes on the European stage at Eurovision because her outfit and hair just don't look right without an adequate constant breeze.  Let it FLOW!  Get it gurrl.

adaption is the key to survival

So since we have been out here, we’ve had to learn to adapt. Our liquor store trips now entail beers with elks, Vikings and other random stuff on the logo rather than sweetwater beer and miller lites. Instead of watching sportscenter, we watch euro league hockey championships and cross country skiing races. We’ve also watched way more shows about tattoos, animals and singing then I ever expected – pretty much anything that is in English.

But BY FAR the biggest adaption any of us has made has been by Darby

Since we adopted her, she has HATED squirrels. The meaning of her life has been to protect us from any and all squirrel threats. Since we have been out there though, we haven’t seen any squirrels at all. She’s been bored senseless evidently and has been investigating new options to hunt. Rabbits are the best option, but we’ve only seen 2-3 of them over the last month, so not nearly as common as she needs. Instead, she has completely switched her opinion on an old acquaintance –

BIRDS. They are animals, they are plentiful and uh….well that’s about it, but it works. For the last week or so, any bird we walk/run by has required at least one lunge from her, and now Bessie is getting the memo as well. So now they are having a lot more fun, and they feel like they are protecting us from all sorts of dangers.

I feel safer already...

I miss you Vortex...

Went to lunch today with my coworkers and they decided to go to O’Leary’s, the chain of ”Boston Sports Bar” themed restaurants that became infamous to me when they refused to stay open for the Super Bowl.

We’ve been over here 6+ weeks now, and so it’s been awhile since I’ve had a good burger. I figured it wasn’t that hard to make a decent burger, and that this would be my best bet here in Sweden.

(not actually mine, but not too far off - just add more mayo and make the bacon not as good)

I have never been so wrong in my life

Just gross…more mayo than meat…the worst bacon I’ve ever tasted…just completely unappetizing

If, sight unseen, I ever order a burger out here again, I should get slapped in the face

I miss you Vortex, I miss you bad

The most disgusting thing I’ve seen in Stockholm…

Nope, not the rotten fish

(not actually a picture of me)

the ATM after checking out my first paycheck!

Retro-diary of Sunday afternoon

17:03 (euro-style time) – Before I go to the grocery store, I realize that I should stop by the ATM and see if I’ve finally been paid for the last month of work

17:05 – wait in ATM line

17:06 – Nice! My PIN was accepted…so far we are doing good

17:07 – SCORE! I asked for money and it didn’t say no! I’m rich!

17:08 – The ATM offers to show my available balance on screen. Not a bad idea so that I know how much we have in the account

17:09 – Realizing that the numbers on screen are size 4 font and that I can’t see the info correctly, I put my face about 2 inches from the ATM

(intense stomach pain and nausea hit like a ton of bricks)

17:10 – I frantically do math in my head and try to remember the tax information I was given

17:11 – Giving up on that, I try to figure out how this affects our budget…(still working on this)

17:12 – Update the grocery list to prioritize canned items and other basic levels of nutrition

17:13 – Try to rationalize that socialism will all balance out….(still ongoing….)

I do not understand Melodifestivalen

Melodifestivalen is a European singing competition and you can read more about the details of the competition here.  What I don't understand is how the "winners" from each week are chosen.  Jon and I have watched the program faithfully every Saturday night and I'm constantly surprised by who the public chooses to win each week.  Basically, it goes something like this:  all singers/bands perform 1 song and the Swedish public texts their votes at the end of the program.  One person advances to the finals and 2 advance to the "second chance" or wild card round.

After watching all of the weeks I can now easily predict who will be the winner.  Essentially the worst performer I have ever heard in my life wins while the talented, artistic and accomplished musicians are cast aside -- not even to the wild card round.  It's really disheartening to watch and this is just the Swedish version that we are watching.  Once the Swedish winner is selected, s/he will go onto compete against all of Europe where they will compete with other horrible singers.  I'm not sure if this is a joke or a serious competition.  Also, whoever controls the cameras for this show must be on crack.  The last time I saw this level of erratic camera work was my 8th grade history class filming scenes to illustrate Prohibition Era.

We took some clips from one week of Melodifestivalen just to illustrate the quality (or lack thereof) of these performers:

Watch each video and see if you can guess who was the winner this night:

This chick not only wore a dress full of spikes but she is pretty AND can sing well!

As if channeling 'This is Spinal Tap' wasn't enough, these guys also rock the eye make up!

These guys have that hipster vibe (which I normally hate) but the song is catchy

Nope, that's not your computer or the quality of my video camera.  His vocals are really awful. The LED track suit is just icing on the cake.

So, which of the above talents do you think the Swedish public chose as their winner of the night?  Remember my strategy -- pick the worst act of the night.

...If you guessed the pretty-boy making a mockery of Justin Timberlake-ish moves and swimming in a ridiculous LED jacket, you'd be right!  They actually chose this guy to move onto the finals!  I just don't get it!  He can't sing.  Someone actually said, "he has moves like MJ."  Nah uh. No you didn't just desecrate Michael Jackson's legacy by linking this hack with THE greatest performer of all time!  Seriously?!? Is there no sense for talent here? No ear for tone deaf performers?  Who is letting these people on this show?  At least on American Idol, there are a few rounds of embarrassing no-talent auditions that give us a good laugh and they go home in tears.  In Sweden, they send these folks to the final rounds of their national singing competition to compete on the European stage.

The Vegas of the North???

So I evidently have the self-discipline of a Tibetan monk, and I didn’t check out the local Stockholm casino for the first 5 weeks we were out here. But NO LONGER!

I caved (and was very excited about it) this Saturday night, when Calvin was asleep and Lisa was Skyping with Samantha, I checked out the Stockholm casino (5 min walk from our place) and found out 2 things:

1) they have blackjack tables with table minimums of 20-50 crowns ($3-7) which is double-down city

2) to actually "go in" to the casino you need your passport to get a membership card - so I didn't get a chance to win Calvin a new pair of shoes yet

I'll report back next time about actually playing there, I'm assuming it's filled with crazy Russians though.

Until then, I'll be on the lookout for a gun range with automatic weapons.

Calvin goes to the Barnavårdscentral!

I took Calvin to our pediatrician in Atlanta prior to the move so he was up to date on all of his vaccinations for his 9 month check up.  However, they didn't measure his length, head circumference or weight during that visit so I was eager to find out how my little man was growing.

In Sweden, children are taken to the Barnavårdscentral (BVC) and see children's nurses during their regular wellness visits.  The schedule is a little different in Sweden than in the US so Calvin ended up being right on time for his Swedish 10 month check in at the BVC.  I was told beforehand that he wouldn't be seeing a pediatrician during this visit -- totally fine.  In Sweden, your child only sees a pediatrician during emergency visits.  This makes sense since it is an all-access healthcare plan and pediatrician costs are quite high.  I never understood why we would wait 45 minutes to see our US pediatrician for a sum total of 7 minutes and then the nurses would administer the measurements and vaccinations.  It makes sense to cut out the doctor all together unless there is some pressing need or emergency.  Regardless, it's a different system and I found it to be quite nice.

I found the BVC no problem and maneuvered Calvin's stroller into the elevator.  There was convenient stroller parking outside the BVC entrance, so I stripped Calvin of his warm down snowsuit and hovered outside of the BVC entrance door.  Umm... it was seriously locked.  It looked really welcoming and all but there was a keypad and a series of people's (phone?) numbers outside the door but it didn't look like there would be anyway for me to actually call someone.  Hmm... ok.  Fortunately, a mom was leaving the BVC and held the door open for me.  I slipped inside and looked for the reception desk to "check in."  There wasn't any reception desk, waiting nurse, or central location where I could let someone know that I was there for our appointment.  I continue wandering and manage to find a woman sitting on a chair, apparently waiting for her appointment.  I can only guess really.  I put on my best I'm-totally-lost-and-confused-since-I'm-new-here-and-don't-speak-Swedish look and told her that we were here for our appointment.  There was a room full of nurses just chatting and lounging on couches -- waiting for their patients to arrive.  A nice nurse bounced off the couch and said, "Oooh! I think you must be looking for me!"  Perfect!  Yes!

Stroller parking

She takes me to her room/office and it's a comfortable combination of typical doctor's office but with a couch on one wall and her computer desk across from the examining table.   The room has all of the same features as our old pediatrician's office but its somewhat more comfortable and personal.  There is a mobile hanging above the changing table, weighing scale and measurement area and a smattering of children's toys throughout the office.  I sit on the couch with Calvin and begin to give her our family history, details of my problem-free pregnancy and delivery, etc when Calvin starts getting "chatty" and dives for the floor.  She immediately gets on the floor and asks if he wants to play with some toys.  Of course he does!  She pulls out a box of toys and Calvin happily plays on the floor while we continue to chat.

toys, toys, toys! 

trucks, trucks, trucks

When it comes time to measuring his head, she lets him inspect the measuring tape and asks if she can put it around his head.  She has to do this 4 times since he keeps grabbing the tape, thinking its a game. She stayed patient and gave him a toy to distract him while she tried repeatedly to get a good measurement.

For the weight measurement, Calvin weighs in at a featherweight 7.9kg/17 lbs, 6 oz -- a slight decline from his weight in November.  I look at her worriedly and she reassures me that this is normal as babies start crawling and becoming more active and that I should continue to feed him as much as he wants -- adding a generous tablespoon of olive oil into everything he eats.  She entered his previous height/weight measurements into her computer and set up a custom growth curve for him.  He's currently -3standard deviations below the mean in weight so we'll definitely need to beef him up a bit!  We don't want him getting pushed around by these vikings!

We discuss his vaccination schedule and I shockingly (I don't know why) discover that they do not vaccinate for half of the things that the US does.  She was floored that he already had his MMR shots as they do not vaccinate for that until 18 months. We set up an appointment in late March for a visit with the pediatrician to discuss vaccines and any other questions I may have at that point.  Calvin and I head for the stroller and we're on our way!  All BVC visits are free of cost so we didn't need to check out.  This also explains why there was no central check in/reception desk.  She also gave me the door code so that I could get in again without having to slip in behind someone.

My initial feelings post-visit was that it was a great experience.  I was made to feel very comfortable and was adequately reassured that Calvin's weight plateau was not my fault (of course I blame myself). The visit was pleasant and Calvin didn't cry at any point during the entire visit.  As the nurse was asking Calvin if she could measure his head, I thought back to all of the previous times in Atlanta that we were asked to hold him down while a nurse struggled to get the measuring tape around his head while he kicked and cried.  Or the fact that the wonderful bucket of toys that kept Calvin occupied would be seen as unsanitary and an unnecessary health risk in a US pediatrician's office. Here it was just normal.  I also think that their varying vaccination schedule has a lot to do with their 18 month maternity/parental leave.  Babies don't enter daycare at 3 months like they do in the US, so the number and scope of vaccines that are required are much less.  If your child is being exposed to other children at 18 months, then many of the vaccines can be delayed.  Also, Sweden has a very high vaccination rate amongst their entire population so they have adequate herd immunity.

In the end, I was very pleased with Calvin's first experience with the Swedish children's healthcare system.  In all respects, it seems to be geared towards children which should be the focus of all pediatric practices.