10. “?Habla ingles?” “Parle vous anglais?” “Sprechen sie englisch?” “Förlåt, på engelska, tack” and my favorite, ”Could you please say that again without your British accent?”9. “I have no idea how much I weigh, how tall I am or how far it is to the next town…”
8. “How much did you say the tax was?!!!”
7. “Could I have some peanut butter with that?”
6. “Soccer. The only sport in the world where crying is both strategic and encouraged.”
5. To the question of whether or not every American owns a gun, “Yes, one for each hand.”
4. Upon seeing the size of a personal pizza in Sweden, “Wow, I’ll never be able to finish that and I’m an American!”
3. Upon seeing anyone holding Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Subway or all three:”Thank you for trying to help that poor American dollar.”
2. “Yes, start in New York, but remember that the west coast is the best coast!”
And the number one thing I love to say to Europeans:
1. “I’m so glad that Obama has finally been selected because now the election campaigning can BEGIN!”
And a special bonus quote for all you Swedes:
“I love living in a small town like Linköping...”
Pictures above from a perfect summer day in Sweden (as the weather continues to be the warmest I have ever felt here):
1. On the eastern coast just north of Västervik.
2. Classic Swedish coastline full of “röda små stugor.”
3. Flags of the Göta Canal at Söderköping, which means…
4. Smulltronstället ice cream. Ah, Svensk sommar!
5. A recent taco dinner obviously hosted by an American – can you see why?
4 comments:
Is it peanut butter I see on the taco dinner? :S
peanut butter in a taco dinner... that is very strange in my european eyes.
Sean,
I've come to enjoy your David Letterman-like top ten lists... Although, I am a tad disappointed with your "tacos" (yes, I just said "tad"). After knowing me for this long and living in Southern California for a good portion of your life, you should be able to do better. Plus, I'm glad I wasn't there for this because you would have never heard the end of it...Peanut Butter? Really Sean? I would like to state that peanut butter with tacos is NOT an American tradition...it's a Sean tradition. He makes things up as he goes sometimes but pretends like he knows what's going on. Maybe you should come back to the States for a bit and I can re-teach you how to cook appropriated and re-invented Mexican food.
"One for each hand." Amazing. Keep up the good work.
Best,
D
Yes, I'm pretty sure I've heard you using almost all of them on several occations. So I can't help but feeling compelled to give my top ten favourite answers to the blog readers as well:
10. "Fo' sure, homie. Me's down with that. Fo' life man!"
9. "Or what the temperature is... By the way, did you know that Swedish is probably the only language where you refer to +5 C as 'Five degrees warm'?"
8. "A little over 30%. But that's the low income bracket, of course. Now, could you explain the concepts of 'Hospital bills' and 'Tuition fees'? It's some invention to keep less fortunate people sick an uneducated, right?"
7. "With your ketchup? Sure... I guess."
6. "How many times do I have to say this? Football! The game where you kick the ball with your feet is called football! I don't know what's up with the American sport where they run around with something that is definetely not a ball in their hands."
5. "So how do you grab your burgers?"
4. "As you know, in Sweden 'Lagom är bäst', but that is actually 'Undantaget som bekräftar regeln'."
3. "No problem. Now buy some furniture."
2. "Oh. The opposite of Sweden then."
1. "Yes, I'm happy we don't have to put up with anything like that in Europe. Just imagine if we would arrange som kind of reaccuring competition where each individual nation first would vote for their favourite in a media-circus and foul campaining which no other event could measure up with, except for the following continent-wide voting going on for several days, and finally the winner is always something like a crappy ballad from Ireland or Finnish heavy metal. Oh, wait... Never mind."
And the bonus answer:
"Yes, me too." (Some of us are aware of the size of our home town. Far from everyone though.)
Post a Comment