On Sunday 19 November 2006 15:25, Don wrote: > I'm going to read your message a few more times. Your analysis > of your country's demographics is fascinating. I hope to see > it (and paddle it) someday. We have a wonderful, at times very craggy, coastline, with next to nil tides! A bit like Maine, minus the tides :-)! We also have lots of lakes to paddle, and there are very few regulations about where you can paddle, or camp. For one night you can camp just about anywhere, except in someone's garden, and you may use twigs and dead branches to make up fires, for that one night! You may pick berries in any forest or bog, or mushrooms, but you are not allowed to cross fields with cereals, or other products, growing on them! In National parks the rules are sometimes much stricter, as in reservations - just as it is in the US! Fishing and hunting rights goes with the owner of the land, though! Except on the West Coast and a few other places, where it's free! The northern part of Sweden is a bit like Alaska, with mountain ranges, bogs, trees, bears (Eurpean vesion of Grizzly), and mosquitoes aplenty! There are tens of thousands of lakes to paddle, there are lots of rivers, and one hell of a long coastline, with thousands upon thousands of islands of various sizes! Some very private, though, and some nature reserves. Sweden of today is in many ways like any other modern country, with lots of jobs for the wellpaid and very few for the poor. About 3,000 manual jobs disappear overseas each year - much production moving to China, of course - and the new ones are seldom in the industry sector. Sounds like the US, on a small scale, eh?! By all means pay us a visit - it is quite a changed world around here, since my childhood days. For instance, then there were maybe two coloured people in town (a bit over half a million people lives here), and then there were about nil Moslems. Today's Gothenburg is a bit like New York City, lots of immigrants, and a mosque, or two: heaps of Africans, thousands of people from former Eastern Europe, and many thousands of Iraqi and Iranians. Almost all travelling on buses and trams are unemployed, retired, kids, or immigrants. The coloured in town when I was a kid were one, or two, students from Africa, or the Caribean, here on a grant, or Viet Nam vets, or draft dodgers. That was it! Now a number of my colleages are coloured, mostly refugees from Somaila, a third are from Asia, and the rest a mixture of (former) Yugoslavs and Swedes! And we got more here in town: The traffic jams are huge at times, just as in NYC, and you're lucky if your cab driver understands Swedish, or English! Most hospitals are still run by the community, or state, while almost all dentists, and vetrinarians, are private, so going to the dentist can cost a bit, and even more so if your dog needs an operation! Schools are nowadays a mix of community and private, as is the care of the elderly and infirm. The official retiring age is climbing, while the factual retirement age in my branch is now lower than before, as people are more worn out, than a generation before. The experts tell us that the retirees now have it better in every way than either the generation before, or the generation after (= mine), will ever have! So, as in any country, it is a mixed bag, but the majority still speaks Swedish! Most speak, or at least understand, some English, as it has been compulsory in school since the '40s, and no films, or tv-programs, are dubbed, all are subtitled (except those for the smallest kids, like animated films - which are shown in cinemas both dubbed and subtitled)! Climate around here, on the West Coast is a bit like Scotland, fairly wet, while in the extreme north it is very dry and cold (still thousands of mosquitoes and worse in summertime - say middle June to late August, if you're lucky)! Better stop, time for bed, Night all, Tord PS Never done any paddling in Connecticut, just driving! *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon Nov 20 2006 - 04:56:01 PST
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