The Swedish Propensity to wear Scarves

At the risk of generalizing too much (which if your really think about it, is a large part of this blog, because really, I'm drawing conclusions about the Swedish Culture from my very limited experiences) I would like to point out a quirk I have noticed on the subway.

Now let me just note here that I love the Stockholm Subway and public transportation system in general. And the trains I've went on since coming here? They were wonderful too. Not only do I love the T-banna (as it's called in Sweden) because it's convenient, but also because it is like a morning and evening dose of looking into a fishbowl. Everyone in Sweden uses the subway unless you are the extremely rich or the extremely poor. And most of the Extremely poor use the subway anyway, because the security is fairly lax.

But the subway is kind of like a random sampling of Stockholm. You've got the working mothers and fathers with the strollers taking their young babies to daycare. You got a variety of people from different classes: the business types, the tourist types, the "waste removal workers" (garbagemen- who don't even smell), the manual workers, the self employed, the girlfriend and boyfriend that aren't even aware of the rest of the world, the Husband with his pregnant wife who makes sure she doesn't fall over because there aren't enough seats and they're standing, the blatantly gay sambol (legally living together- like my host family parents are doing- Anita and Magnus) couple trying to entertain their three year old girl who is whiny because she didn't get enough sleep last night. And you've got people of all ages and shapes bringing their dogs (and the occasional cat and rabbit) on leashes on the subway.

You have a variety of nationalities represented: the Korean tourists with their three children and a map spread out between the two of them, the German Foreign exchange students engaged in a heated debate, the Finnish commuters who alternate between Swedish and Finnish as they unknowingly demonstrate their fluency in both, the French guy touring the world in his retirement harmlessly flirting with a girl that could be his grand-daughter, the Japanese businessman that is working on a merger with Erikson telephones who can't get of his Samsung phone long enough to realize that it might be a bad idea to be using the competition's phone when going into the meetings, the flock of Muslim women in full brightly-colored and patterned burkas (or whatever those full-length robes are called) chattering in Swedish and flitting between each other- separate (by choice or unwillingly I don't know) from the rest of the people on the subway-standing out from the dark greys, blacks and browns that most Stockholmers wear, the robes winging out behind them as they exit the doors.

I love looking into the other trains when we pass by each other, and seeing the other people in another train, reading, staring out the window bored, putting on makeup, adjusting their hat, talking, and staggering as the train shifts.

And you know what I've noticed since it's starting to get cold? EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM HAS A SCARF. Now, I will admit, scarves are fairly common in the US, but some people have hoods on their coats, and some people just pull their cap down low. Not in Stockholm, at least. EVERYONE has a scarf. Male, female, old, young, the only ones that don't seem to have them are the tourists.

It fascinates me.