Expensive

“Did you just order a five dollar milkshake?”
— Vincent, Pulp Fiction

The current exchange rate is about 1 USD = 6 SEK (Swedish Kronor). That sounds good, but it doesn’t mean a dollar buys six times as much in Sweden. Quite the contrary. Things are very expensive in Sweden. For instance, my first lunch here was from a McDonald’s: double cheese burger, small fries, canned water = 49.00kr. It was shocking to see that number come up on a Mickey D’s register, but then I remembered to divide by 6 = $8.16. Holy crap! That order would have been around 3 or 4 dollars in the US. Taking the double cheese burger off the “Dollar Menu,” and still it probably wouldn’t have been more than $5.

Later, when I was checking out the restaurants around my hotel, I found a menu at the entrance of a moderate American-style place:

A regular (“Klassisk”) hamburger with ketchup, lettuce, onion, coleslaw, and some other stuff I can’t figure out/translate is 135kr. That’s $22.50! For a freakin’ burger! And that’s a moderate place.

For dinner last night, I went out with a couple of coworkers to a nice, above-average place. I ordered salmon in a lobster sauce with algae, and a water. Nothing else.

It wasn’t a big meal, especially by American restaurant standards. It was just one moderate-sized piece of grilled salmon (good), a couple pieces of some vegetable I couldn’t recognize (not bad), sauce, and a heavy sprinkling of algae (not bad, but I wouldn’t order it again). I couldn’t really taste anything lobstery about the sauce. It’s impolite in Sweden to not eat everything on your plate, so I ate it all — yes, even all the algae.

The bill came to 215kr — just my meal alone. That’s $35.83! That meal would have been $15-$20 at an equivalent restaurant at home.

After dinner, we went to a bar near our hotel for a change of atmosphere. I ordered hot chocolate. I figured Swedish hot chocolate would be good, and it indeed was. Very good. And it was 35kr = $5.83. A six-dollar glass of hot chocolate. But it was so good, and Sweden is so cold, especially after the sun goes down, that I got a second glass.

That’s right, I spent nearly 12 bucks on hot chocolate. That’s just how I roll in Sweden.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com