The Education of the Swedes

Hei alle sammen!

Jeg håper at dere liker dere her i Florida! For en søt familie dere er! :)

Jeg tenkte bare at dere ville kanskje vite at her tar vi av bordet etter frokost.

Ha det kjempefint!


It didn't take us long to notice the Swedes. When you stay in a hotel for more than a week, and particularly when you attend the breakfast every morning, you begin to become acquainted in a distant, 'stalkerish' way with several of the more interesting families who are following the same patterns.

The most interesting, most obvious family this week has been a family of Swedes. Loud father, quiet mother, two singing blonde children with bright blue eyes. They dominate the room with their loudness, their foreignness, the singsong quality of their speech... the way they never clear their table after they eat, leaving the busboys, who are only supposed to replenish food and empty trash cans, a mountain of china and rubbish.

So I played a little trick, or taught them a little something, or did the busboys a bit of a favour, depending on how you want to look at it. I wrote them a note, last night, and stuck it under their door. You can see the note in it's original above - the translation would be,

Hello everyone!
I hope you like it here in Florida! What a sweet/cute family you are!
I just thought you might want to know that here we clear the table after breakfast.
Have a great time!

This morning, inconspicuous as always, we watched. And if they didn't clear the table, every bit, admirably so! We were a safe distance off, but could hardly contain our giggles as mamma and pappa walked to the trash cans again and again with the piles of dishes.