27 “Culture Shocks” This Canadian Woman Experienced After Moving To Sweden

Bored Panda reached out to Madeline, who’s originally from Canada and has been living in Malmö, Sweden for over two years. The writer and content creator now runs an awesome blog, ‘Madeline Rae Away,’ to document her life and travel adventures while living abroad.

Madeline’s Scandi life started when she and her Swedish fiance met while traveling in 2017. “After a year and a half of long distance, I quit my corporate job without much of a plan, secured a short-term visa and moved here to be with him,” she recounted.“

In many ways, Canada is similar to Sweden,” the woman said of her first impression, which changed once she got a corporate job there. “I started to really notice the nuances and quirks of the culture that I found really fun and interesting. I am a marketer by profession and over this past winter, while we were locked down without much to do, I started to post some of my observations on TikTok. And people really seemed to enjoy the content!”

Madeline was honest to say that she’s still adapting to the Scandi lifestyle: “it's hard to feel totally integrated until you speak the language fluently.”

“But otherwise, it took me about a year to really get into the rhythm of daily life here. It was mostly the little things that took some adapting, like shopping for groceries and finding my favorite products in another language, or getting used to biking everywhere instead of driving.”

Meanwhile, from a work perspective, she said she was used to a much more intense work culture. “It took a while to adapt to the balanced, generally slower pace of life here. In many ways, my life is much simpler here and now I really love it!”

Madeline assured us that there were many cultural shocks. “The work-life balance is amazing. But I was really shocked by all the parental benefits Swedes have. Childcare is incredibly cheap, parents enjoy 480 days of paid parental leave (that is shared between both parents), you get paid to stay home from work when your kids are sick, and parents are often encouraged to take 4-6 weeks off every summer to spend time with their families.”

“On a more superficial note, I was also a bit surprised to find out that not all Swedes are tall, blond-haired and blue-eyed. And are actually amazing at speaking English, and don't sound anything like the Swedish chef,” she added.

Madeline hasn’t been able to visit her family and friends in almost two years, so she said that above all else, she misses the people. “I also generally miss the friendliness of Canadians. And then it's just little things like good maple syrup, all-dressed chips, Tim Hortons, and Canada's hockey culture,” she said.