Hej (hello)

My name is Jenny Harnesk, and I am from the Scandinavian country of Sweden. Sweden is a relatively small country. Sweden’s population is approximately 9 million. Sweden is very narrow, and long and almost 174,000 square miles and actually the third largest country in Western Europe, if you look at the square miles.  The capital of Sweden is Stockholm with approximately 1 million people. Sweden is and has always been a monarchy. Sweden directly borders both Finland and Norway and is connected with Denmark by a new bridge built in 2000. The major religion in Sweden is Lutheran. Since 1995 Sweden has been a part of the European Union, but decides to stay out of the monetary system, to keep the Swedish Krona as our currency. Our official language is Swedish, with English as a mandatory second language. I am from a small city called Sandviken, with approximately 50,000 people. Sandviken is located in the northern part of Sweden.

The right word for the climate in Sweden would probably be comfortable. The summers are very nice with temperatures around 75-85*F. The winter is fairly long and cold. The winter starts in October and last until late March, mid April. In the northern part of Sweden we have something that’s called Midnattsol. That means that the sun never sets in the summer (May-July), but on the other hand in the winter we usually only have 3-5 hours of daylight. One thing about Sweden that I really think is neat and interesting, is the Ice hotel. The Ice hotel is a regular hotel that is entirely built by ice. The hotel stands up from December to April. You can sleep, eat, and drink there. They also have an ice church, and theater connected to it. They bring in architects and artists from all over the world to design and construct the different rooms in the hotel.