How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons

It's a lie that everywhere outside the United States is a pharmocological utopia. Well, at least Sweden doesn't fit the profile. Spain, now that's a different story. Or a place like India - my friend the Indian novelist recently told me he stocks up on convenient family-sized bottles of valium whenever he goes home to Bombay.

But here in Sweden, I could almost swear you need a prescription to get anything stronger than paracetamol. And I'm almost out of that bottle of generic nyquil that the American editor and his wife left when they were staying with us last summer. Even with a prescription, they have nothing like nyquil here.

I hope I don't start coughing again as soon as I lay down tonight.

America is a nation of happy drug addicts, and they don't even know it. Lucky dogs.

The Swedish word for the day is narkoman. It means junkie.

- by Francis S.