Empty Offices in the Swedish Summer

Time? 3:40pm

Last email arrived?  1:37pm

Over two hours ago! In Space, no one can hear you scream.

Help, I’m trapped in a Swedish office and 75% of my co-workers have left on vacation!

Empty desks where I work...

Wow, it sure is empty here. I ride the empty subway cars to work and then I work 8 hours in a nearly empty office. Even though there are roughly 25 people here at any given time, I can’t see them without heading down a long hallway because my desk happens to be at the other end of the hall from those who are not on vacation at this time.

I’ve never experienced anything like this. The vacation time is substantially shorter in the US and I’ve never worked anywhere in which the whole office emptied out. (I was lucky if I got 2 weeks in the US, here I get 5 weeks, although one of those weeks is in compensation for not receiving overtime.)

No one in any of the conference rooms...

I tried to prepare myself for it. I knew I was taking my vacation unnaturally early (mid-June to mid-July) on account of family coming to visit but I didn’t quite realize how strange it would feel when I returned to an empty office.

It’s great for my personal productivity because there are a lot fewer distractions and “fires to put out” but it sure is lonely...

Will the last one out of Sweden please turn off the lights?

Bringing My Dog to Sweden

This is "Rabbit" a few years ago...A friend made her try on her dog's old Halloween costume.

Hurrah! At long last I have managed to bring my dog to Sweden! I am so happy, it's hard to even express my delight.

In November 2011, I wrote about how I was going to bring my dog to Sweden in the blog I wrote for Sweden.se. I'll link to it here but I have to say that I got some things wrong about how it is done so be warned. Now that I have actually done it, I know a lot more.

My dog, who has the unusual name of "Rabbit"*, arrived at Arlanda Airport in Stockholm yesterday morning. She flew from San Francisco to New Jersey to Stockholm. Due to an extended layover in New Jersey (around 17 hours), I had to pay for boarding her at the airport during that time. This actually had the advantage of breaking up her flights and allowing her time out of the crate to drink, eat, and rest.

Amazing to think that on Tuesday night she was running up and down Stinson Beach, north of San Francisco and on Friday morning she was having a pee on Swedish grass.

Let me say, right away, that there is no longer a quarantine (at least for arrivals from approved countries) any longer so I could collect Rabbit right away at the airport. Personally, I wouldn't bring a dog from another country if there was still a 6 month quarantine the way there used to be.

Still, it was a lot of work and anxiety trying to get the process right. I found that I received different answers every time I asked the experts how it needed to work. I talked to United Airlines (with waits of over an hour in the phone queue at times), the Us Department of Agriculture, the Swedish Agricultural Board, Swedish Customs, Swedish Border Inspection at Arlanda, and the receiving Cargo company at Arlanda.

And there were many, many consultations with my veterinarian in the US. (They did a fantastic job and got everything letter-perfect. Here's a shout-out to my vet and her staff. You rock! How am I ever going to find your equivalent in Sweden?)

Rabbit came as cargo rather than as "excess baggage" a distinction that matters when it comes to importing the dog but no longer seems to matter to the airlines, or at least to United Airlines. In both cases, the dog is traveling in the cargo area but the difference is whether the dog is flying with a ticketed passenger or coming on its own. (It's all rather murky, isn't it?)

Here's how it worked:

1) My family bought a dog crate. It had to be much larger (and wider) than we initially thought because there needs to be 3 inches of clearance over the dog's head when they are traveling internationally. Rabbit only weighs 37 pounds (16 kg), but she is tall and thin, like a boxer or a whippet. She looked ridiculously small in that crate and I wonder if we couldn't have gotten away with a smaller size but we didn't want to risk them refusing her. My friend also bought food and water bowls that screw on to the inside of the door.

2) Rabbit had to get a vet exam and an exam by a USDA vet within 24 hours of the flight. This is harder to do than it sounds. This basically means these 2 things have to happen right before the flight, as in, on the same day. Rabbit had to be at the Cargo facility at SFO at 2pm. See why it was stressful and with little margin for error?

3) After many phone consultations, ordering of the proper Swedish forms, and my vet contacting the USDA in South San Francisco to make sure we were doing this correctly, my family took Rabbit to our vet at 9AM on the day she was to fly. She received a vet check and also an additional microchip that could be read internationally. She already had one but it could only be read by an American scanner.

After the vet appointment, my family drove the hour+ to the USDA vet appointment where they got the important papers stamped. Then they drove to United Cargo at the airport (luckily nearby) and filled out more forms, etc. I had long ago made the reservation for her to fly. Then it was time to leave Rabbit in her new crate, mournfully looking at them as they left and wondering what in the world was going on.

4) I had to call Arlanda Border Inspection with the dog's waybill number as soon as I got it to advise them Rabbit was arriving so that they could schedule a Swedish vet check.

5) After the aforementioned break in New Jersey, Rabbit arrived on Friday morning. I was disappointed to find out that even though the plane came in around 7:30AM, I wouldn't be able to start the collection process till 10AM due to the time it takes for them to process the dog, do the vet check, etc. As soon as Border Inspection receives the dog, they immediately take it to a special reception area for that species (dogs, cats, reptiles, fish, birds) (wait a minute, a fish area...really?) and give it water, a chance to relieve itself, and food if specified by the owner. So at least she wasn't stuck waiting for a chance to come out of the crate.

6) A Swedish friend drove me to the airport since I don't have a car. We had to stop at a security checkpoint to get into the cargo area. This involved the car being searched. Then we took ourselves and our backpacks through a security screening process similar to what passengers go through only not nearly as strict. I realized later that I had a small knife on my keychain and water for the dog-items that wouldn't have made it through passenger security.

7) After Security, we drove around for awhile, looking for the right Cargo company. After going in and asking at the wrong place, we received directions on how to find it.

8) At the Cargo company, we picked up the paperwork that was ready and waiting. I had been extremely nervous up to this point because there were some gray areas where the microchip was concerned and I lived in fear that they would reject her from the country or something. But since the papers were ready, I assumed we had passed that hurdle already and things were fine.

They assured me that Rabbit was doing great and resting comfortably but I couldn't see her yet. I had to then take the paperwork across the airport to Customs. This required leaving the secure area, finding our way through countless rotaries (Sweden does love a good rotatry or "rondel.") and finding the Customs building.

9) I wondered around in the building where every floor said "Customs" but had a locked door. After asking several people, I found the right door (next door to where I was) and took my papers in. It took 20 minutes or so to get the Customs paperwork done but thank goodness it didn't cost anything as she is my personal pet that I owned before coming to Sweden.

10) Then I took the customs paperwork back to Cargo which required us to repeat the whole car inspection process. But they looked like they were used to seeing the same people more than once. Business as usual.

11) Back at Cargo, they immediately brought around a trailer that had the crate on it. And there was Rabbit! She caught sight of me and started whining. I immediately let her out and she danced and jumped and twisted around my legs. I can't imagine what she was thinking. She hadn't seen me since I visited in April, had been put onto the plane by completely different people...and then arrived to see me. How confusing!

I don't mind saying that I cried...with relief, with gratitude, with love for my special dog.

Rabbit eats her first Swedish meal after arriving.

Now Rabbit has been here for 30 hours or so. She is calm but I think she has doggy jet lag. I wonder if everything smells strange to her. She hasn't met any Swedish dogs yet, wonder what she'll think of them?

Here she enjoys her new Swedish bed.

Welcome to Sweden, Rabbit!

* Rabbit is a mixed breed that I got from a shelter. She's 6 years old.

Sweden's Reputation: Blame it on the Ads...

Sweden has a reputation of its people being more comfortable with open sexuality and sex in general. I can't really say one way or the other. I've noticed that Swedish parents seem more comfortable with their teenagers' sex lives. But I haven't seen any streakers in the streets of Stockholm. I haven't seen any acquaintances naked...But I have marked that they do show a lot of things on TV that, for example, the US shies away from. And the TV commercials show a lot more. And the ads in other places.

Here's a (sorry, blurry!) picture of an ad displayed in a Stockholm subway train.It says:

"Isn't this the world's most beautiful place to have sex?"

It's an ad promoting Stockholm County Council's drive for sexuality and health.

This is a picture of an ad on a Stockholm subway car. Those are tents and the sign says, "Isn't this the world's most beautiful place to have sex?" It's an ad promoting condom use.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great to be so open. But I'm so unused to it. In the subway! With little kids eating ice cream right next to me.

So, at the end of the day, Sweden shouldn't be mystified about its reputation since the ads keep the idea alive. It's like those silly postcards with the polar bear superimposed onto a picture of Stockholm. It keeps the misunderstanding going. Then Swedes say how crazy it is that people think polar bears roam the streets here...

Recycling Adventures in Eskilstuna

Recycling is taken very seriously in Sweden which is pretty cool. I have seen it handled differently in different areas of Sweden. In Uppsala, my friends work very hard to compost the food scraps, and sort through plastic and glass that can be returned for the deposit, plastic and glass that should just be recycled, newspapers separated from other paper packing materials, egg cartons, milk cartons, etc.

I am on my summer vacation and just spent a week in a small town located about 45 minutes west of Stockholm, near Eskilstuna. They have a recycling system there that involves sorting everything into different colored plastic bags. The bags are then tied off and all are put into the same trash bin which is set out at the curb and collected once a week.

I found it was actually a lot easier than sorting the trash in Uppsala where everyone tries to figure out their own system and it's awkward. Also, there you then have to take the assorted recycling in your car or on foot to the nearest recycling bins.

The Eskilstuna system, which is managed by Eskilstuna Energi & Miljö (website only in Swedish) is so simple, they wrote the directions explaining which color goes with which recyling in the form of a toddler's board book (a thick-paged book, the kind toddlers gnaw on when they are not reading). Here are a few pictures:

The book explaining the color-coded recycling system was designed to look like a toddler's board book.

"It's childishly simple to color sort!" (wait, is "childishly" a real word?)

Pages explaining what goes into the green bag and what goes into the orange bag.

You can ask for more bags at any time. I believe there are six colors used to split the trash into 6 different kinds of recycling. You are to use a regular, recycled grocery bag for the few things that fit into none of the categories.

It takes a little time to learn what goes where and one must dedicate an area somewhere for all these bags. They were just in the cabinet under the sink where I stayed. Some were held open by small containers and some were just sitting on the floor of the cabinet. The friend that owns the house where we stayed rents out part of the house in the summer, usually to people from Germany or Poland. These guests have to learn the system as well. But hey, it's childishly simple in any language!

PIzza Swedish-Style

Yum!

I present you my not-so-comprehensive research on pizza in Sweden. From what I have seen, Swedes don’t order one larger pizza to share but rather each person orders a single one for themselves. And boy howdy do they have some crazy flavors!

Because I avoid eating gluten, I don't eat much pizza. But I have found that pizzerias here in Sweden usually offer a gluten-free crust so I have tried it. Sometimes it's a good alternative, sometimes not. And like all things gluten free, it costs more. One must add 15 kronor to the price when asking for gluten- free. My friend says that is strange because since it is missing something, it should be cheaper. (ha ha)

Okay, but what about those crazy flavors? I present to you a selection of flavors from the local joint in Uppsala. (I haven't noticed that you can "build your own" from scratch, instead you choose one of their flavors--though I am sure you can add or remove items...)

Cheapest (65 kr. approximately $9.28)

The "Calzone" pizza has ham, mushrooms, and shrimp.

The "Campagniola" pizza has salami, onions, and shrimp. (What is it with all the shrimp on pizza?)

The "Oriental" pizza has hamburger meat and onions.

The next level of pizzas, a little more expensive… (75 kr.)

The "Big Ben" boasts ham, asparagus, and...béarnaise sauce.

The "Hawaii" has ham and pineapple (okay, normal) and then…bananas (ewww!)

More expensive… (85 kr.)

"The Amigo" offers hamburger, leeks, paprika, pepperoni, tomatoes, taco sauce, and béarnaise sauce

Most expensive… (95 kr.)

The "Pescatore" has shredded pork, pineapple, bananas, shrimp, and, wait for it...curry

What's your favorite flavor? Weirdest pizza you've ever seen? Post a comment. I'm curious!

The Light and the Dark in Sweden

You hear a lot about lightness and darkness in Sweden.

The Dark Side
Swedes grumble about the 18 hours or so of darkness in the heart of winter. I moved to Sweden last November, arriving at the month many Swedes hate the most because Autumn has definitely gone and the December holidays with all their candles and celebrations have not yet arrived.

But you know what? I actually liked the darkness last winter. It seems almost heretical to say it. I marveled that I couldn't even see people's faces when I hurried past on the way to the commuter train in Stockholm. I liked the way you could slip through the shadows. I liked the dark even before I moved to Sweden so I figured that I was strange and also that I was new to the Swedish darkness. I figured the novelty would wear off and I would feel depressed like many Swedes come wintertime.

Only time will tell.

“Early morning Lucia procession in Gustav Vasa church in Stockholm. Lucia is an ancient mythical figure with an abiding role as a bearer of light in the dark Swedish winters.” Photo by: Ola Ericson/imagebank.sweden.se

The Light Side
Now, as we just passed Midsummer, the days are as long as they can be. The sun sets around 10:30pm (but it's still light for quite awhile) and rises at 3:30AM. And you know what? I think it's kind of a pain! It's hard to get a room to be reasonably dark (this said by a person without an unlimited budget nor or even much control over the window coverings in my shared apartment). It kind of wears on a person. You feel like you should be doing something because it's light out.

I thought this, too, was heretical thinking in Sweden. I thought you were supposed to LOVE the 18 or 19 ours of light because you were sort of "banking" it for the dark months. But yesterday, two card-carrying swedes where I work said they felt the same way. They both thought that August was a good time to take some vacation because it is still light but the sun goes down at 9pm or so and rises later. This, they thought, was a happy medium between the two extremes of having nearly no light at all or too much light.

Maybe I'm not such a heretic, after all.

“Midsummer is one of Sweden’s most beloved holidays and ever since pagan times Swedes have celebrated the longest day of the year, around the time of the summer solstice.” Photo by Lena Granefelt/imagebank.sweden.se

Speed
A final note about the dark and the light. I was surprised at how quickly things change in Sweden. What I mean is that the transition between the short days to the short nights seems very fast to me--as though it took a week or so. Boom! Suddenly it was light nearly the whole night.

I expect the switch back might be as quick in the Fall.

...Wonder if I'll complain about it. :)

Signs of Confusion, Part 4

So, here it is...my last post in this series on odd signs (or controls) that I fail to understand in my new life in Sweden. I mentioned the strange controls on my oven earlier. Well, I am also confused by the microwave controls.

I can appreciate, by the way, that they skip having to use written words and in that way people who don't understand the language can still use the device but for me, it would be better to use words. Words, I could look up. But what am I supposed to do with picto-grams or whatever these are?

There are lots of things you can't do on a ladder...

 

...especially if the ladder is in Sweden, apparently....

 It's a good thing we managed to raise that tent for the Studenten party last week even though we used this ladder. I, myself, climbed this ladder many times and I probably was in violation of most of these "no-no's." Wait, though, I never had one foot on a chimney so that's good...

The Studenten Party

I wrote a previous post about getting ready for my friend's son's Studenten. Gabriel is 19 and just graduated from gymnasium. Nineteen is the average age for finishing the Swedish equivalent of American high school. Except that gymnasium is more specialized in Sweden and students go to a school that specializes in an area the student wants to study, such as computer science or art or English.

We had some crazy weather last week including the coldest June 2nd in 84 years of Swedish weather. But the gods were good and there was no rain last Tuesday, despite the fact that there was a "70% chance" according to Weather Underground.

Gabriel's class came out of graduation which only the students attend at 1:30pm. The families stood outside the building, most waving signs with large pictures of the graduate as a little kid. I know that part of the reason for the signs (which are seen at every school's graduation) is so that the graduate can find his/her family in the crowd but also maybe there is a "awww, cute!" part and a "let's embarrass them" part as well.

Another tradition is that the graduate wears all sorts of revelry around their neck, sort of like Mardi Gras. You can buy all sorts of "necklaces" in many stores at this time of year. The "necklaces" are small stuffed animals, plastic medals, figurines, balloons, candies, and more. Many graduates also ended up with small bouquets hanging from ribbons around their neck.

We expected approximately 80 guests and were not disappointed. My friends live next to the woods and unfortunately Tuesday was the first day I have seen the infamous Swedish mosquitoes this year. They suddenly appeared in droves--I suppose because there were all those victims. Anyway, the use of mosquito spray helped tremendously.

The food was wonderful and all made by hand--no caterers involved. We did have two women washing dishes for several hours which was invaluable because there were very few paper plates, plastic ware, etc. Swedes don't seem to use much of those, at least not at the parties I have been to. I worked my buns off running up and down the stairs, clearing places, restocking. It was really fun and I was glad to be able to do something for my friends after they let me stay so long with them when I first arrived in Sweden seven months ago.

The tables all set to go inside the tent (which was in case of rain). Beautiful!

The party was a huge success. Most people left by midnight but there was a small group that stayed and danced till around 3AM. I was able to see the sun come up at approximately 3:30AM. I am definitely going to have to blog about how light it is all the time at this time of year!

Getting Ready for "Studenten"

"Studenten" is the word used in Sweden for the activities around graduation from high school. There are lots of parties and traditions.

One of the biggest traditions seems to be alcohol-soaked graduates riding through the streets on the back of a truck. Think of migrant workers going to the fields, standing in the back if an open top truck with sides. Only these are privileged kids, whooping and hollering.

I saw my first truckloads of kids last Thursday and Friday in Stockholm. It's suddenly very cold and rainy in Stockholm. The rain isn't so awful but it's really cold! As the trucks rolled past, I was glad not to be freezing my parts off in one of them.

Students in Stockholm, 2010. The sign says "Today blind drunk, tomorrow jobless." Photo by Holger Ellgaard (CC BY 3.0)

My friend, Helen's middle son will celebrate his studenten on Tuesday. Helen and her husband have built a new deck for the party (but also because they have always wanted a deck. This weekend I helped work on the deck and  on raising the tent they will have over it. As I mentioned, it's been unseasonably cold the last few days. The Local reported that "Stockholm broke an 84-year-old cold record on Saturday, [June 2] as the capital's temperature only reached 6 degrees Celsius, the lowest June maximum daily temperature the city has seen since 1928." I was standing in the rain and I thought my fingers were going to fall off, my hands were so cold.

On Sunday, it rained for three minutes every five minutes but at least it was much warmer. Here's a picture of the not-quite-finished deck and the tent which is also not fully up in this photo (for example, one wall of the tent is covering the railing).

On Tuesday, I will watch Helen's son and his whooping classmates come streaming out of the graduation ceremony (which only the students attend, no family--very different than in the US!), then they will do the whole truck party thing, then host the party at is home. Stay tuned for my report on all that...

Signs of Confusion, Part 3

More signs of confusion in Stockholm, Sweden...I can't help but share the laughs I enjoyed while examining the new first aid kits they purchased and mounted on the wall at work.

#1 Check out the spurting bloody ankle in the pink pictures. Ewwww!

#2 Why is the man lying on his side in the yellow pictures? Is he sleepy? Is he going to throw up? Is he drunk? Why is his hand to his mouth?

#3 Now the man (still in the yellow) has a comfy blanket. His hand is still to his mouth. The nice man in the Mr. Rodgers sweater should not give him any more beer to drink at this time.

These Swedes and their first aid kits are a laugh riot...

Signs of Confusion, Part 2

...So, continuing on in my commentary about my lack of understanding when it comes to many pictoral signs in Sweden, I present my next case for your examination...

Here's part of the oven controls on the oven in the apartment where I live in Stockholm. I have no idea what most of these buttons do. Since I have lived there less than one week, I have managed to avoid using the oven. OK, I get that it's "bell" but what does it do? And the "clock" sets the clock--that I get. But I have no idea about the other ones.

I guess as a Technical Writer I should be willing to find the manual and then actually read it...

Nah, think I'll wait for my flat mate to come home and explain it to me!

Loaner Bikes in Stockholm

You can borrow a CityBike for 3 hours in Stockholm as long as you have a loaner card. Photo courtesy of

http://www.citybikes.se/

I wrote about my borrowed "Old Lady" bike awhile back in my blog for Sweden.se. You can read that post here. Now that I am trying to move to Stockholm from Uppsala, I have taken more notice of a system for borrowing bikes in Central Stockholm. I did a little research and found out the bikes belong to Stockholm City Bikes. The bikes are a partnership between an advertising company called, Clear Channel and the City of Stockholm. The project is funded by advertising so it doesn't cost the city of Stockholm anything. 

Right now all the bikes seem to be advertising Svenska Dagbladet whose common abbreviation is SvD. Svenska Dagbladet is published in Stockholm and covers national and international news as well as local  Stockholm news. Its subscribers are concentrated in the capital, but it is distributed in most of Sweden.

According to the CityBikes, The plan is for there to be more than 2500 rental bikes, spread over 200 stations throughout Stockholm. To use the bikes, you have to buy either a April -October subscription card for 250 SEK  (approx. $34.91) or a 3-day card for a little more than half that. 

It's a nifty idea and maybe I'll get a card although it's best to have done that back in April since it's the same price.

Here's how it works:

1. You buy a bike card and take it to any of the Stockholm City Bike stands (there's all kinds of maps that show where the bike stands are located via a PDF or online). 
2. You scan your card in the reader at a particular bike stand. You are allocated a bike and you  take the bike from the allocated slot. 
3. If you don't take the bike within 30 seconds, then it is locked again for security reasons. 
4. You are only supposed to have the bike for less than 3 hours. Return the bike at any Stockholm City Bike stand. Place the bike in an empty slot where the lock has a green light. Wait until the light turns red and ensure that the bike is firmly locked.  
5. If you return your bike late you get a penalty point on your card. After three demerits, or if you keep the bike for longer than 5 hours, your card is blocked. 

Interestingly, the section of the City Bikes website that says it is about the bikes & helmets says nothing about helmets. But I read at one of the stands that there is some sort of deal where when you buy the card, you can buy a helmet from them for very cheap. Of course, I read that in Swedish so perhaps I misunderstood. The website does says that the bikes are repaired regularly and are replaced when necessary.The specially designed bikes are meant to be used in a city environment and are equipped with both foot and handbrakes and all have three gears. 

Kinda cool. Maybe I'll check it out! 

Anybody out there use this service or one like it?

One of the bike stands near where I work...

Here's a close-up of the locking mechanism. They don't want you using your own lock...rather you are supposed to find one of these stands, even if you are going to come back and use the bike again shortly.

 

My First, I Mean, Second, Post...

I forgot to post this introduction before I published my first post. Oh well. This is my first second post on my own blog. For six months I blogged for the Swedish Institute at Sweden.se. I think you can still read the 72 posts I wrote there: http://blogs.sweden.se/work/. Those posts were about what it's like to work in Sweden as a foreigner. I am looking forward to being even more free on my own blog, which is to say I can write about anything I want.

My No-frills Swedish Mammogram

The nurse looked looked at me and I looked back. What did she want?

Take off your shirt, she said, pointing to a hook on the wall to hang it on.

I looked around for the curtain to change behind and the paper poncho to put on but couldn't locate them.

I tried to play it cool. Sure, I can get undressed right here in front of you. I do that all the time.

It was my first medical appointment in my adopted country of Sweden.

As soon as I was registered in Sweden (which means I got an honest-to-god personnummer (personal number)), I began receiving unrequested appointments to have a mammogram and other assorted services. I was surprised because I didn't call and ask for an appointment nor say when I could come, they just sent me a summons in the mail. Kinda like, Hi, welcome to Sweden. We need to check your lady parts.

Well, OK! Really, what could be more fun than navigating the joys of a mammogram in a foreign language?

The appointment I was sent actually did work for me as it was 7:50 in the morning and I could go before work. So on the designated day, I took the bus to downtown Uppsala and made my way to the Health Center. I waited on a bench in the hallway outside the office on the third floor. I was glad to be able to wait inside because it was windy and cold.

Once they opened up the office, I was pleased to be able to conduct the entire registration process in Swedish. I had to show my Swedish ID card which has an electronic chip with all sorts of info about me. Who knows what it says about me. Then I paid 150 kr. (approx. $22) with my bankcard (everyone pays for everything with their bankcard in Sweden) and proceeded to the waiting area. While waiting, I noticed signs all over the waiting room that said I would be called by my first name only and that that name would be the first name I was registered as. I imagined that there must have been lots of confusion in the past. Oh, I didn't know you were calling me! No one calls me by my first name, Mary, so I didn't think you meant me!

I must say that I was a little disappointed that the nurse came out and called, "Kristin Lund." Geez!

I followed the nurse into a room containing a mammography machine. She took my ID card again and asked me a few questions. Once again, I was able to conduct the transaction in Swedish which made me proud. She explained she would take four pictures and then handed me back my ID.

That's when I had to strip right in front of here and walk across the room, bare from the waist, to the waffle maker. That's what I call a mammogram machine because it always looks to me like they based the contraption on a waffle iron and went from there.

Sadly, there was not some super-duper mammogram machine design in Sweden. Since I wear such rose-colored glasses about all things Swedish, I must admit that I had held out hope that the Swedes had a nicer, more user-friendly machine but it was not to be. It looked just like the American version.