Sweden here we come

So Deb and I are going to Scandanavia for 2 1/2 weeks. Last year we had our 25th anniversary and we were so busy we didn't do much of anything to celebrate it. So we decided we have never been to Scandanavia and here we are. Deb loves planning trips and has worked hard all winter putting this together. We fly into Stockholm and get a car and then drive west over the next week to see what Sweden and Norway are all about. The pins on the map are the places we will stay sometimes for 1 night and sometimes for 3 nights. Since we burned the fuel to get over there we decided to add a few days in Denmark. We fly from Bergen to Roskilde at the end of the trip and see the sights there, then fly home. The flights are through Iceland Air and stop in Iceland on the way over (and back I presume) for an hour or so, so the only site seeing there will be the exotic Starbucks at the airport.

I am curious about the Scandinavian countries because statistically they have the highest quality of life in the world depending on which indices you want to look at. Denmark is always talked about having the happiest people in the world. The Gini Index which is an indicator of economic inequality in Sweden is talked about as being the lowest in the world, which means everyone makes about the same amount of money. The Economist Intelligence Unit's "Quality of Life" Index puts Norway, Sweden and Denmark in the top ten countries in the world.

So I am curious to go there and observe what makes these people so darn happy. I will have to write up a bunch of stuff I am bummed about to help compensate for the inevitable upbeat and perky people we will inevitably meet. That way when I find myself too happy, I can remind myself of why life really sucks. Maybe they make a drug that makes you more depressed, sort of an anti-Prozac kind of thing? This is going to be tricky..