Oh ‘Merica the Great! How I miss thee. One month down in Sweden and it’s only now that I realize what I miss most about the Mother Land.

Let me break it down for you in a little post I like to call: “The Top 10 Things Sweden is Missing Out On (Seriously Sweden, Get Your Act Together Because This is a Little Ridiculous)”

1. Let’s just get right down to the nitty gritty here. Taco Bell. TACO BELL. Need I say more? No. No I needn’t.

2. Applebee’s. Or as my friends and I back home like to refer to it as Crapplebee’s. What I would give for an Applebee’s Oriental Chicken Rollup right now…

3. While we’re on the topic of crappy and unhealthy yet wonderfully delicious American restaurants, let me throw in a TGI Fridays. Technically they have three TGIF’s in the country of Sweden, but none are close enough for me to get to in a reasonable amount of time.  More importantly, the only real reason anyone goes to a Fridays, the Jack Daniels BBQ. I would eat my own hand right now if it was smothered and covered in that delicious amber sauce.

4. While we continue on with food, let me introduce you to number 5. Loaded baked potatoes. Swedes love their potatoes I tell ya, but they prefer them mashed and smothered in gravy. Most potatoes in the store are small and made for boilin’ and mashin’. None worthy to be baked for an hour, drowned in butter, sour cream, chives, and bacon. Ohhh the bacon!

5. Cereal. And when I say cereal I mean junk cereal. Sweden is a land rich with cereal; fiber enriched, granola packed, sugarless, tasteless, oat bran, cereal. Where are my Golden Grams? My Lucky Charms? My Life? My Cinnamon Toast Crunch? Oh God the Cinnamon Toast Crunch!

6. Vitamin Water, the number one way I got my water intake back in good ol’ ‘Merica. Yes, they have Vitamin Water here in Sweden, but get ready for this….it doesn’t taste the same at all. I guess when you remove most of the sugar and other things deemed “unhealthy” the taste is bound to change. But damnit, that’s what makes water worth drinking!

7. My hair will never smell the same again…or at least for the duration of my stay here. Herbal Essences. No orgasm inducing hair products here Ladies and Gentlemen, just standard (and unfragrant). *Siiigh*

8. This one was a shocker. Apparently people in Sweden let their cuts, burns, scrapes, and general owies heal “on their own.” I’m sorry? Come again? What about Neosporin??  No. No such thing. In fact, when I tried to explain this magical ointment to them, I was met with blank stares and confused faces. Tragic.

9. This one may seem a bit odd to put on my list. But let me tell you, if you were in a dire decorating dilemma and needed poster board to complete your DIY home decorating emergency, you’d be a bit flabbergasted at the lack of poster board in the country of Sweden. After an hour on Google with two Swedes, hand gestures, and shadow puppets we came to the conclusion that poster board does not exist here. DIY decorating emergency still on hold until further notice…

10. Last, but very certainly not least, Whipped Vodka. The one thing I need most to get me through the lack of items 1-9 in my life.