I went to the freshman Gasque at V-Dala nation on Friday. That's a formal coat and tie dinner with songs and toasts and a great amount of ceremony. After contemplating the greater meaning of the event for a day, I think it represents many of the Swedes' cultural personality traits. It starts off with all of us marching from our nation to this opera house thingy while we sing our nation's anthem. Once there we listen to an hour's worth of speeches that I'm sure would be very touching and inspirational if I understood any of it. After that we head back to the nation to start the dinner.
The word 'Gasque' comes from the old Viking phrase "Where the hell is my food!?" Advertised as a three course dinner I was expecting to be full, or at least satisfied. In Sweden a three course dinner consists of a half a cup of soup, followed by potatoes about three hours later and then a cup of pudding. To alleviate the boredom, and the hunger, about every five minutes we were prompted to start singing. The Swedish songs we had to learn were really confusing but ultimately fun. And the system of toasting in Sweden really takes some getting used to: you have to toast to the person on your left, then right then across from you (the order also depends on the gender of the people in those seats), drink, then toast to them again in reverse.
The actual amount of alcohol that Swedes drink isn't really so much different than what college students in the US drink, but there's a ceremony to it; a great amount of formality, tradition and custom centered more around camaraderie than getting drunk. Some of them claim that it's just an excuse to drink, but I think there's more to it than that. I dunno, maybe I'm just enamored with the culture and so am making justifications, but there's something about chugging cheap booze from a beer bong until you throw up that just lacks the class of a gasque.

So what can we learn about the Swedes from the gasque? They are very friendly, warm and inviting, they have many of these gasques throughout the year. They have a great sense of tradition and custom, from the marching color guard to the speeches to the toasting etiquette. They start out reserved and polite, as seen by the first half of the evening, then once they have had a few drinks are lively and social. This explains how they can have a reputation for being both outgoing and reticent. The Swedes are also a patient people, otherwise they wouldn't have put up with the "three course meal" hoax. Then again, that might also explain why they're so thin.