Yeah, the Nordics. I always had that feeling that life in general is a bit more relaxed there. In the sense of a government not draining every ounce of energy from their citizens by ridiculous amounts of bureaucracy you have to stem in your free time or practically forcing both parents to have a job because maintaining a living is that expensive. I love the Nordics. If we weren't so happy with our current neighbourhood, and if husband didn't have that job he's enjoying, I think we'd try to move...

I have another fact you may find interesting: In Hamburg mothers aren't allowed to decide how many hours their children spend at the nursery/kindergarden. Some authority makes a calculation based on cumulated working hours of both parents and decides they get x hours of nursery/kiga time per day. Is that crass, or what? I'd hate it.