Recently a post went viral calling sweden the least hospitable country
in the world. #swedengate. The reason for this being that if you visit a Swede
don't be expected to be invited to stay for dinner. This post made me really curious about
how the rest of Western Europe would measure up. So today we have a new series called Rank Me!
to see which is the most and the least hospitable country in Western Europe. You're being sat down
and going here you go "eat that!" and it's like you know you could be allergic, you might hate it but
you finish it and you go thank you so much mrs O'Flaherty. This liver and onions is really nice.
Hi I'm Benjamin, I'm from Lille, northern France. Hi I'm Laura and I'm from the Netherlands.
Ciao, sono Giovanni and I'm from Italy. Hi I'm Josephine and I'm from Germany.
How's it going? I'm Clara and I'm from Ireland. Hey my name is Peter and I'm from Gothenburg, Sweden.
Would you say your country is hospitable? Yes, I would say so my country is hospitable. Not in Paris but
the rest of France were really nice. Um in the netherlands people say they are I think it's
regional not everywhere in the Netherlands. Where I'm from the east it's not really, but in Amsterdam
and in the middle yes it is. All over Italy we'll welcome you with nice wine and a dish of pasta
number one! Even though people might not think so yeah we love to have people over and we if
you're at our house you get some food you get some drinks yeah of course. I mean yeah
not only do we give drink in our own country we've also managed to establish a pub in every
country in the world to give drink to people. So I would say yeah we're doing pretty good
we will take you out on fika - a brief one - but we won't invite you to our house.
Who would you say is the most hospitable person here? Point to the person or country
Who would you say is the least?
So if we're gonna go by the least - who won't welcome you into his house
he's number one. I welcome everyone into my house. My mother would feed anyone- with what? With
everything! Everything and anything that it would like beer she would cook a full feast for a king
if you were to come over to the house she would honestly yeah
what is happening? Oh yeah- between okay right okay - I would say actually
I would say - we switch. Actually yes. I can't be the second to last - no - no. I would say the same.
well because Germany and France are also teammates in Europe, I would say we team on that like we're
on the same same level. Like that like do Germany have it in the schedule to be hospitable though
like or? Unless you're late you're welcome! Based on experience I have been on many a holiday in France
and they are an incredibly welcoming place. Germany I feel like they don't have a lot of time for you.
That's not true - when I've been there definitely. France, I would go with France as well. I've been
to more french homes than German homes all right all right oh how nice that must be
to be in other people's homes. We don't have the social culture where we invite
people in our homes. We meet people out on the city and if there's family dinners and if we
invite friends over it's a big thing. So we have to plan ahead in advance and so that's why we don't
do it that often. The Sweden-gate has been a large thing now during in social media and that is a
thing where if there's a family dinner the friend of the family's child has to stay in their room
they will play games or video games or whatever in their friend's room while the family is having
dinner and this has shocked a lot of people and especially on nations here and Sweden gate is
100% true - and he's so proud of it - yes no but it's a thing but it's kind of cute because like
we don't know a lot of things about Sweden and the only thing that comes out is this like -what ??
Well we have a thing with like we have dinner and their kids they have their own table at the end
so we did because you know adults want to stay with adults for conversation but you actually
feed them? Yeah - they don't - oh you don't feed them? NO! No, they stay in the room. Oh I didn't get that. From
the beginning, it's a social thing it's a social cultural thing where Swedes don't want to end up
in debt. So if for example friend will get receive food at another friend's house then the parents
of that friend would feel the need to invite that other friend to their house for a dinner
so it always comes with a certain types of restraint. It's like a scary movie. It's like
we're like we're like stuck in this void of having to constantly feed each other.
Yes! We can give back but we don't want to end up in the situation where we don't know if we can
give back. So I don't know if I get the chance to offer you a dinner at my house so I don't want to
feel that i'm in dept to you. This kind of reminds me of Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory. I don't
understand what any of them are saying because my whole childhood was like here you're hungry
are you hungry? are you hungry? like an Irish mother would feed you like two snacks, lunch, second lunch,
breakfast, second breakfast -. like lord of the rings - do you know where he's like oh what about second
breakfast? What about breakfast? i've already had it we've had one yes - what about second breakfast?
That's like every Irish mother ever. If you're over like playing with your friend or whatever
and the dinner's ready you're getting that dinner whether you want it or not you were being sat down
and going here you go eat that and it's like you know you could be allergic you might hate it but
you finish it and you go thank you so much mrs o'flaherty this liver and onions is really nice.
I'm such a fan, thank you. I can relate to that yes so to start off with Sweden the dinner parties are
small. It's there's no one yeah there's there's no one there there's two couples one couple that
invites another couple over it's planned it will include salmon and it will be very well compounded
with wine. That is from systembolaget- so it's small and it's not that often at all. Because you
might have to remortgage the house? In the Netherlands we plan everything from one week to four
five six weeks and we have a lot of cheese like a whole plate full of cheese of course and one
person pays for everything and then the next day everybody gets a tikki - tikki means like it splits.
That's neat yeah German. German very German - so what about Germany? I don't know do we do dinner parties?
No i'm just kidding um
no i mean there's like mostly more like these organized dinner parties where it's like
everyone everyone is contributing with alcohol or like maybe the host is there contributing
to food and then everybody's bringing drinks or like Germans are very - especially when it comes
to birthdays, kind of thing. It's more like it's my birthday so I have to invite everyone and I have
to pay for everything so they pay for food drinks everything and we don't split anything you can
relate to that as well when it's your own birthday you pay for everything you don't send a ticket
Because here it's not the same like people are not the same if it's your birthday people pay for you
yeah back home you have to pay for everyone yeah. Well in France it takes time can be last minute uh
it always started with the aperol - the aperative- where we all just have like dry sausage and like cheese and
wine or beer that can take a long time because we like to debate and discuss we also like to dance.
so when I grew up like a lot of parties with my parents would end up with like dancing and stuff
and you always see kids like sleeping on chairs at like midnight because they're too tired to go to
bed. Well in Ireland I'll tell you one thing now we do drink a lot at dinner parties so the food
becomes less of that a thing that you really want more thing that you need so you can keep drinking
because you don't really have good food though
No no what would you make? I'd make it like a really nice plate it would be a stupid cocktail
sausages generally dinner parties go to like about six o'clock in the morning and someone
will whip out either a guitar and have a strum a recorder maybe or a flute. It's all very like
about having the banter and having the craic and kind of coming together and just really enjoying
each other's company so the food is kind of a byproduct because generally for dinner party it's
how many people you can just squash into one room because it's raining outside so you can't
go outside so you have to stay inside and that just genuinely means bodies inside. In Italy
obviously it's we're more spontaneous. If someone comes over there's always food in the fridge
always it's our culture to make the guests happy because we know if we go over to our guest house
they're gonna make us happy. It's the way it is you know we always always always exchange
the favor you know you gotta - I wish - you gotta share the happiness, the moment, the experience.
Everyone comes and then you know they make crazy the sauce you know slow cooking it's cooking on
its own and then everyone comes over the family and friends - I'm starving! stop speaking - the wine.
never miss the wine. I can see why you're number one now it actually makes a lot of sense. I know
in Italy it's always like big big families like friends all the family and all sudden there's like
30 people for dinner and yeah it's really nice I like that it's really warm it's really warm yeah
hope you guys enjoyed the video let me know if you enjoy the series and you want us to make
more videos in Rank Me, by the way speaking of Sweden, I just published my first ever
book called Sex Before Coffee: A guide to Dating in Scandinavia which talks all about meeting people
in Scandinavia, making friends and of course dating as that's my main topic. Anyways if you enjoyed us
let us know in the comments which do you think is the most hospitable country in Europe and
which is the least hospitable country in Europe? I'd love to know your thoughts.
Stay tuned for next week's video as usual and keep on breaking down your barriers -adios