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Being half-Spanish I often compare to that culture. Over there you'll see kids, teenagers, adults and old people hanging out in bars together at 1am on the weekends. Over in Sweden you're supposed to stay locked up in your apartment after 6pm once you're past your 70s.
If you're seriously considering moving away from the US I'd suggest looking at Norway, which seems like a much friendlier place to me.
American tourists can be heard over all other sound in the metro- and trainstations in Stockholm because the natural level of noise-making is so different.
The standard ways of meeting partners, according to surveys, have been: school, work, church, friends, family, bars, online. School isn't possible if you're not a student any more (i.e., most everyone over 25), work is generally frowned upon and pretty limited unless your workplace has a lot of turnover (which is bad for other reasons!), church isn't useful if you're not religious (as is the case for Sweden I'm sure), friends and family have limited social circles of singles, and bars are a great place to meet alcoholics. The surveys I've read for dating in America have shown that all these methods (except maybe school) have been declining for a long time, while online has become the #1 method.
