When taking a gap year, it is meant to be just that. A year. Alas, I’m into my second year (sorry, Mum) and I’m travelling around meeting friends made during my first gap year. It’s terribly hard giving up drinking Guinness in Ireland, smoking weed in Amsterdam (more apologies, Mum) and trying sweet Rekorderlig cider in Sweden. Would you want to go back to studying after that? However in amongst the excitement of finding old friends again and seeing new cities and sights, I’m doing a crash course in Swedish culture and history.

I am staying with Emma, who is studying humanitarian aid and irregular warfare at the Swedish Defence School in Stockholm. Interesting that Sweden has a defence school given they are a neutral country, but she is learning about Swedish humanitarian aid, which is huge, and foreign irregular warfare, which Sweden stays well out of. With her impeccable English, she is fascinating to talk to about her country’s place on the world stage and I’ve learnt a great deal about this small and frozen nation from her.

When most people think of Sweden we think of the cold weather and snow, long summer days and even longer winter nights. If you’re the adventurous type, you might picture the Northern Lights, and if you’re politically aware, then you probably think of the famous Scandinavian welfare state. Emma is paid to go to uni for up to five years. Education is not only free, the government pays you to go! Is our new Education Minister Christopher Pyne reading this? Please, consider this model before I start uni next year.

Taxes are high, the health system is free, alcohol is expensive, and new parents get 240 days of parental leave at 80 per cent of their pay, so it isn’t only the mothers staying home with the baby, the fathers do the same. They really put the ‘p’ into progressive parenting.

But they also put the ‘p’ into politically correct. As in painfully PC. An unusual language, Swedish has three third person singular pronouns. For those of you who may not be up on your grammar terms, that means they have the normal ‘he’ and ‘she’ and they also have a third word which indicates that you don’t know the person’s gender, or that you don’t want to assume. This word is not ‘it’, because it specifies people, not objects or animals. So the he/she word has become very fashionable and is now taught to children in schools as the proper way to refer to people. Almost all articles will use this word to describe politicians, criminals or experts, so as to make all people equal in language. I hate to think what the Swedes think of French, where if a single man is present amongst millions of women, the masculine expressions apply and his presence wipes out the female influence.

Of course, it is not only in their beautiful sing-song language that Sweden is known for its tolerance and neutrality. Sweden did not take part in either of the world wars. The last war they were involved in was in the 19th century, when they lost Norway, Finland and Denmark, all of whom were once part of their empire. After that colossal loss, they decided to play nice and stay out of the twisted alliances and frequent fights of continental Europe.

Instead they sit happily and quietly at the top of the world, are not part of the eurozone and content themselves with having small cultural battles to prove their superiority to Denmark. Stockholm’s town hall, at 106 metres high, is one metre taller than Copenhagen’s. When the Swedes found there was a taller one in Denmark, they simply added a bit to the spire.

They also consider themselves superior because, while the Danish prince found his lady love in a crowded bar in Australia, Sweden’s crown princess found her Prince Charming in her personal trainer at the gym. They will also remind anyone who professes a love of Denmark that Danish is really just like Swedish, spoken with a sock in one’s mouth. Maybe it’s my Danish heritage showing here, but surely you have to be Swedish to take this seriously!

These days, instead of taking part in wars, they take part in peacekeeping missions. Sweden also takes huge numbers of refugees proportionate to their modest population of nine million people. They are the only country to have promised to take all Syrians wanting to leave Syria. You read that right, all Syrians, as many of them as want to come. Not that this works especially well, mind you. Apparently their refugees are not integrated into society at all, and for the most part are placed in an area near Malmö in Sweden’s west. This region is now known as the ‘Swedish warzone’ due to its large number of non-Swedish-speaking foreigners who do not contribute to society, and instead bring the homeland tensions they ran away from to an otherwise peaceful Sweden.

The Swedes do their very best not to offend their new tenants, and it is now illegal for children to sing their own Swedish national anthem in schools, lest they offend those who aren’t natives. God forbid those who move to Sweden should be expected to become part of the country! But Emma explains that it is all part of Swedish modesty. They are a shy, inoffensive, reserved people. It is apparently bad form to show any strong patriotism, excepting perhaps during the ice hockey world cup season and when building a spire higher than a Danish one.

I am told this humility extends beyond patriotism through to a person’s individual achievements. If I told Emma she was very good at painting, it would be unusual for her to accept the compliment with a simple thank you, she would rather be expected to deny any such talent and deflect the attention from herself. Kevin Rudd once served as a diplomat in Sweden. Perhaps he should return here and learn some of the humble Sweden way.