Louisiana Girl in a Norwegian World: To Sweden and back...ultimate road trip

We took a road trip to Sweden a couple Saturdays ago with some friends. We left early on Saturday and traveled to Stromstad, Sweden to do some shopping. Apparently, this is "THE" place to go. The first stop we made was to a giant liquor store, called System Bolaget, where we had to wait outside in a line in order to be able to get in. The beer...liquor...wine is rumored to be much cheaper in Sweden than in Norway. We found out that the rumor happened to be true. :) There was a very large selection...and we decided to go for a small variety of beer and case of Stella Artois. After that run we were able to go by the harbor there and eat. The view was cloudy but the rain stayed away long enough for us to enjoy it and go for a nice walk. We then headed to the Nordby Shopping Center. This shopping center was hugeeeeee, with a giant grocery store inside, called MaxiMat. Meat was also rumored to be cheaper...which also turned out to be completely true, along with few other things. We were able to get bacon (happy husband), chicken, steaks... We basically felt like we went on a Sam's shopping spree, along with hundreds and possibly thousands on Saturday. Let's just say there were a lot of Norwegian license plates around. The stores were packed, and it was overwhelming by the amount of choices you had to make while dodging other people. It was pretty exhausting. The rest of the shopping center was more of a mall, we went into a few other stores too. One thing I thought was very interesting is that you can bring your shopping cart all over the mall--not just the grocery store, with all your shopping bags in it. I found that to be funny. There wasn't much room in the back of the car by the end of it. It was definitely an adventure that we were happy we got to join in on. Apparently, this trip is made at least a couple times a year for some folks--guess it just depends!