Three Years in Sweden

Hello long lost website! It’s been way too long since I last posted here. January has come and gone, marking my three year anniversary in Sweden. For a place I was only going to be for six months, it’s certainly been an interesting journey to get to this point.

I’ve started to think a little about how life has changed for me since I first arrived that freezing winter evening in Uppsala on the 9th of January 2011. A time when my eyelashes froze as I rode my bike to university and -20 was the norm, compared to this winter when confused bears emerged early from hibernation, and flowers were seen blooming in December.

First of all, I can now walk on icy roads without falling over – something I did twice on my first night in Uppsala as I walked to the supermarket to buy food. The shame, as polite Swedish people discreetly looked away while I scrambled about. I used to look in awe at Swedes power walking on icy streets and wonder if they had some magical ability to remain upright, and whether this could be learned, or if I’d forever be disgracing myself – luckily 3 years later I seem to have learnt this skill. The fact that there has been no snow this year in Stockholm has helped too.

Secondly, my Swedish is better, but not yet fluent. I like to do 200383283 things simultaneously, so at the end of 2013 I was taking evening classes in Dutch (taught in Swedish, for added confusion), while reading Swedish novels during the day and learning German verbs on the side. Apparently my brain didn’t appreciate this, and I became fluent in exactly 0 of my desired languages, but I did improve in all of them. So I decided to cut out the Dutch for now, and focus of Swedish (particularly if I want to apply for citizenship in the future) with a bit of German on the side to keep me from forgetting it. 

I still have a long way to go with Swedish, my pronunciation in particular, but it is definitely vastly improved from this time 3 years ago (I had studied it at University in Australia for a year before I arrived). My motivation has been a bit reduced because I can get away with my Swedish, but I wouldn’t be able to work in it, which would be useful. I’m not sure what my next step is here – whether I should take another class or just keep reading novels. I also need to speak more – but I’ve started to try this out with some of my other foreign friends.

Next, I own an apartment here now, which makes Stockholm feel more like home. I never thought the first property I would own would be in Sweden, it’s funny how life works out!

I’m considering a change of careers – at least in terms of my day job. More on this later when it is confirmed.

As for my other job – giving speeches and seminars on growing up globally, this has been going very well! I was just in Berlin giving a seminar to the parents at the JFK School in Berlin, a really interesting bicultural German/American school. I’ll be going back in May to present to the teachers and then the parents of some international kindergartens in Berlin too. I’m really enjoying this work, and I can’t wait to meet more parents and teachers, as there were so many interesting discussions after my last presentation. 

The free time I’ve had in Sweden has definitely allowed me to take some interesting opportunities I wouldn’t have been able to if I was back in Australia working full time. Being located in Europe means I can take the opportunity to give a speech in Germany without having to fly 26 hours to do so. I’m also working on another Master’s thesis on global childhoods – because, why not!

I have a great group of friends here now, for some reason a large number of them are Finnish, and these friendships are making me feel much happier here than I was at the end of 2011.

I love the Swedish summer – it’s perfect for a red haired person like me – not ridiculously hot like in Australia. I love the berry stands that pop up around town, everyone sitting the the parks looking happy, and Stockholm is a beautiful city to walk around when the sun is out. 

I still think Dalarna is the cutest place in Sweden, in particular, Tällberg – seriously, if you come to Sweden you should visit there. My mother wanted to buy a little red wooden house there when I took her for a visit. It’s just so picturesque and so very Swedish.

So does Sweden feel like home now? Yes, in part. Having a home, friends, being able to understand the language better, and having work has helped me to feel much happier in Sweden than two years ago, but it has still never felt as much like home to me as Melbourne, Vienna, or even Berlin. But it is home for now, and I want to make the most of it.

It will be interesting to see where in the world I am in three years from now.

Buying an apartment in Stockholm

Geoff and I just bought an apartment in Stockholm, and there are definitely some differences in the process from what you might have experienced buying property in other countries.

Here are the steps we have gone through:

1. Visit hemnet. Hemnet is the place where all of the properties in the Kingdom of Sweden is listed. You simply put in the specifications:

The area you are interested in searching in. For example: Södermalm or Östermalm.

Avgift: Avgift is basically like rent – you pay this price every month when you live in an apartment building. Newer buildings tend to have higher avgift than older ones. These tend to range from around 2000 SEK a month to 4500 SEK, but I did see one as high as 8,000 SEK. Often this covers water and heating. Sometimes also internet and cable TV. The property description will tell you what’s included and isn’t.

Pris: Your minimum and maximum price amount for the property.

Rum: How many rooms you are looking for. Keep in mind the living room is considered a room, so if you want 2 bedrooms and a living room you’ll need a 3 room apartment. Some are listed at 2.5 room apartments – this is either a tiny little bedroom for a child, or a bit of extra space in a room that could fit a desk.

Boarea: The minimum amount of square meters.

Bostadstyp: If you are looking for a house, apartment, etc.

2. View the property. Once you find a property you like, you’ll want to go along to see it. You normally find the viewing times located on the righthand side of the page (visningar). Many of the real-estate companies also have a handy SMS reminder service where you can type in your phone number and they will text you a few hours before the viewing to remind you of the details.

Once you get there you remove your shoes (and try to somehow manoeuvre yourself though the field of shoes) and then are met at the door by a real-estate agent and they will take down your details and give you a brochure of the apartment. You then join 40 other people in squeezing around a 65 square meter apartment.

3. Bidding. Within a day or two, the real estate agent will give you a ring to ask if you are interested. If you are you will be subscribed to a handy SMS update list where any bids that come in for the property are SMSed to your phone. A month or two ago my phone went insane as I was bidding for one apartment and had another as backup (neither of which we ended up buying). If you want to bid you can send a text message (!!!!) to the agent with your bid, or you can call or email it in. Initially I decided the call option seemed like the best idea, as the thought of texting in a bid seemed utterly bizarre to me – but 3 apartments in I started texting away – also receiving an encouraging text from the agent praising me for figuring out the Swedish bidding process (?!).

Biding can also be tracked online if you look up the property listing.

The bidding can go on for days – For some apartments the bidding went of for 4 or 5 days – the one we ended up buying was an almost 2 week process. I asked the agent if there was a cut off point or if bidding goes on, gladiator style, until the last man standing, and he said they do tend to start pressuring you after a certain number of days to wind down the bidding.

Also on the topic of bidding – like everywhere else in the world there are very obviously techniques here to try and encourage the prices to go through the roof. One that I’ve noticed is when you are initially called by the agent to ask if you are interested they sometimes try and pressure you into making a bid there and then. One woman informed me that I was one of 60 people she would be calling (oh my god!!!! the competition!!!!!) and that if I was keen I should put in an arbitrary bid of 5,000 SEK or so. I am sure 60+ people were at the viewing, but I am also quite aware that many of them probably lived in the area and wanted to see what a similar property sold for, or were simply getting a feel for what is available for sale in the area. I’m very sure 60+ people were not bidding, and sure enough from what I saw, only 5 did in the end. I’m also quite sure the only bid I need to put in is the one that buys me the apartment, and that 5,000 SEK bids to ‘show my interest’ are both unnecessary and also, kind of dodgy. I decided that I didn’t really want to buy an apartment from her.

Because the bidding is fairly secretive – i.e. you don’t know if cousin Sven is texting in bids to push the price up, you also need to be fairly strict and keep to your budget – don’t allow the agent to keep pushing you up that little bit extra. I’ve read an example on a Swedish website where the bidding kept going up until the person reached their maximum amount and said that were out – the agent then said ‘Oh well the other bidder might drop out – let me call them’ – which makes it fairly obvious something fishy was happening. If this happens to you and the mysterious other bidder does drop out – and this could happen legitimately as well – then you can go back and negotiate the price downwards – don’t let them pressure you into agreeing to your maximum amount.

4. Best time to buy? The IMF recently warned of a Swedish housing bubble. I’m not a financial expert and can’t make an informed comment on this topic – but I can say that the prices in our area of Sweden are absolutely insane, and have increased significantly even from last year. I recently spoke to a real estate agent who informed me that buying straight after summer is the most expensive time of the year as there are few properties available, and many eager buyers. She told me that November is the best time of the year to buy in Stockholm in terms of value for money.

5. Signing the contract. After a long drawn out process it was time for us to sign the contract. We went to the real estate agency and met the couple that owned the apartment, signed a ridiculous number of documents and sorted out our payment.

6. Awaiting board approval. Here in Sweden apartment buildings have a sort of board that, among other things, needs to approve new tenants into the building. The real estate agent told us it’s more of a formality, but I do know at least one couple that had to go in for an interview before being approved.

7. Getting the keys. We had a very short settlement period – only 5 weeks as the people who owned the apartment we bought had already bought a house and wanted to move out quickly – this short time worked for us too as we are currently renting. We returned back to the real estate agent for the keys and once our final payment went though, the apartment was ours.

8. Renovations. From what I can tell, you can’t just renovate your apartment as you desire – in terms of tearing down walls. You’ll need to ask board approval for that. For fixing floors, painting and so on, we haven’t needed approval, but I have no idea if this is just our building, or all of Sweden.

Make sure if you hire a company to renovate for you that you ask for rot-avdrag. This gives you 50% off the work done – for some reason in Sweden renovations are tax deductible. I thought you’d need to claim it afterwards, but luckily found out that you ask first and the renovation company will claim it.

This might also be a good place to mention hiring a cleaner is also tax deductible here – it’s called rut.

We have to pay our avgift quarterly, but that’s it really. Once the renovations are over, we’ll move in and I’ll be very glad to not have to look at Hemnet for the foreseeable future!

The English language in Swedish novels

I’ve been reading a Swedish novel over the last two weeks and found something quite interesting. At one point in the book the protagonist calls up the hotel her husband is supposedly staying in in New York – but the interesting thing for me was that the novel simply switched to English when she made the call rather than continuing on in Swedish. 

According to the 2012 Eurobarometer report on Europeans and their languages, 86% of Swedes (and Danes) say that they speak English well enough to have a conversation. Only the Dutch at 90% and the Maltese at 89% have a higher rate of English language ability in Europe. 

For me, the assumption is clearly that Swedes will all understand English well enough for this language swap to be completely acceptable. I’ve occasionally seen the odd French phrase included in English language novels, particularly when reading the classics, but never entire paragraphs, and certainly never in chick lit novels such as the one I found this example in (Väninnan by Denise Rudberg).

Have you seen other novels with entire paragraphs in another language? I’m really curious to see whether this is a common theme around the world, or if it is simply because the Swedes are so confident in their English language abilities. I wonder if it is also the case in Dutch books too.

Homesickness or Loneliness?

It’s been awhile, but I’m back.

Fresh water lake on Fraser Island, Australia

The last 4 or 5 weeks have been some of my least favourite in Sweden, and as a result, I’ve felt completely uninspired to write here.

It’s been a year and a half since I’ve been back to Australia and it’s been well over a year since I’ve been to an English speaking country (Ireland) – these two factors combined with the fact that my family have been off in the outback out of phone reach for almost 2 months, my husband was away for work for a few weeks, and almost every friend I have in Sweden has been away for the past 6 weeks has meant I’ve been suffering from homesickness, loneliness, or a bit of both. I’m actually feeling much better now, or I’d probably still be on blog strike.

Signs I’ve been homesick:

1. I feel like a friendly labrador that wants to go up and greet strangers. Last week I was walking down the street in central Stockholm and overheard an old Australian couple walking in front of me – I really slowed down for a good 20 seconds or so trying to think of a reason to chat to them, if only to hear an Australian accent for a few minutes.  Yesterday I was in a department store and overheard an Australian woman buying a huge number of things for a/her house – this would suggest to me that she had probably just moved here and I thought about saying hello – the fact that I didn’t might suggest I’ve been in Sweden too long as I am sure she would have been very friendly. Last time I went back to Australia I only went as far as the airport bathrooms before a total stranger started chatting to me. 5 minutes later, and the same thing happened again. This is something I’ve been missing.

2. I’ve taken to watching Australian TV shows (of dubious quality) that air in Sweden. Border Security, Master Chef Australia, Australia’s Next Top Model, McLeod’s Daughters, the list goes on and on.

3. I feel happy to do otherwise boring errands that involve calling up my Australian bank, University, etc. Although this might just suggest a need to speak English more as I gained the same (surprising) pleasure from calling a British shop about a dress I ordered that they lost.

4. I was constantly searching for flights to Australia. I haven’t booked anything yet for two reasons:

1. Because I am waiting for my new visa for Sweden and am not allowed out of the country without it. Well I could leave, but I would most likely be unable to return. Everyone has been on holiday in Sweden, which means that the immigration office hasn’t been processing visas and I’ve now been waiting 4 months for a simple visa renewal.

2. Because I’ll have to wait until (Australian) autumn next year to go. I’m not used to 40 degree summers anymore, and my mother lives in the tropical part of Australia which is very red-haired person unfriendly. I actually have a note in my calendar today to book flights back to Australia…

Some of the things I’m missing about Australia: Apart from my wonderful family and friends of course.

Finding creatures like these in the garden:

A friendly green tree frog in my mother’s garden. I’ve found these guys everywhere – once I even found one curled up around an eyeliner in my mother’s makeup bag!

kookaburra

The many varied landscapes of Australia

Skyline of Melbourne, Australia

Ok, time to stop the complaining. I just thought it was good to point out that life overseas, even in the land of delicious summer berries, and cute dalahästar, is not always rosy, and even when you’ve moved a lot, you still sometimes experience homesickness.

(All photos are either mine or used with permission)

Around Switzerland in three weeks

Luzern

It’s now been over a year since Geoff and I were married back in Melbourne, Australia – what better a time than to finally go on our belated honeymoon?! We spent almost three weeks in Switzerland visiting 26 towns, cities and tiny little villages, eating ALL the chocolate and taking a ridiculous number of trains. We also took a drive down the most hair-raising cliff skirting mountain pass (track?) which put to shame the previous winner of that title – that time we decided to take the scenic route rather than the highway between Munich and Innsbruck and ended up along a cliff on a very rainy wintery night, with trucks hurdling towards us and very little evidence of barriers between us and certain death off the side of the cliff.

When we told our friends in Europe that we were going to Switzerland for our honeymoon a look of horror crossed most of their faces. Why aren’t you going to Thailand???!!! My reply usually consisted of pointing out that as a red haired person, I’m not actually supposed to be in the sun for more than 5 minutes, that a beach holiday is actually my worst nightmare, and the fact that Switzerland always seemed like this beautiful wonderland containing two of my favourite things: mountainous landscapes and chocolate! Actually scratch that – three of my favourite things because I soon discovered Switzerland is home to the greatest mayonnaise in the history of humanity – Thomy (try it – you won’t regret it) – something Geoff and I had been desperately missing in Sweden. We are now down to only 2 tubes left, so rationing is in place.

Luckily Geoff also wanted to see Switzerland, so off we went!

We started and ended our trip in Zurich, staying in Luzern, Wilderswil (a little village near Interlaken), Zermatt, Lausanne and Bern in between. The proper photos are Geoff’s, the instagram ones are mine:

Firstly, Lake Zurich. We were in Zurich for about 4 very rainy days, but at last the clouds lifted and we decided to take a boat trip along the lake from Zurich to Rapperswil.

Here is Rapperswil – I felt like we had arrived at a little Italian village along the Mediterranean. Everyone was sitting outside eating pizza and speaking Italian (despite the fact that we were still firmly in German speaking territory). It was love at first sight! Turquoise water!

Onto Luzern! Of all the cities we visited this was my top contender for Swiss Cities I would Like to Live In. I really have to wonder how the Swiss enjoy traveling to other countries when everything is so beautiful there.

Summertime in Zermatt – the city was a ghost town which was very cosy (yes American spell check – this is a word). We decided to try fondu again but came to the realisation that neither of us likes it. Blasphemy! The waitress looked a little heartbroken as she took away our two half eaten pots of fondu.

On the other hand we fell even more deeply in love with the true culinary delight that is rösti. Sadly, despite the fact that it is made from vegetables, we had to conclude that it is not in any way healthy and we can’t eat it every night of the week.

See the tiny little green valley in the distance? That is where Zermatt is. This is the view after a 30 minute climb with 3 gondolas up to almost 4000 meters above sea level. The view was amazing and we could see Italy from the top. I conquered my firm dislike of heights and made my way slowly up to the viewing platform to surprise a shocked looking Geoff who wasn’t sure I would emerge from the safety of indoors.

Down to lake Geneva and the beautiful Chateau de Chillon – also hello France on the other side of the lake!

Yes it’s time for a token hipster food photo – but this really was one of the loveliest desserts I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating. We celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary at the La Table d’Edgard in Lausanne. The view over lake Geneva was spectacular, but the food was even better.

Fields of wildflowers in the Swiss countryside – this is how I imagined summer in Switzerland to be.

Last but not least: A double selfie – we really were there!