Snow removal?

It's cold here, and can even snow. It snowed a few days before christmas, and even on christmas eve. But because it's also a country of unions, and holidays when people don't work, snow removal on a holiday or after hours in a big city doesn't always happen. So when it snowed later in the day, nobody came to remove it, and instead it turned slushy and wet. And when that froze up again, it became slippery everywhere. And they are very much for the environment as well, so ice melt is used to a minimum, since it's not good for the grounds, the earth and the waters. So instead there were ice everywhere, and it got pretty dangerous to just walk to the car or to the store. The play grounds are still full of ice, and I was probably one of many that fell on this slippery surface, and now I'm sitting with a sprain in my foot! 3 days after it became a problem it was finally an ordinary week day again, and they put down some gravel on the already frozen grounds. Which didn't do much. And here I was sitting and looking out the window and enjoying the fact that I wouldn't have to shovel to get out the door. I should have just picked up a shovel and made myself and everyone around me a big favor!

Living in an apartment, and the laundry room

So here we are, the whole gang, outside our "new home". We live in large one bedroom at the moment, that we are renting from my brother, who moved in with his new girlfriend. In Sweden you are allowed to rent out your apartment for 6 months, when you are "trying out" living with a new girl/boyfriend. So we have a second hand contract from him right now. It's not easy living in an apartment after having a whole house, with hardly any neighbors. And it's harder still to stay in one that only has one bedroom, but at least the kitchen and living room are both pretty big, so that we don't trip on each other too much. But just being three girls, one boy and one bathroom has proved problematic more than once, to say the least! Today being the latest one, when our oldest was "pooping", and the youngest one needed to go as well, so she pooped on the mat right next to the toilet instead! Oh well...

But living in an apartment in Sweden has much more benefits, some that I had forgotten all about. Like the laundry room. As an american in an apartment you learn to live either with the laundry mat, or you are lucky enough to have it in your building. Either way, it usually costs money, from my own experience. Here almost any place have access to a laundry room either in the bottom of the house you live in, or in a separate building near by, where you can reserve a spot to use two or more front loaded laundry machines, a spinning machine, a dryer and a drying room. If it's at the bottom of the house, you usually only have access from 8am to 8pm, in shifts. But if it's in a separate building, you sometimes have access 24 hr/day. And it's free! Granted you have to clean up after yourself, and you have to provide your own detergent and such. But the cost of it is already included in the rent, so you don't have to collect change for that all week long. You have a little lock and a key to "lock in" your time slot, and if you don't show up in the first hour of your slot, anyone can take over. And you have keys to each place, and can lock your clothes in. You don't have to wait and watch over your stuff. What a treat!

English and preschool

There are about 5 preschools that has english as a language in the Gothenburg area, with kids from all over the world, and there are two schools that use english as a way of teaching, following either the swedish school plan, or an international one. So there are a few options, if you feel that your child would do better with english as a main language, or if you don't speak swedish at all. There are also quite a few swedish for immigrants courses, which most are free of charge, as are most schools in Sweden. It is recommended that immigrants sign up to learn swedish as soon as they arrive, and they set it up so that you can get help learning how to even get help with job searches and such that way as well, as part of the training.

You can actually get by with just english in the daily life quite a bit these days. Most people speak english, even if they are a little shy, and doesn't want to let you know right away. Swedes learn english in school from at least grade 3 and on, and lots of shows and songs from the US and other english speaking countries are also popular over here. Lots of expressions have come as well, words and sayings that are not very polite are used daily here, which can be a little hard to shield from your own younger children.
Shows are usually dubbed for children, and sutitled for grown ups, and they are not far behind on top series in the US as far as episodes and what is going on. If you love all the big shows, with everything from So you think you can dance and Housewives of Atlanta, to criminal shows like CSI and NCIS are here already. And some are even reinvented or copied in a swedish setting, which are very funny at times.
A lot of releases of larger motion pictures are here as well, and some you can choose if you want to see the swedish or english version. Movies like Ice Age, which has an adult and a child audience, has that option, for example. Which is a great option, if you have children that speak mostly english, or just want to hear it in it's original.

Arriving in Swede...

So we did it! We got here, after a long, hard and very tiresome trip, we arrived. The kids did surprisingly well, and since I prepared for a lot worse, we did very well. But it took a while for us all to get into the time change, and we had a hard few days and nights for almost a week!
Now my husband has been here before, 3 times, so some things were not so strange to him. And the kids were mostly excited, curious about everything. Kids have a strange ability to adapt to a lot of different situations, at least when they are younger. That makes it crusial in terms of the decision of timing. The younger they are, the easier they have to learn and adapt.

If you live in the city, you can get by without a car pretty easily, since the public transportation system is pretty easy to use, and fairly reliable to get you places in a timely matter. The kids love to ride the bus and the tram, which it an interesting and fun experience. And swedes in general are practically minded people, with lots of smaller playgrounds everywhere and lots of green areas for kids and dogs to run around and get exercise. And the city also have lots of museums and fun activities for children of different ages, some which doesn't cost a thing! Like a thing called open preschool (or oppna forskolan), that have places all over, for free, with activities like song, dance and open play for younger kids and parents. They all have different open hours, with a combined style of story time and play group, where people who are home with their children can come to play and do activities, and adults can talk and meet other people.

Can't wait to learn more about what it's like to be living in Sweden again... but I promise to keep you all posted!

Sweden, the social wellfare country

The system is set up so that you need to register with Skatteverket as soon as you arrive, pretty much. Not much can get done until that is done. That is how you get your social security number, or personnummer, that gets you access to everything else. It is possible to go to the hospital if you are sick before you get that number, but it's easier if you can wait. It takes about 15-20 business days to get it in the mail, which is the way it works today. Once you get it, you can register for all kinds of things. Some things, like Forsakringskassan, that deals with things like child stipends and parental support, which you have a right to, takes a long time to register for. They told us 4-8 months, which is ridiculous, but they also say that if you are persistent and keep at them, things may go faster!
So much to learn, and we have barely gotten started here!

In my experience, the way to get things done here now is to keep pushing and asking, and to be nice but firm. And you get a different story from a different person at the same place every time. I went to the bank to get some information, and one person told me one thing, and a few days later I went back and got a different story. But my dear husband has been good at not taking no for an answer, and his solution is to look things up on some of the english speaking sites about living here. And they have come to great use, as the things they say there are geared towards being an immigrant, and helping you with all kinds of things that you don't know anything about. Which actually is more useful, since everything I used to know isn't really that way anymore. It really is like a clean slate, to truly start over...

The container...

Advise: Never get a container over a holiday, unless you have no intention of celebrating that holiday at all. And also, don't try to do it just the two of you, with two little kids to entertain as well!
We got the container, and we thought that things would be alright. But, the weather didn't quite work in our favor, so we had rain for two days, which meant that if you left the doors open to the container, it would have rained in, and made everything moldy. So instead we spent that time mostly inside, packing and planing and thought we would be just fine. Oh how wrong we were! After packing, packing and more packing, and a lot of help with babysitting, so that we could do a major dent in the household inventory we were down to the last bit. Or so we thought. But it's amazing how much space and time that last bit takes. And when you are tired, sore and don't want to see another box or item again, there is more. And even more. We pushed hard, and by 2:30am, my other half told me to go to bed, so that one of us would make it up when the kids woke up. He continued until 4:30am, at which time, we thougt most was done. And we thought that we could just to one last push in the morning, just a few hours later. Or so we thought. Instead I woke up to a truck idle outside at 5:55am, and a guy came up and knocked on the door. He wanted to get to Boston by 8am, or close to it, so that he could make some money that day. Great, we got a young workaholic that is stressed at 6am! Just what we needed. So our container didn't get a last minute check over, and no chance to add things either. So by 6:20am it was gone, and instead of relief we got a little panic. We started to realize how much was still in the house, that we wanted to take, and how much we had to get rid of, one way or another. That was one long day! Thank goodness for a very good friend, who came over to take some of our food, and ended up cleaning out most of our cabinets as well. And then she came back and picked up the kids, to play at her house, while we did a major push to clean out the rest. It took 12 hours, and lots of stuff to through out. But after getting the kids dropped back off, and luggage packed mostly, some dinner dropped off as well for us, and some last minute crazyness we did it! And at 8pm we left our house, our home for 5 years, and a broken dream, to some extend. To continue on our new adventure in another place, another country, and lots of new experiences ahead. Here we go....