Tuesday Updates

Hej,

I wanted to update you on some of the latest developments here in Sweden and what I have been up to.

We thought we were in the clear now that we finally got our personal numbers or person nummer as it is called here in Sweden.  Well, we were wrong!  David tried ordering the internet for the house and we have run into another glitch - we do not have a credit record with our person nummer and it takes a year to develop the credit.  So, at this point, I am not sure what we are going to do.  We are currently using a mobile connection, but it costs a bit more than having a connection in your house.

One good thing has come from getting our personal number, we were able to join IKEA Family.  It is a card that provides you with discounts on every day type products, such as body wash, shampoo, conditioner, laundry detergent and they also have specials in the store, I know they have some awesome backpacks and such.  You can sign up for one in the U.S.  Click here for the link.  For example, I was able to get some conditioner for 9 Swedish Kroner instead of 39.  What a bargain!  I am sure the bargains are similar in the U.S.  No, you don't need a person nummer in the U.S. to sign up for the card.

Last Thursday we went out to "After Work".  "After Work" is sponsored by IKEA here and is located at the Activity House.  It takes place on Thursday evenings from 5 pm to 11pm.  We met up with some of David's co-workers because there was going to be a live band.  The band did not start until 8:30, so we went out to dinner at Elme and then went back to see the band.  We had a great time and for awhile I actually forgot that I was in Sweden.  We had dinner with four lovely women, one from the U.S., she was living in Atlanta but is from Jamaica, one from Germany, one from Poland, but of Russian descent and another from Iran, but who has lived in Sweden for a long time.  That is one of the cool things about Almhult is that it is such an international place.  The band was rhythm and blues and they did a lot of covers from the U.S.

On Saturday, I decided to re-cover the kitchen chairs.  The chairs that came with the house were a bit nasty.  They had stains on the covers and they tried to cover them up with chair pads and it did not work.  Here are the before and after pictures.  I think they are much nicer.

Before with Chair Pad

Before without Chair Pad

 

After with New Cover

On Thursday we are going to finish up our paperwork with the Government and get our ID cards.  Then hopefully on Friday we are going to go car shopping!  I will let you know how successful we are with that.

Until next time.

Hej da

Promised Photos!!!

Hej,

Here are the promised photos.  I have also included a couple of cool pictures of a mushroom I found in my yard.  At first I thought it was an apple, but it was a red mushroom!

These were taken on Friday morning.  The next two were taken on Saturday morning.  See how much it changed overnight!

I took David to the train station yesterday afternoon, so I had a chance to take pictures of the Almhult train station and main street.

Train Station

Fountain and plaza across the street from the train station.

The three pictures below show Almhult's main street. The main street is called: Norra Esplanaden.

These two pictures show a couple of the side streets near the train station. Now, remember, Almhult is not that big and it is only two blocks from the train station to the main street.

One of Almhult's churches (kyrka).

The church was built in 1929.

This is the rooster on top of the church steeple!

Last, but not least, here are a couple of pictures of the front of my house and the neighborhood in which we are living.

This is the side yard and back deck.

The front of the house.  You can see the front door and part of the gararge.

Our house is located on the left at the end. You can just see our roof next to the gray house.

Update from Almhult

It has been a quiet week here in Almhult among the Swedes :)

Not much has been going on.  I wanted to get out this week to get some pictures of the town for you, but the rain has prohibited this.

We had a very nice Saturday morning!  David and I took our bikes out and rode around Almhult.  We started out by going to the resale shop.  Not much there, but a bunch of old, smelly stuff that I do not need.  Next we went up into the town center and went to a couple of the clothing stores, stopped at the Systembolaget (the liquor store), bought a box of wine and then we stopped at the local bakery for a treat.  After that we went to this really cool store that is a mix of a flower/garden shop and home items.  We bought some candle holders and a couple of plants.  You realize on Saturday mornings how small the town really is.  We ran into several people we know.  However, since it is a small place, most people pretty much just say "Hi" and go on with their business.  There is no obligation to have a long conversation, which if there was, you would never get your errands done. :)

We spent the rest of Saturday afternoon getting the lawn mowed and a very long row of beach roses trimmed back to where they should be.  Then the rains came.

Pretty much it has rained all week.  So I have been staying home and working on a cross-stitch. 

Funny story - Last time we were in Helsingborg David bought me a huge mum that fits in perfectly with the family room.  The mum is a soft rose color and sits in front of one of the side windows and brightens the room.  Well it is between the breakfast bar and a bookcase.  My cat, Tiqui, decided to jump from the breakfast bar to the bookcase, but she missed.  We saw her flying through the air and the next thing, she was lost in the mum!  Luckily, the mum survived with only a couple of broken stems, but Tiqui was very embarrassed!  Tiqui sometimes misjudges her jumps and it usually ends up with a big laugh for us and embarrassment for her.  Poor thing!

Good news - we finally got our bank cards!  We ordered them on September 1st and waited and waited.  We received our pin numbers and bank statement in the mail, but no cards.  We were waiting patiently, but on Saturday we ran into the lady from the bank and she inquired as to why we had not activated our cards.  Come to find out the post office did not deliver and returned them to the bank.  So we had to go to the bank and get them!  Now we are able to make purchases without any problems.  The problem has been that the cards here in Europe contain a "chip" and you use a pin code to complete your transaction.  This is a completely different banking system than exists in the United States.  Actually it is a much safer system and there is less chance of fraud.  Without this type of card, it makes transactions more difficult and very frustrating!

The second good news is that when we got home from the bank yesterday, we received our personal numbers in the mail!  Now we can purchase a car, internet, and do whatever else requires a personal number to complete!  As I have explained before, you are helpless until you receive this number!  Thank goodness it came just a week after we applied, we thought that we might have to wait up to a month to receive it!  Also, the post office will know that we actually exist and will then deliver our mail the way they should. It has been randon as to what they deliver and what they don't.  Funny thing, after receiving our personal number, we have to go back to the tax office with many of the same documents we took to get our personal number so then we can get our social insurance.  They have to see the same documents again - not sure why and why it could not all be done in the same visit.  These are also the same documents we took to the Embassy Office to get our resident/work permits.  Lots of duplication - perhaps it is so many people can have jobs.  Not sure, just a pain in my back side!

Tomorrow, David and I are going to go to Helsingborg and do a bit of shopping and perhaps start looking for a car!  David is off to London on Sunday.  I will try again to get out and get pictures of Almhult for you and get them posted.  I am hoping the rain will stop and the sun will come out soon!

I will post again soon!  Take care of yourself.

More Random Thoughts on Sweden

Hey,

It has been a quiet week here in Sweden.  The weather this week was influenced by Hurricane Katia.  On Monday and Tuesday we had horrible winds and the whole week it has been raining off and on.  So far today the sky is clear and the sun is shining brightly!  I guess I never thought that living in Sweden our weather would be influenced by hurricanes.  I thought I had left that when I moved away from Houston.  Not to worry, no one here gets uptight about the weather, it is just weather and life goes on.  Yes, it is hard for me, I still am not used to not doing things because of the weather, I prefer to hunker down.

One of the nice things to watch here in Sweden are the families riding their bikes to work and school.  Our house is right next to a bike path and in the mornings while we are eating breakfast, we see parents and children riding their bikes off to school and work.  You see young babies on the back of their parent's bike, while the 3 or 4 year olds and up are riding their own bikes.  In the afternoon, you see them all going home.  I did not realize what a interesting parade we would see every day!  Our kitchen table looks right out onto the street, so you cannot help but watch everyone come by.  Sometimes after lunch, I see teachers and their students riding back from an outing.  Yesterday I think I saw a whole school walk by.  I do not think they have school buses around here to take the kids to field trips and such, they just walk or ride their bikes.  Perahps if they are going farther, they take the train, I do not know.

I think in one of my earlier blogs, I talked about that we really do not have brooms and we vacuum the whole house.  Well, I wanted to tell you about how I do laundry here.  Yes, I have a washing machine in the house, but I do not have a dryer.  I have an extractor.  What is an extractor you ask?  Well, it looks like a dryer, but it extracts the moisture from the clothing, towels, sheets, etc., but it does not exactly dry the clothes.  On nice days, you can wash your clothes and hang them outside on the clothesline to dry, which is very nice and I think about my Grandmother and Mom doing that when I was a kid.  Yes, I am old enough to remember when we did not have a clothes dryer at our house.  Otherwise, you can use the extractor and then hang the clothes to finish drying in the laundry room.  I admit, I have only hung clothes out twice.  I am always afraid that it is going to rain and get the clothes all wet again.  The other reason that I have only hung clothes out twice is because the landlord has the clothesline right next to the woods and I get eaten by the mosquitoes!  David is going to move it for me this weekend, so I will not have to fight off the mosquitoes!

 Another item that I have found interesting is that there is not a proliferation of canned goods at the store.  Yes, you can buy canned items, but they do not come in "cans".   Don't get me wrong, there are still plenty of beer cans!   Things like tomatoes paste comes in a bottles or the tomato sauce comes in packaging like the juice boxes come in.  Sweden is very conscientous when it comes to recycling and we have recycling centers all over Almhult.  Most neighborhoods have their own recycling stations.  Our trash only gets picked up every two weeks and we have very small cans.  They are perhaps 1/3 the size of the trash cans in the city of Houston.  We are able to recycle much of our trash and what cannot be recycled is put into the trash.  I do not have a garbage disposal, so any type of organic waste can be put into my composter, which is located near the shed.  I think it is pretty cool to see how much can be recycled and how much the community, retailers, and corporations encourage it.  I feel that I fit in because I have been recycling for at least 20 years now.

I think that is about it for now, I hope that you all have a very nice weekend.  I will try to come up with some more interesting material for next week.  Happy Weekend!

Learning Experiences!

Lately, I feel my cooking skills have regressed back to when I was learning to cook in High School.  I have had a couple of frustrating experiences this week:

So, I was excited that David's co-worker was coming to dinner on Monday evening.  On Sunday, I had decided to make Chicken Parmagiana for her and decided to make the sauce on Sunday, so I would not have to do too much on Monday!  Well, that did not work.  I made the sauce on Sunday and it smelled heavenly in the house, I was getting excited about Monday night and how good dinner would be.  I told David, "Since I made the sauce, how about I make some Italian sausage and we could have Italian Sausage sandwiches for dinner?"  He was very pleased with this idea.  I got the package out of the refrigerator that said "Italian Sausage med (with) Parmesan".   You have to understand that the sausage does not look like anything I am familiar with in the U.S.  I browned the sausage and being of Italian descent we usually brown it and then add it to the sauce.  Which I did.  BIG MISTAKE, HUGE!!!

A few hours later I start to prepare the sandwiches, I warm the bread, fry some peppers and assemble the sandwiches with cheese and melt in the oven.  First bite, YUCK!  The sausage is nothing more than a Swedish hotdog with an icky texture.  I promptly removed my sausage from my sandwich and ate it only with the peppers and cheese.  Nice dinner!  David is more of a trooper and actually ate the whole thing.  I then ask him if he would taste the sauce and if it tastes the same way it smells - smokey!  Yep it did!  Unfortunately, the sausage got thrown out and the sauce was flushed down the toilet (No, I don't have a disposal here, so it was the only way to get rid of it!)  Embarrassing.

I then had to run out to the store on Monday morning and buy the ingredients to remake my sauce.  This time it was just as good as the original before the sausage and the meal was a huge success!  My chicken parm was very good and I did not have to be embarrassed by the smoky sauce.

Second Experience-

Yesterday I decided to make Irish Soda Bread to go with our dinner.  I do not have my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook with me, so I looked up a recipe for it on Everyday Food (http://www.marthastewart.com/340584/irish-soda-bread).  So I found a recipe and proceeded to make it. I make the sour milk, mix all the ingredients and then I am supposed to knead it.  However, the dough was much more liquidy than I have ever experienced in my previous times making Irish Soda Bread.  So, I decide to take it out of the bowl and add more flour so I can knead it.  I knead it for awhile, trying to get it to the right consistency and finally into a small enough round to bake.  I am feeling pretty good that I got it to where it should be.  Well, I put it in the oven and the whole thing spreads out into this huge mound (kind of like a flattened ski hill)!  I decided to continue to bake it and just hope for the best.  David gets home from work and sees this mound cooling on the counter.  He wants to know what this mound is.  I tell him that it is supposed to be Irish Soda bread, but I am not sure that it will be edible.  I am embarrassed and devastated that I have had two cooking tragedies so far this week.  Good news - the bread was fabulous!  The consistency was beautiful and the texture was perfect.  David said he liked it better than the other recipe.

(I was just now reviewing the recipe and saw what I did wrong!  Therefore, we can all learn from my experience. Just add two tablespoons of butter into the wet ingredients, not all three!)

I guess it is going to take some practice to get used to cooking here in Sweden and trying to get things just right and making sure I read correctly.  As everyone always tells me - "Bridgette slow down!" 

Good thing - I don't have to cook anything tonight!

Happy Mondag (Monday in Swedish)

We have now been in Sweden for officially three weeks now. 

Thursday after work, David met me at IKEA and we bought the most of the last things we needed to get settled.  David took Friday off and we spent the day re-organizing and setting up some of the other rooms in the house.  We built a desk for the office/extra guest room, bought a new lawn mower blade and re-arranged other furniture in the house to make it work for us.  Oh yeah, Tiqui only went in the attic once.  She likes to sneak in when the door opens and then she is faster than a greased pig!

Anyhow, here are some pictures showing my redecorating of the family room.  Originally it was done in red and black.  I have now changed the colors to rose and taupe with purple accents (Still working on getting some of the accent pieces).  It softens up the room and makes it feel more welcoming.  The people we are renting from had a light that was not very functional for the room along with a beautiful table that did not work with the sofa.  So we changed the rugs, the light and the table.  I think you will like the new look.

The light is beautiful at night.  It looks like a giant dandelion and makes awesome shadows on the walls.

I moved the large red rug to the kitchen and it makes the kitchen feel much warmer and less institional.  What do you think?

On Saturday we decided to take a break from all the work and drive to Helsingborg for a few hours.  Helsingborg is about an hour away from here and is located on the west coast of Sweden, right on the water!  We were able to buy a new television while we were there.  After completing that task, we went to the city center and did some shopping.  We had lunch at a nice German bakery, bought some pastries for Sunday and Monday breakfast and even had an ice cream cone on the street!  Here are a couple of pictures of Helsingborg.

I will go again and learn more of the history to share with you another time.  The second picture is showing the outside of a fortress and you can see the castle behind it.  I want to spend more time there learning about the history of it.

On Saturday night we were invited to one of David's co-workers houses to partake in a Romanian meal.  It was a night filled with lots of food, about 4 hours worth.  Carmen did a great job and I was thoroughly impressed with everything.  She had enough food to feed a small army!

Sunday was a day of more getting things straightened and we were finally able to put our new bed together, so this is my room now.  I like it much better and it seems more put together and more David and I.

That's all for now.  I am off to finish making dinner for our guest from Texas tonight.  I will be back soon with more thoughts about Sweden!

Random Thoughts on Sweden

We have been living in Sweden for 2 1/2 weeks now!  At this point, it seems a lot longer.  That could be because I do not have much to do during the day.  I know that I am supposed to be out exploring, but it is not much fun by yourself!  I cannot point to the church steeple and say "Look how beautiful that is!"  David has been very busy with work,  which is why we chose to come when we came because we knew things would be getting busier and it was important for him to be here rather than flying back and forth to the U.S.

So here are my random thoughts:

1. Swedish people are always acting like they are in a hurry and you are in their way!  They do not know how to say "Excuse me" in English or Swedish.  They just push in front of you!

2.  They drive really fast!  I think it comes from riding their bikes so much that when they get behind the wheel of the car they press the gas and GO!

3.  It is not easy to do much without having a personal number.  We did go to the Migration Office to claim our work permits on Monday, so now after they send the official card to us, we can then go to the Tax Office to get our personal numbers (Yes, we had to have our pictures taken after we had been out in the rain, who know what my hair looked like! Egads, nothing like having another stupid government picture where I look like an idiot).  They use this number to make your doctor's appointments, sell you a television, among many other things. 

4.  I am also tired of everyone asking me, "Are you taking Swedish lessons?"  I have only been here two weeks, I have not found out where and when they are held.  Yes, I want to take them, but is that the only question you can ask me!  I think it is very important to be accepted into their culture if you are willing to learn their language.  Sweden is home to only 9 million residents, which to me is quite small after coming from Chicago and Houston - the third and fourth largest cities in the U.S.

5.  The refrigerators are not very large, so I feel like I am always going to the grocery store.  I am averaging about 2 times a week.  Mostly to get the basics like milk, eggs, bread.  They do not believe in waste, so the packages are not very large.  Which in some ways, because your food is always fresh!

6.  Speaking about fresh - you should taste the ice cream and whipping cream!  We have actually found whipping cream here without Carrageenan!  It was not possible in Houston, so I have not had any whipped cream for 3 years.  Perhaps, I can start making recipes calling for whipping cream again!

7.  Many of you know that I have food sensitivites, which can make shopping difficult.  Lucky for me, the bad stuff actually has numbers, so basically I just have to look for the numbers instead of trying to read all the ingredients in Swedish!  I am getting pretty good at recognizing peanuts among the other things I cannot have, like E407, which is Carrageenan and all the E600s which include all the other things Monosodium Glutamate goes by!  So it makes it rather easy!

8.  They do not sell large brooms, like what you would use to sweep your kitchen floor.  Yes, the sell large outdoor brooms, but the brooms for the indoors are very small and come with a standing dust pan.  They use the vacuum cleaner to clean the floors.  The broom is just for small messes.  I guess that is why I have a central vacuum cleaner in the house.  I just have to drag out the hose and plug it into an outlet in the wall.  Also, it is the culture not to wear shoes in the house, so the floors stay rather clean.  You basically have to just damp mop the floor to keep it clean.

9.  It certainly rains a lot here!  The weather will be perfectly sunny and five minutes later there will be a downpour.  Repeat this a few times during the day.  So, you have to try and get the lawn mowed before it rains again and before the lawn is long enough to cut it for hay!  Oh yeah, I found out the other day that my North Face raincoat is not waterproof.  I had to order a new coat!  I am trying to find these really cute "Wellington" boots that are short instead of the tall version.  I saw a couple of ladies wearing them when I was in Vaxjo on Monday and thought they would be perfect!

10.  Fall has come, the leaves are already falling off the birch trees here.  I have not seen a real fall for quite sometime, so I am looking forward to seeing the leaves changing colors.  We basically live in the middle of the forest, so it should be beautiful.  (I will try to get out and get some pictures for you.)

11.  I miss all my friends and family.  The time difference makes it very hard to keep up with everyone!  I promise that I will get on a schedule of emailing, Skyping and calling.

Have  wonderful day and I will write again soon!

All the best - Bridgette

The Swedish House

Hi Again - I promised that I would write about the house, so here it is!

The house was built in 2005, just like the house we had in Houston.  However, this house has not had the tender loving care that the house in Houston has had.  We, of course, will change that history.  We have already made several improvements.

The Swedish house is built on one level, has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a great room, a laundry room and a kitchen. Recently the owner added a loft, which houses an extra bed.  However, the stairs are very cool, but also scary for me to go up and down.  Since I am left handed, my step is opposite of the way the stairs are laid out.  They are skinny and wide on opposite sides going up, so you have to make sure you step on the wide part.  I tend to want to step on the skinny side and almost kill myself everytime.  Perhaps I will learn.  We have a one car garage and a shed.  However, the square footage is probably only one floor of the house in Houston. I guess it is about 1000 square feet. It is quite large enough for the two of us.  The house has a bit of a nautical theme on the outside and in the kitchen.  The front and side doors have port hole windows along with other nautical ideas in the kitchen and the outside.  One of the great things about the house is all the windows! 

I am posting the pictures I made last week, but we are in the process of changing the decor in the living room to make it much softer and we purchased a new bed for our bedroom over the weekend.  I will post new pictures when we finish.

Here are the pictures:

This is the great room:

Here are pictures of the outside looking at the backyard:

This is the kitchen:

This is the entry way.  We don't have a coat closet, everthing is kept in this area, coats, shoes and outdoor wear.  Sorry, the picture is a bit on the dark side.

Here are some pictures of the bathrooms.  One is large with a nice deep tub and the other is small with a shower:

Smaller Bath

  

Larger Bath

So this is a start.  I will put more pictures up when I finish with the decorating updates.

All is going well for us in Sweden. We would like to have a weekend to do something fun, rather than shopping all weekend!  This past Saturday we attended a 40th birthday party for one of David's co-workers and it was fun and interesting.  One of the cool things about living in Almhult is the idea that we can ride our bikes all over town and don't have to worry about driving to work, the doctor, the pharmacy.  Since we are just starting out, we have not figured out how to do the grocery store without driving.  Fortunately, we have the use of a rental car for a month to help us get settled and to be able to pick up the larger items that we need. 

I will write more later this week!