Hello My Friends,
I know it has been several months since I have written. Well, quite a bit has happened in the last few months.
In February I went to Austin, Texas for 12 days. I had a great time visiting with my niece and her family. I spent a lot of time just enjoying the US and the sun!!!
At the end of March, we travelled back to Washington DC to see Allison and her family and then we headed to Las Vegas for some more sun time and drag racing. We had an awesome time again just enjoying all the choices we have in the United States.
Two weeks ago, we went to Paris. We had never been and had the opportunity to meet up with our good friends from Boston. I have to tell you, the Eiffel Tower is pretty awesome along with the other historical sites.
Two weeks from tomorrow (June 28th), we are leaving Sweden. David had worked it out to finish his contract in Houston, because we just were not happy here. They agreed and we were on track to do that, but then another opportunity has come along. We will be heading back to our "Sweet Home, Chicago"! David was given an offer too good to pass up and it means going back to where we feel our "real" home is. We have spent the majority of our married life there, our children graduated from high school there and the chance to do many activities is so abundant. We have not had choices for a long time, so hopefully, we will not feel overwhelmed. I am looking forward to buying a house and staying there for a very long time.
Sweden has been a learning experience and we are able to put things we learned into life lessons and can use this experience in the future, so that aspect has been very good for us. We are grateful that we had the chance to try living in another country and seeing what it is like to be an ex-pat. We are very proud at this point to be Americans!!!
I have enjoyed updating you on our time here in Sweden, but I am so delighted to be going home. Thank you for listening to me during the hard times and for being interested in our experience. I appreciate your friendship.
My dear friends have my private email and that will not change, so you can still contact me via email, it works no matter where I live.
Take care and thanks again for all of your support.
Much love,
Bridgette
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Some 'Splainin To Do
Happy Tuesday,
I am writing from foggy, grey, gloomy Älmhult. No this day is not unlike all the others. :)
After writing my blog yesterday, I thought about it and decided I need to explain myself a little more to all of you. I really do not want you all to think that I have not tried or I have given up completely. Perhaps, it will help you to understand some of the barriers that make it hard to live here. I think Sweden is a lovely place. Much of the scenery is beautiful but it is nice to visit, not live in on an daily basis. I am a city girl who loves her sunshine!
As you saw in yesterday's post, I talked about IKEA and most of the town being closed on New Year's Eve. Well, it is not just this one day that makes it rough. In Älmhult, the town closes at 2:00 pm on Saturdays, everything, but the grocery store is closed on Sundays and during the week, all the stores close at 6:00. This proves frustrating if you and your husband would like to go to the store and look at something, but it is closed. The hardware store closes at 1:00 pm on Saturdays. You cannot even easily work on home repairs. Yes, it is nice that families have time to spend together, but when my husband works past 5:00 pm most nights, it is hard to find time to go to the store. On Sunday mornings, we go to the grocery store between 9 and 10 am so we can avoid the crowd that comes at 11:00. There is no where else to go on Sundays, so it seems as if the whole town comes to the ICA Maxi. Even Mayberry (Andy Griffith Show) had more to do than we do in Älmhult.
Another thing we cannot do so easily is go to the movies. Movies are shown on Friday, Sunday and Wednesday nights at 7:00 pm. However, many movies are shown only one time and if you by chance have something else to do, you miss the movie. We do get some of the newer movies here, thanks to the money IKEA has spent on the movie theater, but we can go months without there being a movie we want to see. We do not have a movie theater with many screens and much to choose from. If you want to go to the movies in another town, you have to by your ticket online and you get assigned a seat. Not the same idea of doing something on the spur of the moment or a rainy day.
I also spoke about going to Copenhagen by train. Well, I figured out that when we take the train we leave our house at 8:30 am, walk to the train station and the soonest we get to Copenhagen is 11:00 am. That does not give you a lot of time to do shopping, visit musueums and such. The cost round trip is $100 with the discount we get for buying a family ticket. Then you add in a late lunch/early dinner for about another $75 dollars, for a decent meal and about $50 for a museum visit and you are looking at about a $300 day. Then we get home by about 8:00 pm. Yes, we have a good time, but it seems like a lot of money for a day outing.
Even if we eat at McDonald's or Burger King it costs us about $30 for a basic menu meal. If we even want to go to one of these places, it is an hour drive. So, this does not happen often. Also, there is not much more to do in the other towns either. There is no reason to waste the gas and money to go to another town that is not much different than the one we live in.
Another thing is that many of the people that do live in Älmhult, leave every weekend to go to their other houses either on the coast or in bigger towns. We have talked about this and it seems it would be stressful to leave every Friday night, get to the other house, run to the grocery store and then get your weekend started, only to return late on Sunday night or early Monday morning in time for work. They live in Älmhult to work, but really do not want to live here. Which is many ways, not different than we feel, but we do not want to add additional stress to our lives by all that running around. Plus, gas costs about 4 times more here than what it costs in the US.
As you all know, I have spent most of my time here trying to find a job. Well, due to headcount issues and the fact that I am not Swedish nor speak Swedish, it is impossible for me to get a job. Yes, I have had temporary jobs, but nothing of substance that utilizes my brain. I am not a person that can sit still and do nothing as many of you know. I just recently read an article written by an American who is living in Stockholm that cannot get a job either. Here is the article, take a look at the comments if you can, they are quite interesting. Many people have a false sense that they will get a job here if they speak Swedish. My personal experience is that you have to be Swedish, unless you want a crappy job that no one else will do. However, this guy cannot even get that!
Yes, it would be cool to stay at home and work on all the things that I want to work on, but the problem is, Sweden does not have the same kinds of crafts and supplies that we have in America. There is no selection of supplies really. Yes, if you like basic colored yarn, then life would be good. I do not like basic yarn and I like to have a selection of other things to do. I have searched high and low, to no avail. So I am not able to take advantage of the things I like to do in my spare time.
One of the biggest frustrations is that in Sweden everyone is equal (not that this is a bad thing), but no one questions anything. They accept everything at face value. If someone tells them "No" they do not question "why". I was not raised to just accept things. No one thinks outside of the cultural box. They are afraid to, especially at the company that David works for. You are just expected to follow because that is the way. We have found that this company in many ways is like a cult. You must drink the "cultural Kool-aid", if you will, to fit in. I cannot tell you how many times people have told David what we should do for the weekend or for our free time. Everyone thinks that they can just tell you how it should be. When it came out that I was looking for a job elsewhere, people actually asked if we would split up because David has a contract here. I told them that David likes the company he works for, but he loves me. They did not know how to answer that. Many of the people have not worked elsewhere and have not lived outside of this town, so they do not know what it is like to have a choice or want to have a choice. We have choices, like it or not.
The other thing is people do not understand why we do not want to live here for the rest of our lives. Yes, Sweden is nice and they have great benefits for families, but we no longer have small children and frankly, if we did, I would not want them to go to school in Sweden. They do not even start teaching their children until they are 7! This is why the society is the way they are. They are missing out on the early developments of their brains. Anyhow, back to living here forever, Sweden is a good country for those who come from countries that do not have all the things we have in the US, but for a United States citizen, Sweden is not the place to permanently live. It is our choice not to live here permanently.
Working and living in Sweden is a cultural experience, but not necessarily the cultural experience that David and I were looking for. I hope that some of this explains where we are coming from. I have pretty much become a hermit. I am not going out except for Sundays, when we go to the grocery store. I tried going to the Activity House to walk/run on the treadmill, but that did not work out either. People kept taking my times that I had signed up for, so I gave up. You all know that this is not me, but there is no where to go or anything to do.
I hope that our status changes soon.
Thanks for listening.
Much love,
Bridgette
I am writing from foggy, grey, gloomy Älmhult. No this day is not unlike all the others. :)
After writing my blog yesterday, I thought about it and decided I need to explain myself a little more to all of you. I really do not want you all to think that I have not tried or I have given up completely. Perhaps, it will help you to understand some of the barriers that make it hard to live here. I think Sweden is a lovely place. Much of the scenery is beautiful but it is nice to visit, not live in on an daily basis. I am a city girl who loves her sunshine!
As you saw in yesterday's post, I talked about IKEA and most of the town being closed on New Year's Eve. Well, it is not just this one day that makes it rough. In Älmhult, the town closes at 2:00 pm on Saturdays, everything, but the grocery store is closed on Sundays and during the week, all the stores close at 6:00. This proves frustrating if you and your husband would like to go to the store and look at something, but it is closed. The hardware store closes at 1:00 pm on Saturdays. You cannot even easily work on home repairs. Yes, it is nice that families have time to spend together, but when my husband works past 5:00 pm most nights, it is hard to find time to go to the store. On Sunday mornings, we go to the grocery store between 9 and 10 am so we can avoid the crowd that comes at 11:00. There is no where else to go on Sundays, so it seems as if the whole town comes to the ICA Maxi. Even Mayberry (Andy Griffith Show) had more to do than we do in Älmhult.
Another thing we cannot do so easily is go to the movies. Movies are shown on Friday, Sunday and Wednesday nights at 7:00 pm. However, many movies are shown only one time and if you by chance have something else to do, you miss the movie. We do get some of the newer movies here, thanks to the money IKEA has spent on the movie theater, but we can go months without there being a movie we want to see. We do not have a movie theater with many screens and much to choose from. If you want to go to the movies in another town, you have to by your ticket online and you get assigned a seat. Not the same idea of doing something on the spur of the moment or a rainy day.
I also spoke about going to Copenhagen by train. Well, I figured out that when we take the train we leave our house at 8:30 am, walk to the train station and the soonest we get to Copenhagen is 11:00 am. That does not give you a lot of time to do shopping, visit musueums and such. The cost round trip is $100 with the discount we get for buying a family ticket. Then you add in a late lunch/early dinner for about another $75 dollars, for a decent meal and about $50 for a museum visit and you are looking at about a $300 day. Then we get home by about 8:00 pm. Yes, we have a good time, but it seems like a lot of money for a day outing.
Even if we eat at McDonald's or Burger King it costs us about $30 for a basic menu meal. If we even want to go to one of these places, it is an hour drive. So, this does not happen often. Also, there is not much more to do in the other towns either. There is no reason to waste the gas and money to go to another town that is not much different than the one we live in.
Another thing is that many of the people that do live in Älmhult, leave every weekend to go to their other houses either on the coast or in bigger towns. We have talked about this and it seems it would be stressful to leave every Friday night, get to the other house, run to the grocery store and then get your weekend started, only to return late on Sunday night or early Monday morning in time for work. They live in Älmhult to work, but really do not want to live here. Which is many ways, not different than we feel, but we do not want to add additional stress to our lives by all that running around. Plus, gas costs about 4 times more here than what it costs in the US.
As you all know, I have spent most of my time here trying to find a job. Well, due to headcount issues and the fact that I am not Swedish nor speak Swedish, it is impossible for me to get a job. Yes, I have had temporary jobs, but nothing of substance that utilizes my brain. I am not a person that can sit still and do nothing as many of you know. I just recently read an article written by an American who is living in Stockholm that cannot get a job either. Here is the article, take a look at the comments if you can, they are quite interesting. Many people have a false sense that they will get a job here if they speak Swedish. My personal experience is that you have to be Swedish, unless you want a crappy job that no one else will do. However, this guy cannot even get that!
Yes, it would be cool to stay at home and work on all the things that I want to work on, but the problem is, Sweden does not have the same kinds of crafts and supplies that we have in America. There is no selection of supplies really. Yes, if you like basic colored yarn, then life would be good. I do not like basic yarn and I like to have a selection of other things to do. I have searched high and low, to no avail. So I am not able to take advantage of the things I like to do in my spare time.
One of the biggest frustrations is that in Sweden everyone is equal (not that this is a bad thing), but no one questions anything. They accept everything at face value. If someone tells them "No" they do not question "why". I was not raised to just accept things. No one thinks outside of the cultural box. They are afraid to, especially at the company that David works for. You are just expected to follow because that is the way. We have found that this company in many ways is like a cult. You must drink the "cultural Kool-aid", if you will, to fit in. I cannot tell you how many times people have told David what we should do for the weekend or for our free time. Everyone thinks that they can just tell you how it should be. When it came out that I was looking for a job elsewhere, people actually asked if we would split up because David has a contract here. I told them that David likes the company he works for, but he loves me. They did not know how to answer that. Many of the people have not worked elsewhere and have not lived outside of this town, so they do not know what it is like to have a choice or want to have a choice. We have choices, like it or not.
The other thing is people do not understand why we do not want to live here for the rest of our lives. Yes, Sweden is nice and they have great benefits for families, but we no longer have small children and frankly, if we did, I would not want them to go to school in Sweden. They do not even start teaching their children until they are 7! This is why the society is the way they are. They are missing out on the early developments of their brains. Anyhow, back to living here forever, Sweden is a good country for those who come from countries that do not have all the things we have in the US, but for a United States citizen, Sweden is not the place to permanently live. It is our choice not to live here permanently.
Working and living in Sweden is a cultural experience, but not necessarily the cultural experience that David and I were looking for. I hope that some of this explains where we are coming from. I have pretty much become a hermit. I am not going out except for Sundays, when we go to the grocery store. I tried going to the Activity House to walk/run on the treadmill, but that did not work out either. People kept taking my times that I had signed up for, so I gave up. You all know that this is not me, but there is no where to go or anything to do.
I hope that our status changes soon.
Thanks for listening.
Much love,
Bridgette
Monday, January 7, 2013
Roman Holiday
Happy 2013!!!
Well another year has passed and I wish you all the best for the next year to come. I am certainly hoping for a good year for both David and I and the rest of our family.
David and I celebrated Christmas this year in Rome. We had a great time with temperatures in the mid 50's to 60's and a lot more sunshine than we have had here in Sweden. We had quite a bit of snow in December, but now it has all melted and does not look as pretty as the snow makes it look. Unfortunately, the weather here has been very glum and gray. Not so good for lifting the spirits.
However, Rome did lift my spirits and we spent everyday walking and walking and more walking. We probably walked between 6 and 10 miles every day. We were so happy to be in Rome and have places to walk to, good food to eat and many things to look at. The history there is so amazing! To be able to walk down a narrow street and come to the end where it widens and there is another massive piece of history, is really cool! I would post some pictures, but for some reason, I cannot get it to work today. If you are interested, email me and I can send you a PowerPoint show that we put together. Sorry about that.
Anyhow, Rome made us very happy, happier than we have been a in long while. Coming back to Sweden was very hard. We returned on the evening of the 27th. People think that by living in Sweden, it would be easy to visit the rest of Europe. What we did not consider was by living 2 hours from Copenhagen adds many hours to our travel. Rome is only about 2 hours from Copenhagen. So the flight is not so bad, but consider we left the hotel at 11:00 am and did not arrive home until 9:15 pm. It seems everywhere we want to go it takes at least 8 hours, so it is hard to decide to go somewhere, because you use a day up, just with travel. On the way to Rome, we had to leave for the airport the day before and get a hotel room. This is because the trains do not run early enough in the day to catch an early flight and then you have to allow extra time in case the trains are not running on schedule or there is some sort of crazy delay. We have to put a lot of thought into traveling, when we were hoping that by being here we could see more of Europe.
Well, since the 27th David had the opportunity to experience my life here. When you are not working people do not realize that there is not much going on in Älmhult and NOTHING to do. Therefore, it made him realize how important it is for me to have something to do. I have exhausted every possibility of having a job here, so we have both started looking for jobs back in the good ole USA. We are hoping that something will come through and we can leave this summer. Yes, working for IKEA has its benefits, but with as many benefits it has, we are not sure they outweigh the cost of living here. I do not mean monetary cost, but cost of one's sanity and mental health. If it wasn't for some of the things David has set up for me to see TV shows from the US, then I would have lost more of my sanity sooner. At least I am able to keep up with the trends, shows and the news.
A couple of funny stories: on Monday, the 31st, David said for a change we could go to the new IKEA store for breakfast. So I get up and get ready, we head out to the store and find out that it is closed. We did not know things were closed here on New Year's Eve! So, we ended up stopping at the bakery for a roll. Not exactly what I wanted, but it had to do. So, then David promised me breakfast on the 2nd. Again, we got up and went to IKEA, they were open this time, but they did not have what we were hoping for, so we had to get a roll and the rolls from IKEA in Sweden are not like the cinnamon rolls you get at IKEA in the US. There is no hope for me to get a real breakfast here, except what I can make at home and the bacon we get here in Sweden does not hold a candle to the bacon we are used to from home. So my husband tries to make things better, but due to Swedish customs it kind of gets in the way!
I hope you all a fabulous year!
Keep us in your prayers.
Love,
Bridgette
Well another year has passed and I wish you all the best for the next year to come. I am certainly hoping for a good year for both David and I and the rest of our family.
David and I celebrated Christmas this year in Rome. We had a great time with temperatures in the mid 50's to 60's and a lot more sunshine than we have had here in Sweden. We had quite a bit of snow in December, but now it has all melted and does not look as pretty as the snow makes it look. Unfortunately, the weather here has been very glum and gray. Not so good for lifting the spirits.
However, Rome did lift my spirits and we spent everyday walking and walking and more walking. We probably walked between 6 and 10 miles every day. We were so happy to be in Rome and have places to walk to, good food to eat and many things to look at. The history there is so amazing! To be able to walk down a narrow street and come to the end where it widens and there is another massive piece of history, is really cool! I would post some pictures, but for some reason, I cannot get it to work today. If you are interested, email me and I can send you a PowerPoint show that we put together. Sorry about that.
Anyhow, Rome made us very happy, happier than we have been a in long while. Coming back to Sweden was very hard. We returned on the evening of the 27th. People think that by living in Sweden, it would be easy to visit the rest of Europe. What we did not consider was by living 2 hours from Copenhagen adds many hours to our travel. Rome is only about 2 hours from Copenhagen. So the flight is not so bad, but consider we left the hotel at 11:00 am and did not arrive home until 9:15 pm. It seems everywhere we want to go it takes at least 8 hours, so it is hard to decide to go somewhere, because you use a day up, just with travel. On the way to Rome, we had to leave for the airport the day before and get a hotel room. This is because the trains do not run early enough in the day to catch an early flight and then you have to allow extra time in case the trains are not running on schedule or there is some sort of crazy delay. We have to put a lot of thought into traveling, when we were hoping that by being here we could see more of Europe.
Well, since the 27th David had the opportunity to experience my life here. When you are not working people do not realize that there is not much going on in Älmhult and NOTHING to do. Therefore, it made him realize how important it is for me to have something to do. I have exhausted every possibility of having a job here, so we have both started looking for jobs back in the good ole USA. We are hoping that something will come through and we can leave this summer. Yes, working for IKEA has its benefits, but with as many benefits it has, we are not sure they outweigh the cost of living here. I do not mean monetary cost, but cost of one's sanity and mental health. If it wasn't for some of the things David has set up for me to see TV shows from the US, then I would have lost more of my sanity sooner. At least I am able to keep up with the trends, shows and the news.
A couple of funny stories: on Monday, the 31st, David said for a change we could go to the new IKEA store for breakfast. So I get up and get ready, we head out to the store and find out that it is closed. We did not know things were closed here on New Year's Eve! So, we ended up stopping at the bakery for a roll. Not exactly what I wanted, but it had to do. So, then David promised me breakfast on the 2nd. Again, we got up and went to IKEA, they were open this time, but they did not have what we were hoping for, so we had to get a roll and the rolls from IKEA in Sweden are not like the cinnamon rolls you get at IKEA in the US. There is no hope for me to get a real breakfast here, except what I can make at home and the bacon we get here in Sweden does not hold a candle to the bacon we are used to from home. So my husband tries to make things better, but due to Swedish customs it kind of gets in the way!
I hope you all a fabulous year!
Keep us in your prayers.
Love,
Bridgette
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