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