When it rains, it pours

One of the biggest sources of anxiety with moving (for me, anyway) has been finding a decent, affordable place to live in Sthlm.
We got ourselves on at least one student housing queue, but since nearly everybody goes on to higher education in Sweden (its free, so, duh) students can get on waiting lists for apartments when they turn 16. So I'm competing with people who have been waiting YEARS for a place.

I've found the Swedish equivalent to Craigslist (blocket.se), which of course, has proven just as flaky as our Craigslist, and I had contacted several people about their listings (in English) without a peep in response.

We decided to shell out for the pay service, with the thinking that people have to pay for posting their apartments, so they are pretty serious about getting good tenants. For the Stockholm area, Bostad Direkt charges 695 SEK (which came out of my bank account at $92) and after a little juggling to get access, we can now contact owners. And I have. And I've already heard back, from several of them! And these are nice apts in super nice neighborhoods...Vasastan, Kungsholmen, Sodermalm, etc. For about what we pay in DC, if not slightly less.

But Stu also got a lead from his school on a great-sounding place about .2km from his campus, so we should get pictures and further details tomorrow. And because we have a Swedish-speaking university employee vouching for us, its a more solid possibility. Fingers crossed.

Another hurdle we're kind of, half-way over. At least I feel like we're getting somewhere, and won't land on August 4 with no where to go. So if we get housing wrapped up in the next few weeks, all I have to do is move! Oh, wait...

Yesterday, I weeded, organized and packed my jewelry. No small feat. This morning I organized pens. Who knew that between us, we had so many writing instruments. I think I should be moving a little faster.