Three month update. And snow?

It has been a full 3 months since my last post on this blog, meaning THREE months since we moved back to the US from Stockholm. So much has changed! And is changing!

But before any real update, happy halloween. We spent our Halloween Saturday night (when most people shoulda been dressed up and drunk) watching movies under piles of quilts, since the heat in our new building hasn't turned on yet. And we had a frickin' BLIZZARD on the East Coast in October, making it way too cold to do anything but make things in the oven and then leave it on and open for extended stretches. We checked: it was 15c degrees in Stockholm; 6c in Washington D.C.

Anyway, Stu & I spent the first nearly two months of our return in Virginia, living with family, catching up with friends, applying to jobs, eating awesome and cheap American food, and watching a whole lotta crappy morning news shows (pathetic, I know, but I didn't realize how much I missed the Today show and Good Morning America.)  There was nasty DC August heat, a hurricane or two, an earthquake, a tornado, and now, a snow storm in October.

We moved back in my 7th month of pregnancy, so the slow pace of transition was a really, really good one for me. Finally got our shipment of stuff from Sweden almost a month later than planned, but all intact and with few major problems. But by late September, we still didn't want to *unpack* our Sweden boxes without knowing where at least one job would be. We'd both had a few job interviews but no real bites, and my belly kept getting bigger, which made life a little more stressful since we didn't quite feel settled yet and the range of possible scenarios when Baby arrived was sooooooo wide. Oh, and diapers are expensive.

But within literally 12 hours of each other, Stu and I both got AWESOME job offers in DC, which we both accepted embarrassingly quickly ("Really? You want to employ me? Ohmygodyesyesyes!" It was seriously like a marriage proposal for me. At 8 months pregnant, a shotgun wedding?) Within a week, we bought a car and rented and moved up to an apartment in Arlington, and basically did a complete 180 from the "back-up" plans we had put in place.

Dressed up and gigantic!

Stu has been at his new job at a big consulting firm here in DC for the last few weeks, and so far likes it a lot. I am incredibly excited to start my new position as an art reference librarian with the Smithsonian (the job I have been working towards for years now.)  However, I don't know *when* that start date will be, since I have been sitting around waiting for my federal background check to process for the last month, and I have exactly 3 weeks until my due date. Best case scenario: I start November 7, work for 2 weeks, then pop out a healthy baby boy in a quick and pain-free delivery, just in time for Thanksgiving. Buuuut, I am full-term and could literally go into labor at any time, and the government is frickin' slow. So I won't be surprised if I have this baby the day I get told I can start work, then immediately take maternity leave until late January (and the quick & pain-free delivery was probably never in the cards.)

So here we are, in our last few weeks (or days?!?) of being a family of two, still figuring out the day-to-day grind. I had to find a new doctor near our new place, which is really tough when you are on Medicaid and 34 weeks pregnant and in the DC area. And the doctor aside, finding day care in this area is damn near impossible: 10-12 month waiting lists for centers that charge $1900/month tuition for an infant. Almost a year? "Tuition" for a 3-month old?! $1900?!?  Needless to say, we were completely ruined by the prospect of Sweden's system of health and child care.

The nursery in process.

And we miss a lot of aspects of our life in Stockholm, the city, our friends there, our awesome apartment. It isn't completely gone, though. I will probably never wear shoes in my house again. We still speak in Swenglish to each other, though I'd say the most oft used phrase is "Vad fan gör du?" by Stu to me, and rightly so, since pregnant women do a lot of strange things ;). We made kardemummakaka last night in an attempt to warm up our frigid apartment. We've gone to an event or two at the House of Sweden. And I have spent more money than I would like to admit at Ikea recently.

But we definitely think, especially with a little clarity from these last 3 months, that moving back to the US was the absolute best possible choice for us. And also that our time in Stockholm was so, so, so worth it. The travels and the experiences, and even the education (though I complained a whole lot about mine!), were life-changing, and I can honestly say we are in a better place in our lives than we would have been without those two years in Sweden.

So that is a little of what we have been up to since leaving Sverige. Aside from a picture or two to announce our new little Swedish meatball when he comes, I probably won't post much more here, and would rather keep it as a kind of time capsule of our lagom life in Stockholm. 

My favorite Egypt purchase

I thought I'd show off the most interesting thing that found its way back to Stockholm in our bag. I bought next-to-nothing, despite how cheap it all was. And hey, it has directions in Arabic and Farsi, and was less than half the price of a box in Sweden. I also have a bday coming up, so I thought I'd make Stu's life easier!

More soon. In fact, I'd say get ready for an onslaught of Egypt...we took 1000 pictures and Stu kept a journal. But now, laundry...so much sand in everything!

Figuring out the future so soon?

Stu & I moved to Sweden to be full-time grad students about 14 months ago now. We came from the US with shiny student visas (and in my case, a spouse visa since I hadn't heard about school yet.) We knew even though our programs were two years long, Migrationsverket (the immigration board) would want to check up on us after a year to make sure we were passing and still had some money to live off. Since his visa was set to expire September 1, Stu recently sent his renewal forms in for what I think of as "Stockholm, Year II." He just got his approval today, meaning he can head to Migrationsverket office for a new picture in his passport, and should have no problems traveling to London when we take my dad there next week.

But we were surprised when reading the forms...apparently, they only approved Stu to stay in Sweden until June 2011. We had been going on the assumption that we would have a full two years here, and though we would graduate in June, we would have the summer to finalize plans our next phase, post-grad school. We even signed our lease at our apartment to end on August 31, 2011.

That may not seem like a huge time difference, but we have no idea where we will be heading as of June 2011! The timeline in my mind was to start looking at the job market next May or so, and we would both basically apply for anything and everything that we saw in Stockholm, several large UK cities, and the major cities in the US. In an ideal world, we would get the summer to travel again, knowing exactly what city we would live in by July and then could leisurely move to new digs (whether in Stockholm or abroad) in August, starting fantastic and well-paying jobs in September. But the economy hasn't exactly bounced back as high as one would have hoped, so I know the job hunt could be challenging.

In fact, though, we hope to get jobs here in Stockholm, to take advantage of the connections and networking our education has fostered, to enjoy living in this country while making a decent living wage, maybe take advantage of some of the amazing parental benefits while we were at it, and pay back into the tax system that has so generously supported us for what will be 22 months.

But leaving Sweden in June is too soon! We have to give our landlady 3 months notice that we will be leaving (so that's the beginning of April.)  I foresee April being the *busiest* 30-day stretch for us school-wise in nearly 2 years, without even thinking about applying to jobs, applying for new visas, moving across more large bodies of water, etc.

I think it's worth noting how dysfunctional we find aspects of the Swedish education system when it comes to educating foreigners. Sweden has always (and will continue until next year) made education free to everyone, whatever nationality. One would think that if the government is investing millions into human capital every year, they would want to make it as easy as possible to reap the benefits of their investments! To educate someone from outside the EU, bestowing masters or even PhD degrees, and then giving them NO time to find suitable work in this country before they are legally required to leave just doesn't make sense. One of the reasons given that the country elected to institute tuition starting next year is because "people come for the free education and then leave." But in reality, the government gives them no choice.

It's going to be winter here sooner than I'd like to admit, so maybe if I were writing this blog post 2 months from now, the tone would be different. As in "get me the hell out of here!" Working in San Diego *would* be pretty great, come to think of it. But the point is that it is too soon to think about it!  Ugg, how frustrating.

Okay, actually a year now.

Kind of hard to believe it's been a year!

We moved here for Stu to attend graduate school at the Stockholm School of Economics. I hadn't even gotten accepted to my program yet at Stockholm University. I didn't have a job, just a lead on a babysitting gig making a measly 100kr an hour. And the U.S. dollar to Swedish krone exchange rate was crap. We didn't know anyone. We didn't have our "permanent" apartment yet, so we were in a teeny, tiny, temporary studio the first month. We lived out of suitcases for more than 6 weeks between shipping our stuff in July from DC and it arriving in Stockholm in September. We spoke less Swedish than your average Swedish 3-year-old.

A year later, today, we've both completed the first year of master's programs, with the rest seeming an easy downhill coast from here (it probably won't be the case, but it *feels* that way now.)  I don't nanny for the kiddos regularly anymore, but I am having a playdate with them tomorrow! Still making 100kr an hour. And the U.S. dollar is still crap. But Stu has had several short-term jobs while juggling school. We have made some great friends. We have a lovely apartment, and we didn't have to move half a dozen times during the year like most students in this city. Embarrassingly, we have more clothes than I care to admit, and I have probably not worn a third of my wardrobe we shipped in the last year. Even more embarrassing is that I have probably only progressed to understanding Swedish on the level of a 5-year-old, and I'm still a 3-year-old when it comes to constructing a sentence.

And we have gotten to travel! In the past year, we've made it to Oslo, Venice, Milan, London, Berlin, Riga, Amsterdam & Utrecht, Edinburgh and various towns in southern Germany. I have a Paris trip planned for the end of August, and we just booked a trip to Egypt for December. On the travel wish-list for the next year is Prague, Salzburg/Vienna, Ghent & Brussels, more London, maybe some various Poland, and hopefully a Spain and/or Portugal trip?

Even though I have days when I can't wait to head home to the U.S. (okay, sometimes it's hour-to-hour that I change my mind as to whether to stay in Stockholm) we feel so lucky to have gotten this time here. Two years living and traveling in Europe and a few extra master's degrees? Not bad at all.

Fingers crossed that Year Two is a great as Year One has been...

One year! One month!

Amazingly, it has been one whole year since we started this blog.  And more amazingly, at least to me, we are almost 10 months in to our planned stay in Sweden. Crazy what has changed and happened!

We are also exactly one month from heading to the US for a few weeks, to celebrate weddings and graduations and babies and seeing friends & fam. I am so looking forward to the trip. And call me shallow, but one of the first trips I am making is to Target when we get home. I miss Target and Whole Foods more than you know.

We are planning on traveling most of this summer since we assume it will be our last before re-entering adulthood, with real jobs and maybe babies. After our short east coast stint, we have plans in July to be in Edinburgh and London for about two weeks, and to spend a few weeks all over Germany with Stu's mama. August we have plans for Paris, and maybe Turkey with Emre & Patti between August and September. And anywhere else we can squeeze in some time. Any suggestions?

One year of blogging! And one month til we are back in DC! Woohoo!

2009 ends with teenager sleep

We were talking yesterday about how jam-packed 2009 has been and that it didn't leave us where we thought we'd be. And try as we have, we still can't remember what we did for Stu's last birthday. I remember it being a Tuesday because he had to get a sub for a yoga class, but that is it...anybody remember?

Anyway, January was Obama's inauguration, the weekend of my birthday and notably the coldest DC had been for a while (something like 22F over the weekend.) We watched it from the warmth and spaciousness of our sofa. It was February (also the elusive birthday plans) that we put our tiny DC condo on the market because we randomly popped into an open house on Monroe St. and fell in love with a 1900 rowhouse with 4 (FOUR) fireplaces. It was March that we found out about Stu getting accepted to the Stockholm School of Economics, April that we decided for sure that it was too good an opportunity to pass up, May that I got laid off (with severance and unemployment and an extra 2 months to pack up for the trip.) In June, Stu taught his final yoga class, and in July we said goodbye to our belongings and put them on a boat destined for Stockholm (okay, so they ended up in Gothenburg and I had to finagle customs clearance and delivery to Stockholm.) We arrived in August and spent nearly 3 weeks just hanging out in our new city before Stu started school, I got accepted to the Curating Art program at Stockholm University and started working as a nanny. You kind of get what we've been doing since then in this blog.

So now we're in Sweden until at least 2011. Its December, and we experience daily far colder temps than that inauguration weekend nearly a year ago. And its the longest I have been without some type of job since I started working at Ruby Tuesday when i was 16.

I am not kidding about the job thing...it is kind of amazing. It has led to what Stu and I call teenager sleep. School ended for the year on the 18th, and we have been regularly getting 10-11 hours of sleep each night. I actually don't think I ever slept this much, even AS a teenager! Most embarrassing, we slept until after 11am when Stu's mama was here last week...we get *at most* 5 hours of light-outside time to do things now, and we slept a good chunk of that day away!
And when we do get up, we laze about for an hour or so, catching up on the internets, drinking an entire pot of coffee. In fact, its 10:53am as I type this, and Stu is still in bed. I am not mentioning teenager sleep to make anyone with full-time jobs or kids jealous. But to point out that we didn't expect a year ago to be able to spend several weeks straight sleeping until whenever we wanted to, staying up as late as we wanted to, doing whatever we wanted to, or doing nothing at all. And in a few years, we'll both be back at full-time jobs and hopefully popping out a few kids, and we will never get this kind of teenager sleep again. Ever again. Until we retire. We have to seize the sleep opportunity while it presents itself because its fleeting.

So happy new year everybody. All our friends here in Stockholm are out of town, so we are going to a NYE party with complete strangers tonight, but are looking forward to it. And tomorrow, we leave for a week in Italy. Can. not. wait.

And if you can remember what we did to celebrate Stu's 32nd bday in 2009, can you remind us? Its bugging the crap out of me.

Tacksägelsedagen

aka Thanksgiving!

Because you wanted to see pictures of a turkey (I call him Stu.)

It was our first-ever time being in charge of making a large, gibblety game bird edible. We ordered the thing 2 weeks ago, but it wasn't until Monday that the grocery store told us they *might* not get our bird, so JLP & I spent Monday scouring grocery store freezers and the butcher counters. We got one, conveniently, at the turkey store in Östermalm (who knew they had a store dedicated to turkeys in a country that doesn't seems to eat them!?)  It set us back about $90, but we walked out with a giant frozen 7.3kg (thats over 16 lbs!)

We had 14 in our tiny apartment for dinner.  Someone lent extra chairs and someone brought extra forks. It started an hour and a half late because turkeys take longer to cook than the Butterball website tells you (lesson learned.) Thankfully, it was potluck. But there was all the reminders of home:

turkey, green bean & sweet potato casseroles, stuffing, jelly & fresh cranberry sauces, Coca-cola, rolls & gravy, punkin and apple pies, hooooly, we stuffed ourselves silly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the best on record. We are thankful to have gotten to spend it with some great friends, new & old, in lovely little Stockholm.

We're having a little party

And celebrating our new couch. Well, new-to-us. Stu managed to convince 3 of his buddies to help haul a pull-out couch and three wardrobes (THREE) out of other people's homes and up 5 flights of spiral stairs to our little apartment. They did an amazing job.


So we are having a few people over Friday to warm the new place, about 40 of Stu's friends, and about 4 of mine. An interesting thing about Swedish parties (at least the ones I have been to) is that everyone brings their own alcohol, and they drink their own alcohol. Makes sense. You get to drink what you like and the host doesn't have to foot a huge systembolaget bill (systembolaget is the government-run liquor/beer/wine store here.)

Another thing is that every takes their shoes off when they come in to your house. Actually, that custom is not just for parties. Almost ANY time you come in to a Swedish person's house, you take your shoes off. I had my first Swedish doctor appointment yesterday, and I even took my shoes off to sit in the waiting room. I guess that practice comes from snowy winters, where you have to take your big, dirty boots off before coming into a place.

Anyway, we'll post pictures soon. I have been too busy to hang up all my clothes in my new closets, so the place is a mess!

If you were thinking of getting a free Swedish master's degree...

...better apply for 2010!
(oh yeah, we have internet again.)

Stu & I are both pursuing degrees that are tuition-free, thanks to the Swedish citizens that pay their taxes! And we get free health care, did I mention that before? (Quick deviation: We JUST YouTubed Obama's Joint Session address from yesterday, and are applauding his ideas. We have experienced first-hand how life-bettering social programs in Sweden are far more advanced than the American gov't has. Hopefully, the US can get something worked out soon! )

Anyway, we both get excellent educations for no tuition in Sweden. But the Svenska Dagbladet reported (here's the link in English) today that as of 2011, foreign students (like us) will have to pay tuition to Swedish higher-education institutions. Like, 10,000 USD a year tuition. Which is still a bargain, actually. But a big leap! We have loved living here so far, but the free tuition was one of the biggest draws to moving (Stu was looking at 38,000 a year at Catholic University in DC.)

If you were mulling over applying to Stockholm, or Mälmo, or Uppsala, or Lund, do it now! Its like a going-out-of-business sale on free education: www.studyinsweden.se

Here we are now!

Test! Test! ...Is this thing on?

So. We're very excited to start our new blog to update our friends, family, and people we meet along the way.

What's up: we're moving to Stockholm to study! It's a great opportunity, and Anne's always wanted to go check out the land of her roots since her mother's side is Swedish. Mine father's side is Norwegian, so really, it's right that we go live in Scandinavia... especially now, before we birth barns of our own.

We've been cramming in Swedish with Rosetta Stone. I know they say Sweden's 80-90% bilingual in English, but that's no excuse! We want to learn the language of the country we'll be living in. I've also heard that it's tough to get language practice in when the Swedes you meet practice their English on you! But at the very least we'll be able to pronounce people's names and place names correctly.

So, that's the start to our Swedish adventure. We'll travel around Europe together as well, so more on those notes later.