Picture Post

Last week, we took a boat out to Drottningholm Palace.

Drottningholm: where the Swedish royals live

We arrived by boat!

It was built at the same time as Versailles, complete with ridiculously complicated landscaping.

Kina slottet, which was robbed a few weeks ago!

A fairy circle of mushrooms?

We met some sheep.

Patrick tortured swans (no, he didn't have any food in that hand!)

Saturday, we took the Saltsjöbanen (salt lake train) to the lovely area at Saltsjöbaden ("salt lake baths")

I would love a summer house out here. I would love a house, period. And an extra here would be a dream.

The weather was perfect. Too warm for Stockholm, but by the water, it was ideal.

Fit for a princess?

Our friend Patrick asked this week while visiting whether Stockholm also did the street-side toilet stalls, since he had seen so many in Amsterdam. I think it's a European thing, and Stockholm has plenty. They cost 5 kronor and they smell like death. But he seemed unimpressed with a few that I pointed out (for the record, we obviously know how to show our guests a good time in this city!) He's gone off to spend a week in Edinburgh before heading back to DC, and I was disappointed that he missed THIS fantastic specimen of a stand-up urine stall:

Yup, it's a pink castle turret, complete with decorative finial atop. Right next to the tax office in the middle of downtown Stockholm. How can you not love this?!? I did not dare open the door to peek in (not to mention I was wearing flip-flops,) but I could hear water and it smelled, uh, bad. I assume it's only for men with that half-open door. But why is it a pretty pink castle? Those progressive Swedes! For the women, maybe they should offer these Go Girls or those crazy plastic pitchers they sell in Design Torget (as seen on Anthony Bourdain's Swedish No Reservations)?

In the second picture, I'd like to point out my husband to the far right, attempting to separate himself from the obviously insane woman taking pictures of castley pink porta-potties.

I started a business in Sweden!

Well, I dropped the paperwork off at Skatteverket (the tax office) anyway. They say it'll take a week or two until I am officially registered in Sweden.  Sounds a bit spammy, doesn't it? Like, "I started a business and you can, too!"

There are so many ways that Sweden differs legally and socially/culturally from the U.S. I guess it's part of the benefit of having this blog...to work through and vent some of the culture shock we have experienced.
A big difference that has not affected me in the least until last week was how Sweden allows one to get paid for doing contract work. In the U.S., you do the work, the business/individual cuts you a check for your agreed amount, you put it in your own bank account and you are responsible at the end of the tax year for social welfare deductions and paying local/federal taxes. Turbotax makes this easy if you do simple contract work on the side (like Stu did when he taught yoga classes at several DC yoga studios,) but can likely get much more complicated if it's your only form of income.

I was offered a job last week doing something interesting, meaningful (to my CV) and best of all, lucrative...writing scholarly texts on a range of artists represented in the collection at a small museum here in Stockholm. I was really excited at what they were offering for this task (granted any amount in kronor sounds astounding.) It's simple contract work: a few texts per week/month and a very low annual income from them, just pocket change. But in Sweden, even the smallest amount shouldn't escape the tax man's clutches, and one can't just have checks made out to them (Sweden *doesn't do* checks.) One has to start their own business to get a payment.

So that's what I did. Thankfully, they make it pretty easy. Weeeelllll, the paperwork so far was easy. Ask me again at tax time. I could have paid a little to register my business with a trademark-able name, but I decided to stick with my own name. It's free that way. The customer service rep at Skatteverket told me to plan for about 60% of my pay to go to taxes and social welfare, which was rather disheartening. But I will have an employee! Because these texts need to be submitted in English AND Swedish, and my Swedish language skills have not progressed beyond the level of a 5-year-old native, and Google Translate would make me sound like I suffered head trauma, I'll pay one of my friends to do it for me. I wish I could put Stu on the payroll...I'd love to be his boss.

But hmmmm, should I put entrepreneur on my CV? ;)

Köttbullar

I counted myself a little teensy bit more Swedish Monday night, after having successfully made homemade Swedish meatballs (köttbullar.) 

 Stu and I eat them fairly often, but I always buy the pre-made, pop-in-a-frying-pan kind. But Patrick was visiting from the States and we had invited new friends Carrie & Brendan over for dinner, so it seemed proper to make them from scratch (and Patrick insisted.) 

(Patrick mincing onions)

And they weren't just edible, they were really good! In my humble opinion, anyway. We conflated 3 different recipes, but Swedish meatballs are so idiot-proof, you don't even need a recipe. The basic idea is to mush ground meat (any animal you like, we even added chopped bacon,) bread crumbs, garlic/onion, salt/pepper, maybe an egg. Roll them into little balls and fry the suckers in butter, then serve with creamy gravy. With lingonberry sauce and potatoes, of course. 

(Why yes, I do serve my homemade meatballs in a dish shaped like Sweden!)

(An opportunity to use the wine-chilling thingamabob is an opportunity for Stu to take artsy pictures.)

  Why don't we do this more often? I think I should start a Sunday Night Köttbullar!

Sunday is bronchitis, yeast and numb arms

The blog post title makes it sound like a party, huh?  

Nope, not a lot of partying going on here. Stu has come down with what I have been battling for nearly a month (a month!) The diagnosis for me when we went to the doctor in Germany was bronchitis and I was sent home with an antibiotics prescription.  I must have had a virus and not a bacterial infection, because the pills did nothing. So I've just had to let it take its sweet time and run its course. And now Stu has gotten it! 


Yesterday it poured torrentially and we didn't leave the house. I have a feeling today is looking the same. 


Thank god, however, because I spent 9 hours with the kids I nanny for on Thursday (yes, that's right, 4 days ago) and my arms, my shoulders, my back and my neck *still* ache from all the pushing I did of heavy little children on the swings. The smallest fell asleep while I was carrying him the 8 block walk home from the park. Man, that kid felt like I was hoisting a ton of bricks. Seriously, who needs to work out when you have children to entertain?!?

(I thought it was cute while I could still feel my arms...)

But the other part of the blog post title is "yeast." I bought a bunch of fresh yeast the other day because it cost the equivalent of 7 cents and I felt like that was reason enough to bake something with it. But I never use fresh yeast, just the dry packets of insta-poof that you mix with sugar and warm water, so I didn't even know how much to use for anything. As you know, I have bad luck getting baked goods to rise in this country.  Do they even have fresh yeast in the States?  Seems like a dumb question...I'm sure it is available, but much like pre-made frozen piecrusts, there is always something faster & easier than the real thing.  

A little seems to go a long way. Ambitiously, I made a loaf of bread, pizza dough, and a batch of kanelbullar. All from one little block of pasty, nasty-smelling yeast. Stu and I instantly ate 2 cinnamon buns a piece, so they passed the test. We'll see about the bread and pizza dough. Our friend Patrick is staying with us for a few days, and he is a baking genius, so if it pleases *his* discerning tastes, then maybe I'll switch to fresh yeast?

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...

Stockholm residents for one whole year

We flew over one year ago, today! 

Technically, we arrived August 4th, but I don't care...it's a milestone regardless.

We're half done!