Picture post

Sunlight at Stadsbiblioteket

Guzel finally on that Dala horse

Thoroughly enjoying reindeer tunnbrödrullar

This induced a guilty feeling, after eating reindeer rullar

Stockholm

Guzel took great pictures of the city!

3pm at Kungsträdgården?

The iceskating rink

ice in the Helsinki harbor

Snowbanks taller than people!

Funny Finnish words

Tram...the only civilized way to get around Helsinki

Glögi...the sweeter, juicier version of Scandinavian mulled wine

Yup, I bought stuff at the factory's outlet. I have no self-control. I also hit up the Marimekko outlet and did more damage to my wallet...

Just a post full of pictures. The first several are from Stockholm, mostly from the Skansen julmarknad. We also took the boat to Helsinki over the weekend with Guzel, which was fabulous (but for how FRICKIN' cold it was there. Wow.) 

Though we missed quite a weekend in Stockholm, with a terrorist attack just down the road from where we live. Thankfully, only 2 people were injured and we walked down Drottninggatan today, and the only indication that something happened was some remaining police tape.

Now, less than one week until Egypt, and a surprisingly large amount of work before going...

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.

Election day

It is a big day in Sweden. It's been a gray Sunday morning, but getting sunnier (it's also almost noon, so I should probably get dressed, too. Sort-of-sunny days are getting fewer and shorter.) I kind of want to get out and see where Swedes vote. And what's happening at all of those cute little stugas all over the city? Yes, they vote on Sundays. No religious observations getting in the way there ;)

When Sweden made third on the list of "Best Countries" in Newsweek a few months ago, the break-down analysis by the weekly said Sweden had the best political environment, namely, transparency and low corruption among government officials and political parties, and an open environment with strongly defended freedoms of speech and religion. And, of course, warless for over 200 years.

I admit to not following Swedish politics in detail. The U.S. political system has its faults, but at least there are only 2 major players to pay attention to. How does one even keep 8+ parties straight?!? The differences between some of them must be miniscule. But I digress. The Social Democrats (the "center-left" party responsible for the extensive Swedish welfare system) have held majority in parliament basically since the 1920s, and this year, they are a little worried that for the first time in more than 80 years, they'll lose that sway.  Center-right-leaning parties which have formed alliances are gaining ground, but most disturbingly, the Sweden Democrats, a super-far-right group billed as racist and xenophobic is poised to take a few seats, as well. The xenophobia comes from their anti-immigration platform, despite the statistic that 14% of the 9.4 million population in this country is immigrants (that number includes Stu & me, right? Not that we can legally vote yet.)  Some of the big-ticket issues include taxes, welfare benefits, the economy, jobs, immigration. You know, the usual, no matter what country you are in. I took some of these facts from a recent article from The Economist.

The småpratar I have overheard at fika at Moderna Museet makes it sound like a lot of people don't love the current government players (like Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, of the New Moderates party.) I'd like to see the Social Democrats keep it together as majority, and though I don't know much about her, I'd like to see Mona Sahlin as the country's first female PM. I also voted for Hilary Clinton in the primaries in 2008. To clarify, though, I would never, ever give votes to someone like Sarah Palin or Christine O'Donnell just because they are women. I want to see what *smart* women can do with more political clout.

So I guess we'll find out this week what the next four years will look like in Sweden.

September?

Our apartment is a pig sty. Seriously, it took all my energy to unload the dishwasher when I got home today...so much energy that there was none left over to put the tottering stack of dirty dishes in the sink *into* the empty machine. So they'll sit there a little longer.

I guess summer vacation is over! I started my fall internship Monday morning (nope, haven't unpacked from Paris yet. Haven't even moved the suitcase out of the middle of the living room.) I have my first class of the fall semester on Friday. Last week, Stu had crazy orientation events and started his classes Monday as well, and is putting the finishing touches on a consulting project that he has worked on since the spring, that he will present at the company's annual board meeting next week in Växjö (he gets to travel to the most exotic, unpronounceable places.)

I'd like to do a blog post on what I did on my summer vacation. I'd like to do a blog post on this Moderna Museet internship. I'd like to bitch about school a little (or a lot) on the blog. I'd like to fill you in on our plans for the next few months. I'd like to do some research and post on the highly anticipated upcoming national elections in Sweden (in a few weeks, the government could change directions drastically.)

But all I could manage was a lot of words basically amounting to: we're busy and we're dirty.

Sweet potatoes

Back in Stockholm, but a great time was had in Paris. I got a kick out of this tabloid headline in a French tobac:

Le Scandale! Is Victoria pregnant?

Unrelated, I have had the weirdest craving for sweet potatoes since getting back. Last night, I cooked four as part of dinner, then ate 3 of them. Three whole sweet potatoes. Tonight, I stopped by the store to replenish stock and they were out, so I bought butternut squash. It did the trick...I ate 2 helpings. What's wrong with me?!?

Not-so-royal idiot?

Not to be a gossip, but really, this is all over the news here, so I can't help it...it looks like Swedish Princess Madeleine and her fiance have broken up, after it was revealed all over Swedish and Norwegian tabloids that he had an affair with a much younger Norwegian handball star while on vacay last year. 

Its kind of sad, really. For many reasons. Madeleine is the younger sister to Crown Princess Victoria, and both announced engagements within a short time frame. Because Victoria will inherit the throne, her marriage to gym owner Daniel Westling on June 19th is getting all the attention (yes, he was her personal trainer...I can't imagine him trying to pick up the future queen while instructing her to do squat thrusts and push-ups!?)  Their wedding is going to be huge, with foreign dignitaries as guests, a 2-week city-wide celebration called "Love Stockholm," and a ton of memorabilia sold all over the place. I am particularly fond of the wedding china they have for sale at NK. Annoyingly, they are currently tearing up various spots around the city to accommodate all the festivities. 

But Madeleine had been with lawyer Jonas Bergström since she was 17, and they were planning a quiet wedding in the fall, with no 2-week love fest and no limited-edition Rörstrand china for sale. I bet it's tough to be a younger sister...the older one always gets things first, bigger & better, especially when she is going to be Queen of Sweden one day. Last week, Queen Silvia had announced that although everything was fine, they were postponing the event. And yesterday, after Madeleine was safely on a plane to NYC to avoid reporters, it was announced that the couple was breaking up. I hope Jonas' ski holiday tryst was worth it...the idiot was supposed to receive the title Duke of Hälsingland and Gästrikland! Wherever those are.

I'm sure Madeleine will be fine, though. She IS a princess. She was voted one of Forbes Magazine's top 20 hottest young royals in 2008. And something I did not know, she is studying art history at Stockholm University. And really, anyone who studies art history will go far in life (I had to get that in there...art history was my undergrad major!)

daylight savings

Today is the last Sunday in March, and we stayed out until 3:30am (or was it really 2:30? or 4:30?) and slept 'til nearly noon to observe the time change in Sweden.

A little history: DST didn't become permanent practice in Sweden until 1980. They tried to introduce the time change in spring and autumn in 1916, but it proved so unpopular, they reversed the decision within 6 months. Since the 1980s, most of Europe and North America changed time on the same date, until under the last Bush administration, in an effort to conserve electricity, the Energy Policy Act was enacted and in 2007, the DST period was lengthened by about 3 weeks in the US (2 weeks earlier in March, 1 week earlier in October.) So, for the last 2 weeks, we have only been 5 hours different from you east coast folks.
We are back to a 6-hour difference. Sleeping until noon might seem extreme considering how few hours of daylight we have had until recently, but now, the sun won't set until after 7:30pm. And it only gets later from there! We earned it this winter. Seriously.

A related interesting fact: Iceland does not observe DST, neither does most of Asia, the countries of the former Soviet Union, large chunks of the African continent, nor Arizona or Hawaii.

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