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. 

Ack! 3 days left!

Wow, how the time flies. How do we really only have 3 whole days left as Swedish residents?!?  I would like to note that on July 19th or thereabouts, we received notification from the immigration office that we could legally stay in the country until August 31st. Thanks, Migrationsverke, a whole week and a half before we ship off for good. Couldn't have told us in June, when our other visas expired and we HAD to make exit plans?!?

Not that we could have really afforded to stay much longer than we are. We haven't secured jobs in the States (not for lack of trying...Stu is throwing CVs out there like candy on a parade float!)  And we've been in "Goodbye" mode here, which means lots of lunches, fikas, dinners and drinks out to spend a last few hours with the lovely friends we've met here.

Our apartment is pretty bare. We had to pre-pack this weekend to figure out the last of it...we had roughly 6 suitcases worth of stuff and only 4 worth of capacity. Thankfully my giant, pregnant belly is a weeding device of it's own: can't pull it up or down over the bump? In the pile to Myrorna!

We have a few other things to donate, but we just got news in the last few days that our landlady wants to rent our awesome apartment out for at least 6 months (she had told us she would sell, and we should get rid of everything extra we have purchased.) Her renting is good news for us IF she can get someone in on August 1st, so that we don't have to pay rent on an empty apartment. And at 10.000kr (~$1,600) a month, we would very much appreciate someone having that kind of flexibility. So much so, we would leave them those extra plates and cups and lamps and all that useful stuff we accumulated while living here the last 2 years. Trust me, it is worth it!

The weather is sunny and 70-something, and we are enjoying the last of our time here. But we are also pretty excited to leave. Three days!?!?!

Dalarna

Oh my god, we have 10 days left living in Stockholm. TEN DAYS!!!!

We spent this past weekend out of Stockholm, bittersweetly trying to squeeze in friends and a little Swedish summer before we leave for good. Our excellent friends AnnaSara & Andy invited us and Melissa & Kevin to their family "estate" near Furudal, in the middle of Sweden in the region of Dalarna. I say "estate" because there are a gazillion houses and buildings on their property, and the family seem to be related in some way to all of the neighbors.
What's great is that these houses are the cute little 'Faluröd' red & white cottages that you see in all pictures of idyllic Sweden, and they were all in view of a big lake.
And it is Dalarna, which means the furniture in their house and in every other establishment we went into is *awesome*...I have always, always loved the traditional folk designs of the region, and just learned this weekend that it is called Kurbits.

The weather didn't exactly cooperate, but despite the rain, we still managed to pick blueberries in the forest and eat smultrön (teeny, tiny, super sweet Swedish wild strawberries), make flower wreaths, we fika'd (and fika'd and fika'd) swam in the lake (well, not me. I'm a wuss.) we climbed through the pastures and forest, visited Dala horse factories, AND, to boot, I drove a Volvo through Swedish wilderness. Seriously, it doesn't really get much more Swedish than that...we just needed snaps/aquavit and more singing. It was such a great weekend.

Our camera is in and out of commission so I don't have pictures of the cute little fäbod we visited or the lakes or blueberries, but I got some great pictures at the Dala Häst factories at Färnus and Näsnus, where we watched them turn chunks of Swedish wood into cute little orange horses. I bought a green one:

 

Moving progress - part 1

We fly one way from Stockholm to the DC area on July 27, so still nearly 3 weeks until the big move. 

BUT our stuff leaves us on Wednesday. The cheapest option for overseas moving is to pack-it-yourself and send it on a boat, which we did on the way over here in 2009. We could have forked over nearly $4K to have a company pack us up and handle all the details, but I guess like pain. To be honest, in paying that labor, we would  have been paying for someone else's time, and Stu and I have lots of time right now. And, bottom line, it costs almost FOUR GRAND! Our DIY option will be closer to $1500. Not quite the $700 it cost to come over, but what can you do? Thanks, crappy US dollar exchange rate!

Regardless who packs, the boat option generally takes a month for your stuff to find its way to your door on the other side, so we're sending it off a little earlier than we are sending ourselves off. We managed to get a ton of it done in the week after graduation and before our big trip to France & Italy. But these last few days have been our final take-it-or-leave-it decisions on what gets put on the boat, what gets crammed in our 4 checked bags & 2 carry-ons, and what just gets tossed/donated.

Hooray, moving! So far, we have 26 large boxes filled. We came to Stockholm with 15. And granted, Stu doesn't let me *do* any heavy lifting, but I still acutely feel the stress of moving and heaving boxes, what with the fact that they are TAKING OVER our apartment. 

But after Wednesday, they'll be gone. I've sold a large chunk of our other stuff on Blocket (ahem, we still need someone to buy our lovely red pull-out couch...it sleeps real comfy! Promise!) 

Stu, taking apart our 3 large wardrobes for a Blocket buyer. Now our bedroom is so empty. 

So Thursday, we'll have a pretty empty apartment to enjoy for a last 2 weeks. So sad. 

Home, not home

We're back from our big ol' contesting, mediterranean Europe touring, wedding crashing, babymoonin' vacation through France and Italy. We had a late flight out of Rome, and after a dirty, sticky hot day of dragging our butts around that too-busy city, waiting for the time to head to the airport (seriously, the last 6 hours felt like we were on Survivor), we were SO happy to be HOME. In Stockholm. To our impossibly comfortable bed, our awesome little apartment, and absolutely perfect Swedish summer weather.

But its only 'home' for a few more weeks! Then 'home' is back to the DC area, where we will be living with my mom until we figure out the next step (i.e. where jobs take us).  Which is great...I love DC. And going 'home' to mamma's (meaning: the suburbs) still means we have a ton of friends really close by. But it is weird. I am going to miss my Swedish bed, and having our own lovely little place, and 74 degree sunny days, especially when its generally 94 in Virginia. And I'm going to miss a whole lot more, too many people, places, things, and ideas to list. Not so many people get to say they just picked up and popped over to live in Europe for a few years, and I feel so lucky that we got the chance and the experience. And had a great time doing it!

subway rant

Warning, this post is rife with generalizations.

I have heard countless times how closed-off Swedes can be in public--in the store (don't expect to be helped by the salesperson!), in the street (don't expect a smile, much less even eye contact), on public transportation (watch out for giant swinging bags that will hit you in the head while the person passes you, and don't expect an "excuse me"). I'll admit that if Stu & I stay in Sweden through this pregnancy, I am dreading that 9th month on the tunnelbana. And I am already super sure I will never be offered a seat on a crowded bus.  But what has been bugging me lately is the inability of people in Stockholm to get ON to the subway car like considerate human beings!  Swedes are generally awesome at standing in an orderly line, or taking a number form a little box to preserve their sense of order. You see it everywhere: the pharmacy, the bank, the alcohol store, the computer parts place.  Well, almost everywhere. They don't queue for the free bus to Ikea...that is a free-for-all.

But on the subway, people stand like giant, squat buffalo directly in front of the doors before they open, totally oblivious to the fact that there are a dozen people who need to get *off* the train before they can on. They could stand a little to the right, or maybe a little to the left. Stockholm train doors stay open for a decent amount of time...they aren't going to miss it! And several of them will stand like buffalo together, making you have to elbow your way through them to get off the train. Ah, it irks the crap out of me! I don't remember the general population of subway riders in Washington DC being that difficult. Or New York, or Chicago, or San Francisco (granted, they all have their "charms", but at least there is some general common sense.)

Okay, I think I'm done now. It feels better to get that off my chest.

Odd shoe observation

Swedes take their shoes off when they enter private residences. It makes sense in a country that experiences 6 months of winter, since snow boots can bring in so much crap. We do it at home, too. And I think even after we leave Sweden (whenever that may be), it'll be one of those cultural things that stick with us. So hygienic!

When we were heading home from a walk yesterday, I was surprised to see a woman take her sneakers off as soon as she walked *into* a gym! She was one of those people who runs to the gym and then proceeds to work out, so she didn't have a gym bag with her as though she was going to actually change her shoes. Isn't it odd? Stu & I don't work out (gyms are just too expensive) so this is new! Does everyone take their shoes off to enter a gym to work out? Why bother, if you are just going to put them on again to run on the treadmill? I think that is a cultural thing that won't come back with us...

P.S. it is 8:30pm and its not even fully dark yet. We finally made it! The weather has been stellar lately.

Business trip

It has been a while since we posted!  I have an excuse...I have been generally sick while also working on my thesis and planning my graduate exhibition (got an opening date now! May 21 at Moderna!)  Not very good excuses, but nonetheless.

But this week, Stu is going on his first business trip as an intern for this big Swedish-multi-national company, to the States! He'll be in Charlotte for meetings for several days (and I selfishly hope it has potential for a job there...NC is warmer than Sweden!) Then he is taking an extra day to hang out in NYC to catch up with a few friends. I'd be more jealous if he wasn't promising to bring me lots of presents back. And I *am* totally jealous...he's going to fill up on burgers and Carolina BBQ! Can't bring those back in a suitcase too easily. Nah, aside from a list of drugstore stuff, I'm hoping for some mac & cheese of all things, some American Easter candy, and maybe even an H&H bagel or two...

In the meantime, I'm on my own for a few days. I guess he thought I'd forget to eat or something while he was gone (because I'll be so distraught?!?) so he popped by the grocery store last night and bought about $100 worth of food for me for the week. Including my very own pint of Ben & Jerrys Baked Alaska. We often fight over a pint, and the thing gets eaten in one very short sitting. But now I don't have to fight with anyone over who gets those delicious little white chocolate polar bears. He's so sweet. 

Peanut butter

There are a ton of things we miss from the US. Mostly food and people. You can get American stuff here, but it's often overpriced. I've seen oreos and Dr. Pepper, both which shocked me with how much they were charging. But the case is a little different with peanut butter here. You can get it. It's just not the same. It tastes wrong or is a strange consistency. And our friends in the US who have come to visit (or sent us care packages) have been awesomely supplying us with a steady stream of good ol' American brand peanut butter. 

And now, surprisingly, I think we're good.

We were brought two new giant containers of chunky peanut butter last week, so when I took stock by pulling out what I was hiding from myself at the back of the cabinet, I realized we had two other large unopened jars. So we have four giant jars of peanut butter...I know its a bit premature, but I think we have enough peanut butter to survive the next year. 

Surprisingly, everyone brings JIF. No other brands.

To be honest, I think it's the desk job saying I don't need any more peanut butter. Only 3 weeks into being office-bound for not even 30 hours a week and my clothes are already feeling a little tighter. Or maybe it's winter insulation, a little early? It does get cold in Stockholm! Either way, as of today, I've decided A) less peanut butter and godis and B) I must walk as often as possible to Moderna this fall. The latter is just under 30 minutes, and I get free entertainment, like the live opera wafting through Kungsträdgården this afternoon. The former might be more difficult..."less" godis will be tough to measure, and really, really, really hard to stick to. 

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 for 5 days

We got back from nearly 3 weeks on the east coast Wednesday night. I'm not even sure what to blog about! It was a great trip, despite that it was a bit chaotic (why did we even try to make a schedule...almost nothing went as planned!), it was a bit short (shoulda done a month, you know?) and it was HOT in DC (try 102 more than one day we were there!) 

Some of the highlights were my little sister graduating:

(Go Elena!)

Our friends Nancy & Andrew tying the knot:

(the wedding party, with Stu on the far left)

And one of my best friends Melissa having her first baby, little William Joseph Chalkias, born 25 June 2010!

(here with exhausted-looking papa, Mike)

We met baby Laura for the first time:

(with great friend [her mama] Cait, at the SI Folklife festival)

We even managed to see Stu's dad a few times, when he was able to get truckloads in our direction:

(Stu with his dad and Gabby at the NGA sculpture garden)

And we got to hang out with quite a few friends. Not nearly as many as we would have liked, nor for as long as we would have wanted, but considering the packed 2.5 weeks we were home, we did alright.

I should have taken more pictures, for sure. Oh well. So we are back just long enough to get over the jetlag before we leave for a week in Scotland and a week in Germany. I'll be attending an art librarians conference in Edinburgh, so there will be a little bit a work going on, but other than that, it'll be just vacation. And with Stu's mama and cousin Judi! 

Speaking of jetlag...its been tough to get out of the house, since I want to take a nap every other other. We have definitely missed some of the best time to be in Sweden. But our friends Sam & Sean will be here in an hour to stay the weekend with us, so we'll get some prime Stockholm time showing them around the city. So off to enjoy some BEAUTIFUL Stockholm weather.

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!

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.

The Zen of Kvarg?

Another food-related post. Sorry if they are boring...its just such an adventure attempting to navigate the livsmedelsaffär (grocery store) or to make meals that feel like home. American home.

Stu had a rough day or two...he is currently working on a big project to present to the Swedish state-owned pharmacy monopoly Apoteket.  A little background: you can't get most over-the-counter drugs in Sweden without a prescription, and then only at Apoteket (but we arrived prepared...we brought a giant box of Dayquil & Nyquil!) Earlier this year, it was decided that the monopoly should be broken up, and just Monday, it was announced that more than half of the 900 pharmacies were sold off to private companies. And this whole issue served as a live case module for Stu's management class. He can write more if I am leaving big details out, but they have to pitch their strategies for marketing and managing the transition to the big shots at Apoteket very soon.

Anyway, a rough day or two working on this project. We both have been sleeping crappy, watching True Blood too late into the night, and working a lot. And he got a haircut (finally) that was a little shorter than he wanted. In fact, he said he was emphatic to the hairdresser that he wanted "just a trim, keep it long" but it is shooooort. Maybe Army short?  And we hadn't gone to the grocery store, so there was no food in the fridge. So I guess when he stopped by the store for the basics, the lasagna noodles screamed out to him. Like "eat me, I remind you of home!"  So expecting to make a meal, he bought the noodles, and an onion, some parmasan, and some tomato sauce.

But no ricotta or mozzarella. Sweet man, he tries.  I ran out for the cheeses and more veggies, but you can't find ricotta cheese here (or I can't find ricotta cheese here.)  I know you can make it fairly easily at home, but that requires cheesecloth, and I am pretty sure cheesecloth doesn't translate to "ost duk." Stu had that problem when he went to buy shortening (like, the margarine-y stuff, because when you plug "shortening" into Google Translate, you get förkorta which is more like the verb or art term. Swedes would look at you like you were crazy if you were at the store wanting to buy foreshortening.)

So no ricotta. But I have seen cottage cheese, and figured that if I spiced & herbed the crap out of the lasagna, no one would notice...same texture, right? But Lidl (the supremely cheap grocery store around the corner) didn't have anything labeled "cottage cheese." They did have an opaque tub of something called Vähärasvainen Maitorahka Kvarg near the creme fraiches and the grädd.  Don't ask me how to pronounce that first part, I think its Finnish. I zeroed in on the "Kvarg" part.  Sounds disgusting.  But I bought it anyway.  Don't say I'm not adventurous.

Well, turns out kvarg is not ricotta or cottage cheese-like in consistency. Not even close. More like sour cream or greek yogurt.  And after some heavy-duty googling (yeah, it took a while! My research skills are rusty!) I came to the conclusion that what I had bought was Quark (thank you, Wikipedia, for pointing out how different it is from cottage cheese and ricotta). Its fairly common in Eastern Europe. But they don't even sell it in the US because it isn't pasteurized. No wonder.

So, I have no ricotta with which to make Stu a homesick lasagna. Even better, now I have 500 grams of creamy, sour, un-ricotta-like kvarg in our fridge to figure out what to do with. And soon, because I opened the thing, and its not pasteurized!  Not to mention that Stu is spending the weekend in Germany, so I am also on my own as far as eating it, whatever it is.

Anyone ever kvarged before? Should I attempt the kvargcake in the wikipedia picture? God, that just sounds gross.  And more importantly does anyone want to send me some cheesecloth?

Hey wait, its DC bars that are known for inescapable political blathering

Its exam time in Swedish higher education. Not for Stu & I, with our bizarre module schedules, but we both did get our grades from the first course this week. Out of grades A-F (and yes, that includes the possibility of getting an E or an Fx grade) I got a B. Which was the highest in the class, apparently. And Stu also got a "pass," which meant he didn't fail (they won't get real letter grades for a while, as I understand it.)

Anyway, the end of exam time coincided with pay day here. Swedes get paid once per month, on or around the 25th. And people get *very* excited about pay day.  So we had a few friends over to our apartment for wine on Friday and then went out to a fancypants bar in Stureplan to meet up with more friends to celebrate the end of exams (but not for us), payday (again, not for us) and our friend RV's 30th birthday.

Stureplan is where lots of pretty people hang out, and spend too much on cover charges to get into clubs that are too loud to talk in. I prefer dive bars (I still miss the Raven and Wonderland...haven't yet found acceptable equivalents here, though Södermalm probably has a few close competitors.)  But it was RV's birthday, and he had a handful of American friends fly in to help him celebrate, so he wanted to show them a posh time, apparently. Not to mention these guys are lawyers or something with 6-figure salaries, so this was probably up to their normal standard.

So I sat down next to this bearded burly American and introduced myself. Turns out, they all live in DC, so it was easy to strike up conversation.  Stu immediately got bored with this guy, and I suppose thats not saying much, but I should have taken cue. We did the whole "why are you in Sweden" thing, and he talked about how much he likes Stockholm so far.

Then he asked me what I did in the US before moving to Sweden, and I had barely gotten the words "...worked at a nonprofit by the White House" out of my mouth before he started shaking his head, and saying "Oooooh, one of thooooose."  Turns out we have vastly different political views, and he was the kind of person who wants to push his politics on you if you don't agree in the first 5 minutes of meeting you. Obviously, he stereotyped me from my "nonprofit" comment right off the bat. He proceeded to drone about how he didn't want to pay for health care for the entire country and blah, blah, blah (bored me just re-typing what he said.) And I thought, YOU ARE IN SWEDEN, you moron...they live this way and it works for them! 

Anyway, not to get further into a political debate (turns out we did agree on a few points that our "party lines" might not normally allow) but it struck me as funny. DC is a political town, where the first question you are asked in a bar is "so what do you do?"
Stockholm is not that way, from my limited 2.5 month experience. I have rarely been asked what I did for work in the US...very few people actually know that I am a librarian. I have not been asked at all (or stereotyped, for that matter) about what my politics are.  But you throw two District of Columbians (what do we call ourselves, I have no idea!?!) together in a bar in Europe, and we still seem to find that question as important in the first 5 minutes, and one on which we judge each other!

We carried on a fairly civilized conversation afterward, as he managed to redeem himself by buying me a beer (I am easy to please) and describing how the birthday-celebrating group accidentally found themselves at a cougar bar the night before. They were so drunk that they stumbled into Golden Oldies, even got carded by the bouncer who point-blank said "Are you sure you want to come in here?" and promptly charged them each 180kr cover when they beligerently answered "yes, we're here to drink!" (thats about $25 per person, to walk in the door!) They were the youngest by 25 years.
I laughed. And I actually learned from him...avoid Golden Oldies.  We even managed to meet up with them on Saturday night, at a much less pretentious place with extremely good sangria. And there was no political engagement at all. We all played nice.

Until talking with this guy, I had forgotten this aspect of DC politics...that it is nearly inescapable in that city.  Even more interesting, now that I think about it, is that in Sweden of all places, I meet one of the 3% of district residents who did NOT vote for Obama.

Regardless, my thoughts on this: I am happy with my grades, I wish I got paid so that I could enjoy payday, I like meeting new people no matter what their politics, I miss and I don't miss DC, the weekend was a blast, Monday comes too soon, and Stu is usually right.

And happy birthday to my dad.

The frustrations of flat f*&%ing cookies

Thats it. I am no longer attempting to bake cookies on Swedish soil without Arm & Hammer.

I am in the middle of an art theory class which makes me want to bang my head against a wall, so I have been coming up with lame excuses to *not* read the chapter on semiotics in the late-modern. I know, I'm such a grown-up. Yesterday, I rearranged the living room furniture all by myself for no good reason other than I didn't want to read about minimalism (that pull-out couch is like a ton of bricks, too.)

Today, I decided to make cookies. These cookies, specifically. Needing exactly 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda, which is *supposed* to be similar to the Swedish bikarbonat, so thats what I used. It is rainy and chilly today, and I figured it'd take at least 20 minutes to go buy the walnuts and raisins, and a good chunk of time to grate carrots and make the dough. And because tiny Swedish ovens such as ours are configured with only ONE baking rack (seriously?!?) it would take at least 4 or 5 rounds of 12 minute baking cycles to bake all of the cookies. So I was looking at a nice hour and a half of non-reading time.
I should probably get my head checked, I know. Just read the damn book!

And I felt even dumber after taking that first round of what should have been plump, moist lovely little mounds of carrot cake cookies out of the oven. Flat as pancakes. And not fluffy American pancakes, *Swedish* pancakes (so, flat as crepes.) With little nubs of walnuts and raisins making the only 3-dimensional forms on the sheet.

 

There was no saving them, either. They had started to get brown & crispy on the edges, but the centers were still too soft, so I had to scrape them off the sheet onto a plate in one amorphous pile of carrot-y, cinnamon-y mess.  But what do you do with an entire bowl full of dough? It was good, but I couldn't eat the whole thing raw (I thought of it, though!) I dumped it all into a small loaf pan, and I have a feeling that it too will be an utter failure.

Stu had a brilliant suggestion: to use it as ice cream topping. So I'll stop by and get a tub of vanilj glass on the way home from work tonight. Seriously, no more baking soda disasters. How do Swedes make cookies? They can't all be flat pepparkakor?!?

and a BIG thank you

To SAK, for bringing us the giantest jar of JIF peanut butter ever (all the way to Oslo), and to her dad BK, for buying the us the giantest jar of JIF ever, and to my dad DG, for passing on the info about us needing the giantest jar ever.

Jar of honey included to indicate actual size

I didn't even realize the Swedish peanut butter I had found tasted not-quite-right until I had some American peanut butter. It was just SO right.  Tack!!

Mascara is expensive

The exchange rate is in the toilet. At least as far as we are concerned, considering we are living off of our American savings. When we first started planning our move to Stockholm back in April, the rate was about 8.5 kronor per dollar. It meant the rent for our bigger, better Swedish apartment in a great neighborhood was the same as the mortgage on our DC condo. Fine by us! But the exchange rate has fallen steadily since its height in March, and is now hovering at 7 kronor per US dollar. It doesn't sound like that catastrophic of a fall, but it means that our rent is about $200 more per month than we were planning, just 5 months ago.

Aside from the exchange rate fluctuations, Stockholm doesn't seem all that much more expensive than DC.
Aside from the alcohol.
And cosmetics.
I was reading the Metro paper the other day (the free fluffy newspaper that they give out free on the subway, like the DC Express paper) and saw several ads from stores that sell cosmetics. They all advertised mascaras that ranged from 95:- to 165:-, and that is on sale (FYI, in Swedish, its "på rea". I learned that one real quick!) The Maybelline mascara I just tossed out was about 115 kronor...that's $16!! I am cheap, so I probably paid less than $5 for it at a CVS. Had I read the ad before getting rid of the tube, I might have kept it longer! And mascara is one of the few things I am anal about keeping fresh...they say toss it after 2 or 3 months of use, which I do. With always having contact lenses and sensitive eyes, and even more since having lasik in May, it's been important in preventing eye infections. Especially since moving, as we get free health care, but eye care and dental are NOT covered by the Swedish government (which makes me think I should stop eating all this Swedish candy soon. Probably.) But I can't afford to buy $16 mascara every few months being a broke student!

I'll miss using mascara. My eyes won't look the same. And we haven't been here long enough for me to miss all that much. American chunky peanut butter, affordable beer, friends, fam.
That's where you guys come in, friends and family. Several handfuls of you have said you will come visit us in Stockholm. And we WANT you to come visit! Come stay on our couch or blow-up bed (when we get it from the other side of the country, that is.) We'll play tour guide and make you Swedish food and entertain you. And when you come, bring a jar of chunky peanut butter, a bottle of scotch (at Stus request), and a tube or two of cheap Maybelline mascara (preferably not the waterproof kind...I would have to shell out for equally expensive eye make-up remover for that stuff!)

Please?

Things we'll miss in the US...

...Baseball.