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Monthly archives: November 2011

Impressions after My First Week in Sweden

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clock

Photo by: Candie N (CC BY NC SA)

 

After my first week here in Sweden, I have some first impressions to share with you. I hope to keep my sense of wonder as I slowly matriculate into Swedish society.

  • It’s kind of creepy the way my computer knows I am now in Sweden. I know that it sees the IP address I am using but still…Many sites come up in Swedish when I want them in English so I am still arguing with the computer about that.
  • Why don’t cool, useful things transfer more often between countries? I have never seen the “pay to return” shopping carts system in the U.S. but I think it would be a great success. I have also never seen the “scan you own grocery items” (Coop) system so that by the time you are ready to leave, the food is already bagged and all you have to do is pay. Beautiful!
  • I really notice the sound of snow tires on snowless streets. I haven’t lived somewhere where people change their tires seasonally for a long time.
  • I accompanied my friend to a hospital for tests. I was struck by how clean the hospital was. It was even a little “homey—a feeling I have never gotten in a U.S. hospital.
  • It’s striking how warm it is inside homes and buildings. I think houses are kept—ironically—cooler in California, even in the winter. Here, the interior temperature fluctuates much less than I am used to.
  • Could “ja men” and nej men” possibly mean the thing? People seem to use them interchangably. Well, “hej” can mean both hello and goodbye so why not?
  • There aren’t many trains in California. The automobile manufacturers ran them out of time a long time ago. So the trains seem wonderous and very Harry Potter-like to me. My daughter suggested I run straight into the wall on Track 9 to see if I could magically get through to Track 9 ½…But I told her my train is on Track 3. Whew! Dodged a sore head there!
  • I went looking for ice for my sparkling water in the freezer at work. (Typical American wanting ice, I guess.) I found some plastic bags and reached in there, thinking they were bags of ice but something stabbed me and I discovered they were full of cooked crayfish, leftover from August.
  •  People are willing to speak Swedish to me. I really thought I would have a harder time getting them to speak Swedish instead of English. More on this later.
  • Setting the time on all my devices…What in the name of all that is holy is the difference between UTC time and GMT time? (No, you go Google it, I don’t really care that much.) When I re-set the time on my electronics, I could rarely choose “Stockholm” but instead had to pick places in the same time zone such as Berlin or Vienna. But I had to look that up first due to my abysmal grasp of geography and complete lack of time zone knowledge.
  • The 9-hour time difference…It feels like it takes forever for my friends and family to wake up in California…I check the time and find it is 4AM there. I wait a long time and check and now it is not even 5:50AM there…By the time I am exhausted and ready to go home at the end of my Swedish work day, they are finally getting up. They’re really very lazy, these Californians.

Kristin Lund

November 30, 2011

First Day of Work!

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desk wtih computer

Here's where I sit at work...

 

My first few days of work in Stockholm went well. I got a ride to the train station in Knivsta (even though I am living in Uppsala, this seems to be the quicker way to go and it is the method friends are using). From there I took the train to Stockholm.

It really couldn’t have gone any better and everyone was very friendly but, boy howdy, I am glad that now I have a few days’ work under my belt. It’s hard to be “the new kid.” I would like to blend in but I feel like I stick out like a sore thumb. that’s a strange English expression, isn’t it? I think about language so often now…)

The offices are airy and light, just over Kungsbron. I have not yet ventured very far into the rest of the city. The last time I was in Sweden was over three years ago and I never even went to Stockholm so it has been quite awhile. It’s fair to say that I don’t know the city at all.

My job title is Technical Writer and as such I was given (to use) a laptop, a mobile telephone, some sort of key fob that opens the front door, and a card key for getting into the building after hours. What I wasn’t given was a desk. I am sharing one with someone who apparently doesn’t often come to the office. The company is growing so fast that they cannot keep up with the space demands. They are expanding into the offices across the hall but these won’t be ready until after the new year. Oh, and I was also shown a proof of business cards that will be ordered for me so that made me feel like I had really arrived as a Swedish worker.

open meeting & eating area

This well-lit space is used as an ad hoc meeting area and eating meals...

 

Previously I worked in what we jokingly called a “cube farm,” meaning lots of cubicles, but in my new job, all the desks in each room are near each other and there is no divider between them. People talk across desks but it is not loud and one can always use headphones, which many people do.

This is the first time I have worked in an office with no land lines, only mobile phones. When the mobiles ring, people are very good about walking into an empty conference room with their phone when it rings.

I was very impressed by how many people came up and introduced themselves. What good social etiquette these Swedish workers have, I thought. Turns out there was a company-wide message mentioning my arrival and inviting people to introduce themselves. People are probably tired of introducing themselves, actually, because the company has hired approximately 30 people this year. But they took the time to do it with me so maybe Swedes do have social skills, after all.  :)

exterior with bikes

Exterior of my building. I love how so many Swedes bike to work...

 

Kristin Lund

November 29, 2011

Driving Round and Round

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Driving in the Car

Well, okay, so this picture was taken after my big adventure...

 

In my last post, I described my efforts to get the documentation and ID cards that I need to acquire in order to do things like register for health insurance and open a bank account in Sweden. I called the Migration Board regarding my residence permit card (“uppehålltillståndskort”) and found out that the thing to do was to go to the local Uppsala office. There was one hour left before they closed and the next thing I knew, I was in my friend’s car, heading to the Migration Board office in Uppsala.

I didn’t feel ready yet to drive in Sweden. (I have done it before but this time I am starting a new life have lots of assorted worries and excitement.) But my friend thought it would be good for me to get the card process underway and she dismissed my worries. (She is on heavy-duty painkillers due to a herniated disk in her back and so she couldn’t go. Whether I should take advice from a person on drugs is a whole other discussion!)

But I got in the car and started driving anyway.

car interior

A manual transmission? There are too many hills in San Francisco to have one of those so I haven't seen one in quite a while...

 

Have I mentioned that I haven’t driven a stick shift (manual transmission) in about a hundred years?

Actually, it turned out that that was the least of my problems. I couldn’t find the Migration Board office to save my life.

What is the Swedish fascination with roundabouts (“rondeler”)? (For the record, I grew up on the East Coast of the U.S. and they call them “rotaries” there.) Are these things instruments of torture for newcomers? Not only do they scare the heck out of me (Really? Two lanes inside the circle?) but they are the equivalent of spinning the blindfolded person around a few times before they try to pin the tail on the donkey.

I took four or five wrong turns that put me onto roads that seemed to head straight out of the country. And there was no chance to make a u-turn. I must be headed straight to Finland, I thought at one point. I could not find a place to turn around! At another time I thought, I am surely now going to end up in Norway.

When I finally turned around and headed back to the roundabout, I had no way of remembering where I had entered and exited the roundabout previously.

And street signs? Apparently they are there but I was looking in the wrong spot. In the U.S., my eye is trained to look in one consistent place for street signs but in Sweden, you must look for them in another spot entirely. I’ll let you know where when I figure it out.

I never found the Migration Board on Tuesday. Closing time came and went and I was still going round and round the roundabout. Don’t laugh. If you go out right now, you’ll probably see me there, turn signals on, wondering if I can move from the inside lane to the outside lane just so that I can go home.

reduce speed, children playing sign

Take your children inside. I’m on the Swedish roads! Photo by: Jasejc (CC BY NC SA)

 

Kristin Lund

November 27, 2011

In Pursuit of my Swedish Papers

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2 people sitting on the floor, surrounded by papers

Luckily there is less paperwork than this in my future! Photo by: Electronic Frontier Foundation (CC BY NC SA)

Okay! I have made it to Sweden’s shores.

Now it’s time to pursue the challenge of trying to become an “official person” in Sweden. I am, at this time, invisible for all intents and purposes because I don’t yet have the Swedish version of an American social security number (“personnummer”), and other documents and cards that I need to become a legitimate Swedish worker.

Lola Akinmade-Åkerstrom wrote a great piece “10 Practical Tips When You’ve Moved to Sweden” for Sweden.se. I highly recommend it.

It turns out that the order of Lola’s list is highly important. That Lola, such a smart woman.

Due to a muddled brain, jet lag, and various other excuses, I tried to start in the middle of the list. My goal was to open a bank account as soon as possible. This is so I can get paid at my new job. Most Swedish companies deposit your pay directly into your bank account so you need to have an account. I also wanted to have a debit/credit card to pay for things like commuter train tickets, etc.

Working backwards, I saw that in order to open an account, I need a resident ID card from Skatteverket. So I called Skatteverket and found out I need to pay the fee before I visit the office. Then I will show proof that I’ve paid when I get there. But…in order to pay online, you need to enter your personal number. Hmmm, I don’t have the personal number, I thought. I had better look to see how you get one of those. I hung up the phone.

It turns out that the personal number is issued by Skatteverket as well. Oj! I called them back. This time I learned that I can’t get the personnummer until I get my residence permit card (“uppehålltillståndskort”) from the Migration Board.

Aha!

Side note:
Sweden prefers that you get this card while you are still in your native country. However, in the U.S., the only place you can get the card is from the Washington D.C. embassy. The card has biometric info on it with your picture and fingerprints and the only proper machine is in DC. For about 4 months in 2011, the Swedish government insisted US citizens travel to Washington D.C. to get this card before they moved to Sweden. This proved ridiculous because America is such a geographically large country and people like me, who lived in California were nearly 5000 km away from the Embassy. It made no sense to go to D.C. on the way to Sweden just to get the card. Thankfully, Sweden recognized this after a few months and changed the rule to allow people to enter the country with just the Migration Board permission letter. We are now allowed to get the card after arrival.

So, I called the Migration Board and found out that there are very long queues in the Solna office outside Stockholm and that the thing to do is go to the local Uppsala office. The Uppsala office is only open 12pm -3pm, Monday to Wednesday. I realized it was right then 2pm on a Tuesday.

The next thing I knew, I was in my friend’s car, heading to the office…

Don’t miss my next post (arriving shortly) to find out about my adventures driving to the Migration Board office.

Kristin Lund

November 26, 2011

Business or Pleasure?

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Plane on the runway

I had to take a less direct route to Sweden due to buying last minute tickets… Photo by: viZZZual (CC BY NC SA)

So, here I am in Sweden! My first day at work will be tomorrow. I am really looking forward to finally starting the job I was offered more than four months ago. I will meet my new boss—the boss that I have had many email and phone conversations with but whom I have never met face to face.

My flights from San Francisco to Chicago to Munich to Stockholm went well, all things considered. It was a minor miracle to catch the flight to Munich because my first flight was very late. After a mad dash through the Chicago airport involving a switch from Domestic to International, I was the second to last person to board the plane. (And you know how that goes, when all the other passengers are settled in and they have nothing to do but stare at you as you huff and puff down the aisle, praying there is room for your carry-on.)

What I wanted to happen
My fantasy for a long time has been that I would get to Passport Control at Arlanda Airport in Stockholm and they would ask me “Business or pleasure?” Then I would proudly answer “business” and show my passport and special Migration Board ‘visa granted’ letter.

What actually happened
We landed at Arlanda and I discovered the airport was practically empty. It was 5:30pm on Saturday night when I arrived in Sweden and I guess everyone had pretty much decided to give up and go home or something. I arrived at Customs and there was no one there. It was the honor system for both the “EU citizens with nothing to declare” and the “Non-EU citizens with nothing to declare.”

So I pushed my enormous bags through Customs, thinking that Passport Control must be on the other side of the door. I pushed open the door and…

…I was free to move about the country. That was it. No Passport Control. Not even a stamp in my passport.

Whah?

I was a little disappointed. I guess it’s because my flight came from Germany. Still, it would never be like that in the U.S. Let’s say I enter the U.S from a foreign country by landing in Miami. My final destination is San Francisco but because I am first entering the country in Miami, I must claim my baggage, then go through Customs and Passport Control, then re-check my bags onto my final destination. And yes, that’s even for a U.S. citizen.

Oh well. I hope it’s not a problem that there is no stamp in my passport when I begin the process of getting my Swedish  identity card, personal number, etc.

Here in Sweden, I am going to stay with my best friend, Helen, for several months while I settle into my new life. Helen and her family live in Uppsala. They met me at the airport, waving Swedish flags. (Helen started a tradition of being über-Swedish when greeting me at airports years ago.) Their Volvo was parked practically right at the curb. The contrast could not have been more stark with my experience at SFO (San Francisco’s airport) when my brother dropped me off at the start of my trip. There we had to duck policemen urging us to move on, three lanes of taxis zooming around the airport, tons of people and their luggage trying to get where they were going.

Sweden always seems calmer and less crowded to me. It’s easier to take a breath. I recognize that Sweden has changed a great deal in the 25 years since I first fell in love with it but it still seems like a wonderful place to me.

I hope I never lose these rose-colored glasses.

eyeglasses

Photo by: Starck Ting (CC BY NC SA)

Kristin Lund

November 23, 2011