I'm coming back!

I am delighted to say that I will be back in Sweden this time next month! My boyfriend and I have our flights booked for 2nd January, and we've arranged a place to stay initially, again through Airbnb. I've definitely learned from past experience, and we've arranged a place to stay for 6 weeks. Hopefully this longer period of time will give us more success in finding somewhere more permanent to live. My time in England has been busy and has gone by quite quickly, and I'm so excited to go back to Sweden. The fact that this time round i won't be leaving my boyfriend behind makes a massive difference.
I'm also feeling a bit more confident, because today out of sheer boredom I looked back at some entries in Frozen In Finland. Some of the early entries I read mentioned feeling lost and confused, feeling scared, and feeling like a child because I struggled to do simple things without help. When I actually think back on my time in Finland I don't remember that - I remember being able to get along speaking Finnish, I remember being able to understand things and having confidence. This has reminded me that things weren't always like that there, and has reassured me that things can and will change for me in terms of my confidence speaking Swedish too. I also had a confidence boost after speaking to some Swedish people, in Swedish, online, and one person told me that at least my written Swedish was excellent. Mr Dictionary helped a bit, but that's ok.
My boyfriend speaks less Swedish than I do, so when we first get there I'll certainly be the more knowledgeable of the two of us, and this makes me more inclined to try, for both of our sakes. We'll learn together, and I've already concluded that I need to just try, be prepared to make a fool of myself, and keep going as much as I can, even if I feel shy or embarrassed. I can understand an awful lot, but there were occasions in September when I probably could have spoken Swedish but felt anxious that I wouldn't be clear enough or I'd make a fool of myself, so didn't even try, which I feel is totally the wrong attitude. For now, I'm more confident, and I hope that doesn't disappear the minute the plane lands. I can't wait to go!

It begins...

Where do I start? A few years ago I spent a year living in Finland, and wrote a blog called Frozen in Finland. This was intended to keep my friends in England up to date with what I was doing, but to my surprise my little blog actually became very popular! People all over the world started to read it and contact me, and I made friends in a new country after some readers who lived in the same city contacted me. One of these people in particular is still one of my best friends, and someone who I cannot imagine my life without. It's also really good for me now to have a record of one of the most special times of my life, and to be able to look back on the whole thing.

Now, a few years on since I returned to London I decided to move to Stockholm. This is quite unlikely to have ever happened if I hadn't lived in Finland, as the reason I first went to Stockholm was to visit one of the people I lived with in Finland, who moved here shortly after I left. When I first came two years ago I thought it was really beautiful, and being a larger capital city it reminded me a little bit of London. I came back in June, started to love it even more, and as I have some savings available and felt a bit stuck in a rut at home I decided to stop wasting time and just get on with it. So here I am, and the obvious thing to do given my previous experience was to start a new blog!

At the moment being here is tinged with sadness as my boyfriend has to stay in England for a little bit longer, and this is very difficult to get used to. I arrived yesterday, and other than that problem things are going quite well. I have a temporary room in a house for the next few weeks, living with people from a variety of countries, including England and Finland. Hopefully this situation will help me to make some friends here, as I've come here alone and only know a couple of people here already. It's very strange to go from a place that you're very familiar with, where you have a nice home, a boyfriend, and plenty of friends, to a place that for the most part is unknown, where you have no permanent home, no job, and not much in the way of a social life. I think it's a positive to take a leap like this and try something new, but I have questioned why I'm actually doing this at times.

I spent my first night here at my friend's house, and I think it was a good thing to come here and meet a familiar person initially. Last night was quite quiet as I'd had a pretty massive last night in London with my friends on Friday, and today has mainly been spent going back and forth across Stockholm with a suitcase transporting my belongings to the room I've rented. It's in a lovely shared house with lots of art everywhere, and I'm very pleased to have my own space. It feels much more real now, as staying with my friend yesterday felt more like being on holiday than living here. 

It's a new month and week tomorrow, and it's time to start getting my life in order here. I have a meeting about a job arranged for a week's time, and I really hope that that will work out, it would solve one problem for me quite quickly, and is something I'm very keen to do. Tomorrow I'll be going to Skatteverket to see about getting a personnummer, and will start looking for a more long-term place to live. 

This is my biggest worry at the moment, as I only hear negative comments about the rental market here, and I am concerned about how quickly I can find something, as I only have three weeks in this house. Originally I thought finding work would be my biggest problem, as this was an issue in Finland, and I have been concerned about language barriers. I'm less worried now, as there seem to be a lot of opportunities here for people speaking foreign languages. I also spent a lot of time between my holiday in June and now learning Swedish quite intensely, and since yesterday I've realised how well I've done, as I understand a lot of what I hear people saying, and have been reading advertisements and signs without much difficulty. I haven't had many opportunities to actually speak much Swedish yet, and I am a bit nervous about that, but I know from past experience that I just need to get over it and practice.

Hopefully tomorrow will get me off to a good start, and my time here, however long is may be, will be as happy and enjoyable as my time in Finland was.