More banking and bitching

Seriously, I hate banking in this country. I genuinely hate it. I had to go to the bank during my lunch break to pay my rent, and just the thought of going there filled me with dread.
And of course, it's not like in England or Finland where I'd go to the counter with my account details, my landlord's account details, and they'd just make a transfer. I had to fill out one slip to withdraw the money from my account, and another to put it into his account. Having never done this before it was a bit confusing and the staff in the bank were not particularly helpful.
The best (or worst) part of it, was that one member of staff told me they usually charge a fee to make such a transaction in a branch - I'm starting to wonder why they actually bother to have branches at all, when most are open for 3 or 4 hours a day, and only one SEB branch in all of Stockholm actually handles cash - but they could waive it as it was the first time I'd made the transaction so I obviously didn't know. I told them I don't have a choice seeing as I'm not allowed online banking due to the personnummer issue. At that point the man in the bank said they'd waive it this time, and then told me things would be a lot easier for me if I got a personnummer. My only reaction to that is:

Because obviously I'm being treated as a second class citizen through choice!

This brings me neatly on to the next subject - I'm leaving! I'm going back to the motherland next month, I feel like I'm ready and happy to go now. There are various reasons for this, but feeling that I cannot be treated like everyone else for no good reason is a significant factor. It is sad in some ways, and I definitely like Stockholm and will still visit in the future, but I feel like this experience has run its course for me. I've got a month left, and I'll make the most of it, starting with going to Turku tonight! I'm still slightly paranoid that Viking Line will screw up my booking somehow - I've been obsessively checking the booking on their website to make sure it hasn't mysteriously disappeared. So far so good, but until I'm checked in at the harbour in a few hours I'll still have some worry in my mind. I'm so excited though, despite that fact that one of my friends got his days confused, and called me about 5 times at 7am this morning because he was at the harbour in Turku waiting for me! I'm so happy to be going back for a few days, it doesn't feel quite real.

As well as banking being unfathomable to me, last night I discovered another strange part of living in Sweden. My friend and I went for a couple of drinks at Mosebacke Terrace, which is really lovely with beautiful views of Stockholm, especially now when the sun is going down so late. It turns out that it's not allowed here to drink outside after 10.30pm - we were surprised that the outdoor bars shut down after 10pm, and at around 10.30 they started to take away unfinished drinks, although it was an option to finish them inside. It was getting chilly so we went home anyway, but it was quite a surprise. What a view though.

Happy National Day!

Happy National Day! I'm not doing anything more exciting today than going to the pub, so please enjoy this photo from national day last year, taken at the royal palace, where there were free tours, and the option to dress up and have your photo taken. I think that was aimed more at the children but that didn't stop me and Heli!
Today is actually the day last year, whilst I was on holiday, that I realised I wanted to move here. It was the start of a big adventure, and here I am, I've made it. I'm happy to have had this experience.
This week of anniversaries has had a couple of coincidences, because last night I went to Trädgården, which was also where I spent the night before National Day last year. Lessons were learned from the two hours we spent queuing to get in last year, and we went early. If you haven't been to Trädgården I highly recommend it - I wish there was somewhere similar in London. It's under a bridge, with music, various bars, artwork and graffiti, a restaurant, and a small grill selling burgers. It's only open in the summer because hanging out outside in winter would be ridiculous, but it's a cool venue and the people there are pretty diverse, including plenty of typical Södermalm people. Perhaps next summer I'll have to visit Stockholm at the same time to ensure I'm there on 5th June, as apparently that's my tradition now. It's a really unique venue, and definitely a fun place to go out.

Super amazing news!

I have some wonderful, joyful news! After an absence of almost 3 years, which I can't quite believe, I am going to Turku! In just over two weeks I'll be getting the ferry to Finland for a few days, and I really am so happy. I had had it in the back of my mind since I got to Stockholm that I should travel there, but hadn't got to it. Then I had a message on Friday from one of my Finnish friends asking when I would come back, and now it's happening! I really hope it hasn't changed too much, my friend Emmi who I met in Turku but now lives in England goes back to see her family now and then, and has mentioned some things about it to me, but I really cannot wait to be back there myself.

However, I must say that my first experience booking with Viking Line has been fairly ridiculous - much more hassle than it needs to be, and both Finnish and Swedish friends who I've asked have told me that they also think the website is terrible.

It's not user friendly - the Swedish site is only available in Swedish, which is ok, but if I'm spending money I often prefer to use a website in English so I have no doubt over what I'm doing. I certainly don't think that services in this country should have to be available in English, and I've been critical of others I've met who expect this. Anyway, I spent all of yesterday attempting to buy tickets, using two different computers, my phone, two different cards - both of which had sufficient funds to make payment, and only ever received error messages. I thought it might be my error as I'd been providing my Swedish address, but my cards are registered to my parents' address in England. I tried their address, that didn't work either! Something that should be so easy was causing me so much stress.

This morning I called their customer service team to try to make the purchase over the phone. The lady I spoke to was helpful, but once she'd made a booking for me she instructed me to go to their website to make payment, which was the problem in the first place! She then tried to make a payment over the phone, the card still didn't work! Maybe their system dislikes cards from outside of Sweden, but I told her it was a UK card and she didn't mention that they didn't accept this. They make reference on their website to ID requirements for non-Nordic citizens, and I would think that for people who are travelling using the ferry would be quite a good option, so I really don't see why a card from another country should cause such problems. 

After payment failed yet again she advised me that I could pay when I check in, and just needed to take my booking number. This is fine for me, but as this has been such a hassle so far I'm anxious that something else will go wrong and my booking will mysteriously go missing or something like that. In fact, I will need to call them again anyway, as when I entered my booking number and name into the website to check that everything was correct the message advised that the name did not match the booking number. I appreciate that my name is unusual for English people, let alone a Swedish person, and the lady I spoke to probably just misheard me or made a typo, but the whole thing is not filling me with confidence.

So in conclusion I'm very happy to be going back to Turku after quite some time, I really cannot wait to see my friends there again, but I'm not impressed at all with Viking Line, to the point that last night I wrote my first complaint in Swedish. Hopefully it sounded as effective in Swedish as in English, and hopefully my trip will actually be straightforward once I've solved the issue of what name they put on my booking. However, if there's a next time I think I'll use a different service, especially as no one seems to have good things to say about booking with Viking Line.

Successful Valborg weekend

I've really enjoyed the bank holiday weekend. Even though I had Friday off work it doesn't stop me being a bit jealous of everyone in England having tomorrow off whilst I have to go back to work. I've mentioned previously how I struggle to balance everything in my life, and I think it's especially difficult in a new country when there's much more to take in. I'm really happy that this weekend I've been able to get lots of creative stuff done. It really frustrates me when I can't get on with the work I need to do. Exhibiting is less of a priority for me right now, I'm more concerned with actually producing work, so I'm really happy that there's been plenty of time for that this weekend.
On Friday I finally finished a piece of work that I've been doing for a while, and it was so satisfying to get it done. Then today I attended a meeting of a drawing group where we played some drawing games and worked on our own pieces. It wasn't quite what I was expecting - people who had an art education and who worked at this professionally were in the minority - but it was enjoyable.

The image shows a game I particularly enjoyed where everyone wrote a word in their language - except I had to go for Finnish as the other three languages I speak were all spoken within the group - we then chose a piece of paper at random and worked from that. I was quite lucky as I chose a Swedish word that I'm not familiar with - skorstensrök - so I also learned a new Swedish word today. It actually means chimney smoke, but the sound of it made me think of scars and rocks, so I drew something intended to look like a jagged and and scarred rock or cliff. By coincidence it also turned out to look quite smoky. It was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon, and I have a similar event coming up in a few weeks with a slightly different target audience, so I'm looking forward to that.

Aside from these activities this weekend has been pleasant. I went out with my friends on Friday night and had some well deserved drinks after the stress I've had this week. It also became quite clear that spring has arrived in Stockholm - I woke up at 5am this morning to find that it was daylight, but somehow I doubt this'll make it any easier to get up for work in the mornings. And lastly, this evening I was chatting to my landlord, who is currently living in Spain, and I mentioned to him the huge fees I get charged by my bank when I pay my rent to him. He was shocked, and told me that for transfers between EU countries it is not allowed to charge more than you'd be charged for transfers within one country. He told me that he doesn't get charged for transferring between his Swedish and Spanish bank accounts. I understand that a small part of the fees I pay are for currency conversion, but this really is a small part of the fee, and I have certainly never paid fees to transfer money to different banks within the UK. I googled this, and found the EU website, which says exactly the same as he did. He suggested I take this up with my bank and I certainly intend to, even if I have to do it in person when I'm on holiday. I'm not going to assume that the bank will do anything about this, but it's certainly worth looking into further.

I don't want to spoil my good mood with worrying, so to end on a happy note, here's a picture of me and my lovely international family on Friday night. The family that dances around like drunken morons together stays together.

Valborg and a glimmer of hope

With the banking situation there is a small glimmer of hope. I looked at ICA Banken, which predictably did not offer an account without providing a personnummer, However, I came across a page (in English even!) on the SEB website about private non-resident bank accounts. There was an email address for enquiries, so I contacted them to see if they can offer something in my circumstances. They have a dedicated branch in Stockholm for non-resident accounts, and although the information on their website is quite limited I really hope it'll be a suitable option for me. It takes a couple of days to get a response, and today is a bank holiday, so hopefully I'll get a reply next week. I knew nothing about SEB and had never considered them, but my housemate told me they have a pretty good reputation.

If they cannot do anything for me then I suppose unfortunately I'll just have to accept these stupid charges from my bank in England, but that's not something I'll be doing happily, and will really be a big factor counting against me living in Sweden. It's really not unusual anymore for people to move between different countries and have interests away from their home countries, so I really don't know why the authorities can't collectively make it easier for people. As much as some people might not like it, immigration and globalisation is a thing.

The last couple of days have not been very nice, and I really can't promise right now how long I will stay in these circumstances. I'm feeling quite depressed. It's just over a week now until my holiday to London, and I think whilst I'm there I'll be seeing how it feels to be back and having a little think about the future.

   

On a slightly more pleasant note, today is May Day, and last night my housemates and I went to see the Valborg bonfire near to our house. This is also a holiday in Finland, but I missed it because I went on holiday to Norway at the time. In Sweden bonfires are traditionally lit to keep away bad spirits, and now it's officially spring. Although the sky looks suspiciously grey outside. The bonfire wasn't the most exciting thing in the world - it was basically that and some food stands in a field, but my housemates said it's more for the children and that the suburban ones like this aren't that big a deal. Still, I enjoyed being able to experience something from Swedish culture. I feel I'm a bit more detached from Swedish culture than I was from Finnish culture in Finland, mainly because my friends here are quite mixed, not just Swedish, and so there's less of an influence on me. It's kind of a shame, as I do want to learn and understand more here, so I'm glad I had the chance to see it, even if it wasn't the greatest spectacle.
Now it's a day off from work, which is something I certainly can appreciate, and I'm looking forward to going out tonight. I've definitely earned a few (many) drinks this week.

I went AWOL

It's been almost a month since I updated this blog. I've had to personal matters to deal with recently, and it seems that, very sadly, I'll soon be going back to London due to what's been happening. It's unexpected, and if it weren't for this I would not even be thinking about leaving Stockholm, but it's something very important to me. So this has taken up a lot of my time and energy recently, I've gone into myself a bit. My work contract finishes at the end of April - I never looked into other options at the same place because all of this came up - so it looks like I'll be shipping out at the start of May, meaning that I was here for four months. It's so sad, especially as it's now getting warmer and sunnier in Stockholm, summer is definitely on its way. I have a very short time left here, so I'm trying to appreciate it and make the best of it. As it's been a while, here are a few noteworthy things that have been going on lately.

First of all, in another unexpected turn of events, in a weeks time I will be travelling to Krakow for a week! For the final month of my contract I've been given a slightly different role at work, which mainly involves planning an event in Krakow, and as part of this I'm required to attend said event in Krakow! I'm excited but also nervous, and it does mean that, according to when I expect to leave, this is my last full weekend in Stockholm, as I will be travelling to and from Poland during two weekends. It's still a new experience, so I'm really grateful to have the chance to go.

I visited a vegetarian restaurant lately that I had walked past many times in Gamla Stan, but never been to, Hermitage Restaurang. It's a vegetarian all you can eat buffet - a lot of the food is vegan - and is wasn't bad for 120kr for dinner. There are not a huge number of choices - bread, soup, a hot dish, lasagne, rice, potatoes, and various salads - but the food was quite nice, and it's a pleasant environment. You're given free jugs of water with mint and lemon, which is a nice gesture. The restaurant is small, and I was part of a large group at a busy time, so I did get cramped. The buffet and counter area is also quite cramped, but other than that I really enjoyed it here. I think that lunch here was 10 or 20kr cheaper than dinner, and I think this would be a great place for lunch. Yet another restaurant in Stockholm that I approve of.

After the meal we went for a drink, and walked to Södermalm. We found one bar called Stora Vikingen, or in English, "The Big Viking", and decided that we really had to go there. It was all really kind of funny because the bar looked a bit old and tired, it didn't look to be that well maintained, but when we sat down they gave the menu to us in the form of an iPad! We sat down and immediate had four iPads on the table! It wasn't the most attractive looking place but the staff were pleasant, the wine we ordered was good, and we enjoyed ourselves. But it goes to show that not everything in Södermalm is cool.

On Friday night I went somewhere really cool though, also in Södermalm - Södra Teatern. I hadn't been here before, but actually had probably one of the best nights I've had in Stockholm. At first we were on the terrace, where the views are absolutely beautiful. Definitely one of the best places I've found to look at all of Stockholm. In the evenings right now it's still a bit too chilly to sit outside very late, so we went back inside to the bar, but it must be so nice to sit outside there in the summer. 

Best of all, after a while it turned out there was a ska/reggae night happening, which happens to be my favourite genre of music, and until now I hadn't found any nights with this type of music in Stockholm. I really enjoyed it here, and would love to come again.

At the moment I'm really taking each day as it comes, but I hope that I will have time in the next few weeks to appreciate being here, and make more happy memories of my time here, which is sadly being cut short.

A Swedish inconvenience

Obviously yesterday was St Patricks Day, and I was invited out for drinks by some of my colleagues. This was my first ever experience of a big inconvenience here - not being able to go out because I was doing my laundry!
Like most buildings here, we have a communal laundry room that you have to book a timeslot for. The timeslot is called a tvättpass, which I inevitably read as something a bit ruder. Anyway, having specifically booked an evening slot for when I was home from work, to avoid my boyfriend being lumbered with having to do it all himself, there was nothing I could do but decline the invitation out. When I commented to my colleagues that I couldn't believe my laundry was affecting my social life now I was told "Welcome to Sweden".
As it happened, I wasn't much in the mood for going out, as I'd spent my whole working day taking minutes in a meeting without a lunch break, so by the time I got home I was exhausted, hungry, buzzing from coffee, my fingers were bent into claws, and I desperately needed to pee constantly. In England you would never move into a furnished home that didn't actually have a washing machine, but it seems here I will have to get used to planning my social life around my tvättpass.

Louise Bourgeois at Moderna Museet

Today was a very exciting day because I finally went to the Louise Bourgeois exhibition at Moderna Museet. I've been looking forward to this since I found out about it last September, and although it's been on for two weeks I waited until today because I planned to see it with some others. It was definitely worth the wait!
The artist is one I find very interesting, and I'm able to draw inspiration quite a lot from her work. There was a huge amount of work in the show, and I think it's an exhibition you could happily see more than once. What I've always really liked about Louise Bourgeois is that her work spans across a lot of disciplines and media, but with a common theme bringing it all together, and I really admire such versatility.
Her versatility is really evident in this show, and featured some methods that I'd not even seen from her before, which just impressed upon me even more the variety within her work. I really feel that anyone could see this show and find something that they like.

The last exhibition at Moderna Museet, Skulptur Efter Skulptur, was quite minimal, and I hoped that this would not be the case with this show. Louise Bourgeois' work comes across as so rich and deep, so I'm not sure a very small show would work. I feel like her work needs to be emphasised, and thankfully this was quite a large show. We didn't even look at the permanent collection and were still at the gallery for a couple of hours. Walls had been set up within the room so that you kind of moved in a spiral, and it gave the impression of getting further into the artist's psyche. As her work is intimate, and at times explicit, this seemed to make sense with it. The show felt kind of intense, but I think that really worked well. Once again, Moderna Museet has not disappointed me.

The other really cool thing about my day was the people I went to the exhibition with. I found a group for female artists and creatives in Stockholm, which was only established fairly recently, and it was so nice to meet other creative people here. Obviously it's important to make like-minded friends, but there was also a lot of discussion about formally setting up some kind of creative collective, actively arranging group shows here together, and looking for opportunities. Networking is such a big thing in Stockholm, so I've really been aiming to meet other artists and creative people, especially because I'm new here and there must be so many people with much more experience within art in Stockholm, and Sweden as a whole. Even though there were only a few of us there today we already found some parallels between the work that we make, even if our mediums differ. That's cool in itself as we are from different countries and backgrounds, but still have common concerns that transcend that.
Everyone seemed to be equally motivated to search for opportunities together, and I'm really looking forward to hanging out with these people again and hopefully developing our ideas a bit more. Seeing as there are several nationalities involved we may even be having international touring exhibitions before you know it! I'm really happy I met these people, and I hope that the ideas we talked about today get pushed forward. I feel like this was a big step in the right direction in terms of developing my career here, plus I got to see an amazing exhibition. So all in all it's been a very successful day, and it's just a shame that the weekend is pretty much over!

A reflection

This week there's been a lot to be happy about, finding a job and a place to live in one week is a bit special. As I still don't know a huge number of people in Stockholm I decided to invite everyone I do know out last night, and it was great. It made me think about our situation.

Five weeks ago we came to this country with nothing - no job offers or solid long term plans, nowhere to live long term, and we knew only a couple of people in Stockholm. Five weeks is not a long time, and I'm actually so proud of how I've done, and that already I'm in a position where I feel at home here, rather than feeling like a visitor or tourist. 

Although I lived in Finland for a year I was more nervous about coming here, probably because I'm now older and wiser, and more realistic about the difficulties of living abroad. In Finland I had a lot of good luck, and a lot of help from others, and I did worry I wouldn't manage this time round. I really do not want to live in England, so failing here would be such a massive disappointment. 

I'm so happy that we've started to really make a life here in a short space of time. Obviously it's still very early on, and things are not perfect yet, but I'm surprised at the progress we're making. I have a job, we have a place to live, which I can't wait to move to next week, and we have friends here. It's starting to become home. 

I'm keen to make Swedish friends, but I also like meeting people from a variety of countries and backgrounds. I realised last night that the people we count as our friends in Stockholm are all of different ages, nationalities, and backgrounds, including Swedish, but despite this everyone can be together without it being awkward or uncomfortable. I love that, and I feel lucky to already have people here I think of as friends. I'm used to having a lot of friends and contacts in London, so to suddenly be in a strange place where you know barely anyone can be lonely and depressing. There have been a couple of times when I've been lonely, but that's not really the case now.

Good luck comes in threes so hopefully very soon Kai will find a job or something else that he wants to do. I hope that our luck doesn't run out and we keep having as amazing a time as we've had so far. I've put in a lot of effort since we got back here, and it's so good to know that said efforts have paid off. I feel it proves that anything can happen if you try, and that the negative experiences I've heard about do not go for everyone. I feel that we have a future here, and I'm so happy.

More progress

It seems that this week is becoming quite a successful week for me! As mentioned yesterday, Kai and I have begun to make some new friends here, which I think makes a big difference to feeling comfortable in a place. This morning there has been another positive development for me.

The job hunt has not been going particularly well this week - neither of us have been finding many new opportunities to apply for, and this week I've mainly been sending off speculative applications. That's better than nothing, but the chances of actually getting a job out of it are much slimmer. It's been getting quite frustrating, but we can't lose hope. Whilst I was looking for new sites that might list suitable job opportunities I had a phone call from the recruitment agency I spoke to about a particular job last week, and I now have an interview for that job tomorrow morning! Hooray!

These things make me nervous anyway, but in this case I'm extremely nervous. Getting this job would obviously mean I can easily apply for a personnummer (you can read about the trouble that caused me in September here ), and will probably make househunting much easier because we will have a guaranteed income. We haven't even started househunting yet, because we can understand that if two recent immigrants with no job between them wanted to rent from you you'd probably say no. It's not often that the outcome of a job interview affects whether or not you can be treated equally to everyone else in a country, but that kind of is the case here. So no pressure.

Obviously I'm taking this situation very seriously, and the rest of today will mainly be for research about the organisation, interviews and workplace culture in Sweden. I've already worked out how to turn my greatest weakness into a positive point, and I'm trying to take a very positive attitude, but without getting my hopes up.

Realistically I know I could do this job and do it well, I just have to make sure I'm as prepared as I possibly can be. Luckily Heli has also had the experience of coming from another country for a job interview in Sweden, and has now been working in this country for several years, so she's in a good position to give me some tips. I'm going to try not to stress too much today - I don't want to be a nervous wreck tomorrow morning. Getting this job would help us both so much, especially in terms of me getting a personnummer etc. So far we've had a really successful week, we have plans to hang out with our new friends both tomorrow night and Friday night, so I just need to trust that this success will continue tomorrow morning. Wish me luck!

Making progress

It's been snowing quite a lot here over the past few days. I'm not sure how normal it is here, but the temperature seems to fluctuate quite a lot - it snows, melts a bit, snows a bit more, and goes on in this way - today is the first day in several days with no snowfall. It's quite different to my memories of winter in Finland - after the first snow that was pretty much it for the next 6 months.

Yesterday was a really good day for us. We finally got round to buying sim cards, and I had the whole conversation, which was obviously a bit more complicated than "Hej", "Nej", and "Tack", completely in Swedish, for both myself and Kai. It's only one thing but I was pleased afterwards that I'd managed it with no problems at all. I also feel more settled now that I have a working Swedish number and am no longer being charged large amounts of money to use my phone by my UK network.

Then in the evening we went out to a bar to meet a group of ex-pats from all over the world living in Stockholm. We looked at the Meet Up website - which I knew of but had never used before, and as one group I was interested in were meeting that evening we thought we would seize the day and go along. My thought was that in the worst case scenario we might not meet our new best friends, but at least it gets us out of the house, visiting a new bar, and socialising with others. 

As it was, the other people there were very friendly and welcoming, and we've been invited to a similar meeting this Friday. We met a lot of nice people, and there were also a few Swedish people there too. I'm an open minded person with friends from all over the world, but here I'm particularly interested to meet Swedish people and make some friends from this country. However, it's also really good to meet others who have moved here, and in most cases have more experience than we do of being here. I really enjoyed talking to people from lots of different backgrounds, who all ended up here in different ways. 

Even though Kai is here with me, I miss having friends around. When you live somewhere for a long time you do take for granted the fact that you have friends there and know your way around the place, here we're really starting from scratch again. I think having friends and a social life is really important, so hopefully this is the start of us integrating more.

After this experience I definitely intend to go to more meetings like this, and have joined some other groups on the website. One group I joined is a women's art group, who will be meeting to see the Louise Bourgeois exhibition at Moderna Museet. Obviously I'm keen to see that, and the people in the group have been really welcoming so far. 

However, I joined a language exchange group that frankly is not very appealing because their meetings seem so strict and structured - I was looking at an event for Swedish and English, and it didn't seem very friendly at all. Going into a group of people you don't know can be nervewracking, and I'm not keen to join an event that seems a bit hostile! My Swedish ability is a lot more advanced than Kai's, and reading the description of the event made me feel like they'd chuck him out or something if I took him with me. Maybe it's only the person running that specific event who takes such a seemingly harsh attitude - hopefully I can find something similar that seems to have a more welcoming atmosphere. Any kind of social event should surely be fun, not making you feel like a schoolchild. 

Thankfully the group of people we met last night were all great, and even if we only see those people regularly in the context of that group it still means we've met some new people and are visiting more places in Stockholm. I'm looking forward to going out on Friday, hopefully that experience will be just as enjoyable.

A huge complaint

There is one part of my experience moving to Stockholm that has left a very unpleasant taste in my mouth, and it has nothing to do with Stockholm or Sweden. It is to do with the company I used to send some belongings ahead of me, a company based in the UK called First Luggage. I am writing about this here because I know that this blog is likely to be read, either now or in the future, by people who may be moving to Sweden from the UK, and I feel that this is relevant to anyone considering moving abroad from the UK.

I used First Luggage three years ago when I was moving back from Turku and needed to send some things ahead of me, and I was completely satisfied by their service. I remember that I actually entered the wrong collection date when making my booking, and this was changed without any difficulties at all. The luggage was collected and delivered promptly, and based on this experience I had no hesitation in using them this time. In fact I didn't even consider any other options because I was so confident in using First Luggage. What a mistake that turned out to be!

Heli agreed that my luggage could be delivered to her house in Stockholm, and so I booked the collection, arranging for my case to arrive here the day before I did, and paying over £100 for the privilege. A few days before the collection was due I received a phone call from First Luggage, informing me that the delivery address was incorrect, and that their system was displaying "foreign characters." The person I spoke to did not elaborate on this, and also told me she had googled the address and it didn't exist. I told her that I was quite sure my friend knew her own address, but that I would check with her and get back to them. Heli obviously confirmed that the address she'd given to me was correct, and for the sake of it I decided to google the address myself. It was definitely there.

Heli's address contains some accented letters that don't appear in the English alphabet. First Luggage claim that they can deliver your luggage anywhere in the world, but if their system can't recognise accented characters that surely rules out multiple addresses in Scandinavia, Iceland, Finland, France, Germany, Spain and other Spanish speaking countries, to name a few. I started to wonder if first time round I was just lucky that my address in Finland only contained letters also found in the English alphabet. I also considered that when entering address details on the First Luggage website, you're only able to enter them in a UK format, with the postcode coming last after the city name. This is not how Swedish addresses are laid out, nor Finnish addresses, and I'm sure addresses in some other countries have a different layout too, and I wondered if this might also cause a difficulty.

Anyway, when First Luggage contacted me it was a Friday, and it is unfortunate that the following Monday was a UK bank holiday, meaning it wasn't possible for me to speak to them. I know this is not their fault, and it is just unfortunate timing.

My collection was booked for the morning of the Tuesday, so I called them first thing in the morning to confirm that the address in Sweden was correct. I spoke to the same person as on Friday, who told me she would speak to her operations team and get back to me. I have previously worked in customer service for a well known gift retailer in the UK, and regularly dealt with a number of serious complaints. I really think this has made me more patient and reasonable than the average customer, as I am aware of how much stress and pressure customer service staff are sometimes put under. However, two hours later I still had not heard anything and needed to go to work, so I called First Luggage again. They didn't seem to have made any progress with the issue, and asked me to email the address to them. I did this immediately, and quickly received a reply confirming that the address was ok, they would send me the documents I needed that day, and would collect my suitcase on Wednesday morning instead. I sent two further emails, one asking when the luggage was likely to get to Stockholm in light of the delay, and another asking that the documents were sent to me by 4pm. This was because I did not have a printer at home, as I had mentioned on the phone, and would need to print the documents at work. First Luggage make it very clear that you must print the documents they send and give them to the courier when they arrive. I did not receive a response to either email.

I finished work at 4pm, and still did not have a copy of the documents I needed. I called them yet again, and was promised that I'd receive them by close of business, which was apparently 5.30pm. I was not very impressed, as I would now have to pay to have the documents printed. I informed First Luggage that I was moving abroad, they were delaying me in dealing with multiple other things I needed to do before leaving the country, and that I wanted a partial refund. When I said the whole experience had been ridiculous, the person on the phone actually agreed with me, but she did not apologise, and tried to blame the whole thing on the bank holiday. In regards to a partial refund, she told me "we'll see" once I had received the documents. So that basically meant no.

5.30 came and went, no documents were received, so I sent them a lengthy complaint email explaining what had gone on up to that point. I received a phone call from a different member of staff first thing the next morning, and to be fair to him, he was apologetic and seemed sincere. He had arranged for my luggage to be delivered to their office, so that they could attach the paperwork themselves, and to then be sent on an express service to Sweden so that it would still arrive on time. He told me it would actually arrive the next day, which did not help because Heli had arranged to stay at home on Friday, not Thursday. He told me he'd add a note asking that delivery was made on Friday, and also assured me I'd still be receiving a written response from a manager.

The case was collected and delivered, and I safely arrived in Stockholm. Last week I realised I had not received a response to my email, so I forwarded this to them and chased a response, pointing out that the email had obviously been received and read, otherwise no one would have contacted me the day after I sent it. And then it all gets worse...

Yesterday I found that another week had passed with no response from First Luggage, so I took to social media to air my concerns. Within minutes of posting on their Facebook page, which has over 8,000 likes, they commented that they would look into this as a matter of urgency. A while later I received an email from their Customer Care Manager, who just fobbed me off. He claimed that the initial communication issues were caused by a problem with their phone system. Frankly I find this quite confusing, as I had to call them multiple times and never had a problem getting through on the phone. The problem was that they failed to respond to emails, emails that I know for a fact they received and read. He also provided me with a £25 voucher to use against my next booking. It's an insult to my intelligence that they think I would use their service again after this. I had already told them several times that my previous experience with them was excellent, and that they had completely ruined this.

I replied to this email, informing them that their voucher was worthless as there is never going to be another booking, and that I didn't see what the phone system had to do with the issue. When I worked in customer service we occasionally had issues with the phone system, but this never affected our ability to send emails to customers. Considering that an email I sent on a Tuesday evening was read at about 8.30 the following morning says to me that they weren't struggling to catch up that much. I wanted some honesty, and a partial refund rather than a voucher I would never use, a voucher worth less than a quarter of what I paid for this shambles.

I decided to add a comment to my Facebook post, and discovered that it had mysteriously disappeared from their page! First Luggage clearly are concerned primarily with protecting their image - whether or not the customer is satisfied isn't relevant. I then posted again, specifically pointing out that they had removed my previous negative post from their page, and that I really felt the 8,000 people who liked their page deserved to see a real customer's experience with them.

At around the same time two rather odd things happened that just made the situation worse. First of all, a request to add First Luggage as a contact on Skype appeared. My Skype details are not listed anywhere, meaning that First Luggage had gone searching for my details, and I'm unsure how legal or ethical this is. Secondly, Heli text me and said they'd called her, claiming they thought that was my Swedish phone number. They know it isn't - they called her on that number to check my luggage had arrived, I provided that number at the point of booking, weeks before I even got to Sweden, and have never indicated to them that the number belongs to me. Contacting her when she hasn't even made the complaint is totally unacceptable.

I then received an email from the manager, not addressing anything I'd said, but saying he'd like to discuss the matter on Skype as he doesn't want to send emails back and forth, and also doesn't want to cause me a costly phone bill. I'm very hesitant to do this, as I will then have no evidence of anything that is discussed, and my knowledge of complaints procedure tells me that serious complaints like this should be kept in writing as far as possible. I replied to him telling him exactly this. I'm now waiting to see what happens from there.

If they had just dealt with the complaint at the time I would not be making the fuss I am now, and it's almost like they're intentionally causing more trouble for themselves by acting in a questionable manner. I am so frustrated with these people, and this is honestly the worst experience I've ever had with an organisation of any kind. I'm shocked at how bad their customer service is, and I think my former colleagues would agree that if any of us had acted in this way we may not have had jobs for much longer. I am an intelligent person, and First Luggage will not succeed in fobbing me off.

This morning I looked online for reviews of the company, and it seems I'm far from the only person who has had a negative experience. I'm also not the only one who doesn't get replies to complaints. It looks like I just got lucky first time round, and that using them again was a massive error. I don't want to keep dealing with this, it is no more enjoyable for me than it is for them, but I refuse to let them get away with this. 

The time now in the UK is 10.30am, so they are definitely in their office, and as yet I have heard nothing. I will keep chasing this, perhaps they think they can just make me go away, but what they don't know is that I learned from some very tricky customers and I will not be disappearing without a resolution. I wonder how long this nonsense will get dragged on for...

Eating my way through Stockholm

I've now been here for a week, and I realise that I've pretty much devoted myself to eating my way through Stockholm. I've been spending a lot of time with Heli, my friend from Finland, this week, and thankfully we're both pretty into food.
This week we made two visits to Vapiano, which is extremely popular in Stockholm, but with only one restaurant in London. I first visited Vapiano when I was last visiting Heli in June, and was very happy to visit again. The concept is kind of unusual, as you order your food directly from the chef, which means you can have some control over seasoning etc. The downside is that this means your food might be ready at separate times. We found this when we went to the restaurant in Gamla Stan - Heli had to queue for about 40 minutes for risotto, I ordered a pizza and had completely finished it by the time she sat down with her food. Kind of defeats the object of going out for a meal together. This wasn't a problem when we've visited the restaurant in Östermalm previously. I also found that the pizza in Gamla Stan wasn't cooked as well as in Östermalm, so I'm not sure if I'd go back to that particular restaurant. Generally I really like Vapiano, the food is good and the prices are very reasonable too.
There is another Italian restaurant in Gamla Stan that we went to both times I visited Stockholm in the past, called Michelangelo, which I really do recommend. I've never actually had pasta there, but the pizzas I've eaten have always been really good. Again, the prices are really reasonable, and the atmosphere there is very nice.
Yesterday we had a lovely lunch at Sushi Hjorthagen, very close to where Heli lives and across the street from Ropsten station. This also marked the first occasion that I ordered something completely in Swedish and the other person spoke back to me only in Swedish. I assume I have a very foreign accent, as Swedish people tend to start speaking to me in English even when I am speaking Swedish. Yesterday an Irish man I met advised me to just persevere and speak Swedish even when they speak English, so I think I'm not the only person who has experienced this. The sushi was delicious and beautifully presented - they also had a number of vegetarian options, which is a big positive for me. As it was a small, local restaurant in a residential area I wondered whether the quality would be that good, but I was really impressed and would definitely visit again. It was a lovely, sunny afternoon, so sitting out on the terrace of the restaurant was great, and the area was really peaceful.
Last night we intended to go to the nacho buffet at Hellströms. Everyone I meet seems to have heard of this, even if they haven't been there. We visited when I was last in Stockholm, and it's amazing that you can get all you can eat food for only 20kr. That's unimaginable in London, 20kr is approximately £1.72! It would cost you more to buy the ingredients and make the food at home! Even better is that beer is only 29kr, and this is the weekend price, throughout the rest of the week it's only 24kr! Definitely the cheapest drinks I've seen in Stockholm. The buffet is from 4-7pm, unfortunately this time we turned up a bit too late and there was no food left. In terms of value for money I can't think of anything better. There's always next Friday...
As an alternative we went to Opal in Söderhallarna, which we've visited before just for drinks. I like that they have shiny silver sofas and some tables that look like a glitterball cut in half. Opal mainly offers burgers, I had the vegetarian halloumi burger and it was pretty good, very filling. It was almost 200kr, quite expensive for what it actually was, and definitely more than you'd pay for something similar in London. Although people often say Stockholm is very expensive I find that the cost of living is roughly the same as London, with some differences. Alcohol generally costs slightly more, cigarettes are much less, and rent is much less. Shame that it's so difficult to find somewhere to live in the first place!
When I was last here I ordered a falafel wrap at the end of a night out, and was very confused to find that this wrap included mashed potato as a filling! I like mashed potato, and it was very tasty mashed potato, I just really didn't understand why it was there. Sweden is apparently really big on mashed potato, and this is quite normal. I mentioned this earlier today to a German person who I'm currently sharing a house with, and she didn't seem to be phased by this at all, so I'm wondering if this is actually normal outside of Sweden too. Definitely not in England though.
In other news, I've decided in a couple of weeks to go back to England temporarily, as my boyfriend and I are both quite unhappy about being separated. It also seems the more sensible option, as when we get back here in December or January we'll have more money and more options for housing, which is the biggest concern I have here. I can go back to my old job on a temporary basis, and save even more money too. It's sad to leave Stockholm again so quickly, but something is really missing being here alone, and I'd much rather change the plan and come back in a couple of months. I'm still going to go to job interviews and look into jobs in the next couple of weeks, and also use this time to improve my spoken Swedish, and generally integrate more with Swedish people. I'm planning to leave a lot of my belongings in Stockholm, so I can say with absolute certainty that I'll be back before long. I have a meeting about a job on Monday that's quite important, but this is the plan regardless of the outcome of that. I don't think that company will want an immediate start, and I'm told that a notice period of three months is quite normal here, which takes us up to December anyway. Coming here now was still completely worthwhile, but I do feel that I could be much happier than I am. So that means two more weeks to keep munching my way through Stockholm, and then a little while to plan what to eat when I'm back!

Off to a good start

Sunday was more about trying to move my stuff to my new house and get settled in, so today was the day to start being organised and seriously looking for houses and jobs. My plan to sort out a personnumer today did not work out - just as I was ready to leave the house I realised that some paperwork I needed for that was in a suitcase at my friend's house on the other side of Stockholm. Thankfully I retrieved said suitcase this evening and will be able to do that tomorrow instead.

I made a big effort to be efficient today, and I think it paid off. I've now finalised a meeting about a job for next Monday, and I think this will be a really good prospect, although I obviously don't want to get my hopes up. I found a few other job opportunities that would be suitable for me today, and applied for them. I'm pleased to find that there are quite a few options available in English, as my Swedish isn't yet good enough to work in. I also applied for a couple of babysitting/nanny jobs, as I did this type of work in Finland for a while, and I feel that balancing one or two of these jobs would give me an income, but also allow me plenty of time for art. At this point I'm not wanting or expecting to necessarily get the best job, I just need a stable starting point and I can build from there. One of the people advertising a nanny job got back to me straight away, we spoke on the phone and he was very positive, all going well I might be meeting him tomorrow.

I also replied to a couple of adverts for rooms to rent. However, this evening that side of things became much more positive. Unbeknownst to me, one of my boyfriend's friends lives here, and he has very kindly offered to help me, generally with getting settled here, but also with finding somewhere more permanent to live. He has given me some great suggestions of areas that might be suitable that I hadn't known about, and has offered to help me with looking for places and making contact. This is a big help, as his language abilities are obviously a lot better than mine. I feel much less alone now that someone has volunteered to help me a bit with this stuff, and after today I'm feeling much more optimistic about my future in Sweden. This person is also helping my boyfriend a lot with finding job opportunities here, and if we're lucky this might mean we are separated for a shorter period of time. But again, everything is still very new and uncertain so I don't want to make assumptions or get my hopes up.

I had a bit of a wobble this evening, I think mainly because I miss my boyfriend, and maybe I'm becoming a bit frustrated with my language abilities. I know I've only been here for 2 full days, and I've only been learning Swedish for less than three months, and perhaps I set some unrealistic expectations for myself. I can understand a lot but I'm not used to hearing people speaking in Swedish, because I was learning in England. At this point I need to consciously think about what most words mean, and that makes it quite difficult to have a proper conversation with someone. I know I have to keep trying, and I know there were times in Finland when I wished I could give up and go home. Obviously you forget those times once you've become settled and have built a happy life for yourself. It's still so early on, and now that I'm gaining more of a support network here I hope that things will keep on improving. Maybe I need to be a bit easier on myself when it comes to speaking Swedish. Apart from this wobble I've had a really good, productive day, and I hope that this continues tomorrow.