One year ago today...

One year ago today, and I can't believe that already it's so long ago, I came to Sweden to visit Heli, as part of a two week European tour visiting Stockholm, Amsterdam, Barcelona, and a failed trip to Andorra. A year ago if you'd told me that now I'd have been working full time in Stockholm for several months, that I'd live in a part of southern Stockholm I'd never even heard of at that point, I'd have a Swedish phone number and bank account, and would be semi-fluent in Swedish I'd think it was ridiculous! A year ago I went alone to a supermarket here to buy something to eat, and had to look at products with Finnish text on the packaging to be sure of what it was! A year ago I asked Heli to write down for me the Swedish for asking someone if they spoke English, and it took a couple of days of encouraging myself before I even managed to say those three words!

A year ago I was a bit fed up and frustrated with London, and decided a holiday would do me some good and get it out of my system. I didn't expect the opposite effect. I'd thought of how one day moving to Stockholm might be nice, but was not taking the idea seriously at all. I just expected to have a nice few days with my friend here before moving on. But over a few days, starting with National Day, which is this Saturday, I decided that actually I really wanted to come here. And why wait? I felt there was no reason that I had to live in London or England. And by the time I left Stockholm for Amsterdam I was heartbroken to be leaving, and was determined to be back soon. Here I am still.

Things have certainly not gone quite to plan. I rushed, thinking I knew it all about emigrating because I managed in Finland, didn't give myself enough time, and left in September after a few weeks because I really wasn't happy without my boyfriend. I didn't expect to go back to England for a few months, and it was frustrating at the time, but actually it was also a really happy time that I'm glad I experienced.

This time round has not been without problems, but has definitely been more successful. As my boyfriend pointed out yesterday, I have managed. I have made a life. I have a house, a job, and many more friends in Stockholm than I had a year ago. I know more than I did a year ago. It's not been easy all the time, but I've learned a lot.

I'm starting to feel quite ready to leave Stockholm now. It's a beautiful place, and I think an experience like this is always valuable, but Stockholm isn't the one for me. I would certainly still visit in the future, there are many people and places here that I want to see again. I have no definite plans for when I will leave, but I know I don't want to stay here long term. Just like in September, I'm not as happy as I could or should be.

It's strange to think that a year has passed since this all really began. And actually I think that the last year has been one of the most exciting and special years in my life, despite the ups and downs, for both reasons relating to Stockholm and reasons relating to other things. It's not been perfect, I'm not happy all the time, but it could certainly be worse. I'm not sure how much more time I have here, but I'll be sure to appreciate the time I do have until it's over.

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.

If Sweden was my boyfriend

Krakow was an experience. Mainly I was working, so there wasn't much of a chance to really explore, but being in a country that is completely alien to me made me realise that Sweden is becoming quite comfortable for me now. Every day I'm surrounded by a foreign language, but it's one that I understand, and it felt strange to see a foreign language everywhere that I couldn't even begin to understand. Obviously it's been a learning process to understand this country, and I'm quite sure I've only reached the tip of the iceberg, but this was the point that I realised how much things here have started to make sense to me, and become the "normal" way for me. But now onto an aspect of living here that I really cannot make sense of, and that really is making me question more and more why I'm here.

I don't actually have a bank account in Sweden. In January I was waiting to get a job and get established here, in February I was waiting for a personnummer, in March I had some personal matters to deal with that were more of a priority, and for much of this month I believed I would be leaving soon, thus making it a waste of time to go and open an account. Having decided that I will stay longer, today after work I finally made the effort to go to Handelsbanken. I chose Handelsbanken specifically because numerous sources, including the bank themselves, state that they offer a non-resident bank account. I'm not sure how that's different to any other bank account, but due to not being able to get a personnummer it's really the only option for getting an account in this country in my current circumstances.

So in I go, armed with ID, copies of payslips, my work contract etc, and immediately I'm shut down and told that they don't offer that service. I asked why their own website, plus numerous other sources, claims that they do if they don't. The gentleman at the bank didn't have an answer for that. He told me there have to be exceptional circumstances, or they have to have an existing agreement with my employer, which of course they don't. I suggested they get someone to have a look at the information they're giving out. He suggested I try ICA Banken. I walked outside and burst into tears.

You may ask why having a bank account in Sweden is such a big deal, let alone something to bring me to tears in the middle of the street, especially when my employer has been happily paying my wages into my UK account all this time. I'm losing money just by being here. Every financial transaction I make comes with a fee. My bank casually takes £6 from my wages every month for accepting foreign money, which is a tiny percentage of the wages, but obviously it adds up over time. Worst of all is that when I pay rent to my landlord, who obviously does have a Swedish bank account, my bank charges me an extra £30, which is a significant addition to the rent.

But this is just one part of a bigger problem. Sweden has no respect for me. Sweden is happy to take from me but gives me nothing back. Sweden makes me feel like I'm not a real person. Every time I think things are going well Sweden takes my hope away. Sweden isn't satisfied no matter what I do. I have a sneaking suspicion that Sweden probably doesn't want me around at all. If Sweden was my boyfriend everyone I knew would be telling me to leave.

I am not, and never have been, an idle person. Coming to this country, my intention was always to find a job, contribute, and basically do all the things that any normal, productive member of society does, the same things I have done throughout my adult life. I worked hard to find a job, and a month to the day since I arrived in this country I was starting a new job. I believe that some of this was down to being in the right place at the right time, but I worked hard to find a job, and other people have been uniformly impressed with the speed in which I started working here, and then found a stable place to live. I like my house and my job, and on the surface I probably appear to be very settled. 

Having a personnummer is the key to everything here. Having found a job, everything I knew suggested that I could then get a personnummer, and then get all the other things like a bank account set up. We know how that turned out, and it became clear in my dealings with Skatteverket that the information you get really depends on who you speak to and what the weather is like that day. Not wanting to recognise me as a resident of this country certainly doesn't mean the government is going to let me keep my money, of course not. I'm not entitled to even join a gym here, but I still get a third of my money taken away in taxes, to pay for the royal wedding amongst other things. I'm very much entitled to pay taxes to Sweden, but that's about the only thing I'm entitled to. Every time there seems to be some way to make my life easier, for example opening a non-resident bank account, the door gets slammed in my face once again, and I'm sick of it. 

I can't help but compare this experience to when I lived in Finland. It's now been about four months, and at this point when I was in Finland I had both a bank account and a social security number, and I gained those things through having a one month part time work contract. Now I've been working full time for three months, and I'm entitled to bugger all. When talking about these problems to Swedish people, I've mentioned how in Finland my employer could only pay into a Finnish account. There was a delay at Maistraati in providing me with a social security number, but they'd confirmed I was entitled to one and would receive one, so my friend took me to the bank and we explained the circumstances. It was no trouble at all, they opened an account for me with a generic number, and told me to come back and let them know my real social security number once I had it. I never actually remembered to go back and tell them. Swedish people laugh their heads off at the idea of such a thing happening in a Swedish bank. And to prove the point, the very first question I was asked today, even after specifying that I'd like a non-resident account, was "Can I see your personnummer?" 

I haven't been to Finland in a while, so I can't say for sure how the situation is these days, but from what I know immigration levels are much lower there than in Sweden. When I lived there everyone I knew, except for one person, was Finnish. I was the novelty act because I was foreign. Attitudes to immigrants, even white European ones like me, were not always tolerant. At the time I felt like the authorities might be deliberately making things difficult. Now the way Finland treated me seems like a dream. If I had had the job I have now in Finland I wouldn't have had a care in the world.

I'm sick of basic things being huge struggles. I'm sick of feeling like nobody cares, nobody wants to help, like whatever direction I go in it still leads to nothing. I'm sick of losing money through necessary transactions like getting paid and paying my rent. I've done everything right, and I've not asked for anything except to be treated like everyone else. And it just makes me think more and more, why am I actually bothering? I could move back to London and get treated like a real human being. There are issues in my personal life that make living in England again a good option, and the way I'm treated by the authorities here does nothing to discourage me. I spend more and more time feeling frustrated and unhappy, and I can't help but feel that I deserve better than this.

I don't give up easily. Anyone who knows me will say that when I decide I'm going to do something it will get done, one way or another. I put in so much work, and effort, and resources to come here. I really, really wanted to come here. But I'm starting to feel like I'm fighting a losing battle. I keep wondering what would be good enough for Sweden. I keep wondering what Sweden actually wants me to do. I hate to say it, but if Sweden wants me to leave then unfortunately Sweden is winning. It's wearing me down, and I don't know if I can keep putting up with this.

On the surface things are good. I have a decent job, a nice place to live, a social life, I can speak Swedish - you'd be forgiven for thinking I've really got my shit together here. In some ways I have. But then this kind of problem comes up yet again and reminds me that my life here is very superficial. I really wanted to come here, but I'm starting to get sick of jumping through every hoop and it still not being good enough. You only have to look online at pretty much any expat forum or website to see that I'm not the only one.

I can remember the exact moment in Finland, after being there for just under two months, when I knew I wanted it to be my home, and I knew that I would do whatever it took to stay. I loved it so much, and I did put up with a lot in order to stay. I love Stockholm, and I like my day to day life in Stockholm, but even after double the amount of time I don't feel that burning love that I had in Turku. I am not eager to leave, but there's only so much I'm willing to put up with in order to stay. And I'm not sure for how long I'm willing to be only half a person.

A beautiful Swedish silent film

The building I work in was previously a school for blind children, and last night I watched a really beautiful film from 1932 about the school. It can be viewed on the Film Arkivet website here. It's a silent film, so I'd recommend it even if you cannot understand Swedish. There are also some scenes of Stockholm almost 100 years ago, which is really interesting to see.
I was really impressed to see the children doing amazing dance routines, and making things so accurately, despite being blind. Maybe it's just the tone of silent films, but there's something very ethereal and beautiful about it. The children look so happy and seem to have so many opportunities in this film, especially considering that it was a different time then.
For me, it was also very interesting to see places in the film that I see every day. It's strange to think I've probably been in some of the rooms that are shown in the film, and I certainly recognise the outside areas. It's about 20 minutes long, and worth watching. It gave me another chance to practice reading Swedish too!

Skatteverket attempt 2

People who have read this blog previously may remember my last attempt in September to get a personnummer - you can read about it here. Essentially, it was a complete failure.

However, this time round I have a work contract, and my only doubt was what they would make of me having a short term contract with the possibility of extension. Either way, I left work early this afternoon and went off to the same office I visited last time.

I told the man at the front desk what I wanted, in Swedish. He immediately said "Oh ok, English" when I said I was from England, I then told him I could speak Swedish, I then misunderstood the next thing he said to me in Swedish. My spoken language skills definitely need some perfecting. Anyway, we got there in the end, he gave me the paperwork and a ticket - they love giving tickets for when you're waiting here, just like in Finland - and sent over to fill in the form and wait to see someone. This alone is further than I got last time!

It took a while but eventually I was called up by a very nice man, who was very encouraging. He did say there might be a problem with the length of my contract, but unfortunately there's not very much I can do about that. Although the Skatteverket website doesn't state this, he told me that for a permanent personnummer you usually need a work contract of at least one year. I know I wouldn't choose to leave this job without something else lined up, and if the contract was not extended then finding something new would obviously be my main priority, but they can't rely on that.

However, he took the application anyway, and told me that if this application is declined I can apply for a temporary number which will definitely be accepted. Presumably having this means I'd have to renew it each time my work contract changed, which would be quite annoying, but if I got a longer term contract I could apply for a permanent personnummer straight away. Seeing as Skatteverket says that if you are staying here longer than 6 months you need a personnummer, surely there would be a point where they would have to accept that I'm here long term and give me a personnummer? A short term number is better than none at all - I had a temporary number in Finland, but I think that's because I knew all along that I was going to leave. That's not the plan here.

Anyway, the man who saw me was very nice, and gave me the paperwork for a temporary number already, so that if there is a problem I can apply for it really quickly. He actually checked to see if I could apply for both numbers at once but that's not possible.

One helpful thing is that whilst I'm applying as an employed person in Sweden, I can also apply for Kai even though he's not working. However, if it comes to the temporary number I can only apply for myself. If he finds a job in the meantime with a long term contract we can both apply for personnummer's through that. That option would make him finding a job even sweeter for us.

I'm realistic, and I'm going to get the temporary application ready, as it seems likely there will be a problem with the length of my work contract, even though I explained why it's short term, and this can be verified with my employer. I've still got further in this process than I did last time, and it's been much less confusing and difficult so far. Having to renew a temporary number every so often would be frustrating, but better than nothing. It's still a step closer to getting settled here. I'm expecting to have to go down that route, but in an ideal world I might get a nice surprise from Skatteverket this time!

Language success, job failure

I'll get the negative part out of the way first! It appears I was unfortunately not successful in my job interview last week. I haven't heard from the recruitment agency yet, but I'm assuming this is the case because this morning I found the exact advert for the job re-posted, dated yesterday! I'm not surprised, I really didn't feel that the interview went well, but this is a new form of rejection I've never experienced before. It's a bit frustrating, but I was kind of expecting it, and actually I'm not completely sure I'd have really enjoyed working there anyway. Maybe it's for the best.

On a more positive note, yesterday I decided to watch a subtitled Swedish film I've seen a few times before, Fucking Åmål, which I really like. The last time I watched it was well over a year ago, long before I started to learn Swedish, so I wanted to see how much of the dialogue I could understand now. I thought it would also really be helpful to hear pronunciation and accents. Happily, I was able to understand a lot of sentences, and words within sentence, even without reading the subtitles, and this makes me feel more confident. I also found hearing the way that words are pronounced really helpful. I think this is something I need to work on, because I still think that understanding speech is one of my biggest problems. My confidence in speaking is growing every day and I'm so much less nervous than I was previously. It's kind of weird that this time last year I could not speak Swedish and had no intention of learning Swedish, and now I have this language in my head constantly.
Fucking Åmål is a good film with a happy ending, but I've seen other films by Lukas Moodysson that are a lot less uplifting. It's very 90s, which reminds me of when I was a kid. I'm keen to watch more films in Swedish though, as I really did find that watching it was beneficial for me. If anyone reading this has any good suggestions for films in Swedish please let me know!

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.

Fatal errors

I suppose it's only natural that we're going to make some silly mistakes whilst we're here, especially whilst we're getting used to the language. I probably made plenty in Finland too, I just can't remember them.
First mistake: Last night in the supermarket my boyfriend said "Look, they have apricot juice!" I'm not sure why I didn't question this, seeing as he can't read Swedish. I didn't know the word "kräm", and assumed it must be another word for juice. So we bought the juice, opened it at home, and discovered that we'd actually bought a litre of apricot puree! We ate some of it out of sheer stubbornness, and there was nothing wrong with it, but it's definitely not fruit juice. We were a bit confused about why anyone would actually need a litre of apricot puree, we tried to google it and it seems to be a product for baking. So now we have a litre of puree and we're not sure what to do with it. Lesson learned.Second mistake: This morning I decided to write a speculative job application in Swedish - prior to this I've been writing applications only in English. I wrote it, felt pretty happy with it, and sent it off. Every other time I've written in Swedish off the top of my head I've then checked what I've written in a translator to be sure there are no errors. You'd think this would be especially important for a job application, but for some reason I did not do this, and as soon as I had sent it I realised that rather than saying I had customer service experience I'd actually said I had experience in art dealing! So I'm assuming that the application won't get very far, but if they read my CV I hope they'll realise that this was just a language mistake. Especially as the company has absolutely nothing to do with art!

Getting back into it

We've been back in Stockholm for a few days now, and I'm getting back into it. The weather now reminds me so much of being in Finland, it's not what I'm used to, but is also strangely familiar at the same time. This morning when I went outside for a cigarette I almost felt that I was in Turku again. Although we missed Christmas here there are still lots of Christmas trees and lights everywhere, and it makes Stockholm look even more beautiful than usual.

For the last few days we've mainly been exploring because it's all totally new to my boyfriend, and still very new for me. Today we went for a long walk around Södermalm, and I noticed some galleries and art related organisations to look into further. One thing I'm really excited about is the opportunity to bring my work to a new country, as this has been an ambition of mine for a while now. I have previously sold two pieces to a buyer in Sweden, but I've never actually exhibited here. Aside from obvious stuff like finding a job and a place to live, developing my work here is one of my primary aims.

I am so much more confident with language than I was in September, but I'm still a bit nervous with speaking. I did decide whilst I was still in England that I would just speak and speak and speak as much as I possibly can here, and be prepared to make mistakes or make myself look a bit silly. I think I really need to commit to that now.

One issue that I mentioned in September, and which has come up again, is the very frustrating habit many Swedish people have of replying to me in English as soon as they can hear that I have a foreign accent. It feels quite unfair, because this happens when people have clearly understood what I've said in Swedish. For example, in a bar on Saturday I ordered our drinks in Swedish, the barman picked up two beer glasses and then asked me for ID in English, and told me the price in English. I followed the advice I was given by an Irish man I met here in September, and just insisted on replying in Swedish even though he was speaking English. It kind of knocks my confidence a bit because I start to worry that I'm not clear when I speak Swedish, which in turn makes me more anxious about speaking in the first place.

In the same bar we got chatting to a Swedish man, and my boyfriend asked him if he had any idea why people are doing this. His explanation was that there is only one language spoken in this country, and people like having the chance to speak a different language. Unfortunately that makes it sound like this will be happening for as long as I do not have a perfect Swedish accent or until I have a more confident tone of voice. Maybe I should start speaking with a bit more conviction. If anyone reading has any further advice about this I'm keen to hear it, because I am wondering how my Swedish will improve and how I can gain more confidence when I don't always get the chance to actually engage with others in Swedish. I can read and write quite easily, it's getting used to hearing spoken Swedish and having conversations with others that is my problem at the moment. I suppose the only real way around this problem is to keep learning and persevering.

And finally, tomorrow evening I'll be making a final visit to Rinkeby to collect some belongings I left at my old house. It'll be a bit odd to go there again. My boyfriend has now seen the expression on a Swedish person's face when they hear that I used to live in Rinkeby, so I think he's looking forward to this experience with some trepidation.

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!

A plea for help

I'm back in London and back to work, it feels a bit strange to think that tomorrow is a month since I initially left. As things have unfolded over the last week, it looks like things will be quite positive when I get back to Stockholm.

I do have a plea - whilst I'm here I'd really like to practice my spoken Swedish a bit more, as I've had less practice and find this much more difficult and intimidating than reading or writing in Swedish. I'd love to be better at speaking, and understanding spoken Swedish, when I'm back. If anyone reading this knows any Swedish people in London, or indeed is a Swedish person in London, who might be able to help me practice I'd be so grateful if you could direct them to this blog. Anyone interested can email me here or just leave a comment. Anyone else based in London who can speak Swedish fluently would also be great, but a native speaker is preferable. I'd really appreciate any help I can get.

I'd also be more than happy to help with English if necessary, but with Swedish people that's probably not needed so much! 

A reflection

Tomorrow I'm going back to London for a bit. I have a plan for coming back to Stockholm, and I'm leaving at least half of my belongings here. It's definitely temporary. My original plan did not include this break, but I think it's the best way forward, as I'll be back with my boyfriend and we can plan everything together. Work is arranged for probably January onwards, and I feel that we'll have a strong start.

I don't regret coming to Stockholm now, because it has assured me that I'd definitely like to live here. It's like a quieter, more peaceful version of London, and it's beautiful here. I've seen new areas here, as well as places I've been to before, and I understand more how it feels to live here, even though everything is still really new.

I've met people and made some progress here, so that hopefully things will be easier when we come back. Things will be slightly more ready for us, and there will be more of a plan. I didn't have a particularly strong plan for coming here this time round. I planned very well what to do whilst I was still in England, and thought less about what to do once I arrived in Sweden. If my boyfriend wasn't still in England I think I would have tried harder to sort things out here, but as it is, I'd really start this again together. This was kind of like research and a trial period for me.

I know I can be happy in Stockholm, but this time I haven't been as happy as I know I could or should be, and that is because I'm here alone. I knew fairly little about Rinkeby, the area I've been staying in - I knew it wasn't a particularly good area - and I'm not particularly keen on it. The house I live in is lovely, but very few Swedish people live in this area, and moving to Sweden should obviously include integrating with Swedish people. Added to that, the house I've been living in is completely international, made up of visitors or people new to Stockholm. I don't want to criticise these people, but the situation means I've had less contact with Swedish people than I hoped for or expected. At times it's been easy to forget where I actually am. I don't intend to move back to Rinkeby next time I'm here.

I've met some new people who actually live in Stockholm, and who will be here for the foreseeable future. I feel a bit more connected in Stockholm, and this has been in only a few weeks, so I hope that they'll be more people to come when I get back here. I feel now that I could happily build a life in Stockholm.

I was surprised by how much of the Swedish language I can read and understand, However, before coming here I had no practice actually speaking Swedish. This has been my first experience of hearing and speaking Swedish since I started learning it. I now feel that I should really work on my spoken Swedish, and on understanding others when they speak to me. I'm hoping to find a Swedish person in London to practice speaking with.

Our return in December or January will be long-term. It's a bit of a shame to leave but I think our chances will be better - we know more of what to expect now. Being here with someone else is surely also more pleasant than coming here alone.

So, unless there is something particularly relevant to write, I'll be leaving this blog for a bit until roughly December or January, and I'm sure there'll be lots of unexpected stuff then.

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.

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.