Is moving to Sweden a good idea -- from the eyes of another

I almost spit out my coffee (2nd cup, no worries really) when I saw this headline on The Local's website.  The Local is Swedish news in English, for us immigrant folk, and the subject area hit home.
Moving to Sweden: Is it the right decision?

In this article, an Irish immigrant, his Swedish wife and their newborn son make the agonizing decision to move to Sweden.  Not surprisingly, Sweden's generous parental leave policies, subsidized child care options and health care structure factored strongly into their decision.  Also not surprising, was his comments on the difficulty to find housing and a job as a non-Swedish speaking professional.

This article hit home for me in many ways but probably the greatest way was that at the crux of the article, he is just a parent trying to make the best decision for his family.  Isn't that what we all strive for?

What did you think of the article? Dèjá vu?

Ten Revelations -- Courtesy of Sweden

Assimilation is a process. It happens slowly but I have noticed a few changes in myself that I believe I can directly attribute to moving to Sweden.

Here are my top ten revelations since we moved here about how life has changed:

1. I need to clean...all of the time

I'm not just talking about cleaning because I'm home more often and have more time to clean. No.  My floors are hardwood and white tile.  Dirt and leaves stand out so clearly.  Also, Bessie is no longer licking the floor obsessively, so I actually have to sweep after Calvin's meals. Whenever we go to someone's house for a playdate, I can't help but notice how super clean their houses are.  It might be the Ikea furnishings or stark white walls, but everyone's house is near sterile clean.  Jon and I are not the most fastidious cleaners, but my obsession with sweeping is nearing a compulsive disorder.

2. Metric rules!

I opened a skeleton garland to decorate for our Halloween party and the package said the garland was 60 inches long.  My mind had NO CONCEPT as to how long that was. Was that 5 feet? 2 feet? I don't know!  When did my head stop computing English measurements and switch to metric? My brain doesn't comprehend inches anymore.  What's next? Dollars?

3. I don't convert money
Unlike converting temperatures constantly from Celsius into Fahrenheit, I try my best not to convert SEK to USD.  It's just better for everyone for me not to truly understand how much my sandwich at lunch really cost me.  When I'm in the grocery store, I basically just pick out whatever I want and I don't price compare.  Hey, I'm in this store and I need diapers. I'm not going to walk 10 minutes to the next store to buy their diapers. We limit our purchases only to what we need since we know that everything is expensive.  We end up with a pantry full of essentials and nothing goes to waste. 

4.  Calvin is an introvert
Imagine this: the room is full of children and parents. The kids are running around and playing -- making tons of noise and laughing.  There is one kid who is standing by the wall -- observing everything and taking it all in.  That is Calvin.

The email that shook the world (possibly a slight exaggeration)

Between my last post and this one, I am evidently in a calendar-watching type of mood right now.  But one year ago yesterday, I would have never guessed that our family would be living in Sweden right now.  We were way too busy trying to get Calvin to sleep through the night to plan out a move across the pond.

Then in a very brief window of downtime at work, this email came though: 

From: Crick, Todd
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2011 9:41 AM
To: Ericsson
Subject: Global Positions
All,
I've recently been informed about some positions with the BUGS strategy group and the head of that group has reached out to me and suggested that inCode consultants might be great for the roles.
Note that these are permanent relo positions in Stockholm in the BUGS strategy group - internal strategy.
If any of you have potential interest, let me know and I'll make a connection.
Todd

Lisa and I had tried to move internationally since grad school, but it had never actually worked out for us.  I forwarded it to her on a whim before quickly getting back to the project I was working on.

Somewhat, but not really, to my surprise, she was all for the idea.  We talked quickly over gchat and I sent a note to my boss asking for a few more details. 

The next day we were walking around a food festival in midtown Atlanta when we got an email back that really ramped everything up for us.  Todd explained that while it was not a “shoe-in”, the opportunity was basically mine to lose if we really wanted it (looking back on the number of interview hoops I needed to go through, I think that was more than a slight exaggeration).

Sitting down at the Taste of Atlanta...contemplating the future

This floored Lisa and I and we had to sit down and just stare blankly at the festival that was going on around us.  Here was an opportunity that we had been chasing for literally years, and now it was actually a realistic possibility.  We kind of felt like proverbial dog that catches the car. 

What do we do if this actually happens??  We have an infant.  We have a house.  We have great friends that we love spending time with.  Southwest was going to make it a lot easier to go back and forth to the A for our folks.  Lisa had a great work situation.  We loved our lives in Atlanta. 

SO many reasons not to go forward with this…

But I’m glad we did.

And to think that everything has happened since is because I didn't just skim over a piece of “junk mail” that showed up on my phone one day….

I have a Euro son....

I realized the other day that we have been in Sweden for a decent amount of time now – about 9 months or so.  This realization actually meant nothing at all to me (not a big milestone type of timeframe or anything), until I realized that Calvin was about 9 months when we moved out here!!

I quickly (two or three days later, I’m not that bored) ran to my computer and did a date calculation.  

From Saturday April 30^th 2011 to Wednesday January 25^th 2012, Calvin had lived 270 days

From Wednesday January 25^th 2012 to Sunday, October 21st 2012 Calvin has lived 270 days

As of Monday morning, he has OFFICIALLY lived the majority of his life as a European…

I knew this day would come, but I don’t think I’m ready for it.  It’s all just a downward spiral of fotbol, socialism, hour long coffee breaks and knowing multiple languages now.

I think we'll need to have an "America" themed weekend so he doesn't forget his roots - just burgers, fries, looney tunes and football (actually...that sounds pretty solid I might start doing that every weekend)

Why do we love Stockholm?

This video on Youtube showcases some of the reason why we love living in Stockholm.  We aren't nearly this creative, innovative or funny but it's nice to see that this city attracts interesting people.

Enjoy the magic!

A Mushroom Apprenticeship

Backyard mushrooms 

This summer and fall seasons have been pretty rainy but rather than get all depressed about how soggy the ground is, Swedes have been leveraging the unusually high rainfall to yield some delicious meals.  I'm talking about mushrooms and I'm talking specifically about chanterelle mushrooms.  Sweden has a law that actually allows people to roam the land and pick mushrooms, blueberries, raspberries, camping, hiking, skiing, or pretty much whatever you want as long as it's legal   It's the Right to Public Access and it gives you the right to roam and wander and sit on a rock in the countryside if you want.  It's not considered trespassing within certain limits. For instance, you can't camp out in someone's front yard right in front of their house.  However, if someone lives on an island, you can camp on their island as long as they can't see you from their house (I believe that is the rule).

This quote is from the website http://www.naturvardsverket.se which has an English page so even non-Swedes can enjoy this unique privilege.

Swedes tend to regard the Right of Public Access as part of their cultural heritage, sometimes even as a national symbol. Its origins go back in part to provincial laws and customs dating from the Middle Ages.

The Right of Public Access is for everybody. (The literal meaning of the Swedish term, allemansrätten, is ‘everyman’s right’.) As the basis of our right to roam the countryside, it is important not just to individuals but also to clubs and tourism operators. Clubs and tourism operators may take advantage of the Right of Public Access in the activities they organise, even though the right as such applies only to individuals and not to groups.

Pretty cool right?  Well, this right covers mushroom picking and believe me, there are a lot of mushrooms to pick.  However, Jon and I are not seasoned mushroom pickers and the chances of us picking something poisonous has been too high to risk.  We've been mushroom-less haps and have been feeling extremely inadequate since we have seen our neighbors coming back from the forest with BAGS and BAGS of delicious mushrooms.

Surprisingly, the internet was not much help and it was filled with too many caveats to trust their advice. We needed a real Swede to show us how to do this.  The biggest problem is that no Swede will share their secrets.  Something I learned early on was to never ask a Swede where they found those mushrooms.  They won't tell you.  Without being in the fold, we were lost.  Jon told me, "We need to have someone take us out. We'll give them ALL the mushrooms, we just need to know what to look for."  Enter our graciously nice neighbor, Lena, who not only offered to take us mushroom picking but also gave us her own bag to start off.  Beyond nice!! We finally had our own mushroom apprenticeship!

Lena, wisely, taught us only to pick chanterelles.  She also advised us to stay away from the "pretty mushrooms."  Those are always toxic.  

Too pretty to eat = toxic!

She took us all out on the hunt and told us that chanterelles could be found everywhere.  Well, that is helpful but it means you have to cover a lot of ground.  Mushroom picking is also about changing your perspective.  They are very difficult to see from standing position, so you have to squat down and scan the ground like a horizon.  Then, all of a sudden, you see tons of mushrooms.  Now to pick the right ones.

Chanterelles, at this point in the season, are brown in color and have two distinct features (that I rely heavily on).  They have a hole in the middle and a hollow stem.  There are many "impostor" mushrooms that are quite dangerous to eat, so you have to double check.  I was squishing the stem of every chanterelle I picked to make sure it was hollow.  The other mushrooms don't have that tell-tale hollowness, which meant, look but don't eat.

We had actually found quite a number of mushrooms.  It was a good harvest and we lucked out with some patches that hadn't been picked over yet.  The beauty of mushrooms is that they grow so quickly, so you can come back in a week and find new ones to enjoy!

We also learned how to properly prepare fresh mushrooms.  The ones you get in the store are pretty dry by the time they get into your kitchen, but these were straight from the forest.  Before you add butter, you have to add them to a hot pan and remove all of the water.  The water bubbles out of them and they kind of "dance" in the pan.  It was very exciting and the smell of cooking mushrooms is always super delicious.  Then, I added a generous scoop of butter, salt and pepper and cooked them in batches so that they didn't overlap on top of one another.  We put them on buttered toasted bread and enjoyed some chanterelle sandwiches.  DELICIOUS!  We can't wait to go mushroom scouting this weekend!

On the hunt!

Distracted by the blueberries 

Our harvest of chanterelle mushrooms

Add heat to remove all water

Now ready for some butter, salt and pepper

Can you see the butter? Yum!

Ready to eat!

Open face sandwich -- Swedish style

Gone in 25 seconds!

Mushrooms are everywhere!

Run Calvin! Run!

Calvin's förskola sent out a reminder to all parents that the kids would be running around the soccer field on Tuesday morning and that all parents were welcome to come and cheer them on/help out.  In my mind, this meant that the kids would head down to the field and run around like kids do.  In a haphazard manner. When Calvin and I got down to the field, we found not only his fellow classmates ready to run, but they all had race numbers pinned to their jackets.  Orange cones outlined the perimeter of two soccer fields and the teacher, Oliver, ran the entire course to show the kids where to go.  The course was a proper course and even featured a water table at the halfway mark.

Practicing our animal noises

Whenever Calvin sees an animal, he doesn't say, "sheep" or "cow," instead he either baaaas or moooos at them.  He has associated animals with their noises for a while now (3 months?) but it is always fun to have him "perform" for our friends and family when we Skype.  We try hard to add new animals to the mix and keep it interesting.  Sometimes we play the animal noise game too often and when you ask him a question, he just gives you this look like, "Uhh, Mom, I've done that one already."  So it has been on our to-do list to get a video to capture his animal noises.  Most of our video attempts have resulted in distractions and feature him saying one or two animals before running off to play with his ball. I lucked out yesterday when I picked him up from dagis and he was in a chatty mood.  He even added two new animals that he has never done before -- horse and bird.  We are always amazed at the amount of information he absorbs.

So, here is a little video of Calvin and his animal noises (says his uber proud momma):

Swedes are not "cold"

I read or heard somewhere that people have deemed Swede's personalities as "cold."  After the day I had today, I would disagree with that assessment and I'm not even Swedish.

Swedes may not want to insult your ability to handle things on your own by holding the door open for you or helping you if you don't ask, but they have literally rushed to my aid

Bold and Bright -- Fall colors in Stockholm

Sweden has distinct seasons and there is little confusion as to where they fall on the calendar.

A little color on a dreary, rainy day

It was snowing sideways when our plane landed on January 25th.  It alternated between very dark and very white (snow) during those wintery days. When Spring finally decided to roll around, we were treated to the most beautiful flowers with bright colors popping up in the green grass.  Summer really accelerated the photosynthesis process with long sunny days where the sun would set around 10pm. The grass and the trees knew what was up because they were the deepest green I've ever seen. We would walk around the parks and just soak

Cafe Lagom

This many strollers in front gives you a good indication of its popularity

There is a super sweet cafe behind our house that is an old farmhouse, Cafe Långagen, that is about a 10 minute walk from our front door.  It is one of the best cafes on our island and has a great playground in the back for kids.  Calvin loves playing in its sandbox and the food is top notch and reasonably priced.  You can enjoy a gourmet lunch outside, watching your kid play on the slide and relaxing with your dog at your feet.  What's not to love?

However, there is one aspect