Happy Swediversary!!!!

Can’t believe it’s been a whole year out here in Sverige.  The first 6 months or so were really crazy, with every day feeling like a brand new adventure.  For better or worse, the second half of the year seemed much more "normal".  Not sure exactly why, but probably because we are outside the city and are doing less exploring each weekend, more fun hikes and nature stuff.

While we’ve written a lot about our experiences in the past year, I wanted to highlight five of the “under the radar” things that we love about being out here (as well as five little things that we miss the most from the US)

Swedish Positives –

1)      Taxes are included in every posted price.  So when you go to the store and see a fantastic gift for your wife, you don’t need to worry about what the Swedish taxes will add on at the register (likely so that you never KNOW how much Swedish taxes are adding on at the register).  They have already priced this in, so something that has a sign for 100 SEK, can be handled very quickly by just handing the cashier a 100 SEK bill – no fear of needing to find 40 SEK in coins in your pockets or ending up with a ton of change.  Also, makes it a lot easier to budget when we go grocery shopping -- "minimize the surprise".

2)      People with babies ride free on buses.  Not as useful to us anymore now that we live in the forest, but when we were city folk, Lis was able to just jump on any bus she wanted when she had the stroller.  They did this for two reasons – one, because they love kids and families, and two, because logistically, a parent getting on the bus with a stroller will get into the middle of the bus.  The parent will obviously NOT want to leave their baby to pay up front, or even if they did, it would be against the stream of traffic.  So, just ride for free.  PERFECT

3)      Dogs can go everwhere.  Dogs are people too here in Sweden.  We see dogs strolling through malls, restaurants, buses and trains.  Not just small little “purse dogs” or anything, but actual “hunds”.  Doesn’t hurt that Calvin loves himself some doggies.

4)      Winter isn’t scary.  Growing up, winter was always something that was fun for 30 minutes sledding before heading in for hot chocolate (still awesome).  Then in college at Rochester, it was an excuse to stay in and waste some time.  Here though, its outdoor time 365 days a year.  As my coworker says, “there is no bad weather, just bad clothing”.  When we first showed up a year ago, we were shocked to see playgrounds PACKED on random February weekends.  Now, we don’t go to the playground, but we see 200+ people ice skating or dozens of people cross country skiing.  Its usually a very cold but SUNNY here in January, so that helps, but it actually makes us excited about going outdoors in the winter. We used to lock ourselves inside if it dropped below freezing in Atlanta.

5)      No eating at desks.  I just remembered the other day how shocking it was when I first arrived that no one ate at their desks.  I think that is how I had lunch for the 3+ years I did consulting – either bringing food or buying food and eating in front of my laptop.  That isn’t even ALLOWED here.  I thought it was crazy originally, but now I really like the ability to recharge by reading my kindle or going for a walk for an hour in the middle of the day.
6)   Parental leave.  We've talked about it in past articles, but I was able to take 6 weeks off as parental leave with Calvin.  How awesome is that?!?  Not only was I able to get some serious cuddle time in but we had a ton of time together as a family.  It was great to participate in Calvin's daily routine without feeling exhausted after a long work week.

7)  (BONUS POSITIVE) Vacation schedules.  Obviously, they are more generous with vacation time out here, but that isn't the biggest thing.  In the states, I think I had 18+ days of vacation time, but used MAYBE 5 a year.  Out here, people use their vacation time.  The primary reason they use it all is because the whole country decides to take vacation at the same time.  Basically NO ONE works for a week in February (they actually split up this Feb vacation by region - Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmo, Other etc - to not over populate the ski resorts), then NO ONE works for all of July, then NO ONE works the two weeks of Christmas / New Years.  It makes it really stress free to go on vacation at that point - no huge list of emails to come back to, no worrying about who was going to handle your projects when you were gone and no organizational guilt about leaving.  Really, really relaxing.

And the downsides….

1)      Lack of sports culture.  I think when we arrived I knew that I wouldn’t have baseball/football/basketball  to talk about with folks, but I expected that I would just switch to focusing on hockey and/or soccer.  Instead, NONE of the Swedes I know care at all about either one (my southern European friends do love their fotbol though, I’ll give them that).  They’ll mention quickly if Zlatan (the best Swedish soccer player) had a big goal, or if the national team had a big win, but no one EVER talks about their professional domestic teams.  I really expected to get big into hockey, so this has been kind of a let down.  Soccer still is really boring though. 

2)      Buying booze is a HASSLE.  They have the state run liquor stores here, and honestly it’s not that bad.  Heavily taxed, but so is everything else.  They have a pretty decent range of options, and are really into boxed wines (cheap options that are easy to trek home without a car).  The worst part though is that all of their beers are sold as singles.  Yes – this does make it easier to mix and match, but its always a pain.  Rather than just grabbing a six pack for the weekend (who am I kidding?), I have to deal with random beers everywhere – that aren’t even refrigerated.  Now that I’m writing this, it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but trust me, it’s annoying.

3)      Steak/beef options are lacking.  Well, you can tell that I started this blog BEFORE Lis got on the vegan kick, but just for clarity, one of the arguments she used with me was “all the meat here sucks anyways, so we aren’t missing much”.  I had no counter argument.  Back in the A, we would get nice flat irons or sirloins and have those with a perfectly baked potato.  Now, we’ve had steak once in the past year – unless you want to spend $50/lb, you’re only going to be able to find a roast.  ALSO, Swedes love potatoes, but usually just to boil or mash.  We tried their “baking potatoes” once and couldn’t even finish them.  No threat to Idaho, don’t you worry.  (UPDATE – the news today said that the average swede eats over 170lbs of beef a year!!!!  That is 3^rd most in the world!!  So obviously, they are going to increase the taxes on beef.)

i miss you vortex 

Sweden's milk options are also confusing

4)      Public bathrooms aren’t free.  Again, this is just odd, and probably more of a mental thing than anything, but once you leave your house on a weekend morning, you can’t find a restroom unless you buy a coffee or pay 5 SEK ($.75) to get past a gate.  I hate carrying change, so that means I drink a lot of coffees when we go out – which accelerates the cycle a bit.  I can’t actually remember using public bathrooms in Atlanta that often, but now that I CANT do it, it stresses me out.
5)  Lack of good ole american holidays.  It's probably because they take the specific weeks off like I mentioned, but Swedes don't really take many holidays off (outside of Fri and Mon of Easter).  No Memorial Day, no 4th of July (or equivalent), no Labor Day or Thanksgiving.  Outside of the major agreed upon weeks, its pretty much straight through.  Additionally, if you need/want to take a day or two outside of the agreed dates, it is a major hassle, because everyone EXPECTS you to be there.  It's almost shocking if you aren't.

6) Lack of language skills / guy friends.  If you had told me a year ago that I would barely know any more Swedish words than I did then, or that I wouldn't have any guys that I would meet up and grab a beer with on a random Saturday, I would have laughed in your face.  Unfortunately, I would have been wrong....For some reason Swedish just hasn't stuck with either of us (not so for calvin), and while Lisa has made friends, Ive relied much more on party-skypes with buddies from home.

high five - early in a game obviously

      When I think of how our lives have changed in the past year, it is really incredible.  Of course, watching Calvin grow is amazing but that would happen regardless of where we lived.  I think both Lisa and I have changed so much since we've had the unique opportunity to become a stronger family unit.  Since we're still relatively new "outsiders," we don't have an established group of friends to go out with.  That may sound negative, but it means that we end up having a lot of together time as a couple - which is a super huge positive.  Seeing how this move has strengthened our family unit has made all of the difficulties worth it.  We know that we will continue to be challenged but that as time goes on, we will become more comfortable, adaptable and unafraid to continue to try new things.  We really love incorporating new Swedish traditions into our American traditions.

      Cheers to a fabulous year full of new discoveries, friends, opportunities, and continued personal and professional growth.