By the Baltic—an Insider's Tour of Åkersberga, Sweden

Upon first glance, Åkersberga (pronounced like "oakers-bear-ya") is a rather unremarkable—some may even say ugly (wasn't me!)—suburb of Stockholm, Sweden. But if you spend some time here, like an onion, Åkersberga reveals its beautiful layers to you over time. We have lived in Åkersberga for 2+ years and continue to discover new hidden treasures.

Åkersberga is a 48-minute tram ride away from central Stockholm. The tram ride is scenic with wooded forests flanking the tram line, a few scenic lakes, and quick stops every two minutes at various quaint suburbs. There is even a prison along the tram line (the tram doesn't stop there, though), which would normally be considered an eyesore, but instead, it has a beautiful view of a lake. How rehabilitating it must be to have nature at your doorstep even though you are serving time in jail.

The Beach

Osterakers havsbad in summer—go windsurfing!

The tram will take you all the way to the Baltic Sea if you don't hop off at the specific Åkersberga stop. Our favorite beach, Österskärs havsbad, is located at the terminal station. There is a nude beach a few minutes down the road, but we were greatly disappointed to learn that only old wrinkly seniors sunbathe nude—even in Sweden—the land of everyone-is-so-beautiful-it-has-forever-warped-my-standards-for-beauty. Our beach—not the nude one—has a very nice restaurant, Solbrannan, overlooking the water sporting amazing views and delicious food. For Jon's birthday last year, I bought him a 2-hour windsurfing lesson. He absolutely loved it! The beach is enjoyed year-round with families eating their weight in ice cream in the summer and cozying up around their warm cups of coffee in the winter—soaking in a view of the Baltic frozen under a blanket of snow.

Osterskars havsbad in winter

Forests and Lakes

If the beach isn't your thing, Åkersberga has plenty of nature reserves and wooded areas for exploration—we have stumbled upon many new lakes this way. Due to Sweden's Right of Public Access, you can pick all of the blueberries or mushrooms you want in any of the nearby woods. During our summers, we usually alternate beach days with forest/blueberry picking days, and it is perfect. Nobody gets too sun-bleached, and we get to have wild-blueberry pancakes and pies all summer long.

Ahh, the lake

One of nature's best playgrounds, Domarudden, is a hiker, biker, walker, skier, runner, and swimmer's paradise. There are trails that criss-cross through the beautiful forests and a sparkling blue lake that warms up as a perfect swimming spot in the summer. There are cute red cabins for rent to plan a family getaway, business retreat, or mini vacation. The playground will challenge your child's balance, climbing ability, and imagination. It is a great place to feel like you are "away" from it all.

Another beautiful natural playground (I don't even know its name) is very difficult to find for the uninitiated. Neither Apple Maps nor Google Maps could accurately locate the GPS pin from my friend. She pinned her exact location while she was standing in the playground and yet we were still off the map! Eventually, we stumbled across it after blindly biking in the opposite direction and keeping our fingers crossed. It was worth the trouble because this playground is amazing! Our four-year-old loved navigating across the wooden balance beams, climbing on the ropes, and hiding in the teepees. I enjoyed relaxing in the recycled rubber hammock under the yellow and orange falling leaves. My two-year-old kissed every woodland creature—or rather, carved wooden statues of bears, rabbits, foxes, and cats.

Much balancing happening here

So many carved cow kisses

Gotta hold the princess dress high so you can see your feet!

While Åkersberga may not have the immediate "wow!" impact of Stockholm, it does have numerous redeeming factors. Children can safely ride their bikes or walk to school on the numerous pedestrian paths that run alongside the road, and the neighborhoods are friendly. Just drive 10 minutes from the Baltic and you're in beautiful green pastures with horses chewing on grass, manicured golf clubs, and picturesque farms. Yeah, life is pretty good in Åkersberga.

Horses, green grass, and blue sky

The robber of daylight

One eye creaks open, stuck with sleep, and spies a bright star twinkling through my curtainless, naked bedroom window. The night (or is it early morning?) is like heavy velvet. Without my glasses on, the lone star is just a bright blur. What time is it? It can't be time to wake up yet, it is still pitch black outside. I check my phone. It is 6:05 am.

It is late October and not even Daylight Savings Time—the antiquated rationalization to save energy—can stop the oncoming Swedish high-latitude darkness that defines winter. Click here to continue reading over at Medium.

Fall Snaps in Sweden

Our favorite non-Halloween spooky books

[UPDATED] It is so nice to get into the spooky spirit when the days are getting colder and darker. The gray skies are slightly more ominous and as the trees lose their leaves, a regular forest suddenly turns into a haunted one.

There are tons of fun fall books on the shelves but these are just some of our family's favorite books for this season. They are not Halloween-based but are perfect for this time of year. We love reading them throughout the year. Click on the book icons if you want to add them to your own child's library.

1. Room on the Broom by Julie Donaldson

This book, by far, is our favorite of all. The witch is a gentle witch and takes in castaways of all kinds. Netflix has an animated short that brings this book to life.

2. One Witch by Laura Leuck

Another witch book - this one collects odds and ends to make a burbling stew in her large cast iron pot. Though a bit spookier than Room on the Broom, the kids love this one and enjoy counting the spooky creatures on each page.

3. Spooky Old Tree by Stan and Jan Berenstain

Not surprisingly, the three bear cubs find themselves in a Spooky Old Tree and running for their lives! So much excitement!

4. Horns Tails Spikes and Claws by J. Elizabeth Mills

This is a board book that is segmented into flippable pages to allow your child to mix and match body parts to create a ton of new monsters. No words means that your child can enjoy it on their own.

5. The Snatchabook by Helen Docherty 

Who is stealing all the stories? There is a mysterious creature in town and everyone's books are going missing. The fall setting and element of surprise and mystery is perfect for kids who want to play detective. 

6. Even Monsters Need Haircuts by Matthew McElligott

The main character in this book is not only fearless around monsters, he cuts their hair! This book introduces typically scary characters by revealing their more "human side." Just don't look at the Medusa page or you may turn to stone!

Happy reading! 

Buying a Swedish house - eBay style!

We did not want to purchase any property in Sweden until we thought we "understood" the market a bit better. I placed understood in quotation marks because I don't think anyone truly understands the Swedish housing market. After speaking with numerous real estate agents, they all shake their heads and say, "I don't know. It's just crazy." I guess that's the easiest way to describe it: it's just crazy.

After doing some quick calculus, it dawned on us that we have moved 3 times in the past 3.5 years - Atlanta to Stockholm, Stockholm to Lidingo, and Lidingo to Akersberga. Moving so frequently is not only an expensive logistical nightmare but it is also difficult on the children. Now that our children are old enough to create friendships, uprooting them to the next rental for another year seems irresponsible. Living the gypsy lifestyle seems somewhat pointless when we have no intentions to leave Sweden any time soon. No, we had to purchase a house. It was time to figure out how to do so.

The Swedish real estate market (it's just crazy) is fairly streamlined on two websites - blocket.se and hemnet.se. After monitoring both, we found it easier just to focus on hemnet as there were mostly duplicate listings on blocket.

Jon spent every Saturday for a month driving around to the 4 quadrant neighborhoods outside of Stockholm to see if there were more affordable, livable options for us besides our current neighborhood. We didn't feel good about any of the other options for various reasons so we lasered our focus to the homes posted just in our town.

Here's how the process works for 99% of the houses in our neighborhood - a north eastern suburb of Stockholm:

• House is posted on hemnet.se with beautiful pictures, description and asking price
• Within 10-14 days of posting, there is one viewing on Sunday for 45 mins and possibly another on Monday for 45 mins in the evening
• Bidding (bids accepted anytime after the house is posted) generally begins on Monday
• Bids are placed via SMS to the realtor
• Once you enter a bid, you receive an SMS update every time there is another bid. Never has hearing your phone's text message BING been so stressful!
• After the bidding stops, the realtor calls every single person who attended the viewing(s) and/or placed a bid to see if they want to place another bid
• Highest bid (usually) receives the house 
• Home is removed from public listing after contract is signed
• The end!

There are different bidding styles, not unlike eBay, that we encountered:

• The Big Spender - places a first bid high above asking price to scare off competitors
• The Smidgen Upper - stabs your soul in small tiny bid increments within 5 mins of your own bid placement
• The Sniper - comes in at the last minute to outbid the highest bidder before the contract is signed

Example bidding - note the time stamps
All of these bids were received within 4 days of the house going on the market. It was sold before it's first viewing

The eBay-like bidding process is what makes the entire market unpredictable. We have watched houses that need serious renovation increase 37% in price due to the bidding. 37%! Also, sellers moving from pricier Stockholm are willing to bid up the price in the suburbs to secure whatever neighborhood they want and consequently, the prices are rising 14%-20% every 4 months. 

Jon and I observed this absolutely absurd housing market activity and said, "We may not be able to afford a house in this neighborhood if we wait any longer!" What a scary thought considering just 2 years ago, when we moved, this was a little suburb with a big commute.

What throws yet another wrench into this horrible process is that bids from the buyers are not binding and the seller does not have to sell to the highest bidder. Nope - if you are the highest bidder but bidder 2 is a friend of the seller's then you're out of luck. Also, someone can place a bid that raises the price, you counter, they remove their bid (it's not binding after all) and you are now stuck paying an inflated bid price. Too bad, so sad. 

You can see why we approached this housing market like a roaming lion out on the savannah. We hid, cowering behind a wall for many years so we wouldn't have to deal with it. Now the lion is moving much faster and is much stronger and we have to enter its domain. 

We possibly chose the most stressful way to buy a house and we placed a bid on a house that we had never seen before. We had missed the Sunday viewing and had only seen the pictures on hemnet. After going to enough viewings, we knew how realtors hide very big flaws in pictures so we negotiated for a private viewing. Jon was at work so I took him on a tour of the house via FaceTime. The house buying decision was based on how I felt while in the house. Is this somewhere we can make a home? Yes.

We were the top winners of a long and drawn out bidding war (so many SMS bings!) with our ultimate $605 bid (we had to be a Smidgen Upper at the end). With such a narrow margin of victory and the acknowledgement that at any point someone could outbid us, we raced into the realtor's office the next morning and signed the contract. Phew! 

We will officially move into the new house mid-December and instead of opening brightly wrapped Christmas presents, we will be unpacking boxes! 

The new digs

And back