Sunday, September 5, 2010

Sverige observationer

Idag har det varit en strålande vacker höstdag och det är just dagar som denna som gör hösten vacker här på nordligare bredgrader. Jag och C gick en skön promenad ut på Djurgården. Det var fullt med liv och rörelse eftersom det var tjejmilen som gick av stapeln idag. Full folkfest nere på stan med andra ord. I solen så blev det riktigt varmt och skönt och man kunde gå utan jacka. Kändes SÅ skönt! Stockholm är en otroligt vacker stad och det är underbart att åter bo när vatten igen. På eftermiddagen åkte vi ut till mina föräldrar och åt middag. Passade på att låna nätet där och blogga lite eftersom vi inte har något vidare fungernade nät på Skeppargatan. Men på fredag flyttar vi ut till Hammarbysjöstad och där lär vi ha ett fungerande nät så då blir det lättare för mig att blogga. På jobbet har jag inte heller någon dator ännu så jag kan inte blogga eller kolla bloggar där heller (jag hinner förresten inte där för just nu är allt så nytt och det är full rulle från tidig morgon tills dessa att jag går hem).

Idag blir det en lista over lite observationer och annat som jag lagt märke till här sedan vi kom hit:

Det homogena modet: Svenskar är väldigt modemedvetna och interesserade av mode. För en som inte hängt med om vad som gäller är det lätt att snappa upp senaste trenderna genom att bara sätta sig ner och observera Stockholmarna. Helt klart ska det vara leggings eller andra smala byxor som stuprörsjeans nedtill och sedan ska det vara tunikor eller någon större lite löst sittande tröja ovan. Modet här bärs som en uniform nästan. I boken ”Eat, Pray and Love” så försökte de ju beskriva olika städer eller ställen med ett ord och där fanns det ju med en tjej från Sverige som valde ordet” conform” för att beskriva Sverige och Svenskarna. Det stämmer bra att det finns en slags osynlig mall som man gärna ska pass in i. Modemässigt ska det vara svarta leggings och till detta Converseskor, det är tydligen vita Converser som gäller då.

Fukten: Inte alls här som i Alabama. Saknar faktiskt inte den där klibbiga fukten ett dugg. Här är helt underbart nu med lite kyliga krispiga morgnar.

Plastpåsar: Här får man inte en million plastpåsar då man handlar. Man packar sina varor själv i plastpåsar eller tygpåsar som man har med sig själv. Även i butiker där man kan få en påse gratis då man handlat så frågar de faktiskt om man vill ha en påse eller behöver en påse om man bara handlar någon enstaka vara. Den frågan hade man inte fått i Alabama, där hade det paketerats i påse vare sig det behövs eller inte.

Köttfärs: Här är den så finmald och inte alls så där grovmald som i USA. På något sätt är det mycket lättare att ta till sig priser då de står i kronor per kilo istället för dollar och pund som viktenhet. När jag handlade i USA så tänkte jag sällan på vad sådant som kostade per vikt just kostade. Det var för jobbigt att räkna om så jag tog det jag behövde så fick det kosta vad det kostade. Här säger ju priset i kilo en så mycket mer.

Dijonsenapen: Ha ha hade glömt att den faktiskt är STARK här som den ska vara. I USA är den så himla mild.

Ziplock påsar: Ovanligt här. Jag måste säga att jag saknar dem. De finns men är inte det vanligaste alternativet. Men jag får nog ta och köpa några.

Persienner och gardiner: Här drar folk inte för alls på samma sätt som USA där man oftast drar för helt. Man har ingen aning om folk är hemma eller ens bor i huset då man körförbi eller går förbi i USA. Här ser man in till folk på ett helt annat sätt även kvällstid eller i synnerhet då eftersom det är mörkt ute och man har lamporna tända inomhus. Jag känner nog att jag har blivit lite amerikaniserad på denna punkten. Även om jag inte vill leva i en bunker så drog jag ner persiennerna igårkväll för att få det lite mer privat på kvällskvisten. Även dagtid har jag här persinnerna nedfälda men öppna så att man får in ljus det känns rätt lagom.

Här är jag bara vanlig, här sticker jag inte alls ut på samma sätt som mer vältränad och smal. Jag går på gatorna här och tänker oj vad folk är smala och vad många människor som är vältränade och som är ute och rör på sig. Jag är ju van vid södern tjockisar som sakta vaggar fram längst med gatorna. Visst finns det smala och vältränade även i AL men de är betydligt mer ovanliga än vad de är här. Här är jag bara en vanlig tjej, en i mängden som är ute och tränar och sportar.

Det känns fortfarande ovant att handla här. Även om jag känner igen det mesta så är jag fortfarande så finns det en del nytt och spännande här. Men jag är också så van vid min Publix i Alabama där jag visste precis vad jag brukade handla. En del varor saknar jag. Jag hade gärna velat köpa en stor burk med Clorox Wipes igår men det finns ju inte här. Å andra sidan är det mycket roligare att handla just nu när det fortfarande känns lite nytt. I Alabama var det inte så kul eller spännande. Man bara plockade ner mer eller mindre samma varor i sin kundvagn vecka efter vecka. Jag lär nog snart bli van vid handligen och varuutbudet här också.


Ha en bra start på veckan och en bra vecka allihop om vi inte hörs innan nästa helg.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Mixed Feelings

This is a picture from my new workplace. The building is brand new and as you see everything is very modern and there are plenty of windows to let lots of light in. Light and sunshine is something very essential here in Sweden and to Swedes as the winter is very long and dark. You have to take advantage of the light and get in as much as possible both at workplaces and at home. Offices without any windows it unthinkable here.

Right now tough I am just so drained and exhausted with all the new stuff going on at work. These first days have been very stressful and I hope that it will get better within the near future. I am trying to remember all the new stuff. I am still waiting for my computer and for the moment I am sharing an office desk with the girl that is training me. We still have problems with the internet at the apartment but that will resolve as soon as we move by the end of this week into the other apartment in Hammarbysjöstad where we will be staying longer until we find a place of our own that we want to buy.

I must say that so far I have not experienced that honeymoon feeling of being back. Some things are great but other things I don´t like at all. There are lots of things that I guess I had forgotten about. Right now it all just feels so confusing and the feelings are so mixed about everything. I know that we did not want to spend the rest of our lives in Birmingham, Alabama but I am not sure were we will end up. Moving back takes plenty of time to adjust to. In the states I felt so Swedish and now that I am living here I somehow feel kind of unswedish.

The corridor into the labs. This lab is a lot more strict when it comes to keeping everything sterile. The cleaning procedures are rigorous and extensive. I even dream about the smell of the cleaning solutions at night. All surfaces constantly have to be wiped with both alcohol and with cleaning solution. I don´t mind cleaning but this is a lot even for me that likes cleaning.

This is the break room. This is very nice and very Swedish. Here there are several fridges as well as microwaves and comfortable chairs. Both coffee and tea are free. You eat lunch with you collages that also bring their own lunch for the most part. Some people go out to eat but it seems like most usually bring their lunch boxes.

Right now I have to focus and remind myself of all the good things. There are plenty of great things such as yummy Kalles kaviar (smoked salmon roe that many Swedes including me and C love to put on our egg sandwiches). This morning I went to my favorite bakery at Vallhallavägen. Mmmm it smelled divine in there. They open at eight on Saturday mornings and already so early there was a long line of people. I had just been out on a morning jog and was really hungry as I entered the bakery. I wanted to buy one of each of everything they had but I stopped myself and hurried home to fix breakfast before I actually did buy one of each and spent all my money at the bakery.

But I do miss:

I miss Costco a lot. I miss the large quantities of fresh and great produce.

I miss the prewashed spinach, here the spinach still has traces of soil.

Miss Alton Brown and his “Good Eats” program on tv.

Well I guess things will all turn out better and better with time as we adjust and as we become more familiar with our new work places. Also I think that everything feels even more confusing and strange right now as we have been living here and there for short periods since we got here. Even if we are moving to a place next week that is not our own still we will be able to stay there for a longer period and also it will probably feel a lot more home when our stuff arrives.

Work

I just finished my first work week even if it has only been three days this week. I have been so busy that there has been no time to blog or do anything. I have even hardly had time to eat lunch. I am completely exhausted and drained. New work always requires a lot of concentration. Just remembering all the new faces and all new names makes me tired. I am working at a core facility for DNA and RNA . It is a research position at the Karolinska Insitute. I will mostly be doing lab work on different platforms. I am starting on one platform now. The building is brand new and the people whom I work with just moved in there in May. I love the modern space with lots of big windows and open layout with cubicles. The break room is just like a dream come true with a very advanced coffee machine that makes all kinds of coffee like cappuchinos, macciatios, lattes ect. There are two dishwashers, fridges, microwaves and free coffee and tea.

I will be working mostly in the lab so therefore I will get to share a writing and desk area with another girl (I had hoped and preferred to have my own writing space of course). But I guess this will work out well. A lap top computer has been ordered for me and hopefully will arrive shortly. It also seems like we will get cell phones. Since the office space is open landscape with cubicles there are small private rooms that you can sneak into if you need to make phone calls or just get some peace and quiet. The lab is also a dream come true as everything when it comes to machines and equipment is brand new. The work rules in the lab are very strict. All work has to be very clean in order to avoid contamination and you have to change both robes and shoes before entering the different lab spaces. Everything has to be kept very sterile and clean. The rules and rituals are thus very rigorous.

I like both my two closest supervisors, Max and Frida. It is a good mix of people and most seem really nice. So far so good I can say. I feel good about this position. I hope it will be really good. I am of course so grateful of getting this position and having this work and for having a job right from the start. I think it will help me to integrate into Sweden and Swedish society much faster this way, it also means a lot from an economic stand point for both me and C.

Being able to bike to work is just great! I love that, the freedom and the convenience. It is fast, efficient and I get a free work out. It takes about half an hour to get there and half an hour to get home. Hopefully I will be able to take the bike for most of the year (depending on how much snow and ice there is, how deep and how slippery it gets and how long the ground stays snow covered).

It is so nice with the weekend now. Today it is actually a beautiful fall day with sunshine. It has been pretty cold during the week with rain showers daily. Nice to calm down and get some sunshine. I guess next week will be just as busy.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Favorites and less favorite things

Fall is here now or at least it feel like it is here to us. It can be so beautiful with sunshine and chilly crispy mornings but it can also be awful with grey skies and pouring rain and coldness. I wanted to write about some of my favorites and some of my not so favorite things so far. Also our internet connection in the apartment we are living in now is not the best. So while we live here I will have to find internet at other places. My blogging might therefore be somewhat sporadic. Right now I am sitting at the library which has free internet and is close by where we live for the moment.

Swedish design is just so beautiful to me anyway. I go past the interior decorating shops and just drool over thing I would like to get. No it will take us a while before we find a place of our own I guess so I will not do or buy anything major but just one or two small things that I happen to fall in love with.

Swedish cheese, yoghurt and all the other wonderful dairy products that exist here. There are a lot more dairy products to choose from. The yoghurt here is quite different as it does not have any or as much gelatin as the American ones.

The pickled herring that I love is great to be able to buy in just any grocery store.

My family of course least but not last. So great to be able to hug mom, dad and Emil the black Labrador and whom I call my youngest brother. My real brother P livening in Moscow is actually coming to visit some time during this coming month. He has been living there for the past five years and is married to J that is Russian and they got little daughter A in March this year. We have Skyped with them from Alabama but I have never met J and A and I am sooo exited to finally get to meet them for the first time in real life.

I love the freedom to be able to move around with other means besides the car. That you can walk or bike to many places here.

I love the city that is alive and where people both live, work and hang out.

I love all the beautiful water that surrounds Stockholm. It is nicknamed Venice of Scandinavia and one understands why. I love taking an early jog and being able to come close to water and take in that fresh scent that lingers in the air.

Sweden not so great…

The weather and climate. Not the best at all times. We have been here about a week and most of the days it has been raining which has not been terrific. It will get worse. This is just the beginning, so far it fall has not yet started even. It will get colder, rainier and darker. We will see if we do stand this climate after all in the end.

Right now we are having a bit of the same problems as we first had when we moved to Alabama. C has been registered as living in the country again but still it will take him about 4 weeks before he really is in the system and until then he can’t get an address and thus can’t get his bank codes ect sent to him.


It is so great to be able to just go out into my parents yard and pick myself an apple or two.


I love these yellow flowers that grow in my parents garden.


Close where my parents live there are rose hip bushes. Here in Sweden it is popular to make rose hip soup. My parents apple trees in their yard.

My parents front porch. It is very nice but here in Sweden front porches have a different style.

Moved into the city and Swedish Crawfish

It is beautiful now when it is not raining.Mornings are cool and chilly, the air is crisp and you get that sense of fall just being around the corner. The air is fresh. I do not miss the humidity at all that we had in Alabama. The muggy weather and feeling sticky as soon as you took a step outside. Here the apples are ripe now in peoples yards. There are so many different kinds of apples. My parents also have apple trees in their yard. They have two different kinds but both are classified as summer kinds. Then there are fall apples as well as winter apples. It is wonderful to stand under my father’s apple trees. I also took some more pictures from my parents yard with many different kinds of flowers in bloom. August is a wonderful month with summer still lingering but fall just around the corner. I hope September will be nice and full of crispy but clear days with blue sky and sunshine. That kind of fall weather is my favorite.

Poor C caught a cold. I hope I won’t catch it and that he is feeling better soon. Now we have moved inte C’s aunts condo in the city. So now we are practicing compact livning. This is a small apartment of about 45 square meters or 450 square feet. It is tiny! It has one bedroom and one livning/diningroom and a kitchen. There is a table in the livningroom so it is also here that we sit to eat. Well it has all we need. We arrived with our suitcases and some more stuff that we got. We also had to go grocery shopping before we arrived here. Kind of major and basic grocery shopping when you have to start out with everything as you have nothing, nothing in the pantry, no cleaning supplies ect. Well I just got us what we will need for the next two weeks as we are soon moving again and we don’t want to move more than we have to. Moving is exhausting enough as it is on it’s own.

We went over to my parents place Sunday and had crawfish the Swedish way (not spicy as the Louisiana crawfish but equally good in their own way). We took the train back into the city in the evening. When we reached the Central Station and I looked at the people rushing to their destinations I could not help myself from laughing out loud. The difference was so stunning between Alabama and Stockholm. Here people walk fast. In Alabama people walk slowly all the time. I felt like a freak there rushing around in my pace. In Alabama people seem to just have all the time in the world all the time. Here in Stockholm everyone walks fast that is just it.

I
This is what the Swedish milk and buttermilk look like. Here they are sold in boxes like this of 1 liter. The little red cow is the symbol for Arla cremery which is the leading and most well known creamery of Sweden.


This is what our tiny bedroom looks like. The bed is not even queen size so right now one of us sleeps in the bed and the other in the couch. We take turns. When we move to the other place around the 10th of September hopefully we will get a larger bed because this is just too small for me. I am used to our king size bed.


t
This is the kitchen and then the living room.

This is another picture of the living room. Here C is sitting with his computer.

Today we went over to the Karolinska Insitute where we will be working. I wanted to figure out where I am to go so that I find my way here on Wednesday. We had planned to take our bikes here but when we were to leave it was raining so heavily that we had to surrender and take the buss. It has been raining everyday almost since we arrived about a week ago. We looked at each other and wondered if this idéa of moving back was the best in the world after all. I think that we will have to expect this roller coaster of emotions for some time.

Friday, August 27, 2010

New Cell Phones

I have finally entered the modern era that many already have been in for quite a while. Finally I got myself a smart phone! Having a cell phone is very important. We have also planned that we will not get a land line but only have and use our cell phones just as we did in Alabama. Both me and C bought an Ericsson Experia Mini Pro. It is a small and light andriod phone. We wanted something that not only had a touch screen. C has already been playing around with his for hours, he love new toys like this.

I think that I will have to play around with mine some more. Yesterday when we were out C called me and I just could not even figure out how to answer his call. Not an easy transition to the modern world when you have had a phone that is about 7 years old for quite some time. C has given me a small crash course now so hopefully I will be able to answer my phone when it rings the next time. Now I can enter the world of aps and download some cool stuff also :-)

I got a red one and C got the black one.

The weather was really nice yesterday with sunshine and this morning is equally beautiful but it sure is getting chilly as fall is approaching. It is only 6 C or 45 F this morning but during the day it will go up to a 62 F or 17 C. It is really those crisp and beautiful fall mornings by now. I love all the apple trees in peoples yards. Me and C took a nice bike ride yesterday. We got the phones, some stuff for our bikes and I also got myself some proper rain clothes so that I can still use my bike even if it is raining. My bike has not yet arrived as it is in the container but I have borrowed a bike meanwhile and C borrowed one from a friend of his. We are planning on biking to work.

Again this is what the new little beauty looks like.

Today we are planning on moving out to C´s aunts place in the city. She has a small one bedroom condo that she just sold but the new owners are not moving in until first of October. We will live there until the 10th of September when we get access to the condo we will rent in Hammarby Sjöstad (one of Stockholms close suburbs). We are going to one of C´s oldest friends tonight that is having a small get together. I still am working on my jet lag so I don´t think that we will stay very late. Tomorrow we are coming back to my parents place in the evening to have some crawfish which is a Swedish tradition to eat in August.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Visit to IKEA

Yesterday me and C went to IKEA. Now we will not have to travel 2.5 hours in each direction to get to IKEA, hey we can even bike to it from my parents place. It was quite a while since we had been there the last time so it was fun to just stroll around and look at everything. The parking lot was completley packed with cars. I wonder if people work here in Sweden. How can so many people have time to come to IKEA in the middle of the week and in the middle of the day?

Yes it was overcast and with some light drizzling rain again. I better get used to this as it will only get worse with the cold season and winter approching. Today, however, the sun is shining and the sky is blue :-)
That feels soooo great!

This lamp both me and C liked quite a lot. It looks very cool.

C is walking around checking the fabrics out. He is very good at sowing actually and he is the one that taught me how to use a sawing machine. The fabric section is so much larger here in Sweden compared to our IKEA in Atlanta.
Yes there is junk food here in Sweden too. Unhealthy fast food. The Swedes love their hot dogs and there are hot dog stands almost everywhere. This is what a hungry Swede grabs on the go. A cheap hot dog. Well you do get what you pay for as everywhere else in the world.



Now IKEA stores here in Sweden also have a food section selling various goods.