Crossing land and sea to our new home

1200 km and 14.5 hours of driving to reach the best,
most comfortable ferry bed in the world!

It gives me great pleasure to announce that we've arrived! We've crossed Europe and the Baltic sea to arrive safely to our new home in Lund!

Yesterday morning, after days of packing and preparations, my wife and I bravely set off. We got up at 3 am, filled the car with the very last of our possessions, sorted the final errands and then took off on an epic journey.

The road took us across Austria, and then zigzagged us between Munich, Nuremberg, Leipzig and Berlin for over  1200 km until we finally reached Rostock harbour. There we were rewarded by a huge meal followed by an good night's sleep while the ferry tirelessly followed it's course to Trelleborg. From there it was a short drive, only 50 kilometres or so, to our new home in Lund!

It was quite and adventure!

Rostock's Curry Wurst,
 fit to feed a sailor!

Obviously we aren't quite done yet. We have a lot of unpacking to do, followed by a (very large) number of household chores. Keeping the reward in mind, we are ready for a busy weekend. Hopefully we will be done until Monday, so we can have a few days of holidays before we start with our new jobs here in Lund.

We are hoping to fill next week, week 34 as I should now refer to dates, with fun activities and fika-meetings. Would anyone like to grab a cup of coffee? Let me know via comments / email or Google+

On a minor note: I felt that the nature of this blog has changed somewhat now that we've reached our new home. That's why I've adjusted its description. Hopefully it is still inviting enough for new readers and descriptive enough to spike some interest in the minds of those who are hoping to follow our footsteps and move abroad.

Related articles

• Apartment: Check! (helpmemovetosweden.com)
• Unexpected results: Job check! (helpmemovetosweden.com)

Unexpected results: Job check!

Nokia. If I were to summarize this whole post into one word, that would be it. Even the most detail thirsty reader would probably be satisfied with just one sentence: Nokia called and now all is well! But don't go away, there is a surprise at the end :)

I now have a job in Sweden! Nokia has delighted me with an offer last week, which I promptly accepted, adding another tick to my check-list.

For those of you who are really curious, here is the whole story. You might remember a while back I had a very positive experience interviewing for Nokia, peaking when they invited me to visit their offices at their expense. When I returned I was convinced it was a perfect match and my job worries are over. Unfortunately no good story is that straightforward, and my spirits were temporarily crushed. I've been looking for another job ever since, without much going on: Sweden gets really quiet over the summer.

That all changed last Wednesday when I received an email and making my day. I was offered the job I originally interviewed for, the contract followed soon and we've already set the start date: August 26th! Needless to say I'm as excited as ever, looking forward to our departure.

It looks like everything is falling into place and getting ready for our arrival. I feel we have now taken care of two of of three biggest obstacles (job and housing) with only Swedish language still standing. But don't worry, that doesn't mean I will run out of things to write about. We now have some bureaucracy to tackle and in less than three weeks time you can expect lots of New to Lund! posts :)


Amazingly that's not the most significant thing that happened to us last week. We've gotten married!

Related articles

• No giant leaps, but progress is being made (helpmemovetosweden.com)
• Apartment: Check! (helpmemovetosweden.com)

[Reader seeking help] Moving to Stockholm with no place to stay!

Today is a great day, because today I get to introduce a new section on this blog: Reader seeking help.

Nothing new happened to me in a while and I was struggling to find something interesting to write about, when I was delighted by a letter.I always love when readers write in, it reminds me that there are kind people out there who are actually reading about my adventure. But this letter was a bit different, since someone was asking me for help - as you know it is usually the other way round!

The letter convinced me to introduce a new section to the blog, one where I try to help you, my readers, as best as I can. It is an invitation for other people, who are moving to Sweden, to share their problems with the community and hopefully the community stepping up and helping!

The very first letter said:

Hej David!

Was just reading your blog and thought i'd get in touch. I'm also moving to Sweden soon and facing all the same issues.

My motivation is also for love but a little different. To cut a very long short short my ex married a swedish guy and last year we agreed she could move over there with my daughter and that i'd follow as soon as i could. 

I leave my job at the Red Cross in four weeks and arrive in Stockholm on the 4th September. I've been learning Swedish once a week here for a last couple of months and looking for work - a little harder for me than for programmers (I work in aid and development). My plan is to stay in a backpackers or couch surf for a few weeks while I find a place and start networking for jobs. Hoping to study Swedish intensively for a month or two and get some part time work while i look for a real job and an apartment.

Good to see you got found apartment. This was the post that made me think to get in touch.. I had the same issues with Blocket that you describe and was wondering if you knew anyone that could help me post an ad in the same way you did?

Cheers,

Dave

Well there you go, an Australian is trying to move to Sweden and blocket.se's policy of only accepting Scandinavian credit cards is standing in his way! And I know what Dave is going through, since we faced the exact same issue. Luckily a reader of this blog made a deal with us: we forward the money to his paypal account and he pays for our ad. Hopefully someone can do the same for Dave the Australian?

I'm sure there are many kind people out there who would be kind enough to help Dave out. Please email me and I will forward Dave's information to you. Thank you - from both of us!

Apartment: Check!

This is a proud day: It's a day when we can happily check one thing off our long Project Sweden checklist. Our trip turned out to be very successful and now we are proud renters of an apartment in Sweden!

We now have a roof over our heads: we did the impossible and found an apartment in Lund!

There were many naysayers and quite a few people advised us not to waste time looking for housing in Lund and turn to it's neighbourhood instead. In the end it was listening to my reader's advice that did it for us - if it weren't for Chris who advised us to post an ad of our own we might still be browsing blocket.se... Thanks Chris!

My first Swedish pint.

The trip was a success even when judged as a holiday. We made many ticks on our to-do list! We gave couchsurfing a go and had a great experience, we visited the Systembolaget, checked out the prices and cried. We even went for a pint to Café Ariman, where I got to try a Swedish brew (Falcon).

The most exciting part of the trip was of course meeting you, the readers. The socialization component of our vacation worked out great, we met with someone each day. On the first day we hung out with our Swedish CouchSurfing hosts and their friends, on the second we've met an Australian couple that moved to Lund and doesn't mind sharing advice and on day three we've met with a Swedish twitter user who showed us where the pub was. We were busy!

Unfortunately there were a few things we didn't/couldn't try: We couldn't find a Tunnbrödsrulle in Lund, nor did we get a chance to try Swedish meatballs in a restaurant. We postponed the Max burger until the actual move and finally we couldn't bring our Frisbees with us, so we didn't take a look at Lund's Disc golf course. But we are confident we will do all of those things once we're settled in Lund.

Just when we thought that our trip is coming to an end, it got extended. Our plane from Copenhagen was so late we missed our connecting flight in Frankfurt... But it wasn't all bad and we ended up getting a free stay at a hotel, including a dinner and a proper hotel breakfast! Even though the delay somewhat interfered with out plans, we tried to make the best of it. I even got to try a new German dark beer!

All in all we had a great trip. We feel we've done the touristy stuff and some of the serious stuff, so we will be able to focus comes August. Special thanks goes to everyone who took the time out of their busy schedules to meet with us and show us around. Hope to see you all soon!

Related articles

• Enter phase: Apartment hunt (helpmemovetosweden.com)
• Our Lund checklist (helpmemovetosweden.com)
• CouchSufing report card (helpmemovetosweden.com)

Facing the language barrier [Swedish language update]

Yesterday we have encountered the language barrier for the first time and it happened where we least expected it (as it always does): At the shops!

When we've decided to move to Sweden everybody we spoke to told us not to sweat it about learning Swedish. "Everybody speaks English" they said. And the proverbial they were right, everybody does speak English. And I do mean everybody: Bus drivers, shelf fillers, waiters etc. Everybody we talked to so far spoke English well enough to help us in whatever way we required and some even impressed us with their proficiency.

At that point we thought this living abroad thing will be a piece of cake and all we will have to worry about will be culture shock and home sickness. But then we did our first shopping and Sweden banged our heads together and set us straight!

It turns out English will do whenever you have an interlocutor. But whenever you have to read something you better know your Swedish.

None of the products in our local supermarket has any English labels at the back, they are all Swedish only. That meant we almost made some awkward mistakes - like buying the softener instead of laundry detergent. Others, not quite as bad did happen: We couldn't find any plain yogurt at all, and then mistakenly bought sour-milk cream/yogurt thing instead.

No confusion in this aisle, but
not getting fat just got harder.

Mostly we can take such incidents and close calls with a good natured spirit, but it made us realize Swedish would come very handy! Especially when the time for opening bank accounts and signing legal documents comes round...

On the other hand we met with an Australian couple here in Lund. They are living here for about 9 months now and they haven't learned much Swedish yet. They told us that living here is doable with English only.

Nevertheless in our last month before the move, we're hitting the Swedish books - hard!

CouchSufing report card

After a few months of blogging for helpmemovetosweden.com I finally get to say this:

Hello from Sweden!

We are in Lund, we have successfully rented the apartment and we have spent our first night at our CouchSurfing hosts. I know many of you are interested in CouchSurfing so I've decided I take a few minutes to write about our experience.

Let's get something out of the way first: We loved it! If you are thinking about trying it, try it already! Right, now that that's taken care of, you can hear our story.

We agreed with our host, Erik, that we can come straight to his place after we arrive to Lund. He was kind enough to let us drop our bags and leave them there while we go around and wonder around town and run our errands. We warned him that we will be bringing a lot of luggage, but he insisted it's not a problem. So we didn't hold back: We filled the biggest bags we could get our hands on with as much stuff as the airline allowed us to carry.

In the evening Erik had a surprise for us. He knew we are looking to meet people in Lund so he invited some friends over for drinks. We had a great evening talking about Swedes and what to look forward to in Sweden while sharing a couple of bottles of wine. We had a blast and it was exactly what he have hoped to get from the experience: We met a friendly, open and local people to share an evening with. We have high hopes that we can stay in touch and meet again after we've moved to Sweden.

We brought a bottle of Slovenian wine for our hosts as a thank you gesture. Hopefully they were as happy with us as we were with them!

I realize our experience may have been expectationally positive. Nevertheless I think you should know that only friendly and open people will sign up for hosting strangers from the internet, so you're bound to make friends. Give it a go, and let me know how it goes!

Reader recommendations for the trip

My last post was about our plans for our Swedish holiday, apart from renting a flat. I asked you, dear readers, for advice and you delivered! I think it's only fair to let the world know about your recommendations, thus helping others who might be traveling to Sweden with hints, ideas and suggestions.

I was happy to see most of your advice was about Lunds pubs. Even though we probably won't drink a lot during this trip, it makes me feel that I will fit in quite well!

So here it is, your advice, categorized and summarized. Feel free to correct me, or add additional advice, it's all greatly appreciated!

Phones

Prepaid SIM cards can be bought almost anywhere ("most stores and kiosks"). The carrier that stood out among your tips was COMVIQ so I think they will be my choice. I'm told there are different packages to choose from and some include a data plan. Teknikmagasinet seems to be the go-to shop for such purchases and luckily it's quite close to the train station! I'd still love some more info about this, perhaps a link with different options and prices, but I'm told the staff there are eager to help with advice.

I also found out that cheap, disposable, phones are also pretty common and available in big box electronic stores for a low price of around 200 SEK (23 €) and they already include a prepaid SIM card. I'm not quite ready to let go of my smartphone, but I think it might be good advice for someone else.

Restaurants

Unfortunately the news about food wasn't as positive as I've hoped. Apparently Max burgers are good, but aren't all that remarkable since it's still a giant restaurant chain, not unlike Burger King. I've been encouraged to give it a try, but perhaps postpone it until after the actual move.

Everybody seems to agree that Tunnbrödsrulle is great, but it's more popular in the north and might be a bit hard to find in Lund. And as for the Köttbullar (Swedish meatballs), every person claims they are best when prepared by their mother so they don't feel comfortable recommending a restaurant. Still, I'm not giving in and my hopes to try both are still high! If you have any idea where to get either in Lund, please let me know!

A fellow redditor hinted that there are two places with very Swedish food, Stäket and Tengérs. We will probably venture in at least one of them during our visit.

Pubs

As I've said a lot of advice was about pubs, but then again I suppose that is the most fun part of being a tourist. It turns out my initial choice, Mat & Destilat, is more of a fine-dining place and not a pub as I have assumed. No worries, the kind people of Lund were well armed with plenty of suggestions. I now have a list long enough for a proper pub-crawl!

I've heard great things about Rauhrackel, an Austrian pub. It sounds very exciting and I've never been to an Austrian pub before, my only concern is that I've never been to a Swedish pub either, and that one should really be a priority! Traditional English pubs also came highly recommended (The Bishop's Arms, The Old Bull and John bull to name a few) so that's an option, as is Café Ariman which is praised by both locals and Lonely Planet!

We are looking forward to a pint, but haven't decided on a place yet. We will surely visit the Systembolaget as well and buy something to toast with in our new apartment.

Additional plans

We have high hopes for Disc Golf: A reader was even kind enough to send me a map of the course! Apart from that we have arranged to meet a few people there: a fellow expat from Australia and a twitter user studying there.

We are also planning to go to Ikea. Neither of us has ever been and we need to buy some new bed sheets anyway, so we have a perfect excuse to hear this Swedish wonder we hear so much about!

I have joined the Lund social group on meetup.com and they are planning to meet for a fika on Monday night. We will probably join them too!

While I'm in Sweden I would like to give my Swedish a go as well. Hopefully will be able to have at least one conversation (and I use that word very lightly) in Swedish!

Conclusion

Thank you everyone for your recommendations and advice. With your help I'm sure next week will be a blast!

If anyone has time for a cup of coffee, a stroll in the park, or a friendly game of Disc Golf I'd love to hear from you!

See you! 

Related articles

• Our Lund checklist (helpmemovetosweden.com)
• No giant leaps, but progress is being made (helpmemovetosweden.com)