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)

Our Lund checklist

As you may know my wife-to-be and I are traveling to Lund next week! The main purpose of the trip is to secure an apartment, but we have decided to stay for a couple of days, give CouchSurfing a test run and get to know the city destined to be our home. And we feel it will be a lot more fun to do the touristy stuff now, when we will actually be tourists!

Apart from the apartment stuff and some bureaucracy we will try to take care of, this is our to-do list. What do you think? Care to suggest anything to add?

• Buy a prepaid SIM card for our phones. We would love advice about this - can you recommend a package one can buy without a Swedish personnummer that includes data transfer (GPRS)?
• Try a Tunnbrödsrulle - any idea where to get one in Lund?
• Go for a proper pint somewhere. I found a pub called Mat & Destillat online and I have high hopes for it, but I'm also open for suggestions. What is your favorite pub in Lund?
• Try a Max burger and see if it really is the best hamburger in the world.
• Check out Lund's Disc golf course.
• Find a restaurant that serves Swedish meatballs and see if they are better than the Slovenian version.
• Visit a local Systembolaget, check out the prices and cry.

We are staying for 3 nights and we are hoping to fill those three days with as many activities as possible. This will probably be our only vacation this summer, so we want to make the most of it! We will probably take a peak at Lund travel guide for more ideas, but I'd much rather hear your suggestions!

Additionally we would love to socialize while there. Is anyone interested in grabbing a fika? Hopefully we can meet you in the city center!

Related articles

• Is that the sun shining? (helpmemovetosweden.com)
• Lund first impressions (helpmemovetosweden.com)

Is that the sun shining?

So last week I've been pretty down, recovering from the somewhat bad news I've received from Nokia. A lot was going on through my head, mostly over-thinking our plans and how they must change now. I was really worried that the unfortunate turn of events might endanger our entire project Sweden. The thought of letting my better half down nearly crippled me.

I'm feeling a lot better now. It took me about a week to start thinking optimistically again. My fiancé and I discussed our options a lot, and we have agreed to a plan that would allow us to move to Sweden - just. But then something great happened: Our apartment ad was answered and from the very start the offer looked very promising!

I'll just give you the highlights: The apartment is located near both Lund's tekniska högskola, where my wife-to-be will be attending classes and Ideon science park, where I still hope to find employment. It is a two-room apartment, giving us more space than we have now, but not so big that we would feel we are wasting our resources by staying there. And it is available for long-term rent, rented out directly by the owner.

We both feel that the apartment is a catch so we are making plans to rent it. We have seen pictures of it, now we are booking plane tickets to go see it in person, pay our deposit and collect the keys!

We will be flying to Lund on Monday, July the 8th, staying for four days. Hopefully we will get to rent an apartment, take care of some bureaucracy, get to know the city and of course meet some of you!

We won't be moving to Lund until the end of July and yes, that does mean we will be "wasting" one month's rent. But we have decided not to look at it that way: We are paying for the fact that we will have a roof over our heads as soon as we make our way to Lund. We feel such security, given the difficulty of finding housing in Lund, is worth the cost.

Needless to say we are very excited. We still need to find out what things can we take care of in those few days. I'd be very happy for any advice, especially from those of you who have moved to Sweden from abroad. Of course we would also like to explore the town and meet some of you for a cup of coffee or a pint of Sweden's finest. Please get in touch via Comments/Email/Google+

Related articles

• Disaster strikes (helpmemovetosweden.com)
• Enter phase: Apartment hunt (helpmemovetosweden.com)
• Lund first impressions (helpmemovetosweden.com)

Lund first impressions

Image via CrunchBase

I know you are all dying to hear the "bottom line", so let's get it out of the way as soon as possible: My meeting with Nokia went great and while I haven't received an offer yet I am feeling quite confident! They have made quite an impression on me and their workplace looks seems great! I'd be honoured to work there.

The trip itself was quite exhausting. I "visited" three countries for the first time yesterday: Germany (Frankfurt airport), Denmark (Copenhagen airport) and of course Sweden. The trip itself was quite uneventful if we overlook the rush over the Frankfurt airport to make the connecting flight. After four flights, two train rides and a long walk I was really exhausted and when I came home I just crashed: Slept like a baby!

Two things really caught my attention while making my way across Europe. On Frankfurt airport I witnessed, for the very first time, an "airport land traffic jam": So many buses, baggage trucks and other personnel-only vehicles were buzzing around that it looked like a very busy city.

Quite the opposite was the flight to Copenhagen: I dare say that it was the quietest flight in the recorded history. I don't think a single conversation occurred while we were airborne! I don't know if that's typical for Scandinavian Airline flights, but it felt quite eerie to me!


Lund was strikingly beautiful yesterday. Even though the Weather forecast
predicted rain I was greeted by a picture perfect sight, without a cloud in the sky. That allowed me to walk from the train station to Nokia's office in Ideon science park and back. I was even delighted by seeing a few Swedish girls sunbathe and enjoy what was probably one of the warmest days this year.


Unfortunately I was too hungry too look for a restaurant that serves a great portion of Swedish meatballs, I settled for a Subway meal. But that was great too, and since we don't have a Subway in Slovenia, I technically still had something exciting for lunch! They are definitely on my to-do list for next time though!

Kan rekommendera du en bra restaurang där de tjänar svenska köttbullar i Lund?

All in all I had a great trip and Lund really charmed me. Hopefully it will turn out that it has been professionally successful as well. More on that is yet to come!

View my whole Lund album!

Related articles

• All packed for Lund and I'm leaving nothing to chance! (helpmemovetosweden.com)
• Actually visiting Lund for the first time! (helpmemovetosweden.com)
• Planning: Visiting Lund for the first time (helpmemovetosweden.com)

All packed for Lund and I'm leaving nothing to chance!

I count on this to insure I make
friends on the airport!

• Laptop Check
• Kindle Check
• Kindle with full batteries DoubleCheck
• Valid passport and printed plane tickets Check
• Spare clothes Check
• An umbrella Check
• A power cord for making friends at the airport Check

I have been hoping for a dry day,
the forecast changed on the last minute.

You are probably thinking something along the lines "What? Is he moving to Sweden already? I thought that was months away!" So let me reassure you right now: I'm only visiting Lund for a day, I'm just leaving nothing to chance.

Have I forgotten anything? This is the list I've come up with and I can't think of anything else I might need for my epic trip to Lund.

I'm leaving home tomorrow very early and depart at 7 AM from Ljubljana's airport. I suspect it will be a mad dash across Frankfurt's airport to catch the 9:30 flight to Copenhagen. All I need to do there is find the train to Lund and then sailing should be smooth all until I start making the return trip at around 17:00 - this time a lot more relaxed since history will already have been made!

If your path tomorrow is by any chance crossing mine please say hi!

I expect I won't have any spare time in Lund to meet with anyone but Nokia, however I'd love to have someone to chat to on the airports and/or flights. If you are travelling tomorrow drop me an email and let's see if our paths intersect!

In other news Radio Sweden has aired their interview with me from a couple of weeks ago. Here is the link to the episode and here is the direct link to the mp3 file. My short bit starts at 21:40 and lasts for about five minutes. While not exactly thrilled by my performance I think I did all right for a first radio appearance.

Related articles

• Actually visiting Lund for the first time! (helpmemovetosweden.com)
• Planning: Visiting Lund for the first time (helpmemovetosweden.com)
• The game is on! (helpmemovetosweden.com)

Actually visiting Lund for the first time!

Image via CrunchBase

Last week I posted about how we are planning to visit Lund for the first time. I also wrote about the good feeling I had about a series of job interviews I had with Nokia. Well it turned out my intuition wasn't wrong and Nokia has now invited me to visit them in Lund at their expense!





I'm visiting on Wednesday, 15th of May from Ljubljana to Copenhagen, with a crossover in Frankfurt. Not only will I be in Sweden for the first time, I will get to see the Frankfurt airport for the first time as well! My flight back is also on Wednesday so I will only be in Lund for a couple of hours, but I hope I will get to take a walk and see some of it - hopefully the weather will allow for it!

Can you recommend me something I simply must see/try while in Lund? Perhaps a unique Swedish candy that will blow my mind?

The plan to visit Lund together with my significant other is still in place. We will still need to find an apartment  but now I will get to see it first! If anyone would like to have a cup of coffee on us you are very welcome - get in touch!

I am so grateful for this opportunity and am really excited - in fact I can't wait for Wednesday.

In other news I have been interviewed by časopis Delo, one of Slovenia's largest daily newspapers. The article only appears in the print version, however I have been allowed to share it with my readers. If you speak Slovenian please take a look (pdf).

Related articles

• Planning: Visiting Lund for the first time (helpmemovetosweden.com)

The job hunt's pace is picking up! (Job progress update #2)

It has been a busy week, but thankfully it looks like my struggles are not in vain! My job search is picking up the pace and it's filling me with optimism for the project! I have now heard back from one company and got contacted by a few more thanks to this blog, so it is getting very exciting!

The week started early on Monday morning when I found the time to solve a programming test sent to me from MovieStarPlanet. They are a company based in Copenhagen and I've applied for a position there in the first few days of the operation GetAJob.

They've assigned me a programming test on Codility and I was fascinated by the tool. When you connect via a personalized address you are presented with one programming problem and you have 30 minutes to solve it using a programming language of your choice (C# for me, but plenty of others were supported, even some of the more exotic ones). I was very happy with it, it provided a test case and it allowed me to verify my code and even specify my own test data. In summary I loved the tool and I will gladly recommend it to any company that is hiring. If I have one complaint it is that the problem assigned to me was very basic, but I expect the customer sets the difficulty of the assignments.

Long story short, I heard back from MovieStarPlanet later in the week and they have offered me an interview. I'm expecting that to take place sometime in the middle of this week, so fingers crossed! The job description didn't include a lot of details and I would prefer to work in Lund, but even though I would like to be choosy of my future employer I am not turning down any opportunities just yet!

In other news I was contacted by a very kind producer/project manager from SimBin studios. She told me she stumbled upon my blog and luckily enough her company has a vacancy that seems tailored to my CV. She has forwarded it to her colleague and within a few minutes I received an email from him describing the company and the position.

SimBin is a game studio focused on race-simulator games and they have even invited me to try their free-to-play game RaceRoom Racing Experience on steam. I gave it a try and it is heaps of fun! It sure looks like a great project to work on!

The position at SimBin does look perfect for me and I have high hopes for that one. The only problem is that they are based in Lidköping, which is a long way away from Lund. I'm told they do allow telecommuting and while I am not a big fan, the opportunity looks too good to pass up! I'm expecting a programming test some time next week.

This blog is credited for another email I've received from an representative of Together Gaming, a game consulting company. She too was very friendly, but I can't say much about the conversation. I have a hunch my reply has told her I'm not the developer she is looking for.

The most surprising was a call I received from CosyLab, a Slovenian company that is working within several countries including Sweden and they happen to have a project going in Lund. It is a company working on the big physics projects across Europe and I'm sure you will agree: that sounds impressive! As good as it sounds, the recruiter I spoke to did tell me that they normally wouldn't send a freshly hired programmer abroad and I'm not to expect too much. I'm waiting to hear from him in the next week after he presents my special case on their staff meeting.

As you can see I have had a lot of encouraging conversations in the previous week. Of course a lot of work is yet to be done and our project is still set up on shaky foundations until I get a job offer. But the situation does look brighter and brighter! Getting a job is of course just the first hurdle, but I feel accomplishing that will give us the energy to overcome every other.

Are you looking for a back-end C# programmer? I would love to hear from you! Send me an email!

Related articles

• Job progress update #1 (helpmemovetosweden.com)
• Quitting my job... was tough! (helpmemovetosweden.com)
• The game is on! (helpmemovetosweden.com)