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)

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)

No giant leaps, but progress is being made

I haven't blogged in a while and that might have made you think nothing new happened or even, dare I say it, that we have given up on our project. The truth is that the last couple of weeks have been a bit quiet. We have made progress on almost every front, but nothing really significant happened. I will try to condense all our news in this blog post and hopefully write something really interesting next week.

We are making a lot of plans for our upcoming visit of Lund. You can expect a full blog post about our plans later on, but we are looking for ideas to add to our to-do list. We are very excited about our
apartment, we can't wait to see it in person. We expect everything to be as good as it is on the pictures the kind landlord sent us!

Care to add anything to our Lund to-do list? Please let me know about all the wacky stuff there is to do!

A while ago I wrote about CouchSurfing where I wondered if the service is popular in Lund. I can now report, that I have successfully found a host for both my significant other and myself. We aren't hoping to save money by using CouchSurfing, we are in it to meet someone interesting. Ideally our hosts will turn out to be among the first friends we make in Lund. You can expect a blog post just about CouchSurfing after we return from our trip.

I have news regarding my Swedish as well. For the last 10 weeks I have been attending classes in a language school and yesterday was our last meeting and as you would expect it included a written exam. I'm proud to say I passed, but just barely with 57 %. I'd like to applaud my superb teacher Brigita for her hard work! Now it's my turn to practice and practice some more, thus putting it all to good use.

Igår jag passerade introduktion till svensk. Nu jag behöver bara träna och sedan öva lite mer!

My last grade at UNI,
with a perfect mark mind you :)

Speaking of academic achievements, just last week I have passed my last exam at University of Ljubljana. Now the only thing left to do regarding my Masters degree is the final thesis.

Everything above is important, but the most significant news of the week is probably this: We have set our wedding date! I'm not going to share it, since we are striving for a private wedding with just the two of us and two witnesses, but I'm happy to tell you that we will get married in Slovenia, before setting off for Sweden.

As you can see, the last couple of days have been busy with small things. But when you enumerate them all you can see it's actually a bunch of important stuff finally done for good. Hopefully I will have more significant stuff to write about, but until then: have a blast!

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)

Disaster strikes

Image via CrunchBase

Yesterday I have received some bad news from Nokia: While I am still the top candidate for the opening I interviewed for, they won't be hiring until at least the end of the summer. Even though they would still love to have me on board, it just can't happen - at least not yet. The best that the department head could do was mention that he hopes the situation changes in August.

Needless to say I was crushed by this news. Because I've spent so much time on Nokia this jeopardizes our project Sweden. Even though I wouldn't mind postponing my start at Nokia until September, I do need some kind of a guarantee that there will be a job for me in Sweden. I simply can't afford to wait until August only to find out they won't be hiring for another three months.

I find myself looking for a job - again; this time with a much more pressing time constraint. And if that wasn't enough, I hear the Swedes like to take a lot of time off work in the summer: I have a feeling their absence might make the job hunt harder.

At the moment I have a hard time thinking positive, but that doesn't mean I've done nothing. I have contacted several companies I've talked to before Nokia entered the picture, I've written to my mentor describing the setback and I've asked an acquaintance from Lund for advice.

I hope I have learned something from the experience and if nothing else at least this time I'm searching for a job knowing I am  a top candidate for a senior developer position at one of the largest companies in Scandinavia.

That is all I've got to say for the time being, I'm afraid. Once again I'm looking for your help: If you know of any company in Skåne that is looking for an experienced C# developer, please get in touch and let me know. You can find my CV and LinkedIn profile right here on the blog. And, as always, any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Is it time for a Swedish chatroom?

As you may know my Project Sweden includes learning the Swedish language. So far I've joined a language school and I'm following a learn-Swedish-at-home programme. I feel like it's going quite well, on the other hand I wasn't hoping on having an actual conversation any time soon...

The key word here is "wasn't," because that was before I was inspired by the following TED talk:

Even as I'm writing this I'm
terrified. That's good, right?

Hearing all this, I'm now considering trying an actual conversation in Swedish. I think Google+ Hangouts are a great tool we could use: several talking heads, having a conversation from the comfort of our own home and practising Swedish at the same time!

Would anyone care to have a short conversation with me? It will only take a few minutes and there would only be one rule: No English allowed!

Thinking about this, we could host a chatroom of sorts. There are five other enthusiastic learners in my Swedish class who should be interested in this sort of thing.

Skulle du vara intresserad av att ha en kort konversation på svenska?

Do you think this is a good idea, could it work? Please get in touch over email or Google+ or leave a comment!

Related articles

• Swedish is starting to sound familiar [Swedish progress update] (helpmemovetosweden.com)
• Language school is worth the cost! [Swedish progress update] (helpmemovetosweden.com)