The Great Catching Up Part 1

Life has been busy!  I know it's been nearly a month since my last post, but I have been up to a lot!

The week before my mom came to visit I came down with a severe cold, so as not to worsen it I called off delivering mail (as running around in chilly, rainy weather would truly only worsen an already bad cold).  I took that week to do preparations but also, J needed me to do a ton of testing for the program he develops so I did indeed end up working that week.  It all worked out for the good!

I drove to Stockholm on Friday the 21st and stayed with a friend in Stockholm that night so that I could get up early and pick up my mom, aunt and uncle from Arlanda early in the morning.  The Stockholm trip went great!  My mother loved it there (she had never been to Europe before and had always wanted to see Scandinavia, it was truly a dream come true for her).  My aunt and uncle very much enjoyed it as well.  We did a good amount of touristy things like walking around and taking a bunch of pictures in Gamla Stan.  We also visited Skansen (yes, we took the trolley/tram/spårvagn there), the Wasa museum, visited the royal palace and rode on a boat tour around Djurgården (the island in Stockholm that contains Skansen).  Alas, we did not do the Skyview on Globen.  Here is a little taste of Stockholm!

The second picture is a water view of Östermalm, the posh area of Stockholm where many famous people live.  The third picture is a popular square in the midst of Gamla Stan - we sat and had a lovely fika under the orange awning there.  The fourth picture is of the Nordic Museum (Nordiska Museet) as seen from Skansen.  The final shot is one of Gamla Stan, again from the water.

Monday evening my mom and I said farewell (until Wednesday evening) to my aunt and uncle and drove back to Tibro where J's parents live.  J came to Tibro the following day.  It makes sense on the way from Stockholm to Gothenburg to stop in Tibro to visit J's parents, but that wasn't the only reason!  There's something I haven't been outspoken about, but now that it's all said and done, I can out it now!

Back in August J and I decided to get engaged!  But why this?  When we found out that my mom was coming to visit, we decided that we should get married (as we'd talked about getting married for a while but we weren't in any rush, and had no immediate reason to).  As it would mean very much to me to have my mother at my wedding, we decided to get married while my mother visited Sweden.  So!  On September 26th, J and I tied the knot!  We're now very happily husband and wife.  I would have wished to have more of my near and dear from the U.S. attending, otherwise the wedding could not have been more perfect.  More on the continuation of my mom's visit and the wedding later!  To be continued...

A visitor!

I'm so happy and excited!

My mom is coming to visit me...this Saturday!  Actually, her brother (my uncle) and his wife (my aunt) are coming along with her, but they will only stay in Sweden for a couple of days as they'll be heading further into Europe.  So I get to see several family members!  I'm just so excited!

The thing that excites me most about it is just the fact that finally some people near and dear to me from home (my original home) are finally going to see with their own eyes my "new" life here in Sweden (can you really call it new after you've been living somewhere for nearly 2 years?  The newness has faded a bit - although, when you compare it to living your first 20-odd years in your home country, it still could possibly count as pretty new). But I digress.

They will be landing in Stockholm bright and early and I just know they'll be tired, but they will most likely just have to suffer through a day to get their body clocks on time.  It'll be nice to meet them in Stockholm as the whole week will start off as a vacation kind of for me, too, in the pretty east coast city.  I'm excited to do some more touristy things there, as the past times I've been there have mainly been to visit friends in the area, so we didn't exactly go on boat canal tours and the like.  I have seen some of the city, but I would love to see more.  Then we will stop by in the Tibro area in the beginning of next week, and we'll end up in Gothenburg area for the last few days of her visit.

So the clock is ticking!  Tomorrow J and I leave for the Skövde/Tibro area, as he has a meeting in Skövde in the afternoon.  I've made a date with my friend M to hang out while he does is work stuff.  It'll be nice to see her!  We never just get hang out time anymore.  If we see each other, it's generally for some event or party or other where it can't really be just the two of us getting some good time in together.

Then we'll be sleeping over at J's parents' house in Tibro, as on Friday I'll be driving to Stockholm, and his parents have graciously offered for me to use their car instead for the trip.  I am very grateful for this, as our little car just wouldn't fit 4 people with several bags of over-the-sea luggage (I will be picking up my mom and aunt and uncle from the airport in Stockholm).  Why do I need to leave on Friday?  Well their flight gets in at 7:35am on Saturday and there is just no way I'm getting up at 1am to drive there on Friday night/Saturday morning!  So I'll be staying the night with a couple of friends in Stockholm that J and I rarely get to see.

Hopefully sometime in the near future I will have great new photo material to be posting on this blog.  I know I've had a serious lack of pictures, but I just haven't really had the chance to be taking photos, and running up and down stairs while chucking people's mail in their doors isn't exactly the opportune time to be taking some shots.  I'm hoping my mom's visit will provide enough pictures for several posts!

I'm hoping to persuade my family members to go up into the Skyview on Globen in Stockholm.  The views are supposed to be spectacular.

Would any of you go?  Or have any of you?

Words in Swedish

Yes yes I know I know I've been fairly silent the past couple of weeks.  I attribute that to being quite busy working and being busy socially and so forth on the weekends.  A little over a week ago I was in Skövde for my friend M's birthday party and spent the night over at her and her husband's place.  J didn't tag along as he was sick.  This past weekend was filled with shopping and visiting J's sister for her birthday (Happy Birthday today, C!).  This coming weekend I have a good friend from Skövde coming to visit, W.  So she'll be hanging with us this weekend.  Then next weekend and the following week I will be completely busy, but that is yet a secret to be revealed as to why!

I get to work all this week and all next week.  It was lovely to find that out on Friday.  With my current job I usually get to find out the day before if they need me to work.  So it's nice to know what I'm up to for 2 weeks!  Another fun fact - I just got a call from J's company (I'm still listed on their roster as an hourly paid employee, so they give me odds and ends here and there).  Apparently they want me to help out/look into recruiting employees from the US again (remember, I did that back in the first half of 2011 for them).  So thaaat will be interesting, he was wanting to book a meeting but as you can see, I'm pretty fully packed.  We'll see what happens.  That's a quick nutshell of what's been going on!

I actually wanted a theme with my next post, but thought I'd start off catching up on what's been consuming my life lately.  I have, however, been compiling a little list of Swedish words that I think express certain concepts much better than in English.  Some of the words, actually, simply do not exist in English.  I find myself popping Swedish words into my conversations with J (although we do speak Swedish much more often now, if it's just what comes naturally.  Sometimes I'm so stuck into Swedish mode it's easier for me to just prattle along in it rather than switching modes to English).  But what I'm getting at here is sometimes I want to express something, and I actually find that a Swedish word covers it much better than any English equivalent.  So here's my list:

1.  Hinner (conjugated verb), att hinna (infinite form) - loosely translated it would mean "to manage in time".  You would say "Vi hinner inte" or "We don't have enough time" or "We won't manage" (in regards to time).  I think it's such a succinct way of saying something that we have to put into several words.

2. Orkar , att orka - my loose translation is "to muster", but who ever says "I can't muster the energy for this".  No one really uses that word in English anymore, not in daily use.  But "orka" is used all the time in Swedish.  I find myself using it quite often when English feels lacking. "Jag orkar inte!"  meaning "I can't muster the energy!".  They also use it when talking about being pretty full.  If you think you can't cram down that last piece of cake, then you "orkar inte".

3. Duger, att duga - to be good enough.  I think it's just nice that they have a single verb for something we need to create a phrase for.  "Det duger att du har fått ett G för att fortsätta på den nästa nivån".  "It's good enough that you get Pass in order to continue to the next level".

4. Kvittar, att kvitta - loosely translated it basically means "makes no difference".  If something "kvittar", then it makes no difference, or doesn't matter.  "Det kvittar vem som vinner" "It makes no difference who wins".  Again I find it efficient to have a single verb for an entire phrase in my own langauge.

5. Gäller, att gälla - to apply to something, when something applies, pertaining to, concerning.  This one is a bit tough, but yet again a single word for something more complicated in English.  On parking signs, for example, there may be times where you have to pay a fee to park there, and the sign will say "Gäller vardagar" or "Applies weekdays".  That seems simple and directly translatable.  But the verb is also used in other situations, such as "När det gäller barn, så måste man vara tålmodig" or "Concerning children, you need to be patient".  Or "Det gäller livet" "It's a matter of life and death".  It's a word I rather like in the Swedish language.

6.  Trivs, att trivas - directly translated it means "to thrive".  But no one says that either, not in the way that Swedes use it.  "Trivs du på ditt nya jobb?"  Directly translated "Do you thrive at your new job?"  But what they really mean is if you're happy and you really enjoy and feel at home in your new job.  People asked me many times when I first moved to Sweden "Trivs du här i Sverige?" or "Do you thrive here in Sweden?"  meaning that they wondered if I like it here and am doing well.

I suppose the words that I find in Swedish as "better done" would all be verbs.  It's succinctly putting into one word a whole meaning that we, in English, need to use entire phrases for.  Another word I find interesting is the verb "brukar" which in English is translated as "usually".  In Swedish, brukar is a verb, or a help verb.  We say in English "I usually wash the dishes after dinner".  In Swedish it's exactly the same, except it's a verb and not an adverb.  My dorky language-loving self finds that fascinating.

One last thing regarding my opinion of Swedes being more efficient at saying what they mean in less words, would be a commercial I heard on the radio the other day.  Some really loud, annoying sound was the beginning of the commercial, and then they say "Förlåt, vi ville inte skrika sönder din radio"  which translated would be "Sorry, we didn't want to break your radio by screaming" or at least that is the best translation I can do.  If I translated the words directly, it would be "Sorry, we did not want to scream broken your radio".  I think their way of putting the words together more efficiently gets the meaning across that they didn't mean to break your radio by screaming so loudly.

Maybe it's just me that finds the differences between languages so fascinating, but this is a blog about living in Sweden after all, and I thought I would put a bit of Swedish theme back into it!

So it's harder than you think

Ok so this mail carrying is harder than you think.  It's not all sunshine and loveliness being outside in the day frolicking around with butterflies.  Don't get me wrong, I still really enjoy the job, but it's tough on you!  Running up and down 3 flights of stairs in every single entryway (and trust me, there are hundreds of entryways on a daily route) really kills you!  If you're not used to running up and down stairs every day for several hours on end.  I think I'll purchase some knee braces because they're definitely taking some beatings, and rebelling at me for it.

Yesterday I was given, apparently, what is known as "slaktrundan" which I didn't know until I returned from it.  Slaktrundan, translated, is The Slaughter Round.  Each of us has a different round each day, of course.  Apparently I got the short stick yesterday.  No, what really makes a round difficult is not having done it before.  You have your map to go by and you have to figure out where to go on top of figuring out how certain buildings work.  It's amazing how seemingly stupid some buildings were built.

Two buildings in the very beginning of my route yesterday were built, I must say, in the stupidest way possible.  There is an elevator, but it only lets you off on the 2nd, 5th and 8th floors of the building, though it has 11 floors.  Then off the elevator is a main hall with maybe 4 apartment doors.  Then there are 2 stairwells that go off of the main corridor, the right side and the left side.  Off the stairwells are 2 apartment doors on each floor.  How stupid can that be? So you have to run up and down the stairs on both sides of the building.  It's an unnecessary extra amount of work and time for us mail folks.  I spoke to a girl around my age yesterday in the building who clearly lives there, and she was totally in agreement with me about how stupid the building was.  She suggested there should just be mailboxes down in the lobby.  You know, where the resident can open it with their own little key.  It would save us a ton of time and frustration.

But once you know a route, you can zoom through it much more easily and quickly.  Currently I have one favorite route, simply because I've done it twice and now it's just easy as pie to do.  It also has no "springtrappor" or "run stairs".  You know, the buildings that have only 3 floors and you have to run up and down them to deliver the mail through the door slots.  My favorite round just has some highrises where you take the elevator to the top then run down all the stairs to deliver the mail.  Then it has a ton of row buildings, but they all have boxes on the ground floor so it's just go in, shoot the mail in the right boxes, go out and repeat.

Enough of that.  Today I have the day off, as yesterday morning I was feeling dizzy/slightly feverish when sorting mail.  Then, when out on my round, I only finished 3 of the 5 boxes of mail I needed to deliver and I was just completely worn.  I'm not sure why I felt so poorly even from stepping out of bed yesterday, but I did, and it reflected in my performance on the round.  Not to mention it was the slaughter round.  I feel bad having not finished it, but I did my best.  I guess I should really start doing some strength-training at home so I can build up muscles even more so that I can have even more stamina!  It's only been 2.5 weeks though so I know I'm still adjusting.

It's almost September, can you believe it?  Where has 2012 gone.  A lot of changes have happened since the year started.  It's almost strange to think about our previous home in Skövde.  It's where I spent well over a year living and yet it seems like we've always lived here in our Gothenburg apartment.  Life in Gothenburg is utterly different from how life was in Skövde. There, I never worked, and studied.  Here, I've taken a distance course but it was never studying daily at school like I did in Skövde.  I also have worked here, a lot, you could say, at least in comparison with in Skövde.  I worked with J a ton from March through to June or so.  Then I had that week-long stint as a personal assistant, and here I am as a freshly made mail carrier.  My, how life can change so quickly!  Began the year in Skövde, moved shortly thereafter to Gothenburg, and have worked 3 different jobs since, while acquiring Swedish B certification.  I wonder how much more will happen before the year ends?

Who knew that I would love being a mail carrier?

Still loving the new job!  The variation of tasks, the exercise, new and friendly people, as well as friendly people who talk to you as you deliver their mail.  For me it's completely enjoyable!  Today was my first day going out on a round on my own.  This week there was a much larger amount of mail.  Last week when I went out with the girl who was training me, we had maybe 3 boxes of mail and then that was split between us.  So I was only doing 1.5 boxes of mail last week.  Today I had 4 full boxes of mail to deliver all on my own!  It took me a lovely 3 hours and 45 minutes to do, but I got it done!  Needless to say, I am beat today.

I love this new feeling of being physically exhausted at the ends of the days.  I haven't felt like that in a long time (thanks to not being so active, for shame, I know I know).  It's just so wonderful!  I know it may sound a bit weird to enjoy being tired but compare it to that happy tired feeling after a good workout.  So overall, no complaints about the job, I enjoy the variety, and I even almost look forward to going in whenever I do.  That's not supposed to normally happen when you go to work, right? ;-)

Not much else is new in Gbg.  This past weekend a couple of childhood friends of J's were in town attending a music festival, so we got together all Saturday afternoon since the show they wanted to see wasn't until the evening.  It was nice meeting a new face and seeing another face I hadn't seen in a year or so.  The four of us enjoyed an afternoon sitting out, eating lunch, and drinking a couple of beers at Halta Lotta's.  It's apparently become our favorite go to little pub.  It's the nicest one in our area and has good prices.  The weather was just beautiful this weekend, probably around 70F and sunny as could be.  Sitting outside enjoying good company was the ideal way to enjoy the good weather.

Yesterday J's parents stopped over and took us out to lunch.  They were in town for a birthday party and of course to visit J's sister's family as well.  It was a nice weekend with some visitors from out of town.  It's always nice to see familiar faces!

I have an eye appointment this coming Friday with the optician.  Last year I went to a friend of ours in Tibro, since he's an optician, but now we live too far away for it to be convenient.  So I'll be trying a completely new place here in Gothenburg.  Every year my eyesight gets just a bit worse to where I need to get a new prescription for my contact lenses.  I may even get new glasses...but it feels like I just got new glasses because I got my current ones just last July.  I usually wait two years to get new glasses because it just feels like money going down the drain since I get a new prescription yearly.  I can really notice the difference though with my current prescription, how my glasses don't help me as much as they used to.  I have a coupon for a nice chunk off of 6 months of contacts, so maybe I'll break down and get the glasses along with the contacts.  Contacts are first priority, though.

I don't really have much else to say!  I just had to exclaim a bit more about how pleased I am with the new job!  I was afraid of another fiasco like my previous job, but happily it's been completely the opposite.  My biggest fear has always been language in Sweden, I just hate when I can't understand my surroundings.  Even though now I've passed Swedish B, I still had a bit of insecurity about not being understood by Swedes.  Things have, however, gone swimmingly!

Exhaustion

I apologize for not updating yesterday, as it was my first day at my new job.  I was just so utterly exhausted yesterday after I got home from work I could barely do anything other than lie on the couch and watch the Olympics.  I also was incredibly stiff/sore, which I am today, as well.  When you're not used to riding a bike laden with mail and running up and down stairs for several hours in a day, you feel it in your body!  Not to mention being on your feet for 8 hours a day.  It's been a few years since I had such a job, and I can tell that those years have come and gone!

That being said, so far I am really enjoying the job!  I love that you work along with people and yet on your own, and I love being out and about for a few hours a day very clearly getting good exercise.  You also know you're performing a service for people that is somewhat crucial (less nowadays than before) to society!  Who doesn't love getting a piece of mail?  (Well besides a bill or something else possibly negative...but hey you wouldn't know the good side of life without the bad).

I've also learned the ropes pretty quickly (dealing out post is much more complicated than you'd think!) and feel comfortable in the job which is just of utmost importance to me now after my last experience.  I guess I've dodged having an uncomfortable job up until recently - I suppose I've been pretty lucky.

J is in the kitchen currently making a rhubarb crumble pie which I am excited about!  We've only had one rhubarb pie so far this summer and I think that was way back in May.  We're about due for another delicious rhubarb treat!

No more school!

Yesterday I downloaded, answered, and turned in my examinationsuppgift, or examination task, directly translated.  It was the final test for the Swedish B class I've been taking all summer.  This morning I had a meeting with a teacher and gave a little 5 minute speech, and we also discussed my overall grade.  She was a substitute, as my real teacher is on vacation, so this is the third teacher I've had in my little 10 week course.  In any case, she was super nice, around my age, and had even studied in Wisconsin and visited Iowa, so she was familiar with the Midwest and knew where Ohio was.  It was nice meeting her!  What's better is that overall in the course she gave me a VG - väl godkänt, or "well passed," you could call it.

The grading system goes like this: IG (icke godkänt, or fail), G (godkänt, pass), VG (val godkänt, well passed), and MVG (mycket väl godkänt, very well passed).  I always joke to J that Sweden has a Harry Potter system of grading since it seems like they just put some random letters to grade you.  But once you learn what they mean it makes more sense.  So I'd say in the American system I probably got a "B" for an overall course grade, so I'll take it.  Also, if I'm not mistaken I think they're introducing a new grading system next year or so.  Perhaps I'll report back on that matter.

I'm just glad to be done with school!  The course seemed like an annoying buzzing fly all summer since it is indeed summer and the entire country just about shuts down for the season.  Every other week I had assignments due so there was just enough lull time to almost forget I was actually partaking in a Swedish class.  But I did give it substantial effort, and it paid off.  Luckily nothing was too difficult for me at all, which I take as a good sign.  The teacher earlier today was extremely impressed (not that I picked up on it, but she actually told me) with the fact that I've lived here not even two years, have really only been studying Swedish for 1.5 years, and yet I've mastered the language so quickly.  I always tell people who are impressed that when you move to a new country and have nothing else to do (as you're not really job-worthy) and you have the will, you can learn the language pretty quickly.  Plus, I like languages, so that's really helped me, too.

I have now until Monday as a mini-vacation.  On Monday I start my new job.  How time flies!  I can't believe today is August 1st already.  In just two weeks or so J and I will have lived in Gothenburg for 6 months - half a year!  Sometimes it seems much longer that we've been here, and sometimes it feels like it was just yesterday we moved in with killer ice on the sloping hill of our street.

I've been really wanting to go chanterelle mushroom picking lately.  Maybe I'll just venture into a nearby wooded area by myself today and see if there are any to pluck up.  Last year my friend M and I went on an adventure near Skövde and it was a blast.  I wonder if as much fun can be had mushroom hunting by yourself?