Hej hej! Your local American-Swede here with an update (since *someone*'s aunt mentioned it). Sweden! In a word: going well. As always, if you want timely updates, you'd do better to follow me on the
Instagrams. Otherwise, here goes.
This post features photos from Delsjön, a lovely twin-lake area East of Gothenburg that I have visited once by my lonesome and once with my husband, this past weekend. We've just come back from påsk (Easter) break and we did lots of lovely things around town, including tons of resting and eating foods. We ate at our 2/7 Michelin-starred restaurants in town, Thörnström's Kök (highly recommend!). We also circumnavigated the bigger lake of the two and took a trip out to IKEA. George roasted a giant lamb leg steak thing for us. And we played lots of board games.
This month we had to travel to the states unexpectedly for a death in the family, so that was a bummer. It was weird to be back in America and have all the signs in English and have tons of fast food and people doing American things and whatnot. It was also weird to have the feeling of "going home" but not actually have anywhere that could possibly be called that. Our home is here in Sweden, but our home is also America... it was an odd sensation. Anyway, we brought back a bunch more of our crap and scooped up things like blue jeans and cheap office supplies.
I'm nearly done with month two of Swedish, so next week on Wednesday I will complete the "A" level and move onto the B level. The A level has two parts and the B level four, and theoretically when I am done with the B level, I will be fluent in Swedish. We'll see! At that point, I'm hoping I will be able to find a job and start working... somewhere. In the meantime, I am applying for things now. I'd very much like to have a little part-time gig somewhere. Teaching seems to be the lowest-hanging fruit.
But Swedish class is going very well. I like my classmates and my teacher this month is outstanding. I read a whole book in Swedish this past weekend and I didn't die or anything. I do have faith that I'll be speaking all kinds of Swedish in four months. You know, provided I keep busting ass and all.
I gave up on my 365 Project (a photo every day) sometime this month, but that's ok - no one's perfect. I'm still trying to get out there and photo things on the regular, but I couldn't bring myself to post one more crappy thing to Instagram in the name of "project."
Ok, what else?
- I have plans to go to Budapest next week! Very excited.
- The weather is very slowly getting a little warmer and there is decidedly lots of light during the day now. Today all the coffee shops and restaurants started constructing their outdoor patios so Swedes will be drinking their coffee al fresco soon, even though it has barely gotten over 50* on any day (high of 43 today).
- After the trip to IKEA, I do believe we may be done buying things for the house. We have a potato masher now so there's that.
- We finally got bank accounts and pretty soon we will have Swedish cell phone plans. We are almost completely legit members of society.
- I had *two* social outings today (and I could make it a third if I were truly ambitious) so I must be doing something right in the networking arena.
- George? Oh, George is good. He is enjoying Chalmers, his office, and his work. Things are pretty chill with him, which is nice. Later on we'll have some travel fun things (Spain, Switzerland, maybe England). He was sick for a while but picked up some "Renäsans" spray and managed to kick it right off. (Renäsans, by the way, is a hilarious pun because näsa is Swedish for nose.)
- Just-for-fun travel plans include Edinburgh (August) and Thailand (December). Depending what my schedule / income looks like, I may try to tack on all kinds of extra stuff during the year. I'm interested in Eastern Europe, mostly. If George can come also, we may be into Morocco, Iceland, Turkey.
Ok that probably wraps it up for now! Vi hörs 🙂
