My Year in Sweden

Check out my latest post over at Sweden.se...

15 Impressions After Living Nearly One Year in Sweden

http://blogs.sweden.se/expat/?p=2395

"Rabbit" enjoys a Fall Day in a Stockholm park.

“Winter is Coming” to Sweden

Stockholm City Hall. Photo by: Anna Andersson/imagebank.sweden.se

Please read my recent post "Autumn in Stockholm...“Winter is Coming”" over at Sweden.se

http://blogs.sweden.se/expat/?p=2177

A New Voice Joins Sweden.se's Expat Blog

Please read my newest post A New Voice Joins the Expat Blog

at: http://blogs.sweden.se/expat/2012/09/10/a-new-voice-joins-the-expat-blog/

Riddarholmen, Stockholm. Photo by Ildikó Lukács/imagebank.sweden.se

Switching Venues For Awhile

Dear readers,

I wrote a blog for 6 months for the Swedish government about what it was like to come to Sweden for work. Now I have been offered the opportunity to blog for them about being an expat. This basically covers what I write about here on my private blog. (There are a few exceptions...things I can't write about for them that I can write about here but we will see...).For now, please switch to reading my posts at Sweden.se.

Read the expat blog at http://blogs.sweden.se/expat/.

You can subscribe to it at http://blogs.sweden.se/expat/feed.

I expect to return to blogging here when the Sweden.se blog is finished so please don't cancel your subscription here. For those of you who find it more convenient, I will also  post links to the Sweden.se posts whenever they are published.

Thanks for being such loyal and interested readers! 

- Kristin Lund

Swedish Women's Soccer Gets a Boost

A little over a month ago, I wrote on this blog about my undying passion for Women’s Soccer. More specifically, I was discouraged by the challenges of watching the Olympic women’s soccer matches on TV in Sweden—especially when it wasn’t necessarily the Swedish team playing. I love watching the US women play and they did, in case you missed it, win 2012 Olympic gold.

Pia Sundhage

I also mentioned how wonderful the US Women’s National Team (USWNT) coach, Pia Sundhage is. I admire her enthusiasm, her soccer knowledge, her fun and calm attitude and of course, her winning record with the US team. To quote Sports Illustrated, "In just under five years with the U.S., Sundhage compiled an 89-6-10 record, winning two Olympic gold medals and finishing second at the 2011 World Cup."

Pia Sundhage, as I mentioned in my last post, is Swedish.

And now…

She’s just announced that she is stepping down as coach of the USWNT and moving back to Sweden to become the head of the Swedish National team.

Whahooo! This is great news. I am not the hugest fan of how the Swedish national team currently plays and I think Pia will bring great energy and new ways for the team to come together and play great soccer. (Note: Nice slide show of Pia on the Swedish page linked above. It's written in Swedish but just click the small blue box nearly half way down that says "Visa bildspel.")

Marta

Marta Vieira da Silva (known simply by her first name like all the Brazilian greats), who many say is the best female player in the world, comes from Brazil. She played in the professional league in the US and I saw her play many times for my home team, FC Gold Pride in the Bay Area. (now defunct league…don’t ask…painful subject). Marta previously played professionally for Umeå in northern Sweden. Why am I writing about Marta? Well because Marta also decided to move back to Sweden a few months ago and she signed with Tyresö FF here in Stockholm.

Awesome, Ted! (What? You never watched “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”?)

Two last points...

* Please don’t fail to notice that I am a trailblazer…both these women made their decisions after I moved from the US to Sweden.  (lol)

* Birthdays (I'm just saying...)

• Pia Sundhage: February 13
• Marta: February 19
• Kristin Lund: February 21

Swedish Humor

I absolutely love when I come across somebody's humor unexpectedly. Maybe it's in something they say that is otherwise serious. Maybe it's something they say in an email.

Maybe it's out in the middle of a field.

What?

Yup, I stumbled across somebody's humorous installation in the middle of a seldom-seen field in a northern part of Öland, a long, skinny island off the eastern coast of Sweden. I was on vacation and out for a walk with a group of adults and kids.

There, on the side of this seldom-used dirt road, was a viking boat grave.

This isn't it. But here's what they generally look like so you have some sort of reference:

Here's what another boat grave looks like, also on Öland. Photo: C. Michael Hogan

The one we found was also a bunch of large stones in the rough shape of a viking boat.

The stones were set down in the field in the shape of a boat hull.

...But wait, there was a sign explaining things...

...So we stepped forward to read the sign,,,

...See below for the translation...

Translation (trying to be "Old Swedish"...doesn't really translate?):

This type of boat grave (?) of the type, spurius, positioned facing south, derived probably from the early 2000's
constructed in the days of Ch. Sachs and T. Birath

These Swedes. A veritable laugh riot.

Empty Offices in the Swedish Summer

Time? 3:40pm

Last email arrived?  1:37pm

Over two hours ago! In Space, no one can hear you scream.

Help, I’m trapped in a Swedish office and 75% of my co-workers have left on vacation!

Empty desks where I work...

Wow, it sure is empty here. I ride the empty subway cars to work and then I work 8 hours in a nearly empty office. Even though there are roughly 25 people here at any given time, I can’t see them without heading down a long hallway because my desk happens to be at the other end of the hall from those who are not on vacation at this time.

I’ve never experienced anything like this. The vacation time is substantially shorter in the US and I’ve never worked anywhere in which the whole office emptied out. (I was lucky if I got 2 weeks in the US, here I get 5 weeks, although one of those weeks is in compensation for not receiving overtime.)

No one in any of the conference rooms...

I tried to prepare myself for it. I knew I was taking my vacation unnaturally early (mid-June to mid-July) on account of family coming to visit but I didn’t quite realize how strange it would feel when I returned to an empty office.

It’s great for my personal productivity because there are a lot fewer distractions and “fires to put out” but it sure is lonely...

Will the last one out of Sweden please turn off the lights?

Watching Women's Olympic Soccer in Sweden

It's a whole other cup of tea, watching the Olympics from a foreign country.
Admittedly, I am not a huge Olympics fan. I like looking at how fit everyone is (seriously, swimmers and their shoulders!) but I find it a little dull in general. However, I am a HUGE soccer fan.

Women's soccer fan.

The US Women's team celebrates a goal in the qualifying matches (photo: Yahoo Sports)

Sometimes I watch men's soccer but I don't find it nearly as interesting.

It was a little difficult at first to figure out how to watch the games I wanted to watch. I would turn on the Swedish TV and they would have a sort of "Olympics magazine" type thing going where they just talk right through the actual bits I wanted to see. This guy, in particular, André Pops, does tend to go on and on...Dude, show the American games!

André Pops is ruining my game! (photo: Folkbladet.nu)

Yeah, so obviously Sweden is going to concentrate on their own teams. And they have shown the Swedish women's soccer team but I knew the team wasn't going to go far (they squeaked through the qualifying matches and lost to France in the Quarter Finals.) But the US women, they are so worth watching!

One day when I turned on the TV to watch the US game, old André just talked and talked with a couple of other windbags and then finally they said, ..."and now we will show you the second half of the US game."

Argh! Agony!

I surfed over to NBC's website in the US to see if I could see the highlights. Bingo! They have lots of highlight videos. So I clicked "Play" and then I got a message that said the videos could only be watched in the USA.

Double agony!

Then I finally cottoned onto the fact that Swedish TV (SVT Play) is showing the games on their website. Even the US games. Hallelujah!

Now I am living in bliss as the US team just beat New Zealand in the Quarter Finals. Whahoo!


My favorite player? 

Well, since you asked...It's been Abby Wambaugh for a long time. Go, Abby, go!

Abby Wambaugh fights North Korea for the ball (photo: Yahoo Sports)

Favorite coach? 

Of course it's Pia Sundhage, the US women's coach. She is admirably calm and collected on the sidelines...never screaming...always looking like she just plain old enjoys soccer. And where is she from?

Why, Sweden, of course!

Bringing My Dog to Sweden

This is "Rabbit" a few years ago...A friend made her try on her dog's old Halloween costume.

Hurrah! At long last I have managed to bring my dog to Sweden! I am so happy, it's hard to even express my delight.

In November 2011, I wrote about how I was going to bring my dog to Sweden in the blog I wrote for Sweden.se. I'll link to it here but I have to say that I got some things wrong about how it is done so be warned. Now that I have actually done it, I know a lot more.

My dog, who has the unusual name of "Rabbit"*, arrived at Arlanda Airport in Stockholm yesterday morning. She flew from San Francisco to New Jersey to Stockholm. Due to an extended layover in New Jersey (around 17 hours), I had to pay for boarding her at the airport during that time. This actually had the advantage of breaking up her flights and allowing her time out of the crate to drink, eat, and rest.

Amazing to think that on Tuesday night she was running up and down Stinson Beach, north of San Francisco and on Friday morning she was having a pee on Swedish grass.

Let me say, right away, that there is no longer a quarantine (at least for arrivals from approved countries) any longer so I could collect Rabbit right away at the airport. Personally, I wouldn't bring a dog from another country if there was still a 6 month quarantine the way there used to be.

Still, it was a lot of work and anxiety trying to get the process right. I found that I received different answers every time I asked the experts how it needed to work. I talked to United Airlines (with waits of over an hour in the phone queue at times), the Us Department of Agriculture, the Swedish Agricultural Board, Swedish Customs, Swedish Border Inspection at Arlanda, and the receiving Cargo company at Arlanda.

And there were many, many consultations with my veterinarian in the US. (They did a fantastic job and got everything letter-perfect. Here's a shout-out to my vet and her staff. You rock! How am I ever going to find your equivalent in Sweden?)

Rabbit came as cargo rather than as "excess baggage" a distinction that matters when it comes to importing the dog but no longer seems to matter to the airlines, or at least to United Airlines. In both cases, the dog is traveling in the cargo area but the difference is whether the dog is flying with a ticketed passenger or coming on its own. (It's all rather murky, isn't it?)

Here's how it worked:

1) My family bought a dog crate. It had to be much larger (and wider) than we initially thought because there needs to be 3 inches of clearance over the dog's head when they are traveling internationally. Rabbit only weighs 37 pounds (16 kg), but she is tall and thin, like a boxer or a whippet. She looked ridiculously small in that crate and I wonder if we couldn't have gotten away with a smaller size but we didn't want to risk them refusing her. My friend also bought food and water bowls that screw on to the inside of the door.

2) Rabbit had to get a vet exam and an exam by a USDA vet within 24 hours of the flight. This is harder to do than it sounds. This basically means these 2 things have to happen right before the flight, as in, on the same day. Rabbit had to be at the Cargo facility at SFO at 2pm. See why it was stressful and with little margin for error?

3) After many phone consultations, ordering of the proper Swedish forms, and my vet contacting the USDA in South San Francisco to make sure we were doing this correctly, my family took Rabbit to our vet at 9AM on the day she was to fly. She received a vet check and also an additional microchip that could be read internationally. She already had one but it could only be read by an American scanner.

After the vet appointment, my family drove the hour+ to the USDA vet appointment where they got the important papers stamped. Then they drove to United Cargo at the airport (luckily nearby) and filled out more forms, etc. I had long ago made the reservation for her to fly. Then it was time to leave Rabbit in her new crate, mournfully looking at them as they left and wondering what in the world was going on.

4) I had to call Arlanda Border Inspection with the dog's waybill number as soon as I got it to advise them Rabbit was arriving so that they could schedule a Swedish vet check.

5) After the aforementioned break in New Jersey, Rabbit arrived on Friday morning. I was disappointed to find out that even though the plane came in around 7:30AM, I wouldn't be able to start the collection process till 10AM due to the time it takes for them to process the dog, do the vet check, etc. As soon as Border Inspection receives the dog, they immediately take it to a special reception area for that species (dogs, cats, reptiles, fish, birds) (wait a minute, a fish area...really?) and give it water, a chance to relieve itself, and food if specified by the owner. So at least she wasn't stuck waiting for a chance to come out of the crate.

6) A Swedish friend drove me to the airport since I don't have a car. We had to stop at a security checkpoint to get into the cargo area. This involved the car being searched. Then we took ourselves and our backpacks through a security screening process similar to what passengers go through only not nearly as strict. I realized later that I had a small knife on my keychain and water for the dog-items that wouldn't have made it through passenger security.

7) After Security, we drove around for awhile, looking for the right Cargo company. After going in and asking at the wrong place, we received directions on how to find it.

8) At the Cargo company, we picked up the paperwork that was ready and waiting. I had been extremely nervous up to this point because there were some gray areas where the microchip was concerned and I lived in fear that they would reject her from the country or something. But since the papers were ready, I assumed we had passed that hurdle already and things were fine.

They assured me that Rabbit was doing great and resting comfortably but I couldn't see her yet. I had to then take the paperwork across the airport to Customs. This required leaving the secure area, finding our way through countless rotaries (Sweden does love a good rotatry or "rondel.") and finding the Customs building.

9) I wondered around in the building where every floor said "Customs" but had a locked door. After asking several people, I found the right door (next door to where I was) and took my papers in. It took 20 minutes or so to get the Customs paperwork done but thank goodness it didn't cost anything as she is my personal pet that I owned before coming to Sweden.

10) Then I took the customs paperwork back to Cargo which required us to repeat the whole car inspection process. But they looked like they were used to seeing the same people more than once. Business as usual.

11) Back at Cargo, they immediately brought around a trailer that had the crate on it. And there was Rabbit! She caught sight of me and started whining. I immediately let her out and she danced and jumped and twisted around my legs. I can't imagine what she was thinking. She hadn't seen me since I visited in April, had been put onto the plane by completely different people...and then arrived to see me. How confusing!

I don't mind saying that I cried...with relief, with gratitude, with love for my special dog.

Rabbit eats her first Swedish meal after arriving.

Now Rabbit has been here for 30 hours or so. She is calm but I think she has doggy jet lag. I wonder if everything smells strange to her. She hasn't met any Swedish dogs yet, wonder what she'll think of them?

Here she enjoys her new Swedish bed.

Welcome to Sweden, Rabbit!

* Rabbit is a mixed breed that I got from a shelter. She's 6 years old.