Kanin

Yup, that's a fat rabbit.

Hej.

It's been awhile since our last post. I really need to get better at it. I'm sure everyone is quite curious as to what we've been up to, and the answer is not much really. Our biggest accomplishment has been paying our rent. I know, makes you feel all proud inside. It was actually a lot more difficult than it sounds. CiS (CougsinSwedeland, new shorthand, let's see how it works) Swedish Cultural fact #54 - people don't use checks in Sweden, they use debit cards and pay most things online - this country is years ahead of the US in online banking capabilities. So when we had to pay our rent, the first time we have done it ourselves, we had to deposit our rent money, in SEK or crowns or krona if you like, into the account of the woman we are renting from. Ok no problem right? Well like I said, it wasn't as if we could write a check. Well what about paying online? We do have an online bill pay service back in the states, but bill-pay is set up by finding the vendor, and obviously there isn't a vendor for our rent. So that didn't work. Ok how about transferring money from our bank in the states into our bank here? That would require wiring the money because our bank won't transfer money to banks outside the US (with our piddly little account at least). So we called customer service but had to wait until they opened on the west coast (9 hour time difference) because we had opened the account in WA, and apparently that state is on a different system than the rest of the states our bank operates. We finally got a representative on the line and she told us that to wire money we would have to fill out a wire transfer agreement, which had to be done in person at a branch. In otherwords we would have to physically go into a bankbranch... which of course are only located in the states. That didn't help and it wasn't as if anyone told us that before we left (even though we spoke with several representatives at bank locations in several states across the US) or we could have done that, although we didn't have a bank to send it to yet. So our last option was to go to the ATMs here and withdraw money, deposit it into our bank here, and pay our rent online (which turned out to be the easiest part, as long as we had someone that spoke Swedish to translate the bank page for us). However, since our US bank is bent on making sure that if our ATM card is stolen no one could empty our account there is a daily limit for ATM withdrawals. So we would have to withdraw some money and wait 24 hours to withdraw more, rinse and repeat as necessary. We asked the customer service folks if they could give us a temporary increase in the amount, but they couldn't do it unless we wanted to upgrade to a high roller account. Basically they have our money and don't want us to use it. Sure that's how banks work, but it still sucks. Anyway, it took a few days to get the money out of America and into Sweden. Blah.

In other news...

There is this European music competition called Eurovision (that's convenient, but why call it vision if it's about music, Euroaudio would be more appropriate no? Or an awesome stereo.) So each country has these long drawn out competitions American Idol style where each week some bands/singers compete to represent their respective countries at Eurovision, in Belgrade this year. The competition here in Sweden is on this show called Melodyfestival 2008, and it's a pretty silly show where 8 groups compete each week and half are eliminated, blah blah blah. Why do I bring this up you ask? For one, this is what Ragen and her colleagues discuss at coffee breaks - mostly her colleagues, we haven't watched it before this week. And B - there was this band on it called the Nordmen I think and the only way I could describe them is to say that if songs paint pictures, then there song described "Van Art," chock full of dragons and Valkyries and viking ships. Sweet. Needless to say they advanced past the first round this week.

And in other music news... there are a lot of commercials here for The Cardigans Greatest Hits cd. My first thought, and I'm sure most of yours, was "the Cardigans had enough songs for a 'Greatest Hits' cd?" Now most people remember "Lovefool" and a few people remember "My Favourite Game," but there were others? Actually it has just come to my attention that The Cardigans are Swedish. Now these commercials start to make sense. Ok well I guess that maybe makes them number 2 on my list of favorite Swedish bands - which looks like this:

1) The Hives

2) The Cardigans

3) Abba

4) "Van Art" guys

5) and maybe Ace of Base?

(Also, cds/dvds/videogames are all really expensive here. Just thought you should know.)

And speaking of "Van Art" here is our week in pictures:

Another American favorite. This time it's American #1 Pan Pizza. It's just ham and cheese and sauce. Makes me long for the days of hanging out in New York city, drinking some Chocolate Banana soda, watching American Idol, before getting ready to go bowling back in the New World. Notice the picture of the baseball in the background.

People have asked what the weather has been like while we've been here. For the most part it's ranged from the low 30's to the mid 40's, with a couple days in the low 50's. It's been pretty gray and drizzly most of the time, kind of like Seattle. But it has snowed twice. Here's a picture of the first time.
Just keeping it real.

People have been worried that I wouldn't know what to do with myself until I find some work. So I decided to resume a hobby that I had started I don't know how many times and do something constructive so I've decided to learn the guitar. I saw this blue one in the window of a music shop downtown, and I knew that my wife would approve of it.

When in Rome... we just had to get and put together (it looks simple in this picture but actually required several complicated folds and wiring/attaching a plug that would fit in our ceiling socket) a Swedish lamp for the living room. It looks like it came from IKEA, but it didn't.