The Final Countdown

How Much is Your Dollar Worth? (A LOT)
$1 = 9.152 SEK (down from 9.3 yesterday)
Range during our time in Sweden: 5.8175 - 9.3856
That's a lot of flux, most of it since July. Crazy.

We are in our last couple days here in Sweden.  Monday morning we are catching a flight from Stockholm-Arlanda (subject of a new airport related reality show here) to Kansas City.  We have been making the good-bye dinner rounds the last few days.  Another one tonight and my last football practice tomorrow evening.

The movers (actually just one dude) came to our flat this morning to pack up our stuff and ship it for us back to the states.  We packed up everything, except for one suitcase each, to be shipped by boat and some by air.  The boat shipment will take 6 to 8 weeks to get to us while the air shipment will be 1-2 weeks.  We had to inventory everything that was packed with approximate replacement values for insurance reasons and fill out customs forms.  Good times.  Needless to say that we were finishing that at 2:00 am this morning with the mover coming before 9:00 am. When we moved over here we packed for a year and brought everything we could carry in six suitcases.  Not too bad.  But we made two trips back to the states for a wedding and the holidays, and ended up bringing approximately two extra suitcases of stuff back.  And of course we bought things here like bedding and a few clothes (not as much as you think though, things cost a bit more here).  We were lucky in that we found two furnished places to live so we did not have to buy furniture and dishes, but still. When you pack up your house you realize how much junk you really have.  We went through the same thing last year when we left Pullman, but this was more than I thought for just over a year.  I was impressed by the guy packing everything; it only took him an hour-and-a-half to pack it all up.  Snabb (I don't think that's right but you don't know so why am I even bringing it up).

It has been harder to say goodbye than we originally thought.  We lived in Pullman for 10 years. That's where we met, went to college, watched two Rose Bowl teams and two NCAA tournament teams, tailgated, played in the snow, never had classes cancelled for snow, earned our degrees, earned our graduate degrees, worked, began careers, made some really good friends, it's where I really got to know and be closer to my two younger brothers, and it's where we met most of the people that read this blog.  And that was difficult but because it is college town which is by definition transitory, and we stayed long enough to see a lot of our friends leave first (plus we left during the winter break so there really were fewer people to say goodbye to).  But I'm not sure that saying goodbye to Sweden hasn't turned out to be more difficult.  I mean we love Pullman, to me that really is what I consider home, but after 10 years it was time to move on.  I was working for WSU in the administration in an important position but because I went to school there and was still playing intramurals with my brothers and friends it seemed almost that I was still a student and not a professional and I needed to move on to really "grow up."  Well I can say that moving from your comfort zone to a country where you don't speak the language will make you grow up fast. Ragen loved her job here and had awesome colleagues, nej, friends who were so helpful in finding us a place to live before we got here and navigating life in Sweden.  Friends who are still helping us out as we are leaving like taking us to the airport on Monday.  I know that it would have been a bit tougher on us if wasn't for Tess  and Yezica (enjoy Africa), Sanna (you too) and Andreas, Emma, Elke, Fredric, Arnd, Birgetta (I think), and Linda.  Thanks to Sarah and Åsa for letting us live in your great apartments, we hope you both enjoy Australia. We are completely indebted to you guys and I know there is no way can really pay you back but you are always welcome to stay with us in St. Joe, a real destination for Swedes. 

For me my time with the 86'ers is something I will remember for the rest of my life.  The fact that the players and coaches welcomed me in, literally from out of the stands, was great.  Plus people listened to me at practice like I knew what I was talking about.  There was real improvement in the guys I worked with and I think I made an impact with them all outside of football as well.  And all this with these guys using a second language. I think I may actually be good at this kind of thing and definitely feel more enriched as a person having done so.  I will be seriously considering teaching and coaching when we get to St. Joe because of this time.  There are too many guys to thank all of them by name but I wanted to say thanks for letting me hang out and giving me something to do while I was here, especially Bodin, Andreas, Edvin, Frisk, Anders, Daniel, Jonas, and Coach.  And I hope Andreas and Edvin both stick with it so that I can have a lasting contribution to the club.  And I hope Fabian, Alex, Eric, and Jonathon make the U-19 national team so I can see you guys play in Ohio this summer.  And make sure you guys support Sarah and the women's national team.

Well I think we passed the point of this being a sappy Oscar winner speech or something but you all get the idea.  We had the time of our lives here and are counting the days until we can come back for Ragen's conference in August 2010 and spend a couple weeks catching up with everyone.  I would suggest anyone who has not been to Sweden to come see it.  It is a beautiful country with great people who are more than happy to speak English.  They like salty licorice here and pear ciders. And a final CiS cultural fact #1: Crocs (the shoes) here are referred to as "Foppas" after former NHL great Peter Forsberg (pronounced forsh-bury I believe) who has an endorsement deal with them here. That's right, I'm here to educate.

We also want to say thanks to our family for supporting us and understanding why we would want to move so far away for awhile.  Thanks to Ryan and Kim for coming to see us over you honeymoon.  The rest of you guys are jerks.

Anyway thanks for following us on this adventure and please keep coming back to see how we are doing in St. Joe.  Also because everyone here wants us to start a Facebook page and the lawyer in me says that's not a great idea (although I do blog like an idiot) look for Jax to get his own Facebook page, soonish... Now enjoy this awesome photo montage, and for added cheese factor hum Green Day's Hope You Had the Time of Your Life while you look at it.