Winter Wonderland

How Much Is Your Dollar Worth?
$1 = 7.8918 SEKFirst things first... GO COUGS!! It wasn't a pretty game but a win over the Fuskies is the highlight of any season really. Especially in dramatic fashion. If you weren't in Pullman this weekend, and CougsInSwedeland obviously wasn't, but our man in the street said the huge mob that rushed the field took over downtown en masse. It doesn't matter what the rest of the season looked like, but on one afternoon it was if the Cougs had just won a national title. Hopefully it carries over to the islands this week against Hawaii.

Meanwhile we have just experienced a winter storm Sweden style. In the last post I put up a picture taken on Saturday morning. Here are some pictures from last night. For the most part Saturday was a nice day, the skies were pretty clear. In the evening it started snowing again but not much additional accumulation. When we woke up Sunday there was a little more snow on the ground but not much else happened during the day. That evening the wind started to pick up and it started to snow harder. I think it was the windiest day we have had here, and it is pretty windy up here. In fact there were hurricane force winds recorded less than a hundred miles south of us in and around the archipelago. The snow started to pick up that night and snowed all day on Monday. It was almost like a blizzard from Sunday night into Monday. I would say we have about a foot of snow, more in places due to drift. The bus schedule is all messed up, buses have gone into ditches, found themselves stuck after stops, and getting caught in an intersection as they try to take a corner. Craziness ensued. Not really. So we thought we would put up some pictures to show off.

Bicycles in downtown. Some of these are cleared off because people actually do ride through town on them. In the street because the sidewalks aren't always cleared off. But sharing the roads with Buses that occasionally slip and slide, I don't know if that's an idea I can get behind.

Make sure to check on your cars often other wise you should bring a shovel with you if you want to go anywhere.

Some bicycles parked in front of our apartment building. Unfortunately we just found out that we will be unable to rent our apartment for the next year. Since we are heading back to the states for the holidays on the 16th and our lease ends before Christmas, we only have a couple weeks to find a new apartment and move our stuff before we go. Or we could return to Sweden in 2009 without a place to stay. That would kind of suck. We looked at a couple ads last night for some swish apartments in downtown. They cost a little more than our current place but some are a lot fancier. Fortunately people seem eager to rent to young professional couple like ourselves as over half of the people we contacted last night have responded.

Star lamps are pretty traditional Christmas decorations and most homes and storefronts have them hanging in the windows. What we were surprised to learn is that red, white, and blue are traditional Swedish Christmas colors, much like the red, white, and green back home. As a bonus we now have some 4th of July decorations when we move back.

Basil. Also note how much snow we have on our windowsill. A lot.

Finally a picture taken this morning to compare to the picture from Saturday morning. Notice the difference, and also the windowsill snow in the foreground.

GO COUGS!!!!

How Much Is Your Dollar Worth?
$1 = 8.3618 SEK (Now's the time to come visit if you want to stretch that dollar a little more!)

What we woke up to this morning!

A quick update today to commemorate the big day. The battle for 9th place. The 100th Apple Cup! Or as some people have referred to it, the Crapple Cup. Anyway we take the snow this morning and the scheduled cold weather in Pullman, as an a good luck sign and hope of a new Snow Bowl. We'll be watching here in Sweden cheering along with the rest of you. So as always... GO COUGS!!!!

Election Fever... Catch It!!!

How Much Is Your Dollar Worth?

$1 = 7.6107 SEK

Ok folks it is finally here. ELECTION DAY!!! Get out and VOTE!!!

(Those of you who know us know which way we lean... HINT we are strongly PRO-POLAR BEAR)

Please note that the Swedish state television station has crews in DC and other parts of the US to cover the election. We are personally planning to have people over to watch two Swedish comedians cover it. Should be fun. But needless to say that the whole world is watching this thing. Even if we have to stay up all night to follow it. But what happens today does have an impact on the entire world, and for the most part the rest of the world really really perfers one guy to the other.

VOTE OR DIE!

CHOOSE OR LOSE!

DO YOUR DUTY!

INSERT OTHER OBNOXIOUS VOTING SLOGAN GEARED TOWARDS THE YOUNG FOLKS!

(update 10:15 pm Sweden - Starbucks is giving cups of coffee if you tell them you voted, and Krispy Kreme gives you a free donut if you show them your I Voted sticker, just so you know).

Of Snow and Coleslaw

How Much Is Your Dollar Worth?

$1 = 7.7097 SEK

Sunset here in Uppsala, at 4:00

Winter is here! Winter is here! We had our first snow Friday afternoon. It was only a dusting and pretty wet stuff but it lasted a couple days in the shadows. I think it is now official that winter is here. Now is when Swedes like to get out of the country for awhile before the darkness and the rain sets in. Nice.

In other news I had an opportunity to work in a local Irish pub here in Uppsala on Thursday night. Long time readers might recognize it as the pub we celebrated St. Patrick's day in. I got to spend a shift in the kitchen that night to see if it would be a good fit. So this is an Irish bar, the owner is Syrian perhaps. The head chef might be as well and doesn't speak English, not a good sign for me, only Swedish and Farsi perhaps. My mentor for the night was born in Sweden and his family is Syrian. Other employees out front were from New Zealand, Ireland, Canada, and Sweden. A pretty global place to say the least.

My first task was to make coleslaw. I walked in the kitchen and the head chef had shredded up a couple heads of cabbage and a few bags of carrots into a large Rubbermaid-like storage container. Then he "added" a Costco size container of mayonnaise and a bottle of molasses or other syrup like substance. Then it was my time to shine. I got to mix it all up... with my hands. After scrubbing up of course. I dug in, elbow deep, pulling and mixing and squishing coleslaw. And let me tell you that stuff is cold after some time. My fingers were freezing and were getting a little numb. But I'm glad to know that I can make three or four days worth of coleslaw.

After that it was a brief tour of the kitchen and waiting for the first orders to come in. The first things I was shown how to make were burgers and club sandwiches, which they call "chicken bacons," to avoid confusion I suppose. Although its not really a club sandwich, I mean it does have the three pieces of bread and some chicken breast and bacon. But they don't cut into four pieces like they should. For shame. Well I'm sure you can tell where I'm going with this. It was fun for the first couple hours, but then it was slow, and then the dinner rush, and then then slow again. I must have made like 25 chicken bacons and well over a dozen burgers. Along with a couple orders of Guinness-battered fish and chips and nachos I think covered it. Six hours of that and then 20 minutes of cleaning. Not too bad.

I went in and talked to the owner at the end and he told me that if I wanted to come in a couple more times, work for food and drinks and tips (ha ha, people don't really tip in Sweden, and who ever tips the kitchen anyway) and then he'll decide if he wants to offer me a job. At that point I told him that I had to be honest and I didn't think it was the job for me. He asked if it was too hard and I said, "yeah, too hard... let's go with that." But he was cool about it and realized that not everyone likes that kind of stuff, so he told me the next time I came in, two beers on him.

And so the saga continues...

OH, AND DON'T FORGET TO VOTE TOMORROW!!

In Sweden they are just called fisk.

How much is your dollar worth?

$1 = 7.7353 SEK (down from a high of 8.2 earlier this week).

FALL HERE IN UPPSALA

We are back again with some news finally. Hooray! Where to start…

We finally heard that our visas have been renewed for another year. As you may recall we reapplied for the visas back in March or April after we figured out that we had to have proof that we would be staying more than a year to get our person numbers. We were told a couple months later after we had not heard anything that the migration office was backlogged and they would not even consider our application until there were two months left on our current ones. We purchased plane tickets back to the US for the holidays and would not be arriving until after our current visas expired so Ragen sent an email to them to ask when we could expect a decision. The next day they replied and told her that, as a matter of fact, they had decided that day to grant us a renewal. Coincidence?

We had to go to the migration office to get new stamps in our passport. Now one would think that a government office like that may be located closer to downtown with the other government type offices. But you would be wrong. The office was actually located on a back road in the industrial area of Uppsala, by a power plant and behind a place that washes busses and semis, and it was smelly back there. Ragen left work early on Monday so we could go before they closed at 4:00. We got there about 2:30, took our number and sat for the next hour and a half before we gave up and decided to come back the next day, when they opened, at 1:00. Typist Swedish office, only open three days a week for three hours each day. We were seen the next day and it took about 20 minutes for us to get everything taken care of. So now we have person numbers, ID cards, and renewed visas. So everything is taken care of so we can stay another year. The only piece left is me finding a job.

On that front, I did have my first interview about a week ago. I had called up a company that produces wave based power generators. It was a good meeting and I think it went well. They are looking to move into the US market and could use some help navigating the environmental regulations in the US and federal and state permit requirements. They told me they could use someone more “local” and familiar with the system and could probably use me at that point. However, since they do not have any US customers at the moment they didn’t have anything for me at the moment. But I think it was a good meeting, they were very happy to meet with me, which was a first since I’ve been here, and I think it was worth it. In the meantime though, I’m still looking. It’s just a matter of time right?

If you ever wondered what the H and M stand for in H&M

We went to a Halloween party this last weekend that one of my football players was hosting. We met some more nice people that he works with and goes to university with. We had some good conversations; people are very interested in the election next week. Met one guy who works at an insurance company and told me that they are very interested in increasing the diversity of their workforce and can always use more lawyers so once I get into some Swedish classes and improve my language skills he can put in a good word for me then. So I’ve got that going for me.

Speaking of the elections… that bird is crazy. Kind of glad that we are over here and are not being bombarded with all the campaign ads. But we received our ballots a couple weeks ago and filled them out and returned it. So by the time you are reading this, our votes have been cast and counted. Now that we are under a week to go, remember to vote next week.

In cultural news, Halloween is just in its infancy here in Sweden. Most grocery stores and stuff have some costume pieces, mostly masks and witches hats. We found one “costume” shop in town that had a few costumes and lots of wigs and makeup and some other assorted pieces. But nothing like the big costume shops and wide assortment of costumes and decorations you’d find in the big box stores in the states. They don’t have special Halloween costumes and we aren’t really sure if we will even get trick-or-treaters on Friday. We decided to represent at this Halloween party last week by going as “greeks.” Not the Socrates type but Alpha Kappa Iota Sigma Delta types. This also doubled as a good excuse to go to IKEA (pronounced EE-KAY-UH… I’m here to educate) and get another set of bed sheets. We are going to another party this weekend I think and since we are getting to help decorate and stuff we are going to do it old school. Since most of these people have never been to a haunted house and stuff we are going to do the whole cold spaghetti, peeled grapes kind of shenanigans that we are used to from grade school. Good stuff.

On Friday we are planning to have some of Ragen’s colleagues over for a scary movie night which will be fun. Speaking of scary movies, there is a new one out here in Sweden and in select US cities. It’s a Swedish vampire movie called Låt den rätte komma in (Let the Right One In and already slated for a US remake in 2010). We are going to go see it, even without English subtitles, and we will let you know. From the trailers it looks pretty good, with some stark visuals… very bright lighting compared to your usual darkly lit type of move. But as we are starting to find out here, when it gets dark here, it gets very dark. And a lot of things are painted with some bright colors to reflect the light, so lots of sharp contrasts here.

So until next time…

Darkness falls down town, at 7:30

As Summer turns to Fall

How Much Is Your Dollar Worth?

$1 = 6.6361 SEK

I thought I’d post something about my first season coaching.  For those of you just tuning in, I stumbled into a little bit of a football oasis here in the land of tall blonde people.  And by football I mean the kind that one where we use our hands and run into each other over and over again to gain a larger piece of lawn.  Fun for all ages.  I signed up as an assistant coach with the Uppsala 86’ers, an American Football club here in Uppsala.  Yep, we’re a real team with uniforms and everything.

 It was fun. I’d never really coached before was afraid these guys wouldn’t take me too seriously but there seems to be this idea since I’m an American I must know way more than everyone else.  Anyway, I started out working with the safeties and cornerbacks because that’s what I knew best from way back.  It was a good group, a couple guys have played for a few years, one guy played at a high school in Alabama as a foreign exchange student, and a couple younger guys who had only played for a year or two and were part of the senior team because we didn’t have enough guys to field a U19 team. 

The season got off to a rough start.  We lost the two games and then won three of the next four. I missed two of the wins to go back to the States in June.  That led to the July break.  As mentioned on these pages before, everyone in Sweden moves to their little lakeside shed/cabin for the month of July to swat at mosquitoes, sail their dinghies, go for a swim, and eat open face sandwiches and some fish, drink some beers and Schnapps (called snaps here).  And usually get a bit of a tan (not everyone is as pale here as you’d think but winter is fast approaching).  We won the first game after the break and then went into sort of a tailspin.  Early in the season the defense was carrying the offense, and then as the season progressed the offense was carrying the defense. And unfortunately for the last couple games we were handily dismantled by the top two teams in the league when both the offense and defense started to take a break. D’oh!  Here are some pictures from our last game at Örebro.  An ugly loss considering we had four take-aways (but slightly more give-aways).  Also included is a video of one of my getting an interception, slightly off-camera.

The season runs from May to the end of August and we play each team in our league twice.  Our team is currently in the second highest level, Division 1. We finished in the middle of the pack, 4-6, not bad but not great.  We had some really good moments and we had some real bad ones too.  Our defense was very good early on but didn’t finish well.  Injuries and dedication hurt us on both sides of the ball.  They may play football but they live it like us Yanks.  But some of the young guys who would usually not be on the team grew up a lot over the year.  A couple of them really impressed me in our second to last game against the team that ended up winning our league.  Late in the game we were getting blown out and three of the smallest guys on the team volunteered to be on the front line of kickoff return team.  That’s the attitude we need to build on for next season.

We are now in the offseason and all the coaches got together the other night to discuss plans for next season.  It was in Swedish but you can tell when everyone is talking about trying to get guys into the weight room.  Swedish is a weird language.  It’s an old language but they don’t have words for many of the more modern English terms.  So it’s a little off-putting when you are listening to someone talk in the melodic, sing-song, kind of Swedish way and they through in something like “rudimentary” or some phrase like “big deal.”  Weird.  Tomorrow night we have our end of the season party, and offseason workouts begin in a couple weeks.  I think at this point I’m still planning on coaching next season but I’ll go through the workouts too and get into shape in case I decide to play next year.  I mean where else am I going to get the opportunity to run into other guys over and over again for a couple hours?

Finally!

How Much Is Your Dollar Worth?

$1 = 6.7565 SEK

(It's really going up)

Ok I know I have been neglecting the blog lately.  My apologies.  Here is the long promised slideshow from our trip to Dublin.  It was a good trip as I mentioned before.  The slideshow has some more of our touristy pics from places like the Guinness Storehouse and the Old Jameson Distillery.  And yes you get sample beverages at both places.  You can get a complimentary pint, or half pint, from Guiness and a drink from Jameson.  Either on the rocks, or with coke (which we learned is from NY and also Madrid), with cranberry juice (originated in Dublin), or Apple juice (Germany).  Good stuff.  And both are pretty interesting tours.

As for what's been going on with us since then, we finally got ID cards!!!! We can now rent movies!! Now we can fully integrate into Swedish culture.  All it took was 6+ months, and the head of the finance department of SLU to call up the President of the bank and gave him the what for.  And then we went down to the bank with Ragen's boss to open a new account and purchase our ID cards for 350 SEK each.  Lovely.  So that's kind of important.

The 86ers season ended without a trip to the playoffs, more on that later.  We listened to the Cougs get beat on in Seattle and Pullman, and watched them get beat on in Texas.  Good times.

I still get to play with the dogs and looking for other work.  Oh, and it is getting darker and colder already.

So, until next time, which will be a lot sooner than last time.