The Family Pub Crawl

How Much Is Your Dollar Worth?
$1 = 6.3794 SEK

One of the highest points in months. I don't know if this means the US economy is starting to improve or if Europe is starting to feel the impact of mortgage and credit issues in the States. I know the Irish economy is heading towards a recession after enjoying a ten year boon, or "Celtic Tiger" if you will.
So we are back from tropical Dublin. In the name of full disclosure, we have been back for about a week and a half but I also brought a cold back with me so I am just now feeling like talking about it. Thanks for understanding.

I figured we'd start out wit a quick post with a few pictures of our "Extended Family Pub Crawl 2008," and follow that up with a slideshow of other pictures we took from our week in Dublin. Now you will be able to tell from the pictures but it was kind of gray and rainy while we were there. But what we were not expecting was how hot it was. It was in the mid 80's everyday we were there, and combined with the rain and humidity made for a very tropical experience. We had been informed before we left, thanks Ry, that Dublin has an ideal climate for palm trees. And lots of people had them growing in their gardens. So there you go, you learn something new everyday.

These first couple of pictures are from McGowans of Phibsboro. Ragen and I braved the rain one night to find this place and have some dinner. Nice place, huge bar area with different levels and the restaurant area had pictures of America movie stars which I didn't quite understand but hey, whatever brings people in right. The bartender was one Patrick McGowan and was a nice enough guy and gave a brief history of the bar. You can find some more of the history and some pictures on their website (http://www.mcgowans.ie/). Be warned though that it also plays the Cheers theme so don't have the sound up too loud. Also, they use Ocean Spray cranberry juice for mixing and serving.


O'Brien is one of the family names in Ragen's family so we had to post some pictures. O'Brien is a much more common name in Ireland than McGowan so it turned up a little more often. There is this chain of gourmet sandwiche shoppes throughout Dublin so here is a picture of one. We also found an O'Briens liquour store and of course
a pub.


Here is a picture from the front of the pub. Given the amount of rain in Dublin and hat they don't let people smoke inside, every pub has these awenings in the front which make it very difficult to get a good picture of the outside. That being said, this pub was on a busy corner so taking a picture and avoiding traffic was a fun game.



This is a sign that hangs in front of O'Briens and includes the family crest with the three lions. CiS Cultural Fact about Dublin #1: they don't use an apostrophe "S" when they write something in the possessive. Interesting I know.


A picture of some of the fancy stain glass they have at the pub. O'Briens was an interesting place. It had the nice wood, cramped bar space in the front, a slightly more open second bar place with seating for lunch to the side, and a swanky, recently rennovated upstairs dining area/lounge with a fireplace and flatscreen tvs, where we enjoyed part of the Olympic opening ceremonies while dining on a "burrito" and clubsandwich for lunch.

Now Fitzgerald is not officialy part of the family names, at least as far as we know, but we knew that Chaise and Megan would probably appreciate seeing some pictures. Fitzgeralds is right downtown near the river and the main shopping areas of Dublin. It comes complete with a nattily attired, crazy or possibly drunk, old Irish guy arguing with himself out front (you can see him leaning on the sandwich board). This is where we enjoyed some traditional Irish pub fare of fish and chips and shephards pie. It was allright, although the fish had no flavor to it. We also tried a "lumpy bumpy" for dessert. Which was this chocolate and vanilla cheesecake/icecream cake sort of concoction. Which was pretty good. So we proudly declare Lumpy Bumpy as CougsInSwedelands (note no apostrophe) official dessert of Dublin. Lovely.

Here is a mirror advertising Old Fitzgerald bourbon whiskey. From Kentucky, found in Dublin. It really is a small world.

Heat Wave

How Much is Your Dollar Worth?
$1 = 6.0739 SEK


Now that we are past the summer solstice it is now getting dark here at night again. It's still light out after 10 pm but around midnight it is now dark enough that we can see stars in the sky again. For the last two-and-a-half months we could not see the stars at night because the sky was never dark enough. Kind of weird when you think about it.

We also just finished up with a big heat wave here. This past weekend the mercury topped out over 90 degrees (F) here. I know that's not a big deal coming over here from Pullman where a good part of July and August and even September can be that hot, but it's slightly more humid here and it is really unusual up here where the average temp in July is only 61.9 degrees (F) so that's kind of a big swing. We bought a fan for the flat partake in the Swedish custom of enjoying ice cream to combat the oppressive heat.

Still don't have ID cards... super.

The other big news is that on Saturday we are leaving for Dublin for a week. Ragen has a conference there and I get to tag along. We're pretty excited. We planned a couple extra days so we can tour around. So expect plenty of pictures in the next few posts.

In other news:

-Still looking for work. With the country taking July off it's hard to find anyone to. So we'll see what happens when we back from Ireland. On the plus side I did get to spend a week as her lab tech with the dogs. We weren't actually working on her project but somebody else's. Still it was fun. Hold the dog, let the dog go, get the dog, hold the dog, let the dog go... It was fun. I may get to help out again when we get her project going.

-I guess we don't have any other news really. Our phones work. Getting ready to fly to Ireland this summer. A Lufthansa strike may affect our flights back to Sweden next week, but since we are flying on Lufthansa operated by SAS, who knows.

-Football gets going again after we get back. That will be fun. We have four games left and hopefully the playoffs so at least we got that going for us.

-The Julia Roberts trend seems to have subsided as well as the Steven Segal one. Richard Gere may be up for the crown now but he's not nearly as interesting as Steven Segal and the characters he plays... "He's a take-no-prisoners lawyer out to protect the environment," "He's a take-no-prisoners shaman out to protect the environment," "He's a take-no-prisoners elementary school lunch lady out to save the environment." Come on, that guy can play anything.

-Also, Apple-Lime-Elderflower cider is quite tasty.

So that's it for now. We'll try to say more from the Emerald Isle. Later

The Mobiles Arrive

How Much Is Your Dollar Worth?

$1 = 5.9632 SEK

Hooray! We finally have cell phones, oops... mobile phones, again! So finally the phone saga is behind us. We hope. You've read it on this site before that we decided to order a couple phones from the States on eBay. We found a couple of LG Shines, pictured here, from a company listed as being in Hollywood. Doesn't get more American than Hollywood eh?. The prices were ok, buying a phone straight up is not exactly cheap but still less than they are here, and the shipping was good for two phones shipped to Europe. They came in a couple days earlier than we expected which was even better.

We open the box and look inside and the phones look pretty sweet. Very "shiny." Ha Ha. The company was kind enough to ship European chargers to us so we can plug them in here, plus adapters for North America so that we can still use them when we get back to the States. Looking at the manual you could see Cyrillic letters and so we thought, oh, maybe they sent us European phones and so the Russian or Cyrillic based language is just one of many in the manual. We open the phones to turn them on and notice that it has some Cyrillic letters on the keys too. (Plus English). The manuals turn out to be almost completely devoid of English except for the last two pages - which only told us how to use the camera and mp3 player on the phone. I casually take a look at the boxes, which are very cool by the way, and notice that the phones are Ukrainian. Super. So because we could not get phones here in Sweden, we order phones from the States, which really came from the Ukraine. (The Ukraine or is it just Ukraine? I guess it's Ukraine but doesn't The Ukraine sound better?) It's not like we found some really cool phones in Ukraine that we couldn't live without and decided we must have them. We bought these from the States, payed to have them shipped, payed taxes to customs for bringing them into the country, only to learn that maybe we could have had them shipped from a much closer location. D'oh! Obviously cautious readers would be leery of how these Ukrainian phones came to us from Hollywood, and probably with good reason, but fortunately they seem to work fine and so I'm going to say "Hey, it just makes for another interesting chapter in the book."

Here are a couple of left over pictures from our 4th of July celebration. There's a picture of the flag cake we made. It was quite a hit and since then Ragen and I have been asked to provide cake for our large group gatherings. Last night in fact we brought another cake to a welcome party for a couple more researchers over from Bristol to work on the dog program.

Here we have a picture of some of the Swedish team playing Kubb. It's a Swedish lawnbowling/lawndart kind of game involving throwing sticks at blocks and a king. Typically alcohol is involved. We ended up playing Swedes vs. the rest of the world. Look for it soon at a family bbq in your neighborhood.

And here is the British flag that flew over our 4th of July celebration, because Ragen's boss is English and she was hosting. Our flag cake was 10 times cooler and more memorable. People still talk about it. USA! USA!

Taking July Off

How Much Is Your Dollar Worth?
$1 = 5.9673 SEK



We finally had our first visitors from the New World when Ry and Kim came to see us on their European Adventure. We showed them everything that Sweden had to offer, that we could fit into four and a half days. We took them down to Skokloster, a 17th century Baroque castle on lake Mälaren (between Uppsala and Stockholm). It was pretty cool. You can take a boat there from Uppsala. There are some pictures here in the slide show. When the guy who had it built died it was turned into a living museum by his family so it's full of some really cool old pieces that are a couple hundred years old. Here's a link to the Encyclopedia Britannica of our day... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skokloster

We also tried some restaurants that we haven't been too before. Some pretty good places. O'Conner's, the Irish Pub where we spent St. Patrick's day, was really good and I think that is a place where we can hang out quite a bit. The owner is pretty cool and said that he would look into stocking some root beer at the bar as well. Sounds silly to ask about root beer but they don't have it here and it is one of those weird things that you miss when it's not available. I guess it would be one of those "taken for granted" things that people talk about so much.

We also took them down to Stockholm to show them the "old town," Gamla Stan. Lots of cool things to see there and take pictures of, including the royal palace. We also got on some "Hop-on, Hop-off" boat tours to go around the Stockholm waterways and over to the Vasa museum. The Vasa museum contains the Vasa warship, built in the 1600's and sank around 10 minutes into it's maiden voyage. It sat in Stockholm harbor for 333 years before it was salvaged and restored and made into a museum. It's probably the finest museum ever built on the topic of sunken Swedish warships. I would strongly recommend it to any one visiting Stockholm. And as always, for more information on this topic, consult your local library... or this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_museum

Anyway it was a great visit and we can't wait for our next visitors to come out.

Moving to Sweden in 14,873 Easy Steps...*

How Much Is Your Dollar Worth
$1 = 5.9871 SEK
A lot of fluctuation lately
*And 6 flippin' complicated ones. That is what it's starting to feel like here. Just when we think we have everything figured out... they add another hurdle. Sweet. Here's a picture of the train station in Stockholm for your viewing pleasure, and yes that is a McDonald's at the very back.

Previously on CougsinSwedeland...

We had received our personnummers, changed our status with our bank, began looking for mobile phones, told we had to get our id cards at the bank, told by the bank to get a form from the tax office that says we are married, go to bank, bring passport photos, get ID card.

Now...

Ragen took a half day off of work so we could go and get our id cards figured out. So we started at the tax office and expected a hassle. Fortunately there wasn't really a line and the women we met with was helpful. It helped that Ragen looked up the name of the form that we needed. So we were in and out of there in like 20 minutes. Not bad. We're feeling good. Going to the bank. People are pretty friendly. No problem.

We get to the bank. The young woman helping us goes through our paperwork, she says we have everything we need but seemed a little concerned. She got another person who we had met with before. That woman told us that, again, we have all the right paperwork and all we need now is our Swedish relative to verify that we are who we say we are. WHAT? We explained that we had brought a Swedish person to vouch for us when we opened the account and the guy that helped us at the bank that day said that we wouldn't need someone to vouch for us again. The woman said that she was very sorry but the rules are very specific and that we would need our Swedish relative or someone from Ragen's employer (SLU) if the employer banks with our bank, Swedbank, although that wouldn't help me out since I'm not employed by SLU and having have my spouse vouch for me wouldn't work. Ok that could work, but SLU banks with Nordea not Swedbank so that doesn't work. The woman said she was very sorry and wants us to stay customers with the bank but suggested that we might have to get an account with Nordea. (Banks can issue id cards but police cannot, although they used to, because the police cannot verify you... a comforting thought to say the least). Otherwise we may be out of luck. Ragen went to work and I went home... defeated and broken.

Ragen told her coworkers, they couldn't believe it, and her boss is trying to figure out what SLU do can for us. On her way home from work Ragen stopped by Nordea to see if she could open an account. They asked if she had a personnummer, she said yes. They then asked if she had a Swedish ID card and she said she didn't and that she was under the impression that she could get one from Nordea after becoming a customer. The person at the bank said she could not get an account without an ID card. Ragen reiterated that she is there to open an account so she could get an ID card. Catch 22 time everybody!! So at this point it looks like no ID cards for us, unless maybe SLU can open an account at Nordea for Ragen without an ID card and then she can get one. And when I go for job interviews I need to ask potential employers if they do their banking with Swedbank, which will be my determining factor when deciding which of the hundreds of job offers I'll be receiving to accept.

So where does that leave us now? Well we are without ID cards for the foreseeable future. Well you might ask what do you really need an ID card for anyway. I'd tell you that you need an ID card for going to the doctor (for exams and physicals, preventative type stuff not emergencies because although you technically need the ID card in the emergency room they tend to look the other way and accept passports), to open accounts at Nordea, to enter into contracts for cell phones and such, if we are ever in a car accident or questioned by the police, for tax help at the tax office apparently (although they have no problem withholding taxes without ID cards), and for the really important things like renting a DVD. Also that probably means I can't play for the 86'ers because I need a medical license (like a physical) that says I'm ok to play.

On the phone front...
We've been to several different stores and told that in order to get a contract, and thus cheaper phones, we need Swedish ID cards, or to be Swedish citizens, or to live in Sweden for two years with our personnummer and ID cards, one guy did offer to take Ragen's offer of employment and send it to the home office and they would decide if we were a flight risk or not. So how did we resolve this conundrum? We ordered some unlocked phones off of eBay in the states and they should be here in the next couple weeks. So there Swedish mobile phone companies. You'll get no business from these Americans! We'll spend our Capitalistic funds (converted from Socialist funds) back in the land of our birth and help spurn a sluggish economy rather than support the power hungry grab of the evil mobile phone conglomerates of Scandinavia. Word.

Stay Strong. Until next time.

Tales from the tax office...

How Much Is Your Dollar Worth?
$1 = 6.0673 SEK

A lot of things have happened for us in the past couple weeks so I thought I would break it down and cover a couple topics at a time, in no particular order.

First of all, a couple weeks ago, like the next to last week of May, Ragen and her lab group went out into the Swedish countryside to ride Icelandic horses. An Icelandic horse is a little horse (short legs) with kind of a 'fro for a mane. Ragen is third from the right in the red jacket. She said it was a lot of fun but it ended up being pretty wet and muddy out there, as you can tell from the picture. Where was I you ask? Actually I had football practice so I missed out. But at least it didn't rain on me. Another thing you may not realize when visiting a foreign country is that when you return to the US, as we did for Ry and Kim's wedding, you have to declare whether you have been on farm or pastureland during your visit as you go through US customs. I did not know that but we did and explained that we left the clothes that Ragen wore back in Sweden. The agent seemed satisfied but did take the moose, or maybe it was elk, sausage that we bought in the Arlanda (Stockholm) airport. So the moral of the story is that you really can't bring meat back to the states with you from vacation, or for vacation in our case. I would label that as CiS Cultural fact #4, but it really is more of a US cultural fact than as Svenska one, which maybe I can justify as saying that the Swedish life has rubbed off on me to the degree that I find the ways of the new world confusing and terrifying. Or maybe I can call it CiS Travel Tip #4 instead. Yeah, I'll do that.

IN OTHER NEWS...

The Friday before we left for the states we finally got word that we were granted Swedish Personnummers (I don't really know how to spell it at this point so that is what I'm going to say it is) at about 5:00 pm that day. We really couldn't take advantage of that before we left so we had to wait until we got back here to go to the bank and get Visa debit cards instead of ATM cards and sign up for some cell, I mean, mobile phones. Last Monday we were able to go in and update the bank so we could get the Visa cards; they said it would be up to two weeks but they arrived in three days... the fastest anything has happened here. So the next hurdle to clear was mobile phones.

Ragen and I have decided what kind of phones we wanted to get. The verdict is the new LG Secret (released in Europe, Asia, and South America maybe all on June 8, coming to the US later... suckers). A very stylish and advanced phones for all you technophiles out there, both of you. Personnummers in hand we went to a mobile shop called the Phonehouse which is across the square from our bank. We went in, they had the phone and we got our number for the queue and when it was our turn we spoke with the manager. Now the manager is a lady (Kvinna for your Svenska word for the day... Learning is Fun!!!) in maybe her early to mid 30's. Seems pretty helpful to everyone in the store. Except for us. For some inexplicable reason the lady does not like Ragen and I. She's very curt and unhelpful, not willing to answer questions, I just don't get it. Maybe she doesn't like speaking English or something, but it's weird. Don't let anyone tell you that all Swedes are polite and helpful, it is just not the case, especially when you are trying to get on the bus or stand in line at a convenience store, quite pushy they are.*

We ask the lady how much the phone would cost for a two year plan since we will be staying here that long. The first thing she asks is if we have our ID cards. We did not have those yet, forgot to ask while we were at the bank, and she said in a very curt way that she could not help us and walked away. Previously on CiS, we had gone into the shop when we first arrived and asked about the LG Shine which she had on display and she told us, via our Swedish guide, it was not available. Another time we went in she said she would not help us unless we had personnumers. Next time we go in she'll tell us she cannot help us until we speak Swedish or have become naturalized. Oh bother.

We went back to the bank, found the same person to help us and asked about getting our ID cards (banks are one place you can get them). The kvinna there told us that we needed to go back to the tax office of all places and get a form that said we were married, and then the bank could do the ID card. Apparently the bank does not trust the word of the State of New York that we are married, only Sweden's word will do. So ultimately we have to go back to the tax office, yet again.

After that we looked at a couple other mobile shops and one guy who was helpful asked us if we were Swedish citizens and when we said no he told us that they may need proof that we would be working for two years, so that the company knows they can get their money. I can't blame them for that, at least the dude was helpful enough to call his manager. Later Yezica, pictured on the left of the first picture in the last post, emailed Ragen a link to an online mobile store where we would be good to go with only our personnummers and not all the other rigmarole. We went on the site this weekend to sign up, but it was all in Swedish, and had some things that we couldn't translate on our own, so we will wait until we get the help of a translator. On the plus side, there were no Julia Robert's movies on this weekend.

SMS you later (That's Swedish for text... hej! That can be CiS Cultural fact #4... they say SMS instead of text.)

Oh wait, here's another picture of the Icelandic horses. Ragen's was the one on the left. Now maybe Kristen can leave me alone.

Sverige, Nordman, Julia Roberts, and truck related feelings

How Much Is Your Dollar Worth?
$1 = 6.0754 SEK

We are back in Sweden now, well since Saturday anyway, and back into the midst of Swedish life, (tomorrow is a holiday and marks the time that many people take the next five weeks as their mandatory vacation time, brilliant). Our apologies for no updates but it was a busy two weeks back in the States and we have both felt like we were run over by trucks since we've been back. Two cross country, two trans-Atlantic, and two red eye flights in two weeks will do that I think.

But to celebrate our return we went to a party to watch Sweden, or Sverige in Svenska, play Russia in the last game of Group Play for the Euro Cup. Sweden needed a draw or a win to advance to the tournament portion. Unfortunately somebody forgot to tell the players that because they looked pretty flat and apathetic, remarkable for a team that was carded twice. Russia won 2-0 and that's it for the Swedish national team until the Olympics start. The party was pretty cool. It was hosted in a gym with plenty of beer and burgers and big screens and our "favorite" Swedish band, the Nordman (referred in this space as the "Van Art Guys"). Ragen and I even went out and bought some scarves and tshirts and stuff for watching the game, nothing crazy like these folks though.

Here you can see a couple of the screens they had up and the game projected onto them. The thing started by everyone standing up and singing the Swedish national anthem and some chants and stuff. Prior to kickoff everyone starts singing the base line of Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes. Yeah! Go America! Chalk up another one for US cultural influence! Whoo hoo! That's right up there with the 86ers breaking their huddles the same way we did in high school, and every high school does in the states. The guys ask me what other things they could say and to be honest, I tell them that they could do it in Swedish, and they'll look at me like they never thought of it. Sweet.

Ladies and Gentlemen... the "Van Art Guys"!!!

It's come to our attention that these guys were immensely popular like 10 years ago... and haven't done anything since then. That's probably why they are playing in a gymnasium during a football watching party in front of 1000 people maybe (at least there was before the game, ten minutes after there was maybe 100, including the catering staff). Nothing makes playing in front of 100 people sadder than smoke machines and dramatic lighting.




They only played like 5 songs and were done. Ragen and her friend Yezica, who was a huge fan back in the day, went out to get a picture with them. There were two people at their table to get CD's autographed. The guys asked Ragen if she wanted and autograph but she asked for a picture instead. They thought about it for a second, and agreed, so here you go! Apparently the lead singer (guy on the right) was a big drug user, and Ragen says he wears it. Awesome.


In other news, it no longer gets completely dark. The darkest part of the night is now twilight, the sky is still blue and is too light to see many stars. And by 2 am or so the sun is almost completely up. Good times. By the way, our what time is it picture was taken at 3am. That light is now equivalent to about 1 am.

In Julia Roberts news, including the weeks were were gone, we can now add America's Sweethearts, I Love Trouble, and Mona Lisa Smile. That we are aware of.

Until next time...