Cribs: Stockholm

After two long months, we finally got an apartment! We are located on an island called Lidingö immediately east of Stockholm. The landlord actually said we could have the apartment a month ago, but it took another month for the rental association to approve us. We are living in what is called a "bostadsrätt", which is a building where people buy membership in the building association to give them the right to live there. Because you are buying a portion of the building, and not a particular apartment, you do not technically own the apartment you live in, which means the building association actually retains the rights to determine who can and can't live there.

To get to work from our new apartment, Kevin takes a small local train that goes around the south side of Lidingö to Stockholm, then takes the subway from there to where he works. There are a few restaurants and a hardware store within walking distance, and we can take the train or a bus to the next little village to go grocery shopping. It seems to be a great apartment in a good area, so it all turned out well in the end.

Skiing in Stockholm

As you might expect, skiing and ice skating are popular winter activities in our neck of the woods, but you might be surprised by how easy it is to go skiing right here in the middle of the city:



We have not gone skiing or ice skating ourselves yet, but Kevin will definitely be doing some skiing in April when his whole company takes a weekend trip to some secret location in Europe.

Our search for an apartment continues without success yet, but despite that we have started to get used to living in Sweden. We have made a number of friends, Kevin's new job is going well, and we get better at Swedish every day. We make a point to speak only Swedish with Melissa's family, and Kevin speaks as much Swedish as possible at work.

A Nature Documentary

The past few days have been dominated by the apartment hunt, and today was no different. First thing this morning, we took a short trip from Stockholm Central down to Årsta to look at the loveliest apartment we have seen so far. Thank goodness we have more or less adjusted to the new time zone!

I don`t want to say too much and risk jinxing it--our chances of getting the place are based on the friends of the current tenants deciding not to take the lease--but the place is new, clean, adorable, and situated between all the public transit connections a person could want and a clear and quiet field to walk around in nature. Watch our newest video to see more!

Our First Two Days: Apartments and Person Numbers

I have one week in Sweden before I start my job, so Melissa and I plan to use our free time to get ourselves registered with the state and search for an apartment. We have been staying at Melissa's aunt and uncle's house outside of Stockholm since we arrived, but obviously we want to find our own place as soon as possible.

Finding an apartment in Stockholm is very different from finding one in the United States. First, most people rent apartments "second hand," which is basically the same thing as subletting. Because of this, most leases are less than a year in length, so you end up switching apartments frequently. If you want to get an apartment "first hand," you have to get in a queue, and you might not get an apartment this way for 8 years or longer.

We went into Stockholm to register ourselves with the Swedish tax authority, Skatteverket, which was pretty fast and easy, but now we have to wait two weeks to receive our official person numbers. Until I have a person number, I can't open a back account or get a cell phone, so it is an important thing to have.

While we were in Stockholm today, we make this video with our new Flip camera... the sound is a little bad at first because of the wind, but it gets better: