swedenusa

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I had such a great time with my coworkers and boss the last couple of days.

These are my coworkers. We stopped for a famous “fika” on our roadtrip down south

It is a new semester! A lot of exciting things are happening in our city. New plans and expansions. We are in the middle of great projects and making our services better. I am thrilled to be part of some of those plans for a while. Sometimes I get so excited I cannot sleep at night.

My bed was comfy at the B&B yet my mind was speeding through all the new ideas. I had a hard time falling asleep because I felt like I was going to forget all the stuff I was thinking of.

To kick off and to build our team we went to Skåne! Yes, where my soul is free and my thoughts are clear. We went to Idalagård (where Sam and I went for vacation in July).

It is the end of September but the weather is warm and the sun was shining from a bright blue sky. A part from visiting other treatment centers to get ideas and inspirations, and a part from sitting in meetings, we spent an evening cooking Italian food.

Well… lets rephrase… we cooked food and then ate the whole evening.

What excitement, what noise and incredible expectations. It is the season home opener game in Jönköping who happens to have one of the 3 best hockey clubs in Sweden. The crowd is noisy and chanting to the beat of a huge drum. I was tired before I walked into the arena that seats a bit over 7000 people but once I walked in the adrenalin was pumping.

What a game! It had everything. The hometeam took a 1-0 lead during powerplay and kept it through the first period. The fans chanted “We love HV” over and over (pronounced: hove almost like ouyvey). There were some minor fights and pushes. The home team played well but dropped the puck too much. The new goaly did a great job since he was taking the spot of the teams biggest star.

 During the second period the home team kicked it up and the tempo was awesome. The fans were loud and it felt almost like the areana was going to lift off the ground. Each team scored a goal but the home team had most shots on goal.

During the second peirod the away teams fans started to get a bit more roudy even though the other team scored a goal early on. The the other teams fans were contained in a smaller section away from the hard core home team fans. All of a sudden they thought it was a good idea to light a flare inside the arena….. not very smart! The smoke lingered for the entire game but a HV player broke away and had a moment alone with the goaltender…. the result 2-1. YEAH! But HV stinks at powerplay… and barely survives boxplay!

Last period…. Malmö…. the other team…. took over. They brought the speed and connected well on fast short passes. Scoooore…. and it is a tied game at 2-2. HV fans were more quiet. Malmö almost scored a goal… the puck came over the red line in the goal… but upon review… no goal!

Wow… I am standing up in my seat a lot. Yelling and cheering. Clapping my hands. Then… the 3-2 goal! Yes…. the game is ours! We won!

The atmosphere is very different from NHL! The Wild games are tame compared to these fans. There is no eating or drinking during the action of the game… no selling candy in the aisles. I dont think I saw one person leave their seats during the periods. They are hardcore hockey fans! Much more like college sports in the US.

It was awesome!

Today is election day in Sweden. About 6,8 million people out of a total 9 million people are allowed to vote. Usually we have great turn-out, somewhere between 80-90% or so.

When we go to vote we get to vote for 3 different areas. One is the general government that sits in Stockholm - our Washington DC. The ballot is yellow. The Blue ballot is for our province sort of the US state government and the white ballot is for the city council. You get 3 envelopes to put your ballots in and hand to the election officals.

There are several polling stations. In the area we live there are about 4 within a three block radius that we know of. Representatives from the different parties stand outside the pollingstations handing out ballots with their partynames on. Inside the doors you can find all the ballots for the different parties along with blank ones… just in case you do not like any party.

We have 7 larger parties. Three are “left-leaning” and would join together to gain a majority while the rest are “right-leaning” and would join together to gain a majority.

Last weekend Sam and I got to take care of my brothers dog Chico. Chico is a cute little fluffy white dog (Bichon Frise) who thinks he is larger than life and likes to pick fights with the Dobbermans and German Sheppards in our neighborhood. He is really loving and want to be the center of attention, just really social! He loves sitting in the window and look out! Preferrably bark at dogs walking by.

 As part of the dog package we got to borrow the familys car. We drove to a neighbouring town about 1 hour away. It is really little, really cure and right on the brink of lake Vättern. The logo for the town is “I love Hjo”. You can buy mugs and t-shirts with that logo since the name of the town is Hjo. Just to clear up the confusion… Hjo has really nothing in common with NY!

We brought our camera as you can tell… got the CORRECT settings and took some pictures that are going into our water themed bedroom!

Look… It is Sam and Chico! We have to have the computer on the window sill nowadays since our wireless signal doesnt work so we are scamming off our neighbours! I just love those wide window seals!

For the first time in the this blogs history I am going to introduce a guest blogger. First out is Aaron. I have known Aaron since 1998 and he is the one who taught me how to pronounce “iron” as in “I need to iron my wrinkly shirt that just came out of my suitcase”. On top of teaching me that word he offered to iron my shirt! Yes that is my first memory of Aaron… with no further ado… here he is in his own words:

to be irresonsible or not to be that is the question…

you know how i said missoula changes people, once again i prove this to be true. the evolution of aaron went something like this.  before i move here- i was “spastic aaron”- able to freak out in nearly any situation at any given time. then during the move i became- “very reserved aaron” where i freaked out in any given situation at any given time.  then i formed “biker aaron”- this is were small children cried at my mere intimidating presence. followed closely by “i didnt mean to rebel but it sure looks like i am- aaron”- for some reason or another i was only able to show up to half of my classes giving off the image of me being one troubled child.  and finally we hit the last one known as “there really isnt any better way to put this… but your a nerd- aaron” because believe it or not i just got a job and i’m not talkin about any work at the dollar store for minium wage i’m talkin an Auditing job for the largest non-chain hotel in missoula at pretty freakin good pay.  yeah that’s right an auditor, let me give you a minute to let that sink in… 20 sec… 40… and we’re back!  i realize that this not only destroys my two previous aaron’s but it gives me the ability to give off a “nerd” vibe that makes it nearly impossible for the ladies to RESIST, running away.     

anywho i’m actually in a class right now and he’s handin some kinda test over the stuff he was just reviewing (or at least i think that’s what he was saying, i really wasnt payin attention)

I felt like a traitor rooting against my new hometown, but my wife grew up in Trelleborg…. besides Jönköping stinks this year. Soccer is definitely one of those sports that you have to watch a few times before you really start to enjoy. But once you get the rules down, it can be pretty exciting.

 We sat in a pretty “reserved” section. It was nothing like the matches on TV with people throwing stuff onto the field and lighting things on fire. When it was all over, Trelleborg emerged victorious 1-0. 

… you would have to regret the rest of your life?

About a year ago we bought a digital camera. In our opinion a really good one. We did the research and asked friends and family. We got one with a bunch of pixels so that we could make large picture of our photos. You know hang them on the wall.

We were really happy with the pictures we took on our vacation in July. Some we shared here on the blog. So we went to make 3 well chosen photos into canvas art to hang in our bedroom.

Here’s the kicker…

When we bought the camera we changed the resolution so that we could fit more pictures on our small memory card. When we bought a larger memory card we had forgotten all about setting the camera.

Ladies and gents.. we had it set for e-mail and electronic sharing. Meaning: we can’t even make regular sized photos of our pictures without making them grainy and dotty…

After a few months of waiting and wondering….a huge blue truck arrived at our apartment with all of our stuff from the USA! We were beginning to wonder if the moving company lost it!

For those in the USA…our apartment is located directly above the back of the truck…

Of course our stuff was way in the front…so here is a pic of me trying to dig it all out!

Unpacking felt like Christmas came early!