Let’s begin with the motivation to relocate around the world to a new country. There are typically two good reasons that people choose to do this — work and love. You either accept a new job or someone you love accepts a new job, and you follow them there. I arrived here in Sweden because of the latter. You have to put a fair amount of trust in a relationship in order to do this, as well as hold personal faith that if things don’t work out, you can pull through and survive on your own. If you’re the one who has accepted a new job, you will also have to recognize that if you lose this job, you need a Plan B to fall back on. If the company who hired you moved all your belongings around the world, and then you lose your job, what is your next step? Do you stay? Do you move all your things back on your own account? There’s a lot to consider. There are a lot of risks to factor in.

There are also extra expenses that you never even think about until you’re faced with the bill. For the first month or so, how will you receive your paycheck? Do you have a local bank account set up? In Sweden I couldn’t get an ID card without a personal number (kind of like an American social security number), but I couldn’t get the ID card without a bank account, and I needed to be sponsored by a Swede in order to get a bank account, and sponsored by my boyfriend in order to get a personal number. This process took quite a while, so I had about 5 months of downtime. This was time I couldn’t even get a job and work. Lots of money down the pipes in order to continue eating, drinking, living, and breathing… Can you afford to survive?

How about internet access and mobile phone service? In my position I needed to be able to apply for jobs online and give people a local phone number to reach me at. More expenses you never think about until you’re suddenly faced with them. Need to get around your new city? How much does public transit cost? That’s more money just to get to a job interview. Food? You’ll need to eat in order to survive. What about if you get ill? You’ll need to have extra reserves for that. Let’s not even get into settling into a new culture and trying to figure out a new language. Fortunately the Swedes all speak rather good English, and are more then willing to practice their skills with you, much to your displeasure of course, if you’re actually attempting to learn Swedish.

So let’s put you in my shoes now. You lost your job two months ago. You are single with no children to hold you down. You have no money saved up. You have debts which you still must pay. Your work and residency visa is expiring in August. Your family is extremely supportive and sends you enough money to just get by, but you know you can’t survive for much longer in country. So you book an airline ticket back to the United States to explore job options. This isn’t a frivolous expense. This isn’t a pleasure cruise in the bahamas. It’s a necessary cost which leads on to Plans B, C, D, E, and F. You also have a storage unit in North Carolina which has been costing you $150 USD a month for the last 2 years. $3,600 USD in total has been sunk into this box of stuff. So you check airfare and see that a round trip ticket between San Francisco and Raleigh is only $240 USD. Is the expense worth it? Let’s see… that $3,600 could have gone to more productive things right? Do I want to fly back to Sweden and pay PODS another $3,600 over the next two years? No.

Most of my friends here are expatriates from the United States, the UK, and Germany. We are all apart from family, and understand that even though we chose this way of life when we first packed our things and left “home”, sometimes it just plain sucks. Sometimes it is just unbelievably stressful. Sometimes you just want to go “home”. Once a year most of us do go “home” to see family and friends and remember why it is we left in the first place

Let’s put you in the shoes of some of my friends now. You’ve lived here in Sweden for a few years, and perhaps you even own property here. You’ve invested time and energy into building a life for yourself. When the opportunity presents itself to move somewhere new at the expense of a new employer, you still must consider the consequences seriously. You must leave behind a city you loved enough to stay in for years, and good friends you’ll never truly replace. But you do it anyways; you pack up and leave, because like so many of us - in the end we all know that the cost of being an expatriate (financially, professionally, and personally) is worth it. You definitely gain incredible life experience and hold confidence knowing that you can handle yourself if things fall apart.

I’m going “home” in less than 2 weeks to look at my job options. In my ideal Plan A I will then be returning to Stockholm sometime in June because I will have a job to come back to. I’m putting most of my belongings into storage here with the assumption that even if I end up following Plan B, I will still return to Stockholm before my current visa expires to clean up the residue of my Swedish life, and prepare for Plan C. If you take these plans at face value you might say, “Wow you’re so lucky, you’re flying to Europe and back twice this summer!”, or “Wow you’re so lucky, you’ll have flown to Europe and back three times in 2009!”, but I’m afraid although I appreciate the sentiment, I don’t view it the same. I don’t have the money to do this, and neither do my parents. I’ve said it before… it’s not a holiday, I don’t have a yacht and a summer home in the archipelago where I can host crayfish parties. I’m trying to sell off things on Blocket (similar to Craigslist) so I can afford to buy cheap potatoes and season them with olive oil, garlic and salt for flavor.

My advice to someone who is looking to get away from “home” and see the world would be to ensure you leave behind a good support system back “home”, apply for your work and residency visa well in advance, or have a company sponsor you, and save up enough capital to survive in your new country for at least 6 months without a job. That’s the smart way to move. Mind you I didn’t follow those rules myself, but I still survived because of my support system. You do what you can.

Good luck.

My biggest problem with Stockholmers is that they are incredibly cliquey. This may sound stereotypical, but I affirm that it’s actually quite accurate… if you aren’t in a very small and characterless group of seemingly identical guys with slicked back long hair past their ears, and heavily made up blonde girls wearing black tights and shapeless frocks, then you aren’t fortunate enough to associate with them… ever… you never will… you might as well catch the next flight back home.

When I first realized that Stockholm society is a collection of closed bubbles which very rarely merge, I gave up trying to befriend Stockholmers. I figured, hey, you want to be my friend, you can come after me then. You know where I am. I have plenty of amazing friends here, but most of them are foreign citizens, and we share a similar opinion of Stockholmers. I don’t care how much alcohol you pour into a Stockholmer, they’re still not going to accept an outsider into their clique.. and then even if one person accepts you, their friends won’t. It’s their loss… They all lose in the end.

So this is to the Stockholmers who will never read this, since they already have all the interesting and diverse friends they will ever need in life Cheers to you! Have a nice life! After almost 2 years in your beautiful and historic city, I can safely say the best friends I made here are Americans and Brits… Epic fail Stockholmers… Epic FAIL!

Unfortunately the job market is not agreeable in Stockholm

I’ll be headed west in another month or so!

If you know of any job openings in the Stockholm area, please send me details! I will look into just about any job at the moment, but food service is something I simply refuse to work in ever again. I’d rather clean bathrooms than serve people dinner…

If within the next 2 months, I am unable to find a job that provides a steady income, I’ll probably leave the country before the summer arrives. I can’t survive in Stockholm without a reliable income, because I still have many bills back in the USA to pay off.

Sad but true!

I just killed two completely innocent living beings.

They were spiders of course, but I still feel a little like the playground bully, always picking on the quiet, short kids…

I wasn’t actually intending to kill these little buddies either. I wanted them to move out of my sight so I could live comfortably without having to acknowledge their existence.

So I found a spray bottle of Lysol disinfectant in the bathroom, and not realizing I was spraying a lethal poison on them, I opened up the heavens and let the rain fall down.

My first victim started stumbling along down the windowsill where he had, only a few minutes before, been enjoying a warm Monday afternoon in the Mexican sunshine. I sprayed him once more, and that’s when he started to roll over onto his back and flail about helplessly with his many legs.

I watched as he squirmed around, obviously in agony… then he lay there with one leg twitching for another minute. Finally, he died. I stood over his tiny black body like some curious sweating monster, and then I redeemed myself by apologizing. “I just wanted you to move away… I didn’t really mean to kill you”, I said.

However witnessing one macabre death scene didn’t prevent me from finding Mr. Spider’s friend in the corner of my bathroom. I gave him a quick spray, thinking, “Maybe a single dose instead of a double dose means the difference between life and death for these guys”. My second victim ran away into a corner and disappeared, so I didn’t even realize I had become a multiple murderer until half an hour later when I found his body on the floor. I suspect he had been in great pain on top of the bathroom shelf, so he committed suicide by hurling himself dramatically towards the concrete.

So as I write this there are two dead bodies in my house (that I know of!!) Unfortunately I’m not a fan of spiders be them living or dead. I much prefer the complete absence of spiders in my presence… This is of course the reason this terrible event happened in the first place. I was just trying to make them return to their dark hidden corner of the house.

Anyways… send my deepest apologies to spiders everywhere… I’m going to go put the Lysol away and discard of these bodies in black plastic garbage bags.

On my flight to Los Angeles I was seated beside a middle-aged Norwegian couple who convinced me that I need to take a weekend and see their hometown of Bergen. They had just recently disembarked from the Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to San Francisco. My Dad took that same flight in 2007. Fresh of the plane from Europe, the jet lag hadn’t quite hit them full on yet though. For me, I can now live comfortably with the knowledge that my time zones are completely off with my natural circadian rhythm. I wake up at weird times no matter where I am. I feel hungry at weird times no matter where I am, and I expect this to last another 2-3 weeks.

In Los Angeles I grabbed a delightful sugar boost from Starbucks, and surfed the internet before boarding my next flight to Zihuatanejo. The flight itself was uneventful and I had a seat beside a middle-aged woman from Vancouver Island. In typical fashion she borrowed my pen to fill out her customs form, and we exchanged a few pleasantries. I even learned that we share the same middle name. “A-N-N without the E”, she said with a warm smile. I would have asked if the name ran in her family also, (in my family the names Ann and Bill, are very common), but as I wrote earlier, my reverse culture shock has been slowing down my natural communication skills.

The flight was over way too fast in comparison with the 11 hour ordeal between London and San Francisco. I dozed in and out of consciousness for at least an hour, and I spent another hour purposefully eating my $5 sandwich and Frito chips, and sipping on my Jones Soda Root Beer as slowly as humanly possible. Finally, after 3 hours of flying time I set foot in Mexico again after a 7 year long absence.

As soon as we landed we ended up taking a long and rather unnecessary zigzagging walk to get to the border control counters. Whoever set up those annoying roped barriers should be forced to walk the line every half an hour as punishment. I’m sure the relaxed looking tourists waiting to take our plane back to Los Angeles were enjoying the spectacle as all 200 of us walked back and forth and back and forth, while not really moving very far at all in reality. Complete strangers were continuously greeting each other with good-natured sarcastic remarks as they passed by for the umpteenth time. “Hi again! Nice workout isn’t it?”, and “Fancy seeing you here again!”

I had another stamp added to my passport, and collected my suitcase in baggage claim. In Mexico you have to press a button as you leave with your bags. It triggers a light that can either be red or green. If you get a green light you can walk out of there immediately without a hassle, but if you get a red light they have to search through your bags. Of course I got a red light. The guy at the inspection counter wouldn’t believe me when I said I don’t speak Spanish. He grinned at me like he knew I was lying, but I persisted with the truth. I still don’t think he believed me, but he was nice enough to let me leave with only a quick glance at the contents of my suitcase. He saw I had brought some Trader Joe’s chocolate raspberry sticks, and told me “Enjoy your chocolates!”. Struggling for a second to remember what country I was in, I replied with a tentative “Gracias”, as I walked out the sliding doors into the arrivals terminal. My brain still tells me to respond with “Tack sa mycket”, and “Hej da”, for some reason.

My Mom and Doyle were waiting for me with open arms, and since I haven’t seen them in a year and a half, it was a very nice reunion. We put my suitcase in the back of the Toyota Tacoma, and hopped in. As we left the airport parking lot I noticed the military checkpoint. Apparently the armed soldiers are out with abundance these days fighting the “war on drugs”, which also hasn’t been going so well. I suppose this was the first real indication that I’m not in Sweden anymore.

While driving home to Troncones we passed by a few trucks carrying more armed military patrols, and when we got to the road taking us into town we had to clear a checkpoint where the guys looked bored. Boredom is never a good sign when you’re dealing with a teenager holding a semi-automatic rifle, who wants to rummage through all your personal belongings and take your passport. Fortunately Doyle played the role of dumb American quite nicely, and we were waved through without being inspected.

Home is currently a nice little hillside compound overlooking the beautiful Pacific ocean. I have a private little house to myself, complete with a kitchen, bathroom, living room, and terrace. I have screened windows, and ceiling fans to keep me cool, and a refrigerator full of cold water to keep me hydrated. While writing this I also notice I have a giant spider friend on one of the screens near by bed… dear God… that is so not cool… Anyways, uh, the air is warm and not overly humid, and I can smell the salt in the air, and the dust from the nearby road. It’s a very comforting scent for some reason, and I’ve never been able to find anything like it anywhere else in the world.

I have to go now, and try to flick this ugly spider creature off my window. If I don’t I will spend the entire night looking at him and feeling creepy crawly things in my bed. I’m really not too fond of the Mexican spider and scorpion population… My Mom had a scorpion fall onto her while she was in bed sleeping, and it got her on the neck. Yeah… not really what I should be thinking of as I sleep tonight, but still… Welcome to Mexico!

Until next time!

Why isn’t Swedish toilet paper nearly as luxuriously soft as the American brands?

I’m not used to people smiling and saying “hello, how are you?” everywhere

I can actually eat out in a restaurant and not spend more than about $20 USD

I was wide awake at 4am this morning… the jet lag is noticeable

It’s great to see my Dad again

You know what? I kind of miss Sweden…

My roommate and I were kicked out of our flat unexpectedly and spent the last 3 weeks of December essentially homeless, and staying with friends. I moved around at least 5 times during those 3 weeks. Friends left the country over the holidays and let me look after their place while they were gone.

Now I’m somewhat settled – at least for the next 3 months. It’s not the best situation, but the housing market in Stockholm is far from desirable. I will have to write a post about that… it might be hard to comprehend if you aren’t familiar with the system.

Anyways, I’m at work right now, and I have a lot to do. On a sidenote, I introduced the acronym “BOHICA” to a few of my co-workers today. They find those kind of things pretty amusing. I’d like to learn some Swede specific acronyms and slang terminology…