Right now I have big plans for this little abandoned blog.
I am still surviving in Sweden, sometimes barely.
I am still grateful for your emails – even if they are just to
correct my sad excuse for spelling and grammar. Of which I do appreciate, and I
do intend to correct, when I have a few free minutes. Which I seriously,
seriously hope will be sometime soon.
Because the last few months have been crazy. All kinds of
crazy. Good crazy, bad crazy and just plain insane in the membrane.
And yet here we are in February. Another round of
Melodifestival. A sad excuse for Valentine’s Day. My favorite shopping week of
the year, Book Rea (a countrywide book sale). Rain, drizzle and grey day ‘is spring EVER going to get here’ February.
Hope to see you around these parts. I have a lot of blog
entries in my head. Hope to type them soon.
Posts
Welcome back! There are nice things happening in February! Tulips, semlor and week 8 ( winter sports break). The book sale isn't what it used to be, back in the old times when the bookstores really dug out lots of old stuff. Nowadays it's mostly new and more cheaply printed books. Not that tempting.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow; have a nice Saturday evening!
Thanks! Sad about the book sale :( Missed it last year due to having a newborn and was looking forward to it! Will still have a look, you never know. And you are right, there are nice things happening in February… thanks for reading
DeleteHi! I'm in the process of applying to study abroad in Sweden, and your blog is really helping me out. I don't have anything specific to say about this post, just a general comment to let you know your blog is very useful to me, and helps me know what to expect if/when I arrive. So, thank you!
ReplyDeleteHang on there man! I've been living in Sweden for 1 year now, myself being an Caucasian but from eastern Europe. You have a very.. decent way of describing your problems in Sweden, tbh I wouldn't be so nice describing mine. I am very sorry for you for making this decision to move to Sweden with your entire family! I am a young man single, no family no ties and yet I am very disappointed by this country and I can't imagine myself raising a child here. I feel your problems with the real estate "mafia". I've been looking up this problem for some time. Renting an apartment is also incredibly complicated and by all means not as transparent as most Swedes think it is. I have one advice for you, keep in touch with other foreigners, no matter their background. After much time trying to blend in the Swedish society only to get the boot kick in my behind I finally gave up and kept to my own. I have many foreigner friends from across the world and they are the only thing keeping my mental health in check. It is pointless to have a good healthcare in Sweden when discrimination, ignorance and isolation damages the psych. I can't wait for my contract to expire so I can get the hell out of here!
ReplyDeleteOh and one more thing, thank you very much for your blog! I think there should me more people out there speaking about their lives in Sweden. I think the world deserves to know the real face of Sweden, not just the propaganda hailing Sweden as Heaven on earth.
DeleteThe title of this blog is spot-on, "surviving in Sweden". Not "Thriving in Sweden", "Happy in Sweden", "Loving it in Sweden", but "Suriving". Sounds like "Struggling Every Damn Day In This Godforsaken Dump". Because, let's be honest, that's exactly what it is.
ReplyDeleteThere is a reason why Sweden is twice the size of the U.K. but has only 9.5 million people living here. Nobody wants to live here. The govt / royals / whoever created this idiotic society clearly do not want people to live in Sweden. EVERYTHING they do is designed to thwart creativity, entrepreneurialism, happiness, the ability to engage in productive endeavours.
Sweden is the dullest, most bureaucratic, stifling, frustrating, pointless shithole I have ever lived in (sorry to say it, but it's true. And I've lived all over the show. England. USA. South Africa. India. Japan).
Swedes are the rudest, least considerate, most intolerant, boring, unfunny, uniniteresting, selfish people I have ever met.
Doing business in this country is an exercise in total futility.
The weather is atrocious.
The tax system is like being shaken down by the Mafia every time you turn around.
The cost of living is utterly ridiculous.
And it seems to me that the ONLY people Sweden manages to attract are asylum seekers and refugees, who really don't want to be here either, and are resented and despised by patriotic, flag waving Swedes (I'm a white Anglo-Saxon by the way, before anyone starts accusing me of being a Somalian asylum seeker).
Yes, I AM leaving (before someone says "go back to England then").
I AM leaving, having just signed the contracts of sale on my house, and it really cannot come soon enough. Although I have been here 6 years and could apply for permanent residence, I considered it for about 10 seconds and realised "actually, I don't even want to come back to this dump for a holiday".
I'm out!
p.s. For brainwashed Swedes who have that automatic response programming of "we pay high taxes so we can enjoy good public services" you fools haven't got a clue! 200kr every time you go to see a doctor (free in the U.K.). 300+kr per item on a prescription (£6.58 per prescription, irrespective of the number of items prescribed). Swedish healthcare system? My partner's mother has cancer and has been treated like a slab of meat with a number, not a human being, by the Swedish healthcare system. My mother who also developed cancer in England around the same time, was diagnosed, had a treatment plan agreed, operated on, had radiotherapy within SIX WEEKS in England. 4 MONTHS later my partner's Swedish mother had her operation, but has to wait "maybe 6 weeks" to hear what the next stage of her treatment will be, or even the results of the biopsy of the tumour they removed.
DeleteSweden is a joke. A pissant country of under 10 million miserable unhappy idiots on a continent of 530 million souls. Go to hell.
as a Chinese American have lived in england before..now I m in Sweden.
Delete.I think English ladies r fussed up..uni is too expensive...houses r too old..rents r too high..