Thoughts about Sweden...

Cool things about Sweden:

• It's light in Summer from 3:30am- 10:30pm
• Everyone worships the sun and lines up chairs facing the sun to get as much of it as they can at any spare moment
• People catch up more at house parties and dinner parties instead of always going out
• The dogs all understand Swedish
• Willy's (cheap supermarket) with good things for cheap prices
• The smell of the laundry detergent
• People of all shapes and sizes letting it all hang out on the beaches- people don't seem as hung up on 'body image' as in Australia
• Gorgeous white blond kids everywhere sounding very cute talking in Swedish
• People generally look very fit and healthy (maybe it's all the bike riding everywhere)
• When you go out for a walk along the beach you can see Denmark just across the water
• The closeness of other European cities is pretty cool (people go to Germany for the day to buy cheap alcohol)
• The amazing variety of wines available from all over Europe
• Buses are specially designed for prams or people in wheelchairs
• Lots of great bike paths and cars are more conscious of people riding bikes

Not so cool things about Sweden:

• Not often understanding what people around me are saying (but hopefully Swedish lessons will help this)
• Don't own a car here so it can take awhile to get around on buses and bike and is hard in the rain
• Fitted sheets are few and far between (although Ikea has just started stocking them!)
• No Milo, crumpets, BBQ Shapes or Snakata Rice Crackers.... mmm... yum...
• My favourite Garnier, Olay, and Pantene products aren't stocked here
• Malmö is quite small so there's not much choice of clothes or shoes when shopping
• Shop assistants can appear quite rude as the belief here that 'no one is better than anyone else' even goes when you're paying for a service- a bit different to 'the customer is always right'
• You have to pack your own supermarket bags at the check out (check out chick only scans the items and pushes them down the shute)
• If you try on clothes in a department store, you have to put them back out yourself (not like Target etc when they take them from you in the change room afterwards and hang them back up for you)
• It's very expensive to go out for dinner at restaurants or drink at a bar
• DVD's are expensive to rent ($8 for one new release)

The local neighbourhood

We've been lucky to have some sunshine again the last couple of days and I've been enjoying some nice walks around the local area. We've been living in this area for the last couple of months, but in a couple of weeks we'll be moving closer to the city. I've really enjoyed the fresh air and beautiful nature out here, and it's been great that it's only a 5 minute walk to see the water (and Copenhagen just across the water).

Long stretches of bike paths

Waazzuup...

You can just see Copenhagen across the water- we're very close to it here!

The local neighbourhood 2

Some nice houses around the neighbourhood...

Cycling to Sibbarp

We're lucky to be living near the water and we enjoy riding to Sibbarp beach and having picnics and soaking up the sunshine. From the beach, you can see the bridge that connects Sweden and Denmark across the water. It's a pretty cool feeling to be sitting on the beach looking across at another country just over the water!

The bridge from Sweden to Denmark in the background

Ute dag med Svenska klass

We had a picnic at the beach for our last day of Swedish classes before the summer holidays- which we're on now- classes start again in August. It was fun to chat with people about what they're doing in Sweden and get to know each other a bit more in a relaxed way. We played some soccer and volleyball and enjoyed the sunshine...

Some of the other people in my class

Soccer with the boys

Our cool teacher- Nadin (we get a new teacher after the summer break so hopefully they'll be just as good)

Svenska klasser

I've started learning Swedish at Folkuniversitet where I'll have classes every afternoon during the week. The classes are in a pretty cool building where they used to build submarines, near the marina. From our building I can see the Turning Torso- an interestingly twisty building that is the tallest building in Scandinavia and the second tallest residential building in Europe!

It's something different to be in a classroom with 16 other people who are from all over the world- Ghana, Pakistan, Mumbai, Thailand, Spain, Portugal, Iraq, Bangladesh, Romania... with some of us, our only common language is Swedish so we have to try and stumble through so we can communicate with each other.

It was a strange feeling on the first day to chant the alphabet in Swedish together, play games to learn how to say different numbers, and tell something about ourselves in basic Swedish- it was kind of fun to feel like I was back in primary school!

My school on the right (the orange and grey building with the white pipe running vertically down the side)- next to the Turning Torso building

Off to school...

View towards Malmö central on my way to school

My wonderful husband waiting for me after school

The Swedes sure do know how to make the most of the sunshine outside the city library

Strolling through Lilla Torg (the little square) in Malmö city after class

Cruising around Copenhagen

We went to Denmark for the day with Ceri and Lisa- just a 30 minute train trip from Sweden. We had a delicious vegetarian buffet for lunch, and then set off to see The Little Mermaid.

After a 45 minute walk to get to where she sits, we couldn't believe it when there was a big sign up saying "mermaid exchange" and we saw she had been sent to Shanghai for the World Expo and replaced by a giant screen showing her sitting across the other side of the world!

We decided that a boat trip and an ice cream was the best way to cope with this sad shock, and jumped on the nearest boat to bob about on the water for awhile. After some yummy Danish ice cream and soaking up the sunshine we all felt much happier :-)

Lucky man ;-)

Aaah... beer for the boys and ice cream for the girls- works every time!

The poor lonely mermaid in Shanghai

On our way to the ice cream...