Minor gripes

First off, sorry for the lack of updates. Work has kept me quite busy. Now that I have that out of the way, time for the update.

Gripe #1 - A lot of people smoke.

Mostly women too (turn off). Maybe i just didn't notice it much in the last few cities i lived in because i wasn't paying attention. Well I'm paying lots of attention here and ugh...

Gripe #2 - Currency Differences

 This one is mostly an issue with me, but I'll call it a gripe (you'll see). So the currency ratio is about 7 Kronor per US Dollar. I know this. I've memorized my times tables! But the fact remains I still view SEK (the abbreviation) as Monopoly money, its just not real. I know that's mean to say to a people who's country I've been welcomed into but it's hard to overcome when the ratio is that high. Anywho, while shopping the first few items I pick up I'm really paying attention to the price. Part of the way through I give up because the "funny money" notion creeps onto my brain. This could all be avoided if (and here is the gripe, told you it was coming) they used the freaking Euro! Sweden is part of the EU! And its not like their currency is strong against the dollar like the UKs is so I don't get why they don't adopt. I'll have to look into this.

Lastly, Gripe #3 - North American time zone differences.

I knew going into this gig that I'd still be communicating a lot with the various US teams and that it would be a challenge because of how far ahead in time I am. Which is +9 hours ahead of the Left Coast where most of my contacts are. As you can imagine this makes business calls a lot of fun. Luckily I start work a bit later than usual to counteract this but now I'm not only fighting a time zone change in terms of sleep schedule change, but also breaking my normal "hours of operation". I went from getting into work around 730 to starting work at 1000. On some level my brain is still rebelling against the very idea of this. Getting close to mastering this one, but not there just yet.

Well my work laptop's video card freaked out on me when I tried to start it up last night so I'm updating from my phone again. Big pain in the butt so I'm gonna sign off. Hopefully o can get that fixed Monday so I can update during the week. Definitely some more items worth mentioning.

Vi ses! (Swedish equivalent of "See you later")

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand working again!

Well after the longest vacation I've had in 3 years, all 1.5 weeks of it, I am up and running at my new officebuilding. Felt good to start working again, after all that time off I almost didn't know what to do with myself, I was getting a little bored.

I can hear you all now - "But you just moved to Stockholm!" True, I did. But I did so during the holidays which meant a lot of places were closed. That doesn't mean I didn't go exploring though! I wandered around Stockholm (specifically the Sodermalm area) my first two days when I was put up in a hotel there for 2 days. Some nice sites, good eats, some interesting shopping. I'll have to visit again when things are open so I can take a closer look.

After the hotel I got my temporary flat - located in the Ostermalm area. I'm in a quiet area, and although there is a "mall" nearby, it's pretty much just a bunch of apartment buildings. I walked around a bit on New Year's and saw some of the more main roads near me. They didn't offer a whole lot, but the closer I got to Gamla Stan the more resturants and shops I saw. I didn't walk around Gamla Stan much but I DEFINITELY plan to as it has a lot more of the museum-y type things going on. Some of that rich history stuff I enjoy. :)

Ultimately I ended up in, what I believe is, downtown Stockholm. Lots of expensive shops, resturants, and bars - not really my thing but I'll check them out when I have more time. Some all around nice sites in the area anyway.

I'll upload some pictures when I can properly manage everything from my work laptop. Currently I don't have the rights to install anything so I'm a bit hamstrung at the moment. That's all for now, more later!

Hej då! (goodbye in Swedish)