So a fair amount has gone on since I last posted. Some of it good, much of it meh. Lets start with the good, and then cover the meh. Not sure what that says about me as a person seeing as I want to lead with good news and leave you with the bad.
Anywho... I apologize for the bulleted formatting. It's kind of my thing. I love using it at work as it's a great way to outline things in a simple and straightforward manner. Much like how I do most things.
Good:
- Finally got into my permanent flat in a nice part of Stockholm. There are a bunch of shops and resturants nearby that I've been slowly checking out. Lots of them actually. Oh, and I'm close to a subway (Tunnelbana, or T-bana) line so my daily commute is rather short - around 15 minutes. Much better than the 40+ minutes to and back I had been doing for the last 3 or 4 years. Plus I don't have to pay attention to driving, I can play some games on my phone, read the news, or (most likely) check work email.
- I travel to London for work in a week! Another new city to check out, except I don't have to pay for it! Will meet some work associates that are new people to me, as well as meet up with some old work associates that I never had the chance to meet. Should be a grand time. I do need to go back for a trip so I can spend more time exploring. A lot of history in London, and in the UK in general (all of the countries located therein).
- Riina (my cat) has passed her titer test, something to do with how much of the Rabies vaccine is present in her bloodstream, and is now eligible to join me in Stockholm! As it currently stands she just needs to have 2 more documents get signed by folks in the States and get a de-worming just prior to travel and then she's all mine again. :) I've missed her a ton. Prior to moving out here the longest I've been away from her was about 4 days. She isn't too thrilled when I leave for work every day so you can imagine how angry she's going to be with me after 2.5 months. :P
- Started my Swedish lessons and am coming along slowly. It's an interesting language, but thankfully some of the German I took in high school and college help me with pronunciation and generally looking at a word and understanding what it might mean in English. Right now my largest hurdle will be learning the odd rules / silent letters that plague any language. Note to self, when I have kids, teach them some of the more popular languages. I'd imagine it would be something like English, Spanish, French, German, Swedish, Russian, Chinese, & Arabic (unfortunately there isn't a predominant language in Africa). Man it would be cool to know all of those! That kid could travel just about anywhere and know a language close to the native one.
- So I have my new flat, but I have none of my stuff from The U S of A. After not hearing much about it after 3 weeks of being here, I finally got word that it had been "delayed for several weeks." As you can imagine, that doesn't make me too pleased. To be honest, I'm not even 100% sure what I packed in there anymore (I have a list saved on a USB stick, don't worry) but I know that I NEED a lot of it to function like a normal human being. IE. I'd love to have dishes to eat off of and utensils to eat food off of said dishes with. Granted I can go buy that stuff if I *really* had to, but Stockholm ain't cheap kids and I'm not made of money. If that means I have to suck it up eating sandwiches for breakfast and dinner, so be it. I barely notice breakfast anyway as I eat while I get ready for work.
- Closely related to my first meh mention is related to entertainment. This may not be a big deal to some of you, but since my biggest hobby is playing video/computer games, not having my game consoles, or a higher end computer, is killing me. I'll sidestep the fact that I'm currently without internet at home too since I literally have no need for it; seeing as I don't have anything capable of using said internet at the moment. Sorry, I digressed - "Stay on target!" I know what you're all thinking: "OMG GO EXPLORE STOCKHOLM, ITS FREAKING EUROPE!" I'm aware of that, thank you. :) Since I'm not much of a party goer, nightclub fiend, etc. I'm just checking out some shops and more local sites at the moment. It is the winter so some of the things I want to do either may not be available, or I feel would be better served if I explored them during a much warmer period of time. So in short, I'm waiting to do the cool shit when it's nicer out. Especially since I'm slowly getting used to this whole "snow" thing again. Spent too long away from New York and got soft with the Left Coast way of life where it's between 50-90 almost all year.
- I don't know the language and I realize that it will take me quite some time to be anywhere close to conversational. Now I'm not annoyed that people can't speak English here, because as I've noted, they all do. Nor am I annoyed at how I'm progressing in my language class. No, I'm annoyed because I feel like I'm missing out on a lot by not knowing the language. Co-workers have told me this, friends have told me this, as have books, but just walking down the street and not understanding people that walk by you is a little... How to put this... unsettling? Not in a conspiratorial way, but just that odd sense of not knowing WTF is going on. Thankfully at work people quickly switch to English when appropriate, although I do have a sense of guilt for forcing them to not use their native tounge.
- Missing Riina. Studies and testimonies say that pets calm their owners. I can definitely say that's true of Riina. Granted she can be a brat at times, but she always puts me at ease after a long day at work. Or just if I'm having a bad day for some reason. Not having her around has left me more stressed in general. That combined with moving between 3 different places the last 2 months and how I fare with sleeping in unfamiliar places on unfamiliar furniture has left me very tired. I haven't slept well since I've moved here.
Hej då!
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