You want to know what might be the single most refreshing thing about being an American expat living in Sweden is? Seeing WOMEN. On MONEY. And not just women, women in the arts. Women who ignite imaginations. Women who create culture. Women who, I would guess, are at least 1/2 responsible for creating this country as we know it today.
I don’t know if I’ve written about it before, or am just always noticing and thinking about it, so I think I have already written about it. There are just SO MANY small conveniences all around here in Göteborg/Sweden to make things efficient. For instance, while waiting in line at our local supermarket, ICA Maxi, a large decal on the floor suggests you put UPC codes on the products you are purchasing facing you when you put them on the…
There wasn’t any action here on the Det Langa Huset blog for a solid 5 or 6 weeks, because all of the action was happening in real life. I started a 1/2 day every day Swedish class a few days after our little guy began 1st grade, a week later our shipping container (finally!!) showed up, so we got to start officially settling in, and then my parents came to play for a couple of weeks, marking our first official…
Have I mentioned how the Swedes like to take care of families? Beyond the 480 days per child of paid parental leave parents split between themselves, there are small conveniences everywhere making early parenthood just a little bit less of a struggle. From ample room on busses and trams for the many prams you see being pushed around each day, to pram parking areas and baby wearing harnesses available to be borrowed at museums, they seem to totally get that…
There are many many playground posts to come, because if Sweden knows one thing for sure, it is how to design an easy-on-the-eye, imagination engaging, physically challenging playground. We happened upon this one after a harrowing drive in the city center to return a rental car led us on a quest for glass, or ice cream. (We lived, obvs, the car made it back in one piece, the ice cream was delicious, all is well.) Check out this little piece…
The blog that turned me (and likely thousands of others) onto blogs was Design*Sponge. I remember a very specific feeling I had nearly every evening sometime around 2005 or 2006. I would come home from work, turn on my (giant) computer, wait for it to “warm up” (or was it dialing up?!) while I made a quick dinner, and would pull up Design*Sponge and feel, likely for the first time since art school, that I was back with my people….
We took a short trip about 30 minutes northwest of where we are settling to Tollered, in search of living room furniture. While we thought we would go to a furniture shop we had scoped out online and then find a bite to eat, we were delighted to find a small little community of shops, a hotel, and a couple of the cutest cafes. We enjoyed the best pizza we’ve had in months, Mavis took a dip in a lake,…
After a strong start, and a plan to write or post pictures a couple of times a week, I have already taken a break of nearly 2 weeks from this blog space. During that time, we moved what we have here (the suitcases we came with) from our temporary apartment to our Swedish home, took delivery of our air container (bikes! clothes! a book!), had a couple failed and then successful attempts at making and accepting furniture deliveries, and tried…
A few photos from a walk around Göteborg. We went down near Lilla Bommen, in the harbor, and took a ferry to Eriksberg, a former shipyard area. Click on the title if you’d like to see…
Every day there is a new thing (or, some days, a number of things) to learn when living in a new country. Routines cease to exist for a time while you figure out how the grocery store works, how to ride the tram (and where to buy a pass and which lines is it good for?), et cetera. Everything is new, every single day. That is the one thing we have learned to count on. So we just received a…