I'm Back Finally!

I know it has been far too long since I updated here. I was so sick for 10 days I could barely get out of bed for homework much less anything else. After that I had a 5days to do two weeks’ worth of homework before we left for a 10 day study trip with David’s class. But I am back now and will hopefully get back to updating again.

I did have a video that I put together and have been trying to upload for days now and I can get it to work. So now I am going to take pictures and put them up on here. I will also try and include and update of our lives a little later this week.

We have been here a month and it feels like home finally!

Hej! Hej!

Jar är ledsen! (I’m Sorry!) I know this post was supposed to have a video of our apartment…but we have been having issues with our toilet (more to come on this). So because of the issues our landlord has been in and out and I have been trying to just stay out of the way. I have some more pictures of last weekend’s adventures though. We didn’t explore any new cities or go far. We found a second hand shop and a Swedish IKEA!

The second hand shop was a lot of fun. We were wishing we had a way to send furniture back. Some of it was pretty awesome and at a great price. We settled on some smaller things. A few trinkets for around the apartment, a couple duvet covers (for some of my Pintrest crafts, they were way cheaper than buying them new.), I got a German camera (for like $10) from 1948 that I am hoping to find some film for, David found a bottle opener made out of an antler with some carvings on it that he though was pretty cool, and just a few other things to make the place more homey.

What we didn’t find at the second hand shop we took a train to IKEA for. It was fun walking around IKEA dreaming up things for our house someday. We also bought some stuff for our kitchen and a few picture frames. All in all it was a pretty successful day.

An IKEA in its home country. I also found out the clothing store H&M is from Sweden.

David deemed this car picture worthy so I was allowed to stop a take a picture in the IKEA parking lot.

Duck we found walking down the canal on the ice.

We have found a church that we have settled into. It is the only English speaking church that is within 2 hours of us. It has been a lot of fun worshiping with people from all over the world. The church is a new church plant and the pastor is Australian. It makes for a very different Sunday worship experience than in the U.P. This last Wednesday we went to our first Connect group (it’s like a small group) and we enjoyed getting to know a few of the people from church better too. It is a very international group with the couple who hosts it being Swedish and English, a Jamaican woman, a German woman, Indian man and another American. We are told the group is much larger than that but those are the only people who showed up the one time we were able to go. They are all studying or have studied at the University in Malmo.

Yes, you did read that right. We don’t have to go to church until 4 in the afternoon. This is because we share a facility with the Salvation Army and they have their services in the mornings.

A huge blessing has been a family from Texas who attends the church. They have been in Sweden a little over a year so have been able to help us with some of the hiccups of being in a new country. They also have a daughter who attended a university here and is now writing a novel. She has already made my weeks a little more interesting. She has a craft group once a week at a coffee shop. It is basically a bunch of people getting together for coffee and just hanging out. She taught me the beginnings of how to crochet which I am hoping to get better at while here.

We have also done a lot with David’s classmates. We learned how to play a new sport, floor ball. It is basically hockey with a whiffle ball on a gym floor. I will try and post some pictures after this next week. We have also attended movie nights and birthday parties. Once again it is a very international campus and we probably come in contact with people from 5-10 countries on a weekly if not daily basis.

I am catching onto Swedish pretty easily. I still can’t talk fluently or understand when people are in the midst of a fast moving conversation. I have been able to figure out what they are saying on the train and figure out what the cashiers are asking for or telling us when checking out. The class I am in is moving pretty fast so in 3.5 more months I am hoping to be able to hold a decent conversation in Swedish.

My Swedish Visa card. Yay! We didn’t have to get deported to the US to get them.

My last little treasure that I was so excited to find in the Coop Forum (a walmartish store of sorts) was a book that I have the English version of. If ever I get back into a classroom or have a daycare of my own it will be fun to have as a cultural or international book in the classroom. It is also fun because David’s heritage is partly Swedish so it will be fun to share with our kids someday. I have already been in many book stores here and haven’t had any luck (with finding a book that we have in the US) so was extremely happy to find this one. It was always a huge fan favorite with the 0-3 year olds, so it wasn’t a bad book to find.

This weekend we are going to go into Malmo again and are going to go see Star Wars 3D for David’s birthday. They play most of their movies in English with Swedish subtitles so it should be just like seeing a movie at home. David is very excited!

I will try and get up a video of this week so that everybody asking to see the apartment can finally see it:)

Settling In

Hej!

WE ARE OFFICIAL Swedish residence. Yippee! Our visa was approved this week. We need to find an office in Malmo to pick it up from but we have the email saying it’s approved. So to all of you who knew how big of a worry this was for us and have been praying thank you!

I am picking up Swedish pretty easily. I am not at a conversation level though but I know enough to be polite and exchange pleasantries with someone. The class is very fast paced for what I am used to. It seems like it is making it easier for me to learn the language this way though. Most people think that I am Danish or Swedish so when I ask to speak English they are a little surprised. With David everyone says that you can tell he is an American. I am hoping this will help me to pick up Swedish faster too, because people actually speak it to me. The Swedes are very willing to speak English and are very helpful. We have not found a single person unwilling to or unable to communicate in English.

We have bikes that work. We have outfitted them to meet Swedish standards. (We needed lights for night time and got a basket to help with carrying groceries, backpacks…etc.) With the cold weather finally here it is nice to take a 10minute bike ride instead of a 45min walk to campus every day. The winter weather has definitely set in. Since we are right off the coast we have pretty strong winds which make it feel a lot colder most days.

David is enjoying his class. He has many different nationalities in his class. There are some students from South America so he has enjoyed using his Spanish with them. It is new for him to be surrounded by so many different nationalities but he is enjoying it most of the time.

Besides Swedish classes I have been busy working on my school work and walking around the cities. I met with some friends at a coffee house and one of the girls taught me to crochet. I am hoping to perfect my abilities in the next year. It will be something to do to keep myself busy.

The last two weekends we have walked around a few of the cities that are close by. My hands have been frozen from taking pictures. So I am hoping to make it back out in the spring when it’s a bit warmer to grab some more pictures. Here are a few for now:

Two weekends ago we went into Malmo and walked around:

There are subways, McDonalds, Burger Kings and 7elevens all over the palace.

Small European roads all made of cobble stone.

Huge Cathedral in Malmo.

One of the many city squares we have found in Malmo

Cool old building

Malmo Central train and bus station.

Last weekend we went north to Lund.

I love how they use older buildings. A cute little corner coffee shop.

Many layers of building. Thought it looked cool.

Beautiful old Cathedral. One of my favorite parts of Europe.

Astronomical clock in the Cathedral. We just happened to walk in at one of the times that it plays.

More weird buildings.

Bike parking lot. I don't know if I would ever be able to find my bike if it were parked in there.

Hopefully this week I will get up a video and some pictures of our little apartment.

My European Loves...

...and I have been reunited
I will have to limit myself to indulging in these two European treats. But I couldn't wait even a week to buy both.

Our First Week

It has been a week since we left the UP and our 6^th day in Sweden. For the most part we have just been trying to get out and walk around and learn a little about the area. Our apartment is part of a sugar beet farm.

(The drive way we walk up to get to our house. There are farm fields all around us.)

We have a little corner of one of the farm houses. We love it. It is very cozy and homey.

(The main house.)

(Rounding the corner to our house.)

(Our mailbox. If anyone needs the address email me. We love getting mail.)

(We are on the far left. We have no idea what the rest of the building is used for. The rest of the students live in the main house. There are a few family houses around to. )

(The light our landlord put in so we could see when we come home at night)

(Welcome)

Our landlord (I’m sure it is partly his wife) has tried to make it very comfortable for us. He brought over sheets and blanket and told us not to worry about buying them we could borrow theirs. He also had towels, rugs and even brought a table runner over to “brighten” up the room. He told us that some of the carpets and the table runner his mother had made back in the day when you couldn’t go to the stores to buy it. He speaks very good English and is very easy to understand.

Who knew it would take moving all the way across and ocean to have shopping close by. We have mall that is less than a mile from our front door. It is huge and has everything that we will need while here. I laughed the first time we walked in when I saw the size of the place. We don’t have bikes yet so it has been very nice to have shopping so close so we don’t have to carry groceries very far.

(This is the view from my front door. Burlov Center and Lidl…Shopping…)

Our first day was a little crummy weather wise it was windy and rainy. (A rule my family learned was that in Europe you never let a little rain stop you or you will never see anything.) So we still adventured out to find the quickest way to get to the school. Our way we found some ducks. They began following us thinking that we were going to feed them.

It is a good 20min hike to the campus. We got on a computer for a few short minutes to let our families know that we were alive and then headed home. David didn’t have his login information and wouldn’t get it until the first day of classes.

(We found campus. David is looking at the map trying to find the forestry buildings.)

So we headed home for the evening after stopping at the Burlov Center (the mall) to get some groceries.

The rest of our week was spent just meandering around Arlov (the little town we live in) and getting to know the area. We are both going to be in great shape when we come home. We have walked at least 5miles a day as it is our only way to get around. The nearest bus station is half way to campus anyway so we figure at that point we might as well just keep walking. We may catch the train to Copenhagen sometimes to see the sites but other than that we have everything we need close to home.

(We ventured out one day and came across this. If you stand at just the right place on the drive way to our house you can see it. It looks like in the warmer months it is open to look around but it was all closed up the day that we were there.)

(Our house is located just behind the dark patch of trees on the right.This is from the hill where the windmill is.)

(Just some yard decorations. They use dogs a lot in advertising and decoration. We have alos noticed they own very small dogs around here. We haven’t seen any large dogs.)

(The Arlov Library. I will probably spend a lot of time here. It is closer than campus and I can apply for a card to use their internet.)

(The sugar beet factory.)

(We wandered into this church on one of our trips out and couldn’t figure out if it was catholic or Lutheran. It had decorations that could go either way and none of the literature we found said one way or another. It was a very beautiful church though.)

Malmo is only about 3miles away .We are going to try and attend a church we have yet to find it but it is on my list to find this week. Our landlord is working to fix up some bikes for us the last tenants ruined them I guess. We are hoping that we can just bike the 3miles.

(Malmo in the distance.)

David started his classes today (Monday, January 16, 2012.) So I am on my own now to find stuff to do. I am sure that something will come up and I will be able to fill the 8.5 hours with something.

We have arrived!

Monday January 9, 2012

We left for Minneapolis at about 10:30am. I stopped by to see everyone at work one more time and to drop Emma off and say goodbye for the next year. On our way we stopped in at AJ’s to have lunch with him at Subway and say bye.

When we arrived we checked into billeting (hotel on a military reserves base). Then we headed to IKEA to do some shopping. More like looking but it was fun to walk around with my parents.

Then we headed to the mall to look for a one hour glasses shop. David had broken his glasses a few days before we were going to leave and of course nowhere in the UP (Upper Peninsula) could help. Luckily we found a shop that could to his exam and have the glasses ready before we left. So we walked around the mall and at some supper at Noodles and Company.

(Me “swimming” with the sharks and sea animals the mall.)

We then went back to billeting and were going to try and check in and print our tickets out. We were not able to do this because we had still not received our visas. We instantly began praying that it wouldn’t be any trouble the next day when we got to the airport.

Tuesday January 10, 2012

The day we woke up hoping that we would be in Sweden within the next 24hours. My dad took his car in for an 8am appointment to get the brakes fixed on his van. They had begun making a noise when we were downstate a few weekends ago but nothing serious and it eventually went away. Well on the way over to MN they started grinding really bad. So while he took that in David caught a shuttle to the mall for his eye appointment. My mom and I relaxed in billeting and watched movies waiting for the boys to return. Dad returned with the car at about 10:40am so we headed to the mall to find David.

( I only had my ipod camera so this didn’t turn out so well it is the front of the mall)

When we arrived at the mall he was finishing up and they said his glasses would be done in about a half an hour. That left us plenty of time to go to Cinnabon for some breakfast. Yummy! We were a little worried about the visas so we headed over to the airport a little early.

When we arrived they sent us to one of the machines to check in. It would not let us check in with out the visa so we had to talk to the man at the counter. He didn’t even ask us any questions he checked our bags right through to Copenhagen and gave us our tickets for all the way through too. First prayer answered we had our tickets now we just had to make it through the customs at the other end.

(The small things made all the difference.)

We sat and chatted with my parents until 1300 and then decided the security lines were moving pretty slowly we should probably get going to give ourselves time to find our gate. It was easier than I thought saying goodbye knowing that they are going to come visit us at some pointJ (If anyone else wants to come and visit let us know we would be more than happy to have you.)

(On our flight from MN to Chicago. Happy to be on our way.)

My bag got flagged at security in MN and O’Hare. The first time for my water bottle having water in it and too many cords in my bag and the second time they never really did figure out what the lady thought she saw. We had made it to the gate where our plane for Sweden sat.

We had 5 hours till take off. So we called family and friends to say bye one more time. At 2130 we boarded our flight. In 8.5 hours we would be in Denmark. Only a train ride away from our home for the next 5months.

Wednesday January 11, 2012

We cruised at an altitude of 40,000feet and went about 620mph making the trip seem like it zipped on by. We arrived an hour earlier than expected it was 1220. We deboarded the plane and got in line for customs. David was a little nervous at this point it was the last hurdle we had to make it through to get into the country. We got to the desk handed the man our passports he asked where we were going. David said “Malmo, Sweden.” He asked us no more questions stamped our passports and let us through. We both let out a huge sigh of relief and a prayer of thanks. We had made it in with no huge issues.

(The train ride across the bridge from Copenhagen to Malmo.)

(Our first glimpse of Sweden after getting off the train.)

We gathered our bags bought our train tickets and boarded the train. When we arrived in Malmo we had a few hiccups with getting to the SLU Alnarp campus. We eventually made it and found that there were still people on campus and they helped us to get ahold of our landlord.

(The train station from our bus stop.Malmo Central)

Our landlord to our surprise is a sweet old man in his 70s. (Although you would never know it by looking at him.) He loaded our bags in the back of his car and showed us a few areas of campus and then a little of the area where we would be living. At 1730 he dropped us at our little apartment and said he would stop in to see us the next day. We walked to a little shop called Lidl and got some dinner. We then fell into bed and fell fast asleep.

With very few hiccups and many answered prayers we made it safely to Sweden. We are still waiting to hear on our visa. It doesn’t seem to be a problem at this point yet. We have three months before it could become a problem.

At this point all we can do is pray and stay positive that it will work out how it is supposed to. That has been a theme I think we have subconsciously given this year long excursion. It will work out how it is supposed to work out and there is nothing that we can change. We will have more fun if we sit back relax and enjoy the ride rather than worry the entire time.

Thanks to everyone who was praying for us and thinking about us, as we made our venture over here.