eyes.and.ears

Well, after a few weeks here I have started to get used to the little quirks and that Sweden has and have experienced the frustrations of moving to a different country. 

The new village, Vedum is kind of like a glamour model… pretty to look at, but not much going on inside. The lack of a social meeting place (i mainly mean a pub) means that you either have to convince someone that being the designated driver for the evening can be fun and go to the surrounding villages/gothenburg or you  go to peoples houses. The second option is facilitated by everyone here being so friendly. It gets dark pretty early at the minute and is cold and rainy most of the time but I kind of like this weather. There is something comforting about it.

Apparently everyone knows that there is a new englishman in the village and suspect my friend Neal of starting to set up some kind of english commune. It kind of feels like I am in a League of Gentlemen episode but in a nice way as people look out for each other here. Friends have had a lot of patience in helping me sort myself out with the tax office, getting an ID number, calling phone companies etc so much so that I feel guilty whilst sitting there with a stupid apologetic grin and trying to figure out which swedish expletives they are shouting whilst trying to get my phone line/broadband connected. This has actually proved to be an extraordinarily impossible task. Let me run you through the process we have been through so far… 

Call 1: We call Telia (basically the Swedish BT) to get the line connected but we have to do it in Neals name as you need your ‘personnummer’ (i am still checking the post box) to sign up.  They then asked us which flat number I lived in which we didnt know. *cue searching for flat name for a day and calls to ex-tennants and the landlord*

Call 2: “sure we can get that done now, we need to know who the last tennant was in that flat who had a phone line” *cue searching for 2 days to find out who this was*

Call 3: “ok, that person has two lines registered to them in the building, one open and one closed” We tell them it must be the closed one for my flat but their system wont let them do it so we are told to call back tomorrow.

Call 4: “you want broadband? ok, just give us the flat number” *cue swearing as name which took 2 days to find is apparently not needed*  ”hmm, we can’t connect the line from here, there is a problem but we can send an engineer out” “Ok, when can they come?” “the next available date is in 2 weeks” *cue a lot more swearing and some hysterical laughter at the ridiculous offer*

Call 5: “ok, they can be with you next week, let’s set up the broadband”

The phone line is connected finally but no broadband, I’m still in Neals kitchen hoping that it will come on some time this week  

I am still getting used to driving on the wrong/right side and yes, I have made the mistake of driving on the wrong side (it took 2 weeks and a day Rob) although it was at 3:30am so I blame that. Fitted my winter tyres which are awesome as the studs make a kind of buzzing sound like the car is hovering. There are a few little bits I am still having trouble with such as the STOP signs which you HAVE to come to a complete stop at. If you are rolling even the tiniest bit before pulling away then you can be fined or get a very dirty look from the swedes in the car. You probably have to do this in England too but frankly, I have replaced most of the space in my brain that the highway code took up with pretty pictures and the two jokes I can remember. There are corners which you have to indicate to go round, junctions that appear to have no rules whatsoever but apparently do and B roads which wouldn’t even qualify for a driveway in England. I have also been followed by a police helicopter (i kid you not) and nobody who was with me could explain why although I’m guessing the English reg plates have a lot to do with it.

It sounds like I am complaining but I am not. All this is what I expected and to be honest, if it was easy, it wouldn’t be as fun. Sweden is a great place and I hope some of you can come find that out in the next year. For now, I look forward to seeing everyone over christmas and I just have to book my flights before I have to sell an internal organ to afford it.

Now that I have left the office and can no longer entertain myself with ball-pits, table tennis and the thought of imminent pub visits, I have to keep myself entertained with things like this. The link below will take you to a little video I made using the Gawker application. Started when I sat down to work this morning and stopped when I finished, complete with lunch and dinner breaks.

VIDEO

Now, off to buy some beers and watch the Liverpool match

If I could give one piece of advice to anyone who reads this, it would be “Do NOT ever emigrate to another country”. It is possibly the most stressful experience of my life so far (this might say a lot about my lifestyle) and glad it is now over. 

After looking over the different options for moving belongings I decided on taking a car and driving up through Europe mainly because of the fact that using a shipping company or getting the ferry means you have to sell both kidneys to afford it and I kind of need at least one. I managed to drag my friend Rob along for the ride too and we set out on Monday morning for Dover and the ferry to France (Via the Post Office to get the new taxed). I can’t go into detail about all the trip so I will break it down into bullet points

• The security checks at Dover involve simply looking at bags and asking the owner what is in them without actually checking… safety first.
• France smells funny… a rollercoaster ride of seriously strong sulfurous smells to just plain cow crap pong.
• Belgium is flat and equally smelly
• People seem to disappear from cars in road-side rest points and then magically appear from seemingly nowhere out of the trees (Rob suspected we had stumbled upon a dogging spot, I suspect road-side pooping is legal in Holland) 
• The Autobahn is scary
• Germany is a lot bigger than I expected.
• The Autobahn is scary
• Bridges in Denmark are massive and massively expensive to cross.
• Eating a diet of Pringles, Wine gums and McDonalds for 20 hours and then downing a red bull = Instant nausea.
• Being asked why you are coming to Sweden and responding with “I am coming to live here” gets you instantly waved through the checkpoint.
• Did I mention the Autobahn is scary?

Free MP3 of the day… The Beaux Hardts – Lucky Pierre

The new Weezer video for ‘Pork and Beans was posted this week and I cant stop watching it. Featuring all your YouTube heroes like Tay Zonday, the hands with lyrics on and the mentos fountain guys. EPIC WIN! At my Dads this weekend for the bank holiday.. it’s kind of like going on holiday, but without the hassle of actually going. We have also been invaded by peacocks!  

Free Download of the day: Crevecour – le pont des possedés

Today someone mentioned how quiet our office is. Sometimes it can be eerily quiet, especially for a music company. You would expect to have some sort of music playing in the office, even the printers my mum works at plays music during the day!

Anyway, we decided to bring the issue up for the hundredth time in the form of a group page http://www.last.fm/group/It%27s+Oh+So+Quiet…/ and it was unsurprisingly met with some vocal dissapproval… Looks like that wont be happening any time in the near future, maybe we need a noisy side and a quiet side to the office. We do get an interesting group radio out of it though, made up of all the staff members who have joined, you get quite a diverse radio stream and it is fun to try and guess which track came from which user profile.

On a stranger note, there was a visitor in the office today in the form of Holly the dog who happily strolled round the office barking and eating stuff from bins. Hopefully a permanent addition to the team!