WELL a mediocre amount of things have been going on at our new Stockholm home. The Stockholm tax office has put me to shame (halfway!) by sending Ben a letter in the post basically saying “turn in yr resident id card by Oct. 29 or good luck going through the whole process of getting a personnummer.”
I didn’t get one though. So my theory of try, try again is still valid. Plus, we already got our id cards in the mail from Migrationsverket so we’re just going to march our American butts over to the Skatteverket on Wednesday and show them our id cards. Yes, I’m taking mine over too, just by some weird coincidence my letter got lost in the mail. (Although I am having this grand vision of my personnummer making a trip to our mailbox before we can get over to the Skatteverket to show them Ben’s id card.)
In other news, I’ve been cooking a lot of really delicious things as of late.
huevos rancheros
banana/orange mimosas with strawberries
pizza with spinach, fresh mozz; with crust and sauce made from scratch
I’ve also made some chocolate chip cookies, which I didn’t like the pictures so they don’t get to be public (I have to work on my ratios, metric system + Val guesswork = I need to try another batch of cookies.) Ben took them to work today though and he said they were gone when he left this evening. I’ll have to trust that no one dumped the whole lot in the trash.
We’ve also made a quest to the beer section at one of our most recent grocery trips. That’s right, we broke down and bought some overpriced, low-alcohol beer. And even if it was low-alcohol, it was the most delicious beer that either of us has had since we got here. My favorite was the porter, Ben liked the Trashy Blonde (hoppy, but not hoppy enough.) And surprisingly, the Bishops Finger wasn’t all that bad. (I was afraid of it. It was this weird, almost pinkish color, but not fruity. Terrifying.)
We’re also working on a little project that involves taking pictures of some of the art in the subways. We rode up and down one of the lines almost completely, but it didn’t seem to have much art. We’re thinking a lot of it is along the blue line, which has been closed since August (but reopens tomorrow!!) So keep an eye out for that. We got some decent pictures of some of the stations, but if I’m going to commit to doing something like this, I don’t want to half-ass it.
Oh and I mentioned we got our resident cards in the mail! Well I basically look like a criminal in mine. Don’t think it’strue? Check it out. I didn’t smile bc no one else smiled in their pictures, and basically I didn’t know if I was allowed. (Also don’t tell me that’s ridiculous, because in your passport photos you are not permitted to smile, and I didn’t feel like getting reprimanded in Swedish, OKAY.)
No more news for now really, it’s been slow moving here. Basically, I’ve been lacking a lot of motivation to go out neighborhood-exploring because it’s been so boringly and consistently gray outside. And I still don’t have a functioning iphone to help me get around. I tend to have lots of luck with getting mega turned around getting off the trains here. (There’s two exits to almost every train station, and if you get off the wrong one…screwed.) It’s especially difficult because I don’t recognize the street names enough yet to remember where they all are in relation to each other. I’ll get used to it. Consider it a day off.
xoxo-
Val & Ben ♥
Attempting Sweden! 