6 AM. The day of the winter solstice. What a great idea to come to Sweden in midwinter. We open the curtains to the tiny, flickering lights of the shoreline of Trelleborg, still covered in darkness. Time to get moving for some frukost before leaving the ferry.
7:30 AM. Our masks are stowed away. Wearing our jackets and hats, we are sitting in our car, waiting for our new life to begin and watching the black sky turning dark blue. We tune into radio P4 Malmö and as we drive down the ramp onto the mainland, a song from ABBA’s new album is playing to welcome us. There is no passport check, we just drive through a gate and that’s that.
We pass through Trelleborg with its red brick buildings and so many Christmas lights and other glimmering decoration. Little villages along the road are lit up, too, as our route takes us through the heartland. As the sun slowly crawls up the horizon, the silhouette of the hills, trees and houses are cast against the blue and neon golden gradient of the sky. It is such a beautiful view. A new dawn with high hopes. We’re closing in.
9 AM. Without navigation, we take the scenic route through lovely Lund. Finally, we find our hotel and although the check-in time is usually 14:00, everyone is so nice and friendly and try hard to make it possible for us to get into our room.
The apartment is very basic. Paint is peeling off at many places, the window is not closing properly. It is cold (around 17°C), but we’ve got a kitchen and the shower is actually bigger than the kitchen (no kidding). We turn up the heater as much as possible but we’re not confident this will help much. Luckily, the staff provided us with an extra electric radiator later that does the job.
12:15 PM. After making ourselves comfy, we take a walk to the centre of Lund through the cemetery of Norra kyrkogården and Johannes wants us to read all the tombstones, but we don’t have the time. We’re on a mission.
We walk through the beautiful centre of old buildings. Hardly anyone is wearing a mask on their faces. There’s an ice skating court in front of the rådhus, many kids and parents are skating there happily. We’ll probably check it out later. At skatteverket, the tax agency, there is only a tiny piece of plastic next to the computer to create additional distance between the staff and the client. Our staff member is very friendly and helps us with the folkbokförd, the registering process for residency, copying all the material we’re handing her.
2 PM. Then we’re done here, but the process to get the ominous personnummer may take up to 18 weeks. We go back to the Handelsbanken to apply for an account there, but without a personnummer, the guy at the counter (while being very friendly and helpful) says it is likely that the process will take longer (if successful at all) than it will to get the personnummer in the first place. While that’s not encouraging, we’re not leaving without filling in the forms.
3:30 PM. Back in the hotel we rest for a moment, but then head out to the supermarket (a LIDL discounter in our case) to get some stuff for dinner and breakfast. As we didn’t have lunch yet, we stop at an asian fast-food restaurant on the way to have some grub (I would have gone for the German Döner Kebab, but Kathi didn’t want to eat there). It’s good and we will note this down for further food emergencies, but man, it is expensive for fast-food!
When we leave, it’s already dark outside. But the LIDL is close by. First world problem: We cannot get unlink a trolley because none of our (Euro) coins fit and we have no Swedish coins yet (but nobody seems to use the big trolleys anyway!). So we buy some stuff and head back.
We check some more housing stuff on the internet while Johannes does some homework. The first day is done. I think we have accomplished some important parts, but we are all tired now.
Summarising: Everyone in Sweden so far has been very friendly, nice, supportive and helpful to us. We don’t know if this is honest, but we would like to think it is. Thank you, Sweden, for the friendly welcome. Tack så mycket.