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99 boxes of stuff on the floor, take one down, pass it around, 98 boxes of stuff on the floor…

There we are… Unpacking of boxes follows an inverse exponential curve. With wardrobes and cupboards to fill, the stacks of empty folded boxes gets quickly higher. What to do with books and other stuff, when we left all bookshelves and cabinets in Germany? Finding the right box with the mixing of heavy and light things is a bit tricky though. Also: We didn’t pack these empty bottles of cooking oil, did we?

Putting up a few lights here and there so we can still see each other — it is still getting dark quickly in February. But at a few places, like the living room, we will take some time to decide over the “right” lamp.

We already met Therese, the neighbour next to us and she is open and friendly and has two boys, one of them at the age of Johannes, so we hope to have some play mate for him soon. The other direct neighbour has no interest whatsoever even making eye contact, and we have come to understand that this seems to be the Swedish way (really, you should read that link for some funny insights). While some people are smiling and greeting us, others really seem to avoid any interaction, verbal or non-verbal. Hum.

About a week after we drove to Helsingborg to apply for our Swedish ID cards, we now could fetch our ID kort from a Skatteverket in Malmö while Johannes was at school. We could skip the queue and finally held the third (fourth? fifth?) milestone after the personnummer in our hands. We then directly drove to Handelsbanken for me to complete the application and for Katharina to seek for MobileBankID. Turns out that they need to reissue the login card for Katharina and well, my cards will also take a week to arrive before I can actually access my account. But at the end of the day, we had three bank accounts (one shared) all due to the magic of ID kort.

Meanwhile in Germany, Christina and Sylke proceeded with the affairs around the old flat. The initial viewing went well. Due to the fact that the landlord (Wohnbau) wants to renovate the floors, we don’t have to pay much attention to these details. Unfortunately, as the works can only begin in May, we won’t get our of the contract earlier, so we still have to pay the full three months, regardless if the following tenant would like to move in earlier.

We visited many furniture shops with varying success. We ordered a couch from MIO only to get notice later that it will be delayed by additional six weeks (due to Corona, of course!). We ordered cabinets from XXXLutz (yay, with manuals in german!). The living room, except for some boxes, only had my beanbag as furniture. Later, we used a stack of boxes to put the video projector on top to watch a few things, but usually, we were just too tired and went to bed straight away.

The following weekend, we visited a kind family we chatted with online with. They bought a house close to Hörby (not a beetle with the number 53, but merely a 30 min drive), and moved to Sweden with their newborn son about half a year ago — and still had been waiting for their personnummer (so we were really lucky to get our so quickly!). We took a rather long walk through the area and had tea and dinner with them. We talked a lot about the situation in Germany and we agreed on many topics. It was very nice to have met them and we would like to keep up the contact with Adriana, Simon and Leon.

Meanwhile Katharina was still fighting with the Familienkasse, the Agentur für Arbeit, the Rentenkasse, the health insurance company to get things settled. So many bullshit jobs, so many wasted hours on both sides for a few bucks.

Johannes is very happy at school and we met most of the teachers who have been just so great with him. They really care about the children. They take the time to talk to the parents. Johannes has had his first music lesson (in Germany, they didn’t prioritise that at all). They sing. They spend a lot of the time outside playing. They do sports. They hug. Although he spends significantly more time at school (8:00 to 13:40) compared to Germany (7:45 to 11:20/12:30) he is less exhausted when he returns.

Katharina has good weeks and not so good weeks at work. She still struggles to get enough things to do while the colleagues who were supposed to train her on the workflow become ill or work from home. But things are progressing and she gets to know the people. Almost everyone is helpful. Some even use their private breaks to teach her Swedish. Usually, the business language is English there, so she takes every opportunity to pick up some more Swedish. I envy her a bit for that, because I have not yet been able to get more speaking practice.

And I, I spent my days unpacking boxes, setting up furniture, organising things, shopping for food, housekeeping and taking care of Johannes in the afternoon. Things could go on like that. I can’t say I am at a hurry going to work again.