Johannes had a day off from school and I had nothing to do, so we went on a day trip to Copenhagen, while Katharina was at work. We took the train from Lund and were there about 1.5h later. Buying a ticket was easy as the Skånetraffiken App offers tickets that include the Öresund bridge and the Copenhagen area (I think the whole day ticket for the two of us costed around 36 EUR).
We had brilliant weather. Walking through the park from Østerport was a lovely change from hanging around at home. Later on, we found a playground in Kongens Have where Johannes spent quite some time. There were groups of (fore)school kids he could play with, so he was happy.
Allt är dyrt här — everything is expensive here! We had a simple lunch and paid a fortune (>28 EUR). We had two scoops of ice cream each for about 7 EUR per person. Wow.
I sent an email to Kristina (of Kristina and Hjalte, whom I first met in San Pedro de Atacama ten years ago and later visited in Copenhagen) and to my happy surprise, I quickly got a reply from her. They had moved to the suburbs of Copenhagen and have two kids now. We hope we can catch up on the past and meet again some time soon.
Johannes was getting tired so we returned to Lund in the afternoon. I’ll leave you with a few photos.
On Öresund bridgeParkMore ParkMore more parkThis boat goes nowhereKids just love iceA statueThe King’s ParkRiding the dragonAll closed on Mondays :-/I’m absolutely hooked!Aww… nice.
One day Johannes came back from school and told us that next week is sportlov. Sportlov? Never heard of that. Turns out that sportlov is a week of school holidays that had been introduced a long time ago to avoid the high costs of heating the school buildings during the coldest weeks of winter. Nice.
Also, this week of leave would reduce the spread of the Winter vomiting disease, the famous Vinterkräksjuka, caused by some kind of Noro virus.
There are many activities for free in Sweden during that week, of course centred around sports and many kids use the opportunity to try out new sports. I picked activities for every day of the whole week from a long list, trying to spend as much as possible with Johannes at different places.
But first, we spent the Sunday at the swimming pool at Lund, and as it was the first day of the sportlov, we had to wait about an hour to get into the bath (Kathi and Johannes visited the nearby park while I was waiting for our number to show up). But it was worth it and we had much fun. The next day, Kathi came back from work a little more exhausted than usually. She called in sick for Tuesday as she was shivering. Johannes and I went to a gymnasium in the next little village for him to try out some ball sports.
He had some fun with other kids. Until… he got a ball onto his head. Gladly, it only was a softer ball and not a real football, but still, he didn’t feel well and wanted to leave. So we left and drove back home.
About five seconds after he had left the car, he vomited. Could it be vinterkräksjuka?
I took him up to our upstairs couch and measured the temperature. 39°C and rising. I checked for signs of a concussion, but he reacted normally. But still, puking and fever after getting a ball to the head? It could be serious. He vomited a second time. So we went to the hälsingcentralen (the local health center) next to the supermarket. After waiting for half’n hour they recommended to go to the emergency ward of the hospital in Lund because they would not have the equipment here to exclude a concussion.
So we drove to the hospital. On our way to the child’s emergency ward, he vomited a third time (I don’t want to elaborate on that). Anyway, after seeing a nurse who took down notes and got Johannes an ice cream, a doctor had a look at him and repeated more or less all the tests I already had done. She was convinced that it was no concussion and that it was merely an onset of an infection that coincided with the ball incident.
That night, he slept in our bed.
I, however, couldn’t sleep. I started to get fever and melagia. The next morning, I really was in pain and exhausted. I took a Corona test and it was positive. Jackpot.
To keep things brief: Johannes was better the next day, I also was at 80% after two days and Kathi never had much issues anyway. Except for coughing from time to time and a sore throat (which could have been a secondary infection, who knows) for a week, Omicron was not a big thing for us (maybe because the three of us did supplement a good dose of vitamin D). Unfortunately, all the things we had planned for sportlov had to be canceled.
By the end of the week, the weather changed. The dull, dark and rainy days of February were over and the sun finally came out. We took the opportunity for a walk through our neighbourhood and to the close by village Stora Råby. We found a nice little bakery and cafe where we sat in the sun for a looong time, regaining energy.
So sportlov didn’t work out as planned, but on Monday, Johannes went back to school and Katharina back to work, as usually. No quarantine, no mandatory (PCR) testing, no reporting to health institutes.
Sportlov i LundSun!Playground!Creek!Lake!Big Lake!Other side of the biggest lake in Lund!Stones!Geese!Monday after sportlov. The coldest days…It can be rather tidy, even without shelves and cabinets…
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.
Courtesy of Christian, we’ve got our door sign sent hereLiving. No more room.The Office(TM)Look, we can sit somewhere!Sätoftasjön near HöörWhat a nice place (but cold)The HoodThings you find in boxes…Living. Little more room.
02.02.22: February 2nd was a big day for all of us (again, after 21.12.21 ;)). It was Johannes’ first day at school and the day our furniture and stuff should arrive in our new home. The day we would start sleeping in our beds again. So after working three days in her company, Kathi took three days off again.
We left our hotel early in the morning, too early to say good-bye to the receptionist Alejandra. It was snowing heavily and we drove slowly through the darkness to our house, arriving at about 6:15am. No news from the lorry so far, and when nobody showed up at 7:00am, I called the boss of the moving company. 15 minutes later, the two men arrived in an empty van, but the lorry wasn’t there yet. It arrived another 15 minutes later and they started unpacking stuff. Of course, they were able to fit everything into the 7,5t lorry with no problems, and so the van really was completely empty.
They rolled out the red carpet and started unpacking.
Meanwhile, Kathi and Johannes left to walk to his new school.
I took the freedom to help them carry the boxes to the various places and soon, the boxes were all inside the house. One guy was very busy reassembling the big bedroom cupboard and the other two guys just sat outside and were smoking. The lorry driver did not do anything except for handing out the stuff from the lorry, and as learned later, he was from another company and thus would do no unloading etc.
Anyway, he left as soon as the truck was empty, so only two people were left for getting the sofa up to the second floor. There were many attempts, reminding me of the sofa situation in Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently books. They also attempted to remove the railing, ruined a screw without telling me and put the railing back on again, whistling La Paloma 🙁 I only found out about it later that evening.
But by tearing the sofa into smaller pieces, they at last succeeded. This thing needs to stay there until forever, we’re not going to move it ever again. At about one o’clock, the van left with the guys. Beds and cupboards were reassembled so we could sleep in our beds the first time after such a long time.
I fetched Johannes from school and he was very happy about his first day at school. He said that his classmates liked him and he likes them, and he might even have a crush on one of the girls. He was a bit sad though, that the moving action was already over. Still, he was keen on unpacking his toys while we tried to get at least some of the stuff from the kitchen into the cupboards. As usually, there is never enough space.
I’m writing this two months later and so much of my memory is already fading. But I do remember one thing: Oh my, so many boxes that needed to be unboxed. And so little furniture to put it in.
These boxes would go a long way.
Look! There is so much space left!Put that side down!Boxes everywhereKid’s bed is reassembledA dying man in a living-roomYay, cups and cuttlery!One of the earlier attempts to get the monster upWhat did they do to my cupboard light!?!
So the day came when our stuff was disassembled and packed into a 7,5t lorry by six or seven workers under supervision of Christina in Munich, who gave all her energy to make this possible. She was on the brink of getting sick already and spent the next days in bed. Thank you again for that. It felt very strange, sitting in our apartment room, communicating only over text messages about what’s going on, while the glass was emptied 1.000 km from here.
We received the keys to the house on the last day of January and saw the interiors of it for the first time. Really awesome, even in the darkness of the night with not so many lights installed yet. Lots of space. Already many wardrobes and cabinets installed, so we wouldn’t need to get all of The previous tenants, however, left some clothes in the dryer and uhm, didn’t quite clean the kitchen thoroughly. They turned off the fridge and freezer and closed their doors. Maybe they were just young and naïve. As it turns out, they have left Sweden again, maybe they moved to Denmark. How do we know? Well, in Sweden, you can track everyone on the internet and they no longer have an address in Sweden.
Our landlords are really lovely people. We hope that we can also be friends with them. They showed us everything and let many pieces of furniture and equipment there that comes in handy. It all looks so tidy and big when it’s still empty 🙂
We already brought a few of our things over to the new house, but of course, we could not bring over the beds. So we will stay one last night in the Djingis Khan Hotel, which will change its name to (the in my opinion very unfortunate name) “Place”, soon.
Our former beds…Our former kitchen…The new living roomThe new kitchenSecond floorWardrobe room 1Wardrobe room 2Garden…
