The excitement this week was that our sea shipment arrived. It is funny to pack stuff up and then not see it for two months. Well, and to be honest, we didn't even really pack it. We are indebted to a good friend who supervised the moving crew for us so that T could avoid one more international trip. Since we are renting a fully furnished house, we just brought over some odds and ends to make us feel more at home and items that are expensive to buy here. Most things with plugs had to stay home-- wrong power-- but we did bring several computers and our printer. (Ah, to have a printer and scanner again. :-)) The only furniture we shipped was our dining room table and chairs (simply because we missed them) and our bed. Oh how we love our nice American queen-sized bed!! Of course, due to the craziness of the pack and move, there are things we didn't ship and wished we had and some things that we wonder why we shipped, but we've survived with what he had here for two months so anything that came now was a bonus.
If you haven't done an international move. Here is what the moving van looks like. Since we didn't need to bring too much, we had a 20 foot sea crate (I can only imagine how huge the 40 foot one would have looked on our little street) and it was only 1/3 to 1/2 full.
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| The sea container showed up fairly early. I wasn't sure what to say when the truckers asked me where to put it. They plopped it down on the side of the road. |
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They had it boarded up tight where the boxes ended to keep things from shifting around during transit. All the boxes are thicker than usual and the furniture and bikes were wrapped in thick cardboard blankets.
We are still trying to decide how to arrange a few things, but most of the boxes and debris are cleared away now. The kids were excited to get the rest of their toys, I was happy to get more clothes (I'd only brought one suitcase full with me) and we were all happy to see the winter coats-- it is getting cold enough to need them.
I think the most anticpated items were the bikes. At first we'd thought of just buying bikes once we got here, but when we shopped online for them we found they were much more expensive than in the states. We bought an old used bike for M soon after arriving in Sweden (and it cost about $200) since it is her daily vehicle but the rest of us had been stuck with walking. We spent Saturday equipping M's American bike to be a true Swedish bike. That meant adding fenders, a package rack, a basket, lights, a lock and a bell. We bought the bike just before moving here and were glad that we'd gone for a high quality road style bike. It had holes in all the right places to add the accesssories. We're not sure how much we'll be able to add to the rest of the bikes (standard US mountain bikes). We don't ride ours as often or in as varied weather anyways. The used Swedish bike was handed down to G. He chose it over the bikes we'd brought from the US since it was a little smaller and was already equipped with accessories. He is excited to be biking to school this week. He really missed having a bike during soccer season-- all the boys drive to and from practice on their bikes. |
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| M's bike after the Swedish accessorizing |
Since we were all excited to have bikes, Saturday afternoon we rode down to town to do a little shopping. It is so much easier (and cheaper) to park a car than a bike in the city center. Then since it was a beautiful day, we decided to take the scenic route home. We rode the Linnerunden, a nice trail throught the wetlands of Kristianstad (Vattenriket). We were able to see the ruins of a Lillo castle-- built in the 1200s. We will have to go there again. You can usually borrow a key to give yourself a tour of the interior, but they were having electrical issues this weekend and not allowing anyone in.
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| A walking/biking bridge across the Helgean. |
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| You could see the stone foundations of outbuildings around the castle. |
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| Lillo Borgruin-- originally the castle had another story and the traditional nordic shape but it was destroyed when Sweden took over the area and only the first floor remained. A modern roof was added to protect the interior and allow museum exhibits there. |
Odds and ends....
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| We saw this beautiful sunset over the wetlands while driving the other night |
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| Common restroom door lock-- you pull the handle up or down. The color in the window above tells you whether it is locked or unlocked. |
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| G complained that my round about picture in an earlier post looked like nothing and suggested I use an aerial view courtesy of Google. Here you can see the two round abouts I drive through when I drive to the big grocery store (like a Super Walmart :-)) |
