We have been out and about!

So, when you say to your husband "We are going to someone's house tomorrow. No, I have never met them, but we have been chatting online", the wheels of dread start to turn in their head.
In my defence, I had 3 tubs of vegemite and a mega pack of timtams to deliver!

We were able to catch a train and a bus (Thanks to the fantastic directions of Rose- the internet friend) out to Lund, where we were made to feel very welcome and able to relax knowing that there were 2 other aussie kids in the house for ours to run and play with, and Rose and David who are 11 weeks ahead of us in this crazy "lets move from Australia to Sweden" thing.

Rose and David took us to the Skrylle Forest, ( www.skryllegarden.se ) where we were able to let the kids run off some steam, chase falling leaves, scare a deer, find red spotty mushrooms and eat raspberries straight off the bush!

Playing around where we stopped for lunch

The many colours of the Skrylle Forest in autumn (thanks Rose for the photo)

On our walk, we discovered the adventure playground with a fort, a flying fox and lots of other bits that would be removed from a playground in Australia for being far to dangerous (and fun).

Waiting for the flying fox

The kids all sat nicely waiting for the flying fox. Unfortunatly we, adults, realised that it was broken and told the kids- or they could have sat there for another 15 minutes if we let them!

On top of the fort

After we had worn all the kids out, we headed back to Rose and David's, where the kids settled into building lego and Rose and I took off to the shops so Rose could show me what was what, and what to avoid. I am very thankful for all the information Rose has given me since we have arrived- everything from how and where to get a SIM card, where the nearest doctors office is, through to what to use in cooking to replace golden syrup! With her information on where to shop and what I am looking at when I am there, Keir and I were able to confidently head out to Emporium (at Hyllie) to have a look around and do a real grocery shop. Whilst we were there, we found a shop that covered everything except clothes and food (it had bikes, hockey sticks, sanders, lego, everything) and were able to get a clothes airer! The excitement with this seemingly simple device stems from the fact the dryer in the apartment makes our clothes smell like something crossed between vomit and rotton meat- yummy :(

But after a decent scrub, it looks like we fixed that problem. A nice fried rice for dinner, eaten crowded around the iPad listening to the live audio stream of the Wallabies vs Argentina world cup final for a little taste of home. (It's not shown on free-to-air TV and all of the legal streaming options are zone locked and dont work for Sweden.)

Anyway its now off to bed for the kids and time to do a quick sweep and mop of the house before sitting down to work on school enrollment papers and planning some trips to keep everyone sane next week.

Look out Sweden, we have arrived!

I think the words "Oh my, what have we done" have run through our heads at least 20 times a day since we got to the airport.

The flights over were fairly uneventful, I can say that with a clear conscience as I was not aware Keir had been battling motion sickness the entire way from Adelaide to Dubai - due to being unable to unblock his ears! We got to check out the new gadgets on the plane- they have nose and ground cameras, so you can watch the take-off and landing from the nose of the plane, or during the flight, you can check out the view from directly below the plane.

The kids travelled well, they did sleep a little bit on the way to Dubai, probably about 6 hours of broken sleep throughout the 16 hour flight. They were awake for all of the flight from Dubai to Copenhagen. They took this opportunity to try out all the games and movies on the in flight entertainment in the back of the seats. Keir and I slept a little bit, pretty much taking it in turns as to who was awake, so to describe us as shattered on arrival is an understatement!

Once getting to Copenhagen, we got through the airport quickly (for anyone wondering, you don't have to declare 4.4 kg of Vegemite, or 6 packets of Timtams), and we managed to cram our 16 pieces of luggage and ourselves into a tiny 7 seater taxi (which proceeded to demonstrate that speed limits and indicators are optional extras) and zoomed over the Oresundsbron bridge from Denmark into Sweden. The part where we got to our hotel was straight out of a Griswold Family movie. We were dropped off at the place to get the key, only to find out that the apartment was another 1.6km away. Normally this would not be a big deal, but after 22 hours of travelling, and carting nearly 200kg of luggage, it nearly broke us! We did eventually find the apartment (behind the Red Cross refugee staging area- we must have really looked like we belonged there at this stage), only to find that it was on the 5th floor (and we found the service elevator after the first mammoth fully laden stair climb had happened).

After realising that there was nothing to eat in the apartment, we bumbled through getting some bread and milk (i think we cut in on the line at the shop), and stumbled back to the apartment.

But, we found where we were staying, made up all the beds and collapsed for a well needed 14 hours of sleep!

That was yesterday, and today we have been brave enough to go out and walk to the Malmo castle, go to the electronics store and buy an adaptor plug, find a chemist for some much needed Panadol, and find an ICA to do an almost normal priced shop for real food for dinner (last night it was Vegemite on toast). We only got slightly sidetracked once or twice- we never got "lost", we could find ourselves on the map we had, so no damage was done! There may be a few annoyed cyclists around- the kids keep stepping into the path of them!

The never ending "to do" list!

First of all, many thanks to those who came and saw us at the going away party. It was good to catch up with you all before we got too busy to think, let alone socialise! We did plan of having some pictures to put up, we even took the camera, but it stayed in its case the whole time- oops.

In the two weeks since the party, it has been an endless stream of tasks on the never ending "to do" list. Anything and everything has been on the list- from cleaning out the cupboards to cleaning out the vegi patch (if you want any seedlings, they are out the front- help yourself). I am sick of seeing boxes, piles of "stuff to sort", and bugging the neighbours for space in their bins!

We are still waiting on our final papers to clear before we can leave, but we are at the 2 weeks stage- 2 weeks and we will be in Sweden! We are also getting emails through about houses in Sweden, so we are moving one step closer to knowing where we will be living once we get there!

Tomorrows "to do" list is already a mile long, so this is just a short update, sleep needs to fit in somewhere.

Kris.

PS- if you are sending us a Skype request, please drop us an email with the Skype name so we know who you are :)

Are we going? Aren't we going? - The process (Keir)

Work first called for expressions of interest for a work placement in Malmo, Sweden on November 5th, 2014. At that time the plan was to have people on the ground in Quarter 1, 2015.

I emailed the details to Kristine and 3 minutes later got back this email:

Do it

So I applied.

I dusted off my old resume (I've been with the same company for almost 13 years so it was very much out of date), shook the moths out of my lucky interview suit and put in my application.

At this point it was looking to be a quick process.  An interview and then rapidly packing to head to Sweden within a month or two. We started looking at organizing - fortunately Mum agreed to have Oscar (our dog) as it was going to be a nightmare to get him over with us, and we were going to rent the house out.  But first I needed to get the job.

The first round of interviews were held on the 26th of November, and a second round was held 3rd of December.  They seemed to go well and I was pretty confident.  Kris and I waited to hear an answer but then a third round of interviews was announced - a manager from the Malmo company wanted to meet us as he was in Australia for some meetings.  I was off on leave that week 15th December, but came back in for an interview while Kris took the kids down to the Mawson Lakes park and fed the ducks.  Again it seemed to go well and we were told that we should hear an answer by the end of the week.

On Thursday I got a call saying that they were waiting on some answers from Sweden and we'd need to wait until the New Year to find out.

I've never had a holiday period drag so much...

When we returned I (maybe naively) expected a rush of information and activity, but instead we were told that they were waiting on a response from Sweden and we should hear in about 2 weeks.  Our HR team were great at keeping us informed, but there wasn't much they could do as they waited for Sweden to update them.  We were informed that we would have an initial acceptance and then we'd need to get government clearances from Sweden and that could take some time.

The "two weeks" continued until we got an update on 18th Feburary 2015.  They were still waiting. From then I made myself a nuisance, asking HR regularly if there were updates - obviously the Quarter 1deadline was going to slip, but was it all still even going ahead?

Finally on the 9th of April we got told that the first level of clearance had been passed but now we needed security clearances agreed between Australia and Sweden.  Also there were 6 people shortlisted and only 4 positions available so we still didn't know for sure if we had been selected, or even if it was all going ahead.

So for the next months we kept waiting, being told that we should hear an update in "two weeks" and then finally on the 29th of June 2015 I received an invite to a meeting and was told that I'd got one of the positions!

This was a huge weight off of our shoulders - finally we knew that we'd be going, but the question was when?  The first dates thrown around were August, but eventually they settled on mid-October.  it was when my project finished off, rugby was finished and Kristine's work contract expired.

So then it was on to preparations!  We had a house that was fairly new (we had it built 3 years ago) but still had the cruddy builders paint and had been subject to 3 kids and 2 dogs for 3 years.  We also had WAY too much stuff - offcuts of wood we were keeping, documents and papers for computer games I hadn't played in years and about four archive boxes full of cables and computer parts - not to mention Kristine's scrapbooking and sewing stuff.

The shelves from the boy's bedrooms and looking into the study

 Tom's gear in the study

So to start with we cleared some space in our lounge and then we moved the computers and sewing gear from the study into the lounge.  Next we moved the kids one-by-one into the study while we fixed, painted, and cleaned their rooms.  Then it was our turn.

Us (and all the furniture) in the study

It's now the 31st of August and we've almost finished..  The whole house was painted by Kristine while I was at work and we managed to pack most of the garage and all of the non-essential stuff into boxes in the study.  We donated four carloads of stuff to thrift shops, recycled a full trailer load of metal and dumped three trailer loads of junk.  Not to mention borrowing the bins of all of our neighbors in order to throw away papers and other odds and ends.

The kids "helping"

Cleaning our carpet

Now things have slowed down a little as we run into rugby finals, and we're expecting the contract and exact date any time now, so we'll continue to pack.  We've had a real-estate agent through in preparation for renting and have organized our mortgage while we're away.  We've also booked a going-away party to catch up with everyone before we leave - there's not a lot of free time between now and then...  Hopefully my next post will have the date, the contract and maybe some pictures of the party.

Why write a blog? (Keir)

I swore I was never going to write a blog.  There was no need.  Sure, we had plenty of funny stories about the kids, the dog(s) and day-to-day life, but who doesn't?  There was never really a need to write anything down, but November last year (2014) things got a bit more interesting.

My work was offering some positions for ex-pat assignments in Sweden.  Essentially they would relocate the family to Malmö in southern Sweden for 18 months to two years so we could work with a branch of the company over there. It was a great career opportunity for me and a good chance to travel as a family.  The position was well suited to my current work and skill-sets and the kids were a good age to travel, with Kristine having just completed her Masters and starting to look at going back into the workforce it was a perfect time.


So why create a blog?
There were a few reasons I wanted to start a blog.  Firstly I wanted some way of capturing our trip, the memories and our thoughts and feelings as an ex-pat family.  Secondly I wanted some easy way to keep our family and friends back in Australia up-to-date with our adventures.  Hopefully we will be able to capture photos, random thoughts, complaints from Kristine about how cold it is, recommendations for anyone else who might travel to Sweden - who knows?  This is all still new to us too...

I don't expect this blog to be updated daily, weekly or even regularly - it will be updated when we get a chance and when we do something worth capturing - like a journal or diary.  It would soon get boring with weeks of:
"Woke up - still dark.  Went to work, came home, had dinner, went to bed."

I also wont be posting any details about the work I'm undertaking, not because it's super secret and I'd have to shoot you if I told you, but more because this blog is more to focus on the family and our adventures.

So why did we decide to go?
I have some great memories of travel when I was younger.  When I was 4, we travelled to England, France and Spain. Of course I don't remember much of this trip but I've seen photos and heard stories.  I next travelled when I was 15, heading back to England, France and Italy.  I recently uncovered my journals of the trip and my big box of souvenirs.  I think its great for kids to be able to see other cultures and other places - Australia is an amazing country, but its very isolated from the rest of the world.  We have such amazing scenery and animals that we don't really need to go anywhere for an adventure - ask Kristine, she has seen so much more of Australia than I have - but the isolation makes it hard to get a real understanding of the rest of the world.  I think this is an amazing opportunity for the children and for Kris and I as well.  One way we thought about it was to consider our trip to the snow last year - we drove 16 hours to the snowfields in Victoria.  We saw some excellent scenery and interesting places but we travelled through two states.  From Sweden we could drive 14.5 hours and head through 6 countries:

Google Maps - Malmo to London

Starting in Sweden we could go through Denmark,  Germany, Netherlands, France and then finally England.  Despite being all members of the European Union (EU), each country has different culture, languages and things to see.

We could never afford to do the travel from Australia to Europe without help - with five of us, flights to Malmo are at around $3,000 each one way ($30,000 return for all of us) - so this gives us a great way to get to Europe and be able to explore from there.
Well that's all for this post - my next post will cover our preparations and the lead up to going.