Our Journey to Sweden: Conquered a Fear

This post is going to make many of you laugh... and maybe one day I'll look back on it and laugh too. It all started mid week when Steve informed me that both boys have a combined 5 games on Sunday. He also reminded me that he would be out of town. The games were both a bit of a distance from Stockholm, so buses and trains was not an option. Hence, my title, conquering my fear of driving in Sweden. Actually, the entire weekend provided many new experiences for me. Thursday started out with a tough workout in the park. We switched to a new park, Vanadislunden, which had some very LARGE hills... so sprinting up and down while doing circuits was not easy. I decided to start shopping daily or every other day for food, so I walked over to Daglivs and bought enough food for the next few days. I then went to the bank with my personal number, passport, and Steve's bank card to finally get a bank card of my own. This was all I needed according to the very nice bank teller and manager that Steve and I have been dealing with for the past month. As luck would have it, she and the manager were both off that day, and since the teller didn't know me, she couldn't order another card without Steve being present. I'm hoping at some point in the next two years, I will get my own bank card.

I decided to go home and clean the house. After a much needed shower, I actually had an hour of downtime before having to pick up the boys. As I'm walking out the door, I go to grab my wallet.... and it's not there. I turned the entire house upside down, and realized the only place it could be was the grocery store. Since the train cards are in my wallet, I had to find that before I could get to the school. I called Claudette who bailed me out by picking up the boys. I sprinted over to Daglivs and found the Help Desk. I asked the woman if she spoke English and her response was VERY LITTLE. This was a long shot... but what did I have to lose!!! I tried to explain that I was shopping here earlier and I must have left my wallet at the checkout. Did anyone turn in a wallet? (Did I mention that I had 800 Kroner... $120 IN my wallet as well)? She seemed to understand my question. She looked under the counter at the help desk.... MY WALLET! Swedes pride themselves in their honesty... now I know why!!!

I sprinted to school to meet Claudette, grabbed the boys, raced home to do homework for roughly an hour and headed out to Jake's soccer practice. While I"m sitting and reading emails at his practice, I look up to see some friends we met very early on here. We hung out with them the first week of Jake's practices. But, his practice moved to another field and we lost touch with them. Both Steve and I had been talking about them a few days earlier saying we needed to try and find them... but busy lives took over and it never happened. When they saw me, they came right over to apologize for not staying in touch. Her phone, with our contact info was lost, and she had finally just gotten a new one. Their son Leo and our boys really hit it off that first week. He kept telling his parents to come and knock on our door. You can't get into our apartment complex without the code, so they weren't able to find us. Long story short, we reconnected and the boys are thrilled. Steve and I really liked the parents as well... so we all decided to get together in the next few weeks. It was a late night for the boys. After practice we still had to catch the train and then walk home. Poor Chase is really struggling here. If we were in Georgia, he would have been asleep. Instead we were strolling the streets.

Friday morning arrived too early for the boys. We hurried off to school and I ran back to meet my old buddy Schneider who was coming to hang more lights. Thanks to Lori, she asked Georigios (remember that story) what the name of my handyman was, and he told her Göran. I emailed the housing company because we have a leak in our upstairs bathroom and I asked them to please send Göran. I am happy to report ALL of my light fixtures are installed and my apartment is now ready for the dark months that lie ahead. As for the leak, they are sending a plumber next week. Next, I ran to the rental car place to rent the car for this weekend. Peter, the man working, was awesome! He not only spoke English... hahaha... but he walked me to the parking meter and taught me how to pay for parking. The last time we rented a car, it cost us an additional $150 in parking tickets. Now I understand the system and also know how to read the signs on the road that explain when the streets are cleaned and NOT TO PARK THERE.

After school, Jake attended his first birthday party here in Sweden. The very brave mother picked up the kids from school and walked them all to the bowling alley. I had to be there at 6:00 to pick him up. Smith and Chase wanted to play at the school (a lot of kids stay after and play soccer etc on the school grounds) so I hung out with my friends while they played. We walked to Subway (that's what they wanted for dinner) and then we walked to the bowling alley on Sveavägan 118 (Bebop the address is for you) and headed home. Another late night for Chase with a very early Saturday ahead.

Smith's soccer team was invited to meet the AIK pro team. We had to be at the stadium by 8:45am Saturday morning. I told you that Steve picked the busiest weekend to head out of town. I'm sure he wished he was here watching soccer instead of working. He mapped out some VERY detailed walking directions for us. We woke up bright and early, jumped on the train, and walked about a mile to the stadium. Below are some of the many pictures I took.

The boys loved shooting on this goal!

The big guys practicing.

The little guys watching

I thought we would be here for about an hour or so.... three hours later, we were still there. I don't want to say it was unorganized.... but... it was a bit "go with the flow". I actually enjoyed it because I was able to meet most of the families on Smith's team. Everyone is very friendly and so helpful. One of the moms is a body guard. How cool is that!!! As we were leaving the stadium, the boys and I were walking next to one of the players. He had his two little boys with him. When he heard us speaking English, he began talking to us. He was telling me that his wife is English, but they are going to Florida for Christmas because it's warm! He took the boys back to the locker room so they could peak in and his little boy brought us all back bottle waters. It was fun to meet him and especially fun for the boys to chat with him and see that he does "normal" things just like them.

At this point we were STARVING! I turned on google maps and began walking in the direction of the ICA Maxi and the sneaker store were went to last week. We had to buy some more things and we weren't far from it. On our way, we came across some really pretty sites.

This was a boot camp right next to the pictures above... I wanted to join them. heehee

Jake spotted a pizza place and the smell drew us all in. The lady working there was less than thrilled to see us. If we weren't all starving, I would've left, but I knew the boys would throw a fit! When I asked her if she spoke English, she replied with a very rude, NO! Jake whispered in my ear, "mom, she's mean". Since she couldn't help me with the menu at all.... I ordered pizza, lasagna and salad (the only three things I could fully understood. The food was very good despite the service. When the bill came, I actually tried to give her a tip, but couldn't figure out how to do it. Paying at restaurants is VERY different here. So... I guess I got the last laugh! That night the boys crashed at 8:30... but we did get to Vox with Marci and Sammy before bed. If you haven't downloaded Voxer yet, it's so fun!!! It's voice IM.

Now for Sunday, the day I was dreading all week. I prepared the night before by packing each boy a lunch and snacks. I wasn't sure if any of this was available and it was going to be a long day. Smith had a 9:30, 11:30 and 1:30 game and Jake had an 11:30 and 1;30 game. The two tournaments were nowhere near each other so google maps was going to be my savior. I set the alarm for 7:00am and we headed out the door at 7:45. I had to pick up the car (I didn't move it from the rental place because I didn't want to deal with parking all weekend). Chase and I headed across the park to get the car so I could bring it back, load up the car seats, chairs and bags, and head out. We were on the road at 8:00 in the direction of Smitty's games. I wouldn't let them talk because I had to hear the lady on my phone, and I wouldn't put the radio on either. Expecting three boys to sit quietly for 30 minutes was a joke! I started laughing half way there because it reminded me of when I was a kid. My sisters will remember this. My mom grew up on Manhatten so she never learned how to drive. When I was about 12, she decided it was time to learn. Whenever we drove with her, we were not allowed to listen to music or talk too loudly because she was so nervous driving. We hated it!!! Today, I was my mom!

We arrived safely with no mistakes... yippy! Parking wasn't as easy, but I managed to squeeze my little VW into a spot.

not the actual parking lot

As we were grabbing all of our belongings out of the car, I'm trying to keep my eyes on Chase, and I hear a man's voice repeating himself. It was in Swedish, so it didn't really register. I looked up to a pretty angry looking face. I looked at him and said, "I'm sorry, I don't speak Swedish". His face softened and he said, "oh... I was saying good morning". I felt really stupid and it dawned on me that people might talk to me a lot during the day and since I don't understand Swedish, I tune it out.

We watched Smith's first game and afterwards some of the parents brought pastries, tea and coffee for everyone. Our very own Fika between games. It was really nice! A few parents volunteered to help me out by keeping Smith with them for the next game, while I took Jake to his game. We said goodbye to Smith and hopped in the car following google maps to the next field. When we arrived at his game, Jake cheered, "Go Mom!!!". I guess he didn't have a lot of confidence in his mama today. I met up with Jake's coach and his wife (we've become friendly with them and Jake really likes their son Liam) and I was able to watch all of Jake's game. He played great.. scored a goal and even played goalie for a bit. Because I don't have a car charger, I turned off my phone before the start of the game to save my battery. This is when my stress started! I turned on the phone mid game to take a picture, and that's when I realized I had made a BIG mistake. When you turn off your phone here, it automatically locks your SIM card. One has to memorize their code and this ONE did not! I am now in a state of panic because I have to pick up Smith from his game, and I have no access to google maps. I used (I can't spell her name) Liam's mom's phone to call Steve to see if he could find out the pin. Long story short, they couldn't give it over the phone. My plan was to get directions back to Stockholm, get the pin code that is sitting on my desk, and then rush to pick up Smith. Liam's family was keeping Jake for the rest of the day to help me out. When I explained my plan to her, she insisted that I take her phone. I had no other choice.... did I mention how nice they both are! I had to get over the fact that the directions were now going to be in Swedish. To say I was scared is an understatement. I couldn't get into my phone so I had no contacts and only Swedish Google Maps. NEVER a dull moment in my new life here in Sweden! Since I'm home and writing this post, you figured out that I did it. I was even able to see all of Smith's game. Chase was in the backseat in tears begging me to take him home. I dragged him around with me from one field to the other with only peanut butter sandwiches to eat. After the game, both boys were wiped out. We went home for a few hours of downtime. As we walked up to our apartment, Smith saw some of his buddies playing at the park and asked if he could go play. Where he had the energy for this is beyond me... but of course I said yes. Chase and I headed up and Smith went to the park. He comes back only five minutes later in tears. When he was running through the grass, something bit him. Here's a picture of his leg.

I had never seen anything like it, so I texted this picture to Lori and Claudette. Lori mentioned it looking like Nettles..... a stinging plant. I have never heard of such a thing.. but sure enough, after looking it up... that's exactly what it was. It's common in Europe and apparently North America as well. hmmmmm Thank God he didn't have an allergic reaction to it because I honestly couldn't add anything else to this crazy day. After a few minutes the bumps went away and the stinging subsided.

It was time to pick up Jake from practice. At least I had the car and we didn't have to walk. I can't believe how close we are to the field. It took less than 10 minutes to drive to practice and it takes almost 30 minutes by train and feet. Chase actually asked if we can drive everyday. hahaha... A few things that were strange about driving here....
1. it's a lot more confusing having to watch for pedestrians crossing
2. the car actually turns off when you sit at a light and then turns itself back on when you release the break. I'm glad Peter warned me of this prior to driving... I would have panicked and called a tow truck for sure.
3. roundabouts.... on google maps are quite confusing. She always said "exit the roundabout", but that didn't always mean the same thing on all roads.
4. reading a Swedish manual is no easy task. I couldn't figure out how to move the seat forward. I did manage to find the picture in the manual though.
5. Parking.... not only are spots hard to come by, but I had to whip out my parallel parking skills after many years of not using them. I squeezed this little VW into a really tight spot. I was so impressed with myself.... my drivers ed teacher would have been proud.
6. Meters and Kilometers... why didn't I master this when I had the chance? It would have made this day a lot easier!

We finally had Jake in the car and we headed home. I didn't have to return the car until tomorrow morning, however, there were no parking spots in front of my building. I decided to park the car near the rental place, text him the address, and drop the keys in the slot. One less thing I had to worry about tomorrow. Of course it started raining as soon as I parked the car, but I had already committed to my plan, so walking in the rain was inevitable. At that point, I realized both of my car seats were in the car, and I had to get them home. We were definitely a sight! I had two car seats (one strapped to me), three boys, and soccer bags, all hiking down the street, across the park, in the rain. I was too cranky to have Jake take a picture... but now I wish I had. Like I said, one day I will laugh at this! Right now I'm just happy this day is over! All three boys are fast asleep and Mommy is not far behind.

I will end on a happy note..... Fall is here and the leaves are starting to turn color. I'm excited to experience another season in a new country. I believe we saw the last of the warm days and now it's time for cooler temperatures. The weather for the week is 70% chance of rain everyday with highs in the 50's and lows in the 30's and 40's. It's a good thing I bough all of our rain gear.

Here are some more pictures from the weekend.