Settling In

We officially moved into our apartment on Monday, which is where we will stay for the rest of our time in Sweden. Knowing that we don't have to pack up and move another 12 times feels pretty amazing; Erin and I have done multiple fist bumps to commemorate the occasion. I've also been cooking up a storm and ceremoniously made a large pot of spaghetti sauce for dinner last night to baptize the place with the appropriate smells. Getting settled seems to have ironed out my insides a bit, which were getting a little crumpled from living out of suitcases for a month. Jenny is back! 

Here's some background on the apartment. It: 

• was built less than a year ago when two new floors were added to an existing building
• is on the fifth of six floors
• is located about a mile and a half from the city center and is much quieter than where we were previously (there were several nattklubbar around our hotel and we were frequently awoken by shouting, presumably drunk Swedes, including one fight that involved shoving and more than a few barely understandable F bombs) 
• has large, wonderful windows and nice, clean lines throughout
• was previously inhabited by an older couple who were both very sweet but whose English wasn't so good (for the record, our Swedish isn't so good either)

We were lucky that a previous ex-pat had stored his furniture at the plant where Erin works, so we already had a couch, bed, chairs, end tables, and nightstands along with a few spare kitchen items, all of which were brought in by pleasant, chatty man from a moving company who told us all about his estrangement from his brothers and father, a coffee burn he received on his chest as a child, how to prevent scarring from burns, his difficult work schedule, and how he practices Thai boxing in his spare time. Other than that, we fitted our new home with dishes, towels, sheets, candles, lamps, and many colorful items after several trips to IKEA to make it feel more cozy.

From the window in the kitchen, you can see an impressive-looking building that I hiked out to yesterday and which may be a castle. A large stone sign outside of it says something along the lines of:

"To the remembrance of the Battle of Helsingborg on 28 February 1710 and the memory of the Swedish and Danish soldiers who fought and fell on this battlefield for the city of Helsingborg."

Apparently the Danes and the Swedes used to fight over Helsingborg all the time (yawn) and it was once part of Denmark. This reminds me: there's a Great Dane living in our building named Fidel Castro. 

Feel free to take a moment to reflect on that.

Now that we're settled, we're going to start planning some trips outside of the Helsingborg region and are considering a few day trips. Hopefully I'll have some updates on that soon. As an aside, I picked up some new books: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt and Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger. 

Until next time!