Jen has done a great job picking up my slack on the blog front. We have been in Sweden for almost a week, and I have been back at work in a normal time zone mode for that week. Some interesting things happened.

I spent 2 weeks in the US, working from 3am to noon on Swedish time, and then working from noon to 5pm on house moving tasks, and usually to bed by 8pm. I was really grateful to be done with the real estate business and be back in Sweden.

The trip over was nerve-wracking. Our flights were canceled a week before departing, and we got tickets at the last minute on a MSP-IAD-FRA-CPH route that spanned 3 airlines, 4 airports, and a lot of customs/border crossings where we had to explain ourselves as to why we were traveling. And, of course, our bags were delayed for 5 days as Lufthansa failed to load them on our plane in Frankfurt. All in all, still not as stressful as the whole house-selling/moving/renting thing was. THAT was a non-stop cortisol bath.

Jen already mentioned me trying to work from home in the walk-in closet here. That doesn’t work so great because there is only one plug in there, and the light turns off automatically when the door is closed. So, I needed a lamp and a computer. Sigh. Back to the office.

Luckily, the office is a short, 13 min walk from the apartment. And it is a pleasant walk. You basically leave the new construction condos and then – bam – you are in the fields of the last hold-out farmers.

Fun thing today, however, was that we had a fire alarm and all had to go outside. That was a nice little break. And I had a full lunch break, which I went outside for as well.

I write the next part while thinking a lot about our friends and family in the US still navigating the challenges of COVID, and, now of course, wrestling with the murder of George Floyd and the convulsions of pain and anger that followed. I am still processing this, and may write more later.

We also took a train trip to Lund yesterday. We walked around, had sushi, then had ice cream. Overall, a really nice outing.

After my “moving to Sweden” session via Zoom and several IKEA meetings from the closet, we were free to catch the train to Lund. I needed a refresher on using the trains so Bryant was our guide.

We are very close to Hyllie station. The lavender plant is thistle, I think. And my guess is they plant it to keep dirt from blowing.

Enjoyed a lovely evening stroll through the botanic gardens. Thinking of our Minneapolis/ St. Paul neighborhoods and school communities and hoping JUSTICE will bring peace. ❤️

The temporary apartment we have is in the Hyllie neighborhood, walking distance from Bryant’s IKEA offices. He tried working from home (the walk-in closet!) but that was less than ideal, so he will try to take meetings at the Malmö office when possible even though the majority are working from home. Here is the path from our apartment building toward IKEA. We are on the edge of the new development, and the farm with the rainbow is along the bike path.

Our luggage can’t get here until Wednesday- something to do with borders between Germany, Denmark and Sweden. So we bought a few more things at the Mall and washed more clothes. But I’m missing home.

Bryant’s “work-from-home” office was going to be the giant walk-in closet, and we didn’t realize until his first meeting that the light is tied into the door so when closed, the light is off and can only be turned on by opening the door, very clever, but not what we need at the moment! No windows, and no lamps that aren’t wired into the wall so the door has to stay open.

Lily made brunch of smoked salmon and eggs with dilled creme sauce and roe, thankfully, because there are no salt and pepper shakers in the apartment so the roe added some saltiness. The place is not really set up like an airbnb, just very basic furnishings. But so far so good!