Big News – Residency!
After 5 adventure-filled years in Sweden we were eligible in May of this year to apply for Permanent Residency. “In essence, Temporary Residency is a stepping stone or a short-term solution, while Permanent Residency offers a path to full integration and long-term life in a new country.” Permanent Residency is how Sweden participates in the EU Long Term Residency program so we are now permanent residents of Sweden and the EU!
Key Advantages of Permanent Residency (PR)
- Indefinite Stay: You can live in the country indefinitely, without needing to constantly renew visas or prove temporary conditions.
- Work & Study Freedom: Generally, you can work for any employer, change jobs, and pursue education without restrictions tied to a specific sponsor.
- Access to Services: Full or near-full access to public services, including healthcare, social security, and education, similar to citizens.
- Pathway to Citizenship: It’s a major step towards naturalization, allowing you to apply for citizenship after meeting residency requirements.
- Stability & Security: Offers long-term security for you and your family, reducing stress about visa expirations.
- Travel: Often allows for easier travel, with freedom to move within certain regions (like the Schengen Area for EU PR).
Our primary motivation was to secure freedom of work and study for the girls. They will be able to complete university studies in Sweden or the EU. This gives them many more options and helps them integrate into life in Sweden more easily. Luckily the positive decision on our Permanent Resident status has come just in time for the eldest to continue her Energy Transition and Sustainability program in Gotland. She’ll return to Visby in January!
Travels
2025 was filled with travel for most of us! B had many work trips to Amsterdam, Madrid, Barcelona, Bangalore, Warsaw, and London. He is quite tired of traveling for now. While the locations are fantastic, his work trips feature mostly airports, hotels, and offices – limited fun. But, he did have some great moments, like the oldest gin bar in the world (AMS) and Sagrada Família in Barcelona!
For summer we broke things up and did a week in Provence, and then a few days in Tromsö Norway hiking. Slow Swedish Sommar in and around Lund was quite nice as well.
We even got a taste of music festival life at the Way Out West festival in Göteborg where B took the girls and a friend to see Chappell Roan (among others, but she was the highlight)
Visitors
This year my parents visited us in Sweden so we got out and showed them some of our favorite places, including Visby where we watched the eldest perform with her choir. The younger showed them her favorite locations in Lund and around Skåne plus we tried out a few new spots such as Fredriksdal Museum near Helsingborg.
Ebba’s friend came from the US and they had a few grand adventures such as excursions to Copenhagen and Stockholm, and you can read more about that here.
Other Fun
There was some other crazy fun – tree walking in DK, or ripping around in hotrod farm tractors, or antics on the beach, or gorging on BBQ, or tipping beers at Oktoberfest – that all enriched the year and helped us to find the silver linings!
So, 2025 has been a challenging year in the world, and we are feeling very privileged to live in a place with a high level of social trust, gender equality, excellent work-life balance, respect for the environment, and human rights.
We hope all of you are finding ways to manage the stress of living through the chaotic consequences of increased inequality in our world. It can be hard to remember that small acts of courage against injustice create a powerful, unifying force for change.
“Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance“. Bobby Kennedy’s “Ripple of Hope” quote, from his 1966 speech at the University of Cape Town.
May 2026 be a year of healing and new beginnings and many acts of courage, big and small.
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