Friday! In case that wasn’t clear from the title. Still lots of meetings, which are typically back-to-back. Which I’m used to because that’s how UHG is. But, at IKEA, there was a lot of “guys – take care of yourselves, make the time to breath and walk around outside”. This literally coming from the CEO. I’m still not fully keyed into a company that is genuinely compassionate.
Not too much to share. I activated my MasterCard for my Swedish bank account. Oh, and I got my personnummer today, so I’m officially in the system as a tax-paying resident of Sweden!
And, closing the week with a little fun. Apparently, IKEA people don’t take themselves too seriously. 😉
Despite getting 12 hours of sleep, it was hard to drag my butt out of bed! Jet lag is harsh.
Minor accomplishments today.
First, I applied for a bank account (which won’t be fully approved for a week or so) so that I’ll have someplace to deposit my pay from IKEA. There’s only one bank/branch that lets IKEA workers apply before they have a Person Number – and that’s by the office in Hyllie, so I got a lot of train time today, out and back. As an aside, there’s lots of things that have to happen in sequence – I need to get a bank account, so that I can get a BankID card, which I need in order to get a local cell number, which I need in order to rent an apartment, etc, etc.
Second, the trip to the bank gave me a chance to see what the commute will be like (not bad at all) and how life will be multi-modaling with a Brompton (kind of a PITA, but not bad). The leg from the hotel to the train station goes right thru the city center, and happens to pass a number of really nice coffee shops. That is going to be NOICE!
Third, I got a haircut, and found out that there’s (at least) one place that doesn’t take electronic payments (cash only) and had to run to the ATM to get some cash to pay for it! But it was a hip little 2-seat barbershop on the way to the city center, so I’ll probably go there again. Aside here, I had stuffed some euros from my last EU trip into my wallet, and realized that I have USD, EU, and SEK (Swedish Kronor) in there and it’s dumb.
Finally, I did some more walking around and did some grocery shopping. I do like my sandwiches. Everything I need to make one that I like came out about 110SEK (or $11.59 for Americans). So, not too bad for a weeks worth of lunches! Yes, the mayo came in a tube. And I excluded the fish from the sandwich total – that was about $6.
I (Bryant) traveled to Lund to start work ahead of the family. I arrived on March 10, so I’m calling that “day 0”. Flights weren’t too bad, but I didn’t sleep as much on the first leg as I hoped to.
I had brought a really big suitcase and my Brompton in a travel case. Both were heavy and unwieldy to lug to the train, but generally, it was not bad. The train station at Kastrup is basically right out the door from baggage-claim! I got an Öresundståg direct from Kastrup to Lund, and then Uber’d from the train station to the hotel. All in all, not so bad.
I spent some time walking around the town after dropping my stuff at the hotel to try and not sleep (to reset my body to the local time). Very cool little city, even if it was a little rainy. I bought a coffee and the Saluhall and some groceries at the Coop. That’s all the cultural normalization that I got today!
After eating my food, I watched a little Swedish TV in the hotel – which seems to be mostly British and American shows with subtitles. And a couple of Swedish channels. But I fell asleep by 8!
The Minnesota Youth Symphony winter concert was a couple of weeks back at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis. Here’s a few photos of Hilary rocking the viola!
It’s interesting to me that the gap is consistent among blacks as well. I would have figured that white people didn’t think that they had it so much better, but that black people basically thought the same thing is really curious.
I just stumbled upon the Rubin Bolling reimagining of Richard Scarry’s “What Do People Do All Day?” painting from 50 years ago. These are depressing as hell, but they are gold.
21st Century Busy Town Jobs and Russian Trolls and Reality Stars.
