August 10th

Trying to be a Swede again is trickier than I ever thought it would be.
Dale and I took a trip to the tax authorities today to give them all the paper work needed for us to be legally in Sweden. For me and the kids that shouldn’t be any problem since we’re Swedish citizens all three of us, and for Dale since he’s both married to me and the father of three Swedish kids that shouldn’t make it hard for him to get a permanent residency either…. Or so we thought!

A very nice lady told me I had to bring the kids with me to get registered and Dale has to go through the Migration authorities first and preferable through the Swedish embassy in the US.

So we left the tax place and went to go get a phone.

People are different in Sweden, they do not look you in the eye, they don’t say excuse me if they cut in front of you or actually they don’t say much at all to you.
We just noticed that on our short walk up to the mall where the phone shop was located. There we realized that it’s not easy to get a phone either. Since I’ve been living in the US for the last 11 years my personal number (my birth date plus a four digit number, is used for absolutely everything, from borrowing a book at the local library to voting) has been frozen so no one can use it. Smart, and I like that idea, but now I find out that it’s not that easy to unfreeze that number when I move back. It can take up to 2 weeks from the time I get all my documents to the tax authority… sigh! We left the phone store without a phone and frustrated.

Back out to the summer home where we’re staying until we move in with Peter and Lena.

We went fishing on the lake, nothing is more relaxing and soul healing than sitting in our boat on our lake with a fishing pole in my hand, looking at the shore line, reflecting over trees that fallen since last time, watching the loon land, and dive on the calm water, rinsing my hands in the cool water to get rid of the fish slime after taking a too small to keep pike off the hook and throwing him back in the lake.
Aahh, now everything feels much better!