The Swedish Apartment

So in the beginning of August I moved. And yes the name of this post, “the Swedish Apartment” is a total reference to the movie from 2002 called “the Spanish Apartment” where individuals from multiple countries found themselves living together. So far I am the only tenant, hoping to have many visitors though. But I guess in order to be able to have friends visiting my apartment I should get organized first.

As I wrote in my last blog post it was hard to find an apartment in Malmö. My aim was to find one close to my sister’s at Möllevångstorget, a happening spot in the city, and I was successful. It’s a three minute walk from her apartment to mine. My apartment is on the same street as of my Parisian bar. Parisian bar you say? About 6 months prior to me leaving the US I was home in Sweden for a visit and went down to Malmö to see my sister (or fly somewhere from Copenhagen’s airport, who knows). Anyway, this is when I saw a bar at Möllevångstorget which had a Parisian feel to it. I have yet to venture inside or to even have a drink there, but I love how it looks like from the outside. For Malmö people, it's “Metro” I am referring to. So that I now live on the same street I will take as a sign that I am supposed to live here. And I have always (and I say that as if I have lived in Malmö forever) liked the buildings on this street.

There is also another sign that points to the fact that I should be living here. There is an Argentinian restaurant I kind of live on top of. Well in the same building at least. I was in Argentina this past fall to visit my lovelies Laura, Tizi and their wonderful families. So yet another sign?? I think so!

The move was fairly easy as far as the big stuff goes. An hour of actual moving the furniture into my apartment from the trailer my parents drove from my hometown of Laholm where basically all the big stuff came from. The furniture magically fitted nicely. And I mean they fitted in size and in design. When all the little stuff, all the necessities and other items, came I had a minor meltdown. I wanted to chuck half of it out. My vagabond heart was pounding hard and not with excitement, but that of a feeling of an anchor being tide to my feet. I hate stuff. I truly do. I enjoy the comforts life can bring, but I can’t breathe properly when there is a lot of stuff around me. Proud of this? No, but I am being honest. I like to own few things, but of good quality. I tried to feel grateful that I can live in such a nice apartment with good furniture after basically not owning anything in life for so long. But this situation is new to me and having a lot of stuff physically close to me makes me feel very anxious. Wow, this blog post got so serious…Anyway…

So after you move you obviously want electricity etc. in your name. Now a big mystery presented itself to me, basically being an expat, what are the places to change address at?! Some will change automatically due to you telling one place (an official record place) you moved and this authority changes most of the places which requires having your current address on file. But some you have to contact yourself. Which ones?!? Differs from the US. Luckily the place I moved from is my sister's so I am fairly certain she won’t be holding on to any old bills or fan letters I receive on a regular basis.

Speaking of my sister, we had to divide our joint assets after living together for like a year. Well it was more like my sister graciously letting me store some stuff at her place for 6 months while I traveled all over the world and then I moved in for reals. When it came time to dividing the stuff  the process was rather effortless. Our biggest chuckle came when dividing up the spices after culinary preference. I like things spicy so this resulted in me getting like 90 percent of the spice rack. Winning.

So I got my keys. They were so many of them, but they were labeled nicely so no worries. Or so I thought. I have what’s called a security door with metal built in and I like it that way. I got two different keys for the security door but wait, I only have one keyhole?! I am so safe I don’t even know what to do with all the keys.

When first entering the apartment, when we worked on getting the electricity up and running, I located the fuse box. 6 months ago I would not have known what to do with those, but luckily I now know how those work as I learned that at my current job. I mean, every time I change a fuse I totally feel like Superman and feel I should earn a medal for doing it. But still, I can do it now and that rocks, right?

I have a storage unit in the attic large enough for someone to live in. At first glance it seemed as maybe someone was already doing so in my neighbor’s unit. But on second thought, the person probably just have a lot of stuff. See, again I am allergic to “stuff.”

In true Swedish fashion it was much easier to find where the recycle bins were located than where the regular garbage was to be disposed of. And we have way, way, way more bins for the recycled material than regular waste. Me like.

And also in true Swedish fashion there is a common laundry room. Most units (if you rent an apartment) don’t have a washer and dryer inside the individual homes, but you share such facilities in the basement. This is fairly new to me although I have rented houses in the US which were lacking those appliances and I had to use the local laundromats. And my experiences of those are, let’s just say, of a mixed bag. I am not a fan of this common thing, but I guess it’s not too bad. In order to use the room you have to sign up on a board so I need to remember to plan for laundry. This may be hard as I workout a lot and have tons of sweaty clothes laying around on any given day. Will I just become the stinky kid in the room? God I hope not. The backup plan is that my sister has a washer and dryer at home and as stated earlier, I live a three minutes’ walk from her.

When a person moves out on their own in Sweden for the first time he or she must go to the Holy Land, also known as IKEA. At the time of publishing this post I have made two trips there already. First trip to get the essentials such as black out curtains as I sometime sleep during the day after a night shift. And a thing to hold dishes while they dry. So many adult stuff. I threw in some scented candles to feel more at home with my shopping basket. The second trip consisted of me actually investing in some bookshelves for the long and broad hallway I have. I had to think it over as it was an investment of buying “stuff.” See how this obsession or lack of obsession of stuff is a common thread in this post?

However, I have started to enjoy looking at stuff for my apartment. I want it to look nice. I want it to be a haven for myself and my guests. So some stuff I will have to invest in. The notion of being okay at looking at house ware came much sooner than I thought. But as I am a foodie who wants to improve her game in the kitchen, I am mostly okay with looking at kitchen stuff.

And how does a vagabond decorate? I would say slowly, with heart and with some knick knacks picked up on the road. Not actual stuff from the road! (I had a roommate once that picked up garbage and brought home, but that is not what I speak about here). I want to use my own photos from my travels as art on the walls. The international flare will have to be present in every corner of the apartment. Food from all over such as tea from Thailand and China and yerba mate from Argentina will line my kitchen counters. I kind of wished I had bought more souvenirs over the years from my many travels, but I have to accept I haven’t because I am a minimalist. See, it’s a struggle, well a luxury problem really, to want to have items to remind myself of the many amazing experiences I have been fortunate to take part in. But on the flip side I feel anxious when too many things are present. It’s quite a contradiction and I have an ongoing internal struggle regarding this. 

So there. I have moved in and will now focus on getting settled for reals. As an ending to this post I can inform you all that sadly I can’t walk around naked although I now live on my own. Too many large windows. Failure. Pretty sure I have already flashed all my neighbors on both the street side and the courtyard side. Oh well, life goes on in the Swedish Apartment. And seriously, as many comments I have gotten over the years saying “oh we know about those Swedes” I am sure my comment about nakedness did not surprise anyone. ;)