Says Elin: "Nina, can vi mak yello?"

My goodness, what a trek. But, I made it! I am now in Sweden (applause!).

Aerial Sweden!

My flights over were uneventful, though I did not get a wink of sleep. I have to say, I am a major fan of individual TV screens for international flights, but the prices for food was astronomical. Ah, whatever. I am here, my bags arrived untouched, and my brief touchdown in Iceland's eerie landscape left me intrigued to perhaps return later to explore...

It has only been twenty-four hours that I've been in Stockholm, and already I can feel myself learning fast. My distant cousins (second, third?) have two kids who, though they know some English, are tentative about practicing a new language, so I am being forced to learn Swedish immediately. Thankfully, with Swedish being another Germanic language, the sentence structure is very similar and intermediate words and sounds such as "okay," "good," and "thank you" are easy to pick up on. It is the other things, such as "Pass the potatoes," "I have presents for you," and "Do you take a foreign debit card?" that mark me as a newcomer.

Today, after much needed sleep and an "American breakfast" of pancakes with chocolate chips from Magnus' last trip to the States, we went to the mall to get me a cell phone. I had figured out a while ago that getting the iPhone 4 would be much cheaper in Sweden than in the USA: if you get a two year plan here, the newest phones come free. But, turns out, there was more good news: instead of charging someone a flat fee for the data plan and then extra fees for extra packages (such as $70 data plan + $20 unlimited texting), the extra fees come out of your flat fee, which just alters how many minutes you pay for. So, for instance, if $70 gets me 3000 minutes, and I wanted to pay $20 for unlimited texting, then that would bring my allowance for minutes down to $50--which is so much better (texting is far more important).

But, unfortunately, with good news came some I didn't know: apparently, not only do you need a Swedish personnummer (social security) and credit history, but you need to have lived in Sweden for at least 6 months. And then, it'll take 4-6 weeks to get one. Lame. I think Magnus and I are going to work out an agreement so I can get it sooner...

After that, we came home. I got a lesson in banking without checks (they are old-fashioned anyway), Katarina made meatballs for dinner (not Swedish, another recipe), and I made strawberry Jello with Axel and Elin with some boxes I crammed in my suitcase at the last minute. I have a feeling they'll be a hit.

Tomorrow: sailing in the Swedish archipelago. Monday: a trip to the city and SEB (bank). Then Tuesday, I will hop a train for my first visit to Gothenburg. :-)