Stockholmies

Day 1 reading

This is going to take a very long time.  (Re: previous post)

Attacking Swedish from every angle

 In addition to the Swedish classes we have attended, the course materials, and our three new words over breakfast endeavor, Swedish learning is a bit slow going.  Dave has continued reading comic books, and we find ourselves surrounded by Swedish and Swedes more than before.  But being able to translate half of the milk carton over breakfast doesn't seem to help when we hear someone speak.  When Swedish comes out of someone's mouth, you never know what it will sound like.  There are many dialects of Swedish and some are easier to understand than others.  But even without the added twist of dialects, understanding spoken Swedish quickly (or sometimes at all) is a challenge. 

Often reading material is a challenge because you don't know exactly what to look up.  Words are conjugated and many times compound of compounds are used.  Imagine instead of "little blue church" you read "littlebluechurch". Without knowing where one word ends and another starts, the dictionary is of little help.

Putting together a number of language learning tips passed along by people, we decided to get a Swedish book, its English translation, and the Swedish book-on-tape.  This way we could work on reading comprehension without the frustrating dictionary searches and practice our listening comprehension by trying to read along while we listen to the audio.  Given the recommendations from friends, we decided to try the Steig Larsson books.  Imagine our frustrations when we went to the book store and saw this:
The center book is the English translation of the first book in the series (as it very conveniently states on the top of the cover).  The translation of the book on the left is Man who Hates Women.  The book on the right is The Girl who Plays with Fire.  We needed the Swedish first book of the trilogy; which one is it?

Headlines to be revisited

A quick glance through the online news site The Local left me with a list of news items worthy of some follow-up and thought.  Call this a feed for any one else interested in such things or an opportunity to share your thoughts. Mostly it's a way to keep track of the things that piqued my curiosity, for lack of a better phrase.

The Swedish court approved charging higher rent to refugees stating that this isn't discrimination.  Seems to me that if the argument is that damages are accrued and the apartment is left in unsatisfactory condition, money is taken from a security deposit rather than higher rent being paid.  I know that the whole "this is the way we do it in the States" thing gets old, but this seems like a pretty reasonable solution.  For instance, we have a dog and so we know that we may be expected to pay a larger deposit than a couple moving in without a dog. It's hard not to wonder what the hell is going on, quite frankly.  It doesn't help when people say: "But the landlord argued the higher rent was justified, explaining that refugees cause damage to apartments in a different way than 'taxpayers' do."  Need to read more about this but from what I can tell 1. this sounds like discrimination, and 2. there are other ways to address these concerns. 

The refugee population is all over the news right now.  Here's another one about a large proportion of Iraqui-refugees relocating because of threats and violence from lynch mobs in northern Swedish town.

Then there is the article about the neo-Nazi movement in Sweden and the prevalence of women on the "Neo-Nazi scene".  I don't even know what to say right now.  What I find most interesting so far are the comments from other readers.  A few folks have asked me about my experience with anti-semitism here in Sweden.  So far my exposure has been limited to articles and anecdotes, but it's time to learn more about this. The closest anti-semitism I have experienced here in Sweden was a comment that a Ukrainian made to Dave (not about me directly) from his Swedish for Immigrants class.  So far nothing from the Swedes. 

Walking home one day...

I stumbled upon this great parking job.

Logistics: Banking

Over a recent brunch with our friend Rommy I was reminded of so many logistical matters that haven’t yet been covered.  So I am revisiting the logistics series.  Today we discuss banking.

Need to pay someone and don’t have cash?  Write a check?  In the US maybe, but in Sweden you give them your personnummer and bank name and they wire the money into your account. 

Need to pay your bills?  The bill that you get in the mail doesn’t have a perforated page that gets sent in with a check in a pre-addressed envelope; instead there is a routing number and information to wire the money directly from your bank account into their account.  Yes, I know we have online banking in the US too and that checks are becoming less necessary and more inconvenient.  But checks aren’t the only difference.

Logging in online to make these transactions a reality is no small feat.  We received this small machine in the mail with a USB cord and instructions in Swedish.  When we opened the bank account we were told that they were out of the instructions in English but we figured that this was a good opportunity to practice our Swedish...sink or swim.

USB connection from PC to our card scanner.  Sink.  Maybe it is Firefox.  Should we try Explorer?  Sink a little more.  Maybe we should try the Mac?  Sink.  Safari on the Mac?  Sink, sink, sink...we have to pay our cell phone bills and rent, but all we can do is gasp for air.  Every hardware-software combination failure was another gurgle.

I asked my colleagues and everyone was stumped.  On my way home I stopped by the bank to see if someone might be able to help me.  I was certain that the machine was broken.  Much to my surprise it wasn't the machine, the computer, or the choice of web browser.  Even though the package contained the USB cord and some illustrations showed using it, logging in required no such thing.

The machine is battery powered and here is what you do:
1. Go to the website and choose internet banking
2. Put your bank card into the little machine (without connecting by USB)
3. Push Login on the machine
4. Enter your personnummer on the website
5. Enter the code from the website into the little machine
6. Enter your pin code into the little machine
7. The machine then outputs nine digits to be entered on the website
8. Enter the nine digits and log in

Then you go through your regular online banking transactions.  But, you aren't done until you essentially repeat steps 1-8 to authorize the payments.  It requires loads of small steps, a little machine, the card, the PIN code, a computer with internet access, etc.  Perhaps this is because we use our personnummer as our bank account number and so we need extra security measures.  Or maybe Swedes like procedure.  Or maybe there is something very clever about this whole thing which I don't yet understand.  But, the mystery that remains...what's with the USB cord?