Pictures from Stockholm

Here are a few pictures from the snow covered Stockholm.

White Out

Well, after rounding out our time in Brighton and somehow packing almost an entire room into 60kgs of luggage, we made it to Sweden without too many problems. We were delayed by a about 2 hours due to the snowfall in Copenhagen, but otherwise we have been pretty lucky. It has been snowing back in England and luckily we were not due to leave today, otherwise we would have had difficulty leaving due to Englands transport system shutting down whenever it snows a few inches.



Here in Sweden however, yesterday there was about 10 centimetres of snowfall and it was business as usual. Today, while I haven't seen a car go past all day everyone appears to be at work. There is about 40-50 centimetres by the looks of things out the window but in reality it is probably more like 30. Still, for my eyes, we may as well be buried in it.



It hasn't stopped snowing since I first looked outside at about 9am. Time to clear the snow from the driveway shortly, it should be fun.

One Last Week

One last week of an uncomfortable living environment. The last few weeks have gone by really quickly it seems. I think we are pretty well organised and ready to move. Mentally, I have been ready to get out of this house for a few months. One last week of insanity.

One last week of worrying whether or not we should send more stuff to Australia or Sweden or whether to chance the suitcases being over the weight limit. Another two packages will be sent to Australia today, hopefully, and then we should be fairly close to being sorted.

One last week of seeing some friends. Maybe for the last time ever. I certainly hope not, but you never know when I may see some of the people I have met here again. There are a few who are planning a visit to Australia and I will hopefully be able to catch up with some when we travel back to Sweden to visit.

One last week of this chapter in our lives. A new chapter is only a week away, and that is something to really look forward to.

A little piece of home away from home.

It is nice to see that the English here like to remind themselves that they made Australia what it

is today. This is on one set of gates just outside Buckingham Palace.

Road Block

We thought it would be a good idea to check and see if all of the stuff we own can fit into the suitcases and carry-on bags we have. Bad idea. Tears, frustration and the realisation that we can not afford to keep everything that we want is taking its toll.

We discovered that we are going to have to send several packages to both Sweden and Australia if we are going to keep everything we want, however, neither of us has any where enough money to be able to accomplish this. We have already donated so much of our stuff, books, clothing, bedding and house hold items and we still have too much. We are both at a loss as to what to do.

There are some difficult decisions to be made over the next couple of days regarding some of our stuff, hopefully we make the right choices.

Winding Down

It is really approaching fast. It is only 12 days until we depart England. It is going to be strange leaving the place we have called home for a while. Not so difficult to leave the house we live in, but we will miss our friends. Thanks to the technology the we have available now, it is still very easy to stay in touch with them though.

Sofie finishes work early today so we are going to do a few things today. It will be nice to spend an afternoon together without too many people in town. Also, we are going to go to London tomorrow to see a few things that I have not seen yet. Getting the rest of the tourist stuff out of the way while we are still here in England.

I look forward to it, but not as much as having a look at both Copenhagen, which we are going to go to with Sofie's parents. It is something I am really looking forward to. Also looking forward to having a look at Stockholm for the first time. It is going to be cold, but I think it will be a really nice city.

I am starting to get really excited about the trip, and another cold Christmas. I can't wait.

The home straight

Two weeks left here in Brighton. It is exciting, especially for me because it is about 6 weeks until I return home for the first time in what will be 21 months. That is not to say that Sofie isn't excited too, but it is slightly different situations. I am going home, where I know people and where I fit in. To Sof, it is unfamiliar and she only knows me. One thing I do know, they will welcome her with open arms.

I am also starting to reflect more on the time that I have spent here. It has absolutely been an experience which I have grown up a lot. I felt before I left Australia I was too reliant on other people, but now I can stand on my own 2 feet as well as be there for Sof to rely on. This gives me a lot of confidence, and it will give me confidence to think that I might make a good father one day. But first, other things need to be sorted. Starting with finally leaving this house.

We have got some furniture to offload, the house to give another quick clean too. I hope that our housemates are going to finish the tasks that they told us they would, but we are not going to do them. There isn't too much more to do though. Which is exciting.

I will miss Brighton, and will always have fond memories of it. I will also view it as the place where I grew up completely. I have made some good friends here whom I will obviously miss but they will also have somewhere to visit now in the Southern Hemisphere.

House-sharing fun

Well, a couple of weeks have passed since the confrontation. I think that I would be able to count the amount of words spoken to either of us since then. They are however, extremely unpredictable and keep us on our toes. They have not been in the house for quite a few days now, which is fantastic for us because, well, we really don't like them. When they do decide to return home though, like, for example last night, they arrived separately, one at 2am and the other at 4am.

If that was not strange enough, they thought it was fine and in no way inconsiderate to others living in the house to shower at this time and then leave again. They are freaks, who care about nobody other than themselves and we are fed up with them. We have obligations in cleaning the house to ensure we get our deposits back but they are not to be seen. Selfish people, who one day, will get what is coming to them.

I look forward to leaving this house so then I may actually have something fun and enjoyable to blog about, not just douchebags.

Eruption

The situation in the house hit boiling point yesterday evening. Our day began, a little hungover with a friend asleep on our couch from a fairly loose Saturday evening. To our dismay, as one of our housemates was leaving for work early Sunday morning she was told to 'feel free to slam the door shut'. This was in retaliation to an accidental drunken door closing incident at about 1:30am before hand. Mature way to respond, no, not at all.

At learning this disgusting behaviour to wind us up, I reacted the best way I could think of to drive home the realisation that we knew about their cunning plan. I, for the rest of the day, proceeded in slamming every single door I went through. Not my finest moment I know, but we really wanted to let them know that we were pissed off with their early morning scheming.

It worked also, it brought out the confrontation that we had been looking for, albeit at 11:30pm in the evening, but when the male housemate confronted me about it wondering why we were slamming the doors, it was gratifying to be able to let him know that his pathetic little plan that day did not go unnoticed or without repercussions. This argument, which lasted some 15 minutes with a lot of things said to each other, has not resolved any of the existing problems. We will never be friends, we don't want to be friends with them. All it has done is released some of our anger, with the rest of it simmering away below until such a time comes where we can not hold it in any longer.

A-Tension

Our relationship with another couple we live with has been ordinary at best, but it feels as though it is at breaking point. There are certain behaviours of theirs that we dislike, as I am sure that they dislike some of ours. In any case, it is clear that the best way to deal with these issues is to not even say hello to each other, or at least that is what the 'male' of their relationship believes.

Maturity, not high on the priority list. The worst thing is, we find ourselves acting just as immaturely as them, which annoys me more than anything else.

In the beginning, they were good to get along with. We went to the movies together and it was comfortable. Until we asked them politely to be quiet after midnight when we had to go to work the next day. That is apparently, in their words, disgusting behaviour, by us. The tension has been building ever since. We are currently in a stand off over who is to clean the kitchen and bathroom. We do not mind cleaning, we generally do it once a fortnight, take it in turns. Now however, we are (in our opinions) the last to clean the house and that was 2 weeks ago. The 'male' likes to cook and leave little souvenirs such as egg, bread crumbs and pieces of vegetables for us all to share. I am not the cleanest person in the world, but I am a long way from being that bad.

It will be interesting to see how it ends up, I am betting that we will once again give in, be the bigger people and clean the house. Perhaps for the last time.

Homeward Bound

Things are starting to fall into place nicely. Still struggling to find work, and with my time here in the UK getting down to about 6 weeks then it is going to be difficult from here. I have however booked my ticket home. We have decided to go to Australia at seperate times, about 3 weeks apart to allow both of us to have some time alone with our families first. I am really looking forward to it. It is now starting to feel real, not just a pipe dream.

As of today, the spousal visa has been granted. This means that Sofie can enter Australia and work without any problems. The best news we have had for a very long time. Everything is coming together. We need to offload most of our stuff which we will probably give away to friends and charity.

I am determined that the last 6 weeks we spend here in beautiful Brighton will be our best. It helps that I have a friend from home living here and it has been great hanging out with him over the last few weeks. Today is a good day, the first day of the rest of our lives. The future is now in nobody's hands but our own.

Was it something I said?

I do not claim to be the most memorable person on this planet. I can walk down into the city centre in Brighton to know that there a hundreds more people than me walking around, who are more memorable than I care to be. I am just another face in the crowd, I do not dress to stand out. I do not draw attention to myself, just another bloke trying to make his way. But there are certain times when it is vital to be remembered, for example, a job interview.

I attended a job interview last Thursday at with Orange, and have since been checking my email constantly to see the results of this. Nothing too unusual about this except when the email does finally come through, it is somewhat of a shock to be declined for the position on the grounds that I apparently did not go to my interview! This made me curious, was it something I said? I am fairly certain that I did not dream going to the store for my interview. Do they have me confused with somebody else? Not certain, so trying to contact a communications company to find out if this is a case of mistaken identity or whether they rejected my application for another reason is not the simplist thing to do. I find myself again, waiting, checking my inbox at regular intervals to find out more information. I do not hold my breath.

I am sure it is all for a reason, just not sure what that is yet. Time will only tell.

Uk so far

I came to the UK in 2008 for the intention of playing cricket and having a bit of a laugh. I got the working holiday visa because I thought it was the easiest thing to get because I thought I would be working during the summer of 2008. It was a couple of months after I arrived that I met my Swedish neighbor but I had noticed her long before then. We saw each other a few times from across our backyards and when a mate of mine and I were invited over for a drink we really hit it off.

She left England soon after, to travel around Australia and also to go back to Sweden for work. She moved back to the UK in August and we have rarely been apart since that day. We have lived together for just over a year and we are currently in the middle of applying for a partner visa for her to come back to Australia with me, as my visa expires early 2010.

It has been a bumpy ride here in the UK in the current credit crunch climate but we are staying strong and true to ourselves. There are a few more things we need to do, tie up some loose ends here before we spend Christmas in Sweden and then head to Australia which we are both looking forward to.

First on the list, I need a job. We have some savings there but to be able to afford to send our possessions to Australia and book the flights (as well as paying the £870 for the visa application) and also our rent and bills for the remainder of our time here, I am going to need to pull some money in. I have applied for several jobs recently, and it is difficult with my visa restrictions to be able to even get an interview. Mostly, I do not hear anything back at all. I am still awaiting news on an interview I had with Orange, but the interview was last Thursday so now I am awaiting the rejection letter in the mail.

Hoping that something comes along soon, otherwise it might be 2 minute Noodle dinners.