Happy early Halloween

We carved our "pumpa" (pronounce that like "poom-pah") tonight, and I just wanted to show-off the results before bed. Feeling much better today, headache-wise, plus got my 10-page final paper submitted this afternoon, which feels pretty good as well.

On a side note, we're invited to a Halloween party on Saturday, and the theme is "film/movies." Anyone have a simple costume suggestion that Scott and I could pull off? Scott wanted to be McLovin, but his hair is just too long.

Unfortunately we burnt our attempt at roasted pumpkin seeds, but the pumpkin's still happy.

Learning about Swedish health care, the hard way

I don't have the best luck when it comes to random injuries. That list would include breaking my hand on a doorknob, chipping my tooth on a fork, getting run over by an electric wheelchair, and probably a few more stupid incidents that my friends and family could help fill-in. I was a key player in chipping my sister's front tooth with my rear when I was about 10. Last summer, I managed to take out a bird, mid-flight, with my tee shot, unceremoniously joining the ranks of Rob Lowe. The list goes on. Last week, my misfortune was the influenza vaccine.

This all started when I found out that it would cost about $300 per appointment to continue my allergy injections here in Stockholm, which I need every two weeks to build up my tolerance. Since that plan was squashed by 10 a.m. on Thursday morning, I decided to check off another to-do item and visit the influenza vaccination clinic across the hall. I get a flu shot every year without much trouble, so in no way did I consider the possibility of having a bad reaction. But from the way my head was starting to hurt by the time I arrived home, it was clear that I should have.

I managed to fall asleep on Thursday night (thanks, Tylenol PM), but the headache was even worse when I woke up, and things continued to go downhill from there. After 30 hours of constant pain, and six hours of regular vomiting, Scott's mom called and told me of her similar experience, which was all the encouragement it took to convince me to stagger down the hill to the emergency room, which is only a few blocks from our apartment.

We paid a flat fee of about $40, and were soon thereafter admitted. The Swedish doctors I've seen have been fabulous. Specifically, they take their time to talk, which I've found to be a nice difference from being rushed through the U.S. appointment book. After doing blood tests and checking my heart, lungs, reflexes, balance and coordination (where I managed to stick my finger in my eye in an attempt to touch my nose with my eyes closed), they determined that the problem was all in my head, literally. Although the doctors were fairly certain the severe headache was from the vaccination, they weren't sure how to explain the vomiting, so I was kept overnight, given an IV and scheduled for a CAT scan in the morning. The IV provided nearly immediate relief from the migraine-times-10 throbbing in my head, and allowed me to keep some food down, too. And I should mention, Swedish nurses were not only wonderfully kind, but also great with needles. My tiny veins very much appreciated their handiwork.

Things were going well until I had to use the bathroom, when the pressure in my vein took over and started to fill my IV tube with blood. It really isn't a problem, except it made me quite dizzy. I've had a few similar reactions while giving blood, but I think the painkillers I was on only added to the problem. The first time this happened, the nurse came and took care of the problem. The second time - yes, there was a second time - I wasn't so lucky, and fainted while rounding a corner during my six-foot walk back to the bed. I managed to crash my IV cart into the wall, run shoulder first into a cabinet, hit my knees on the ground and somehow, thankfully, only smashed my chin on the ground. I still have my teeth intact, so despite a few additional bruises, it could certainly be worse. Plus, the crash was even more reason to have the scheduled CAT scan on Saturday.

The worst part was actually just waiting around in the room itself. Swedish hospitals apparently do not have TVs in the patient rooms. Plus, I was stuck in a four-person room with the woman who snored, and a woman who made sporadic sleep-noises. But I can't really complain, since they both hit their emergency call buttons when I crashed my cart. Speaking as someone who had a terrible headache though, I will complain about the woman who joined our room around 8 a.m. (visiting hours don't start until 1 p.m.), and had a posse of no fewer than five people, all constantly talking at once. Scott took great care of me, and brought me a fresh shirt, plenty of books, as well as his iPod and such to keep me amused. Unfortunately he forgot to include the earplugs though, so I was very thankful for the painkillers I was given on Saturday to help with the lingering headache. The Chatty Cathys across from my bed continued all day, which was longer than necessary because the Friday doctor had forgotten to schedule me for the CAT scan. When it was finally my turn to be carted downstairs, roller-bed style, it was practically a one-hour wait in the hallway, a three-minute scan, and then one-hour wait for the ride back. Really, I could've easliy pushed my own bed back upstairs, but not waiting in the queue would have been very un-Swedish of me.

Twenty-four hours and four meals later (including some Swedish meatballs), the Saturday doctor stopped by to tell us that my CAT scan results were normal, and I was given the okay to go. If the headache isn't gone in one week, she said, then I should come back in. Seriously, a week?!

Now, with any luck, we're hoping there isn't another medical bill on the way. Based on what we know of the Swedish health system, we're fairly sure there won't be another bill, but it just seems too good to be true.

Sunrise, Sunset

It's 4:45 in the afternoon. I looked out the window and realized that it's already pitch black outside. I guess the sun set at 4:07 today. Within a week or two our days will be shorter than the shortest day of the year in Minneapolis, and we will continue to lose a few minutes each day until late December.

The change in the amount of sunlight has fascinated me so far. We moved here when the days were getting longer, we stayed up late on the longest day of the year, and we've watched the sun steadily disappear since then. It's been fun, and it's been a wonderful compliment to the change in seasons that is already fun to watch.

I just hope that I'm still this excited about the lack of light when I haven't seen the sun in three months.

The housing situation in Sweden - Part III

On to the third installment of my three-part blog series. Today's lecture will cover subletting an apartment in Sweden, and then wrap up the three-day series by looking at some of the social benefits that Swedes get to enjoy thanks to the unheard of number of housing rules.

First rule of subletting: An apartment owner may not sublet his or her apartment for more than six months, and the subletting of an apartment must be approved by the owner's association. Contracts over six months are only approved when the apartment owner moves abroad with the intention to move back into the apartment sometime within the next three years.

For the most part, the first rule is usually ignored, but it is important as we will see shortly.

Second rule of subletting: An apartment owner may not charge more than 10% above the association fee, 20% if the apartment is even partially furnished. A typical association fee here in Stockholm is between $400 and $600 a month, while interest on loans is typically two to three times those amounts. So if you want to sublet your place and you do not own the apartment, you are required by law to take a loss as there is no way to cover your monthly payments.

I think it is fair to say that the second rule of subletting is ignored 100% of the time. In fact, as the supply of rental units is far less than the quantity of apartments on the market, apartment owners are able to charge enough to cover the association fee, their mortgage and then still make a nice profit. When somebody needs a place to live, they really don't have any option but to pay for whatever is available.

It gets interesting when the two rules are combined. If you rent an apartment for more than six months at a rate higher than 10% (or 20%) above the the association fee, and have a rental contract to prove how much you pay each month, you can sue the apartment owner for overcharging you. The contract is all the proof the court needs. Nobody will rent their place without a contract, so it's a risk the owner takes when they choose to sublet. That's the one item in the whole story that actually puts some power in the hands of the renter. I can't imagine what type of person would actually take the owner to court, but it seems like everybody in Sweden knows one person who has been that jerk.

I've done my best to paint a picture of a pretty difficult housing market for a foreigner to enter. Difficult to buy, even more difficult to find a decent place to rent. So why doesn't Sweden do something? It seems like everybody knows there's a problem, but there's also something about Swedes that they just like to go with the flow. I'm guessing the homeowners like the 10% annual increase in their property values, and like homeowners in the US were just a few years ago, they are in denial that there could be any possibility of a bubble. The government has also decided to offer incentives for new developments instead of trying to promote new rental units.

If you look at the system from the flip side, you see that there are some social benefits that come out of all of this. The first is that to date, most owners have accumulated a large amount of equity in their apartments. The next is that almost everybody has a vested interest in their apartment. You know that everybody in your apartment building wants to keep the building nice, that way the value of their apartment doesn't drop. Every building in the city is like this, so if you look around Stockholm, you won't find any run-down housing, disinterested landlords or anything even close to a slum.

In the end, it's a tough system to enter, but you're in good shape once you get past the subletting and the initial barriers to buying or renting first-hand. Maybe that's what the government actually has in mind, everything is designed to protect the Swedes that are in the system, and creates difficulties for new entrants, who are probably foreigners that the Swedish government has no reason to serve anyway. Seems pretty similar to other obstacles Miranda and I have faced getting set up with IDs and the like. While I wish there were better options for me personally, I also like living in such a clean country, where rough areas of town seem nonexistent, and nothing is run down or dirty. I guess I have to give the Swedish rules a lot of credit for keeping the Swedish cities looking so nice.

It's been difficult for Miranda and me to figure out what route to take as 18 more months is a very short horizon to buy, but finding an apartment for such a period is proving to be just as tough. We have decided to continue searching for an apartment to rent, and in the time since I started this draft five days ago, we actually got a decent lead on a place up in Uppsala. I'm crossing my fingers for this one, and crossing the fingers on my other hand for an even better place that I'm still waiting to hear from. This is the first time in months that we've even found ads that meet our requirements, and the first time ever that somebody has responded to one of my inquiries. We'll keep you posted as we learn more. Until then, wish us luck!

The housing situation in Sweden - Part II

Picking up where we left off, we're on to buying a home in Sweden.

To begin, the seller hires a broker, aka a realtor. The buyer does not hire a broker, but the seller's broker is supposed to look out for the best interest of both the buyer and seller. Seems like an impossible task, but I guess you just have to accept it.

Broker fees are typically arranged as either a small fixed fee, or a very small percentage up to a certain level, such as the asking price plus 5%. If the sale price exceeds the determined level, the broker gets a large percentage of the excess. I've even heard 40% and 50% thrown out there as potential broker fees. Once again, with a fee structure in place that offers a huge incentive for the broker to drive up the price, I don't understand how that same person could be looking out for the best interest of the buyer.

There really isn't much work involved for the broker. The apartment is staged weeks before it goes on the market, a fancy website is put together and the apartment is shown online for a few weeks. Private showings are very rare. After a few weeks of online advertising there will be two open houses. The first is on a weeknight, the second is on the following weekend. Both showings will last between thirty and sixty minutes, and everybody that is interested in buying, and some gawkers, will show up during this period. The potential buyers get a whirlwind tour of the apartment, and if they like the place, they leave their name with the broker.

Either the same night of the second showing, or the following day, the broker will contact each of the interested buyers. The broker solicits a bid from each, then basically auctions the property to the highest bidder. I guess it's a fairly fast process carried out by texting back and forth. As I said in my previous post, the market has slowed, but apartments selling for 10% more than the asking price is still common, and 20% above the asking price is not unheard of in certain areas of Stockholm. The bidding period ends within a day, and the house is sold within a week. I'd hate to know how much of a markup is common when it's a "seller's market."

This auction-like system really drives prices up, and due to the lack of rental options, there is always a buyer. Consequently, many Swedes take out interest-only loans for at least part of their mortgage, and there is no incentive to build equity as it is assumed the property values will always appreciate. When loans are amortized, they typically ask for 1% of principal a year. Think about that, a 100 year mortgage. Pretty risky if you ask me, but in a system where the buyer has absolutely no power, prices may never drop, even in a "buyer's market."

For a Swede, this is just the way things are. Most Swedes also have all the time in the world to wait for the perfect apartment, or wait for the best deal. People that move to Sweden aren't so lucky. The world of second-hand rental contracts is pretty goofy here, and although we got lucky, most sublet units are also fairly over-priced. Newcomers to Sweden will buy as soon as possible, just to get out of their horrible second-hand contract. As promised, I'll get back to that tomorrow. Until then, wish me luck on my next pass through the apartment rental websites.

The housing situation in Sweden - Part I

I just typed a full post, one of my longer ones and more like an essay than a blog post, then accidentally deleted all the text. Unlucky for you, it's still fresh in my mind, so here goes.

What you are about to read is my understanding of the housing situation here in Sweden. It's a textbook example from Microeconomics 101, full of supply, demand and government regulation creating ineffieciencies in the market. Obviously it has captured my full attention. On top of that, it's so different from the U.S. that I couldn't help but want to understand how and why everything works the way it does. Now that I know what I know, I can't help but share, just because everything is so different from the U.S.

To begin, Miranda and I are still renting from my coworker. The housing market in Sweden hasn't fallen like it has back home, but it just started to slow down this summer. My coworker is more than happy to continue renting to us until it becomes a seller's market again, and we're pretty happy just to have a place. Ultimately we would like something larger than a 440 square foot studio, but at the moment we'll take what we can get. Miranda and I have also decided that we'd like to live up in Uppsala, 40 minutes north by train, where she goes to school. We actually decided that back in June, and have been keeping our eyes open for apartments ever since. As of now we still haven't found anything.

For the most part, city housing in Sweden is made up of apartments, and just to get it clear, an apartment in Sweden is the same as a condominium in the U.S. There are some apartments available to rent, but the Social Democrats, the controlling political party for the majority of the last 75 years, have passed a lot of laws to protect the renter, which in the end has driven landlords away. The main law is that no person can make a significant profit through property rentals, and that the rental price must also be fair to the renter, with the fair price being monitored and approved by the city government. In that case, why would a landlord want to maintain a property without making a profit? Consequently, most rental units are owned by the municipality, and many are being privatized and sold as condos as most towns would rather focus their energy on more typical city responsibilities, like schools and hospitals.

All of this has lead to a tremendous shortage in rental units. Most cities have a cuing system, and once you get to the top of the list you get first choice of the next available unit. In Stockholm it takes about 4-5 years from the day you enter the cue to the day you get offered an apartment. Due to the price restrictions the rent is very cheap, so apartment turnover is very low, which doesn't help the situation at all.

You would think that finding an apartment in Uppsala would be easier, considering there's a university with 40,000 students, but apparently Swedish universities aren't allowed to have their own housing, so the school depends on the city and private industry to provide housing. As stated above, there isn't much direct incentive for either the city or private industry to take on this role. Most housing that is provided is single-occupant, 200 sq. ft, shared bathroom, etc. Typical student room, and not something that would really work for Miranda and me. Anything larger takes about three years on a waiting list to receive, or perfect timing to find. At the moment our waiting list days are pretty low, and I guess our timing has been less than perfect.

So that's the renting situation. Many newcomers to Sweden tend to sublet for a very short period, and after learning just how screwed up the housing options are, opt for buying. There are some pretty goofy rules around subletting, so people buy mostly because of the lack of alternatives. This has been enough for today, so we'll touch on buying tomorrow, and subletting on day three. Trust me, we haven't even touched on the fun stuff yet.

My first real hamburger in Sweden

My coworkers and I went bowling on Thursday night, and since most people know that the average person bowls better with a beer in his or her belly, we decided to go out for dinner and a drink first. One person in the group really wanted a hamburger, so we ended up at O'Leary's Sports Bar. Step into O'Leary's and you instantly feel like you're back in a normal U.S. establishment...every inch of the walls was covered in Boston Red Sox and Boston Celtics paraphernalia. The waitresses were casually dressed in jeans and t-shirt jerseys with some O'Leary's slogan written in English on the backs. There were dart boards in the back, and there were as many TVs as one could hope for at a decent sports bar. They also had Sam Adams on tap, which was nice for a change.

The menu was full of the American basics. Hot wings, mozzarella sticks, a nice list of hamburgers and all the other usuals which I just glanced over. I couldn't have asked for anything more. I've had hamburgers here in Sweden, but fast food burgers really don't count. We also tried to get hamburgers at a Scottish pub about a month after we moved here, but were unfortunately served open-faced hamburgers. Disappointing if you ask me. If you don't get the top half of the bun, is it even a hamburger? Seems more like a ground beef patty served on a pile of bread and lettuce in my opinion.

The atmosphere, the Sam Adams and the hot jalapeno burger were great. A near-perfect reminder of home. I have to say near-perfect because there were just a few things that, once noticed, were a persistent reminder that yes, I was still in Sweden.

First, I mentioned to my coworkers that it was nice to finally eat a good burger in an American sports bar. "American? I thought this place was Irish!?" Based on my description so far, would any of you readers have called this an Irish joint? I didn't think so. The only thing Irish about this bar was the name.

Then there was the fact that every TV was tuned in to the Norway vs. Sweden women's handball game. I really like hand ball. Fast paced, lot of contact, not too high scoring, really goofy moves by the goalies on penalty shots. Very fun to watch. The fact that this particular game had 10 girls that look like extra blonde Mirandas didn't hurt anything. That aside, handball in a sports bar? That would be like going to a sports bar in the U.S. and having every TV tuned in to curling or field hockey. It was just out of place.

Lastly, everybody ordered hamburgers. I was excited. Swedes don't eat hamburgers that often. As I said before, I felt at home. As we started eating, only one other person picked up her burger, and she probably did that because I already had a tight hold on mine. The other three proceeded to cut into their burgers with a knife and a fork. That's the usual here, but it was way too civilized.

Conclusion: O'Leary's did their best to take me home, and if they had baseball, football or basketball, they might have tricked me, but in the end it's still Swedish to the core.

Better late than never? I hope so.

Classes, reading assignments, a wonderful guest and a mini-vacation have provided enough distractions to keep me away from blogging, and also from taking the time to say, Happy Belated Birthday, Mom!

Here's a random tip in case you know anyone who loves pickles and also deserves some flowers: the Bachman's seasonal flowers my mom received from us included a strong scent of dill. Unfortunately my mom isn't one of those people who loves the pickle frangrance, but at least the bouquet was pretty.

Celebrating from the other side of the world isn't always easy, so I'm thankful for the power of Skype and the tech-savvy headset we now have that enables us to talk without sounding like warbling martians anymore. It's so nice to be able to grab a seat in the kitchen and call our loved ones whenever we want, but we tend to take it for granted until the big days come around. Being able to call you on your birthday just reminds us how especially lucky we are, Mom. And while I'm on the subject, thank you for always calling to say hello, keeping the conversation lively and helping me feel close to home while we're so far away, among many other things. For your belated birthday present, we'll set a date...soon. Love you. :)