Life Abroad in the Blue and Yellow: Checking Out the town!

Today was really productive and fun overall! We went to the Migration Office where we met with Annie, our relocation helper, and the kids had their fingerprints taken as well as their pictures. (They can't commit any crimes now, they're on file. ;)) Then we went to the tax office to start the paperwork for our personnummer, which is the Swedish equivalent of a Social Security Number. This number is like our life line here. You can't open a bank account, get a phone, go to school, anything until you have it. At most, it will be another 6 weeks, but Annie assured us that it never takes that long. We will probably be signing up for a college class or two just 'cause. (Well, honestly, for me because then Emma gets to go to pre-school for free which is a win-win. She gets to learn the language and socialize while I get to be an adult and maybe meet people too.) Also, once we have our personnummer we get a child credit per child each month. Sweet!

After that we went to the train station to get Johnny all figured out with the trains and such. What was suppose to be a relatively simple thing turned into a big deal. I'm not entirely sure what they figured out since I was outside with Emma and Olivia watching birds and spinning in circles, much more important.

We found a few parks using Google (how did people live before Google?) and Facebook. We went to one called Himlahöjden lekplats which is going to be close to our permanent housing. It was pretty cool as you will see in the pictures.

We then went to IKEA. IKEA is the same here as it is in the U.S minus the English descriptions of everything. We had a really yummy danish pastry there for our snack before beginning our big shopping trip. Let's just say that the trip didn't go so well. We found all that we needed but after a full morning of walking and fresh air for Olivia, she apparently needed a nap. After leaving the store with her she promptly passed out in the back seat.

Earlier in the day Johnny had promised dinner out for the kids at a restaurant called O'Learys. They have a million T.Vs and play all kinds of sports, including American sports. Jack was in heaven. The food is not great but that's ok.

We walked around the city a bit more after dinner and found another park. They liked this one better I think than the first and it was much smaller. It was about 8:00pm so we needed to head back and let Johnny get ready for his first day of work, but since the sun isn't setting until about 10pm it didn't feel late at all! I told the kids we would pack a lunch and picnic there tomorrow after I do laundry.