One Year

Our one year anniversary of being in Sweden was May 1. What a difference a year makes, my Lord! When I think back on the first few months I realize how far we've all come since them. I'm remembering:

• Ava crying in the park because no one would play with her (because they didn't know what the heck she was saying)
• Me desperately searching for canned chicken stock in the grocery store only to find there's no such thing in Sweden (they use "fond" instead - a high-potency liquid chicken base that you mix with water to make stock)
• Adrian saying that maybe we made a mistake coming here because it's so expensive AND salaries are so much lower
• Julian doing nothing much except crawling around and grunting

And now Ava is a master of getting kids who don't understand her to play with her, I see the many benefits of fond (make just what you need! no tin cans!), Adrian has come to terms with the cost of living and Julian is a running, jumping, chatting, kissing bundle of cute boyhood. Chaos has settled to peaceful and happy Euro existence.

Perhaps the best lesson of our move has been the reminder that there are lots of nice places to live, lots of nice people who live there, and lots of nice ways to do things. San Francisco is not, (blasphemy!) the center of the world (except maybe for Internet jobs, the burrito, and graphic facilitation ... but you get my point), and the American approach to work is not the only way to get things done. Sometimes, in fact, it's the way not to get things done.

The biggest emotional roller coaster for me over the past year has been about work and the very real possibility in the beginning of not working while we were in Sweden. My initial stabs at finding work were somewhat mortifying (I'm remembering a couple of embarrassing calls with a woman at Volvo) and downright depressing, so I can't believe I'm getting to do the work I am now and am so thankful for stumbling onto Lorensbergs and Malin and Trevor.

So year 2, we're ready for you! Nu kör vi!