Christmas Market in the Old Town

Stockholm is sometimes called "Venice of the North" as it is built on 14 islands. There is water everywhere and Stockholm is a very pretty city. Compared to the US most buildings are old and Gamla Stan/the Old Town (which also is built on an island) is from the 13th century. According to Wikipedia "The town dates back to the 13th century, and consists of medieval alleyways, cobbled streets, and archaic architecture. North German architecture has had a strong influence in the Old Town's construction."

I remembered that Gamla Stan has a Christmas Market every year and a couple of days ago, when the sun was shining for a change, I decided to be a tourist for a day.
The market takes place on Stortorget - a large square in the middle of Gamla Stan - and there were quite a few booths with food, clothing, and Christmas decorations. I did not buy anything as I do not have any space in my luggage, but I enjoyed looking at all the things that were for sale.

Then I took a nice stroll through the cobbled streets and alleyways. Despite the old houses, people live in this part of Stockholm. It gives Gamla Stan quite a nice feel with a mix of apartments, restaurants, and stores.

This is a very narrow alley - it is only about 3 feet wide. Fascinating really.

Sweden is a monarchy and the Royal Castle is also situated in Gamla Stan.

As the day was sunny I decided to take a walk along the water where there are lots of boats. These are used mostly in the summertime and go to different parts of the Stockholm archipelago that consists of about 30,000 islands. Some of the boats are restaurants and have entertainment.

The white ship is actually a hostel called Af Chapman.

And when I was on may way back to go "home" I saw several big moose as decorations. As it was still daytime they were not lit but I am sure they look nice at night :)

Gosh it is dark!

After 18 years at more southern latitudes than Stockholm I am realizing how dark it is in Sweden during the winter. It is easy to forget after a number of years.
It is a big difference between Stockholm and Weed when it comes to number of hours of daylight during the winter. Weed is at 41.4242° N latitude and Stockholm is at 59.3294° N. Big difference!

During most of October there were quite a few sunny days here in Stockholm and that made the afternoons and evenings quite a bit lighter. After Daylight Saving time stopped at the end of October the afternoons got darker quickly. For about a week now, the days have been gray and it stays only semi-light most of the day.
Today the sun rose at 7:48 am and set at 3:17 pm - 7 hours and 29 minutes of daylight. In Weed on the other hand the sun rose at 6:59 am and will set at 4:50 pm - 9 hours and 50 minutes of daylight. And it will of course get even darker until the winter solstice.

When Michael and I lived in Hawaii the days were about the same length every day. And the weather was about the same every day as well. It is interesting to live so close to the equator as there is a high degree of sameness when it comes to weather and climate.

Yesterday the sun was actually out for a few hours and I went for a long walk to a wonderful beech forest (not beach ;)). My friend's apartment (where I am now house sitting) is in the countryside outside of Stockholm with fields, forests, and farms.

Lakes and fall colors

I had packed quite a few winter clothes for my trip to Sweden but so far have not had to use very many. Fall and winter can sometimes come already in October. Fall is here but it has hardly rained and it has been mild with temperatures around 50 most days.

As I live at 3500 feet in Weed in California it is quite different to be at sea level now. There are many more deciduous trees and the leaves are turning colors. We do not have the multicolored leaves like some parts of the east coast in the US, but they are turning yellow and reddish brown. I am not used to seeing this after so many years at a higher altitude and it is nice with a change of scenery.

I am still staying with one friend mostly when I am in the Stockholm area and she moved about 2 weeks ago to a fairly rural area about 20 km from where she lived before. As I was on a trip, to other parts of Sweden, for about 8 days and just got back a few days ago I have not been able to go for walks much in this rural area, but am now trying to go for a walk every day to experience the wonderful Swedish forest. I love the green moss and that I can walk everywhere. I am, however, noticing that I have become "Americanized" and am sometimes thinking about where I can walk. Then I have to remind myself that Sweden has "the freedom to roam" or the right of public access to the wilderness (Allemansrätten in Swedish) which means that you can walk almost anywhere even if it is private land. That is one thing I have always missed since I came to the US.

I went to two different parts of Sweden - Värmland and Dalarna - to visit and check out those areas. I went to a small town i Dalarna that sits right next to a very nice lake. Sweden has almost 98,000 lakes and there is water everywhere. A nice change coming from the drought in California. These pictures are from the lake I visited.

These pictures are from the rural area where my friend now lives and this is what fall looks like right now.

Passport and bank account

Time is flying and I do not seem to have quite enough time to write as often as I would like to. This will be a bit long, but I wanted to share these experiences as it is not real easy any longer to be a dual citizen and especially an American citizen.

Nowadays I always travel with two passports when I go to Sweden as I am a dual citizen. I use my American passport to leave and enter the US and my Swedish passport when I enter Sweden and the European Union.

Swedish passports are only valid for five years compared to American passports that are valid for 10 years. My Swedish passport was going to expire in May of 2016 so I thought it would be helpful to renew it now. You can renew it even if it has not expired. As it has become much more difficult and expensive to renew a Swedish passport in the US it is nice to do it when you are in Sweden.

The only embassy in all of the US where you can renew a Swedish passport is the Swedish Embassy in Washington D.C. If you live in that area it is of course much easier, but living in the remote northernmost parts of California would be a very expensive and difficult way of renewing it. There are some mobile passports stations that come to a few of the bigger cities where you also can renew your passport but, again, they are nowhere near where I live.

In Sweden you renew your passport at police stations so I went to one where I have renewed my passport earlier. They wanted to look at both of my passports and my Naturalization Certificate which I got when I became a US citizen. I paid the fee and photos and fingerprints were done and I thought that was it. Nope, that wasn't the case. The next day I got an email from the passport police (they evaluate Swedes who live abroad) and it turned out that the police who helped me had forgotten to give me a form that I also had to fill out. After numerous phone calls I found out that I could come back and pick up the form the same day and have them scan it.

The form, however, surprised me as it was supposed to "test my Swedish citizenship." I did not remember having to fill out anything similar previously and the form had questions that asked for very detailed answers, such as my parents' exact birth places and date of marriage. Luckily I had other documents with me that helped me so I could fill out the form.

When I came back to the police station I asked the woman who helped me why this form was needed and she said that Swedes could lose their citizenships. I must have looked very surprised as I had not heard this earlier. I knew that those who got another citizenship before 2001 lost their Swedish citizenship but after 2001 Sweden has approved dual citizenship.
I asked the woman again if I really could lose my citizenship and she said "yes" and had a very odd smile. Not okay in my opinion to scare people like that without giving more information so at some point I will go higher up with this.
At least I got my passport the next day and it is now good through October of 2020.

Something else that I wanted to do was to try and open another bank account besides the two I have in one bank.

When the US basically forced the rest of the world to adopt the FATCA-regulations it became much harder to be an American abroad and to have foreign financial accounts. Sweden adopted FATCA into Swedish law in February of 2015. Some countries, like Mexico, have even closed bank accounts for Americans. FATCA came about when it was discovered that some rich Americans tried to hide money in Switzerland (which is a tax haven, Sweden not so much). Unfortunately the FATCA- regulations are now hitting regular people who have become "entangled" in this very complex US regulation. All kinds of foreign financial accounts are supposed to be reported to the IRS in the US and if you do not report what you have in different accounts when you do your US tax return you can be penalized with very hefty fines.

I was prepared that I could be hassled by the Swedish bank people and that's exactly what happened. Swedish banks and other financial institutions are having to handle quite a bit of reporting now and I know that they do not really like doing this. The first bank I had contacted basically said that they did not want me as a customer despite a fairly large amount of money that I was going to transfer from my other bank. Another bank was also very hesitant. As I knew that they could not deny me to open a regular saving's account I contacted an organization called Svenska Bankforeningen/Swedish Bankers' Association and the woman I spoke with said that I was correct and she encouraged me to contact people higher up within the bank. I did and after speaking with a very nice assistant to the regional manager for one of the banks, I had an appointment set up for the next day. The account was opened and the money transferred.
You have to be knowledgeable to do these kinds of things and obviously kind of pushy and talk to people higher up. At least I accomplished what I had set out to do. :)

So far the weather has been quite nice here in the Stockholm area with lots of sunshine and mild temperatures. Not as warm as Weed with highs in the 80s but low 50s is really okay for October. My friend (who I am staying with) and I took a nice walk the other day and visited a nature preserve area close to where she lives. We sat by the water and enjoyed the sunshine, watched sheep and boats, and chatted.

To take a leap of faith

In my first post I shared some things about my next step which seems to be a leap of faith. I have taken a couple of leaps in my life but this one feels a bit different for some reason. Cannot really put words on the feeling, just that it is different.

To take a leap of faith is to trust your inner feelings, heart and gut to dare to do something without knowing exactly how it will turn out. It is scary to some extent and you have to listen inside to know what your next step will be.

When I was in my 20s I started following my intuition more and it is very different compared to just following your brain. It takes some practice to learn to distinguish between your intuition and your brain but once you get the hang of it, you can pretty easily tell the difference. And in my opinion, following your intuition is much more "rewarding" than just following your brain.

I remember very well when I connected with my now late husband and the leap of faith I took when I came to the US. My father and I had a book publishing company where we translated books from English to Swedish and then also published them. We did this in our spare time for about 20 years and it was interesting, fun, and a great learning experience.
We had read one of Michael's books and both liked it a lot. The book is a spiritual novel that takes place in Mt Shasta and after reading it I started getting a feeling that I "had to" visit the area.

I came for a visit in April of 1997 and it became clear pretty quickly that Michael and I were more than business partners. As I definitely was folloing my heart and gut it was fairly easy to decide to take that leap of faith to actually move to the US. It was probably good that I, at that point, did not know how extremely difficult it is to legally immigrate to the US.

If I had not come to the US I am sure that I would not have had the chance to change and develop as a person the same way as I have done in the US. To leave the country where you are born and have lived for a long time is a challenge in many ways and I have gone through many stages of this during the 18 years I have lived in the US. Being in Sweden for a longer time now and experiencing the Swedish culture is a bit of a "culture shock" as well, as I have lived in the US for so long.

Leaps of faith can be scary but they can also be great opportunities to grow and change. Right now I am trying to "land" a bit more in Sweden which I hope to do soon when I can make some trips to other parts of this country. So far I have mostly been doing "busy work" such as applying for a passport and opening a new bank account - both turned out to be a bit challenging due to new regulations that the US has imposed on the rest of the world.

Today I did something more fun than what I have done for the past 1,5 week - I visited one of my few cousins. I only have 4 cousins and they are my closest family now as both my parents have passed away and I do not have any brothers and sisters. My cousin A and I had a nice afternoon and her sister (another cousin) came for lunch as well which was really nice. A lives very near one of Stockholm's biggest attractions - Stockholm Globe Arena (now also called Ericsson Globe). It is currently the largest hemispherical building in the world.
A definitely lives close to this arena. :) I have been there twice to watch a hockey game and a Lucia concert many years ago.