Yesterday, I received a letter through the post from Skatteverket (the tax office) - and I have finally received my "proper" personnummer! This is almost the final step of making me a real Swedish resident! All I have to do now is go to a bank or post office with this form, my passport and a couple of passport photos and I will get my ID Card, and I will be fully integrated!
The only major step now is to learn Swedish - the basics to make myself semi-understood anyway. There's still the SFI (Svenskundervisning För Invandrare, or Swedish For Immigrants), but that's a one- to two-year course; it's free (run by the government) but the length is because it has to cater for the "lowest common denominator", i.e. people who are less able to learn a language. The alternative -- and the one I'm probably going to take -- is an intensive six-week course run by "folkuniversitetet" (The People's University). There are two lessons per week, each running for two hours and 15 minutes. Although it will be full-on, I think this will work better for me to saturate my brain with Swedish.
Linda's grown-up cat, Åke, had a bit of a scare last week. On Saturday, we noticed that he couldn't sit down properly and was waddling rather than walking. Linda phoned up the vet and took him down, and they received him immediately. The poor thing couldn't pee; his bladder was apparently the size of an orange and he was in danger. Thankfully they drained him out and he spent a couple of days there. He's back now -- a little lethargic but healthy. Shittypoo (as you'll recall from previous blogs) is still a little bastard, and he has two big hairy balls, so I think it will soon be time for a "Tchaikovsky" (Nutcracker Suite, geddit?!) before he starts humping everything in sight and spraying over everything to stake his area.
My old mates Lee and Mez came to visit last month, too. They did a little bit of touring around Gothenburg, and we went drinking (of course) as well. A throroughly good time had by all, I think!
I've also been helping K. out at work. He works at a "gymnasium" (college) specialising in I.T. (websites, databases, media, etc) and the college has just moved location. This means that the students' laptops needed to be re-installed, and there's a hell of a lot of them. So I was drafted in to do that. Being young students (of ages 16-19), they've just come out of high school and their English is still fresh in their brains, so I had no problem talking to them. One bright spark passed his laptop to me, ran into the corridor and proclaimed, "Take it easy, guys... he's English!", much to my amusement!
Linda is moving away to Trollhättan on November 1st. The main two reasons are that she works there, and commuting every day is taking it's toll on her a bit. She's always tired because of the long hours and the type of job she does, and she has to get up at 5:30 every morning just to get ready and catch the train (or drive), so moving into the same town will be perfect. The second reason is that her grandparents are helping her buy the flat (yes, she's setting foot on the property ladder!). There's also the fact that the sub-lease on this flat that I'm in runs out in November, too, and I need to move (because of the way that landlords work here). So, I can move into Linda's flat when she moves.
Now, the downside to all of this is that her and I are going to be in different towns. But we've had a good long talk about it all, and it's not as bad as it seems, especially because of this intenstive Swedish course I want to do. She can still drive down here for the weekends, and I can go up with her and do my work on my laptop on Mondays and Tuesdays. Then I can take a train back down here for the first lesson, be here on Wednesday for my radio show, and then do the lesson on Thursday. So, we'll be apart for three days (which will take a little getting used to) but we'll still have an extended weekend together, so it will work out.
And that's my recent happenings! I think I'll lie down now, I'm not used to writing this much in one go!
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