Anya’s friend, Sarah, joined her for breakfast this morning. She is in Anya’s class and lives in an apartment near by with 2 other International Baccalaureate program students. Sarah’s parents live on the continent of Europe, so she is on her own as a high school student. This has given Anya more confidence in staying here when I travel. We have back up adults who she is comfortable contacting, so it seems to be working out.
It was nice to have her chatty this morning, giving me the highlights of the last few days. She made “my” chocolate cake recipe for a fika for her class. It was a hit!
I biked off to Swedish class.
Swedish class was better than last week, but still, I struggled quite a bit at times. The Finnish woman is a better match for a conversation partner for me. She seems more free than I am to speak Swedish, because she’s just willing to go for it, while my brain is wired analyzing the verb tense, spell words in my head, and formulate a sentence. She did have 6 years of Swedish as a teenager in Finland, but because Swedish is required, she was not too interested in learning it.
After a quick lunch, I met Åsa, a student at Johannelund, who is willing to practice Swedish with me. Last time, she was able to review my little essay prior to handing it in. It helped me go through each error with an explanation. Because of my travels, I handed in my essay without Åsa’s review. So today, we went through it, because rather than just getting a paper back with a bunch of markings, I can understand better the rationale for each correction and learn from them. This is what it looked like after walking through it.
At Johannelund, I picked up my mail that had come to my former host’s home. It was the notification that I could pick up my Swedish identity card. So, I biked down to the tax office and picked it up. I went right away to a bank to try to open an account, but it was 3:20 pm, and the banks close at 3:00 pm on Fridays. I’m choosing this bank because: 1) they have a website that has an English option (which seems important for financial matters), and 2) they have 2 days during week that they are open to 6:00 pm. The other bank that was recommended closes at 3 pm every day. (All the banks I’ve checked are closed on the weekends.)
So, I’ll have to wait until next week to open a bank account. This will be 68 days in the process of securing a person number, residency card, and Swedish ID card.
Does this mean now that I have a Swedish identity!?! The card of my “Swedish identity” is similar to this:
The little picture in the top center is see-through. The one in the upper right is like a hologram. There is a fourth image, that I only saw later with back lighting. It can be seen on both sides
Because the youth group does not have anything going tonight, we made (compiled) homemade pizza, did laundry, and Anya is doing math problems while I work on more Swedish. Yes, Anya is doing math for fun. Former math teacher, Grandma Hanson, would be proud!
With blessings,
Beth
Dear “Real” Person,
I believe, although I am not certain, congratulations are in order. In 68 days you became a resident alien, apparently I can alienate people a lot quicker than you can.
You sound happy. We’re praying for that for you both.
Congratulations!! Sweden lets people get further into the real culture than does China. We can’t really get an id card that will authorize us to use online/phone bill pay. You need a Chinese identification number for that, and for that you need to be Chinese. Sigh. Mark doesn’t mind because it means I can’t order things online as easily, so he can curb my shopping nature.
You don’t seem to have that nature. But I think Anya does. 🙂
Also, rejoicing in finally getting ‘id’ and legal. It means a lot. I remember the days when we finally got our residency permit and could actually work out in public, confident in not being kicked out.