Last snow...

On the way home from work Maria saw some small patches of snow next to the biking path. It's in the woods, but not in a hidden/shady place. Anyway, in the middle of May it is quite late to see snow (we are not living in the mountains).
(When passing the same spot following Monday the snow was gone).

The following three pictures are taken from our living room during April (10th, 20th and 30th).






The last picture is taken Tuesday this week (12th of May) :-)

Leave buds start to burst

The spring is slowly coming to northern Sweden as well. The birches will probably get greener in the nearest weeks.
Some smaller bushes on the way home from Maria's work have started developing leaves.

To the sea

We decided to take a bike ride to the north east of the city this afternoon. There is a bike path along the main highway (E4:an) to the north which we decided to try today. Close to the nature, but also to all the cars. (The photo is taken when the bike path was on a country road.)






At one point we took the road to Täfteå, where we thought we would see the sea, the Gulf of Bothnia. Unfortunately, we might have taken the wrong street in that village, because we just got to the inner harbor.
On the way back to Umeå we had the wind right in our faces most of the time, hard work. Anyway we came home and felt good being outside exercising for a while, as well as enjoying the spring weather.

Finally, two armchairs

Before we arrived in the apartment, we didn't know how much space we would have for an extra sofa or armchair. Therefore, we didn't buy anything to bring with the load of furniture from southern Sweden. Having spent some time here now, we realized that another arm chair would be perfect for the living room. The problem was that we needed a car to bring it home (unless you would like to carry it for a really long distance, not so fun). But, since that was solved a couple of days ago, we decided to order the chair and today it was time to pick it up. We had booked a trailer, but we didn't need it, the box fit in the trunk of the car.
Then the big assembly party started. It was a lot of screws to fasten before the chair looked like the one in the store, and we guess it might have been quite difficult to do it alone. A couple of hours later we could relax in one armchair each for the first time.

Large grocery shopping

Up until now, we have been biking to the grocery stores. You don't get that much in your bag each time this way, but at least some exercise . Today it was time to take the car on it's first real trip, the destination was the shopping center in the southern end of the city that we visited two weeks ago. We spent a couple of hours inside the grocery store, since it was the first time we did some real shopping there (last time we only bought some lunch to go).
Many of the grocery stores in Sweden have the feature ("ShopExpress") that you can scan the price tag on the food yourself before you put it in the bag. This way, it is easy to put fridge stuff in one bag, freezer goods in another and so on. At the checkout, you just put the scanner in a stand and pay. Of course you can cheat, but once in a while the automatic checkout will direct you to an ordinary checkout, where you will have to let the clerk scan everything again. And, if the goods scanned does not match with the manual scanning, you will experience this sample check even more often (I don't think that you will be rejected from the store though, at least not after the first time...). We didn't see a system like this in the US, just the one where you scan everything yourself at the checkout, but in that case you don't save that much time compared to the mentioned system.

Our new car!

A couple of weeks ago we decided to buy a new car. This afternoon we picked up the Skoda Fabia Combi. Not too big, not too small. As for now, we will mostly use it to go shopping, but if Olle finds a job outside the city, it will come handy then too. We will also have the opportunity to explore the interior of our county (that is, the mountain range bordering Norway) in a much easier way now.
Up here, all rented parking stalls, with or without roof, have outlets for engine block heaters. Necessary during the long, cold winter that we have yet to experience.

House warming dinner

Now, when we have been living here for a little bit more than a month, it was time to invite Olle's uncle and the cousins with families to the apartment to show them how we have managed to make it a little bit more suitable to live in compared to when we arrived. Yesterday we spent most of the day baking (both dinner rolls and some cinnamon rolls, besides a cake), this morning we did the cooking (lasagna, a good dish that serves many).
Five in the afternoon the guests arrived. The children's parents tried to make the apartment child proof, we had moved most of the smallest, most sensible stuff away from grabbing height. But still there were some interesting things to find for the kids, like the shelf with CDs and a video to "test".

Spring cleaning followed by some fresh air

We started this day with some cleaning of the apartment. We have been a little bit lazy with this since we arrived, but now it was time to really get it done. Nice to have a vacuum cleaner in working condition, compared to the one we had in Madison. The only thing with this one is the high pitched noise from it, but the cleaning is good. We also placed the two rugs we bought yesterday in the office and the living room.
To reward ourselves after the cleaning, we took a bike ride around Nydalasjön. There were a lot of people moving around the lake, some of them just strolling while others were grilling. It seems to be a popular recreation area, especially since it is so close to the city.

Even if the lake is still covered with ice, we could find some spring signs, like this willow.

Walpurgis with spring songs

This evening the choir Olle joined some weeks ago, sung typical spring songs to welcome the spring. It was the first time he performed in front of an audience, but it went quite good. Next time he might know the text to the songs a little bit better, it looks better if you are not holding the paper almost in front of your face :-)





The tradition with lightening a fire was kept alive, even if the effect was not the same as we are used to. You can notice that the daylight is longer here.
For many students this evening is a party evening, since the day after is a holiday. We went home after the fire was lit, but took the road through a neighborhood we hadn't seen before in order to check out the area.

Maria's biking route to work

Having biking distance to work is especially nice this time of the year, hearing bird songs along your way. Usually Maria takes the bike path a little to the west, next to Nydalasjön. Here the bike path goes through the forest with a lot of lingonberry and (European) blueberry sprigs, a typical picture of northern Sweden. You really feel like home seeing this view, you find it in southern forests as well.
It takes almost fifteen minutes biking to work, so you get your daily exercise at least (around 3.5 km). All the way is on bike paths, so you just need to watch for cars when crossing the road on a few occasions. Maria can also select to cross among the houses, but she thinks it's nicer to be close to the nature. Most of the way is quite flat, except a hilly corner in the university area.

The ice still covers the lake, but it will be nice in the summertime to have walking distance from home to a lake to swim in.


(pictures from our bike ride on Saturday, today was a rainy day)

Blood donor again

Today Maria went to the hospital, located next to the university area. Both of us were blood donors before leaving Sweden, but have had a two year break in the US. Time to go back to old "work", no excuse not to when it just takes around 15 minutes 3-4 times a year.
At the same time Maria signed up as plasma donor. It is good that the hospital is close to work, when you're going to spend ~45 min once a month or so. In the future she thinks of booking the same time for plasma donation as her office mate, it will be a nice time to chat.

Record warm day

Also today we woke up to nice sunshine which lit up your mind. How often does it happen with really nice weather during the weekend, and not during the work week? Usually it's the other way around.
After lunch we headed for another bike ride (today a total of ~17 km), enjoying the spring weather as long as it will last. Today we biked to the west parts of the city, visiting a furniture store (without buying anything). It was good we brought the map with us, so we could find the bike paths we planned to take. After a while we placed the jackets in the bag, no need in the early summer temperature of 18C.

Something that strikes you is that even if Umeå has 110 000 inhabitants, you are always close to the nature. And not arranged parks here and there, no, quite often you bike next to forests, which are looking quite wild. The borders of the town are not far away anywhere, so you easily find some green area to visit.

Bikeride to the southern part of the city

Instead of sitting inside the whole day, we decided to take a bike ride along the river to the southeast part of Umeå. As always when going somewhere else in the city, you get an easy start downhill, our apartment is located in the highest parts of town.
You got nice views when looking towards downtown of Umeå.
We continued along Umeälven, with Kolbäcksbron south of us, the best-looking bridge over the river.
We then stopped at a shopping center, where the biggest food store in town is located as well. We bought some lunch and enjoyed it next to the river, who would like to sit inside this nice spring day?
For the bike ride back home we took another bike path, to explore other parts of the town. In total we biked over 10 km today, but we still have several bike rides to do until we've covered the 170 km bike paths present in Umeå. Yes, Umeå is a bike friendly town with bike paths in many directions and next to all main roads. In some parts of the city you share the wide sidewalks with pedestrians.
Today is the first day with really warm weather (~15C), nice to really feel the spring in the air. Being outside without a jacket/coat is definitively a spring sign.
Back home it was time for some rest in the sun. Since our balcony (it is really on the first floor, but we call it our balcony) is on the north side, we brought two chairs to the south side of the house. Sitting just next to our office window, you almost thought it was early summer. But the view to the south reminded you that late April up here in the north still means piles of snow here and there.
Today was the first day we saw more of spring flowers, on the south side of houses. Since a lot of the snow melted the last week, the lawn is still not green.

Umespexet - time to feel like a student again!

Tonight we went to this year's student farce featuring Umespexet. As usual, a real story is converted to a farce including a lot of songs (often known melodies with a new text). The theme this year was Apollo - the first landing on the moon. We have been to some student farces in Linköping before, and also here the show was interrupted by the audience shouting "Omstart!" (= start over), followed by a repeat of the song/dialog but with a new text. Improvisation is an important quality of the actors, but we guess that they have practiced a lot of different varieties for a certain scene.
We missed the sentences with all the words starting on the same letter, as well as the sentences including a lot of a special kind of words (like car brands or animals), which was common in the Linköping farces.

Career coaching

During two evenings Maria has been to seminars about work/career, arranged by Naturvetarna (The Swedish Association of Scientists). Right now Maria has a job for two years, but what does she want with the rest of her life? (an unanswered question). It is never to early to start thinking about that.
The Tuesday seminars were of a more general character, including information from the consultant company Proffice Life Science. Other themes were 'How can you influence your salary' and 'Career directions and career cultures'.
During the second evening Maria went to a longer seminar about career planning. What to do when searching for a new job and how to start with your own career planning, were two questions discussed during the evening. Both theory and practical exercises were mixed. Some of the exercises included harder situations, mostly since you don't have much experience (being in an interview for example).
Tomorrow there will be a follow-up with 40 minutes of individual guidance.
It is really good to get some hints about what to do when trying to find a job.