Day 3

Actually opened a Swedish bank account today! And put some money in it! Woohoo! Now I have someplace to deposit my paycheck in Kronor!

So, about this COVID-19 thing. I came a long ways to start a job, only to have the world shut down on what was supposed to be my first week in the office. As it is, a person came by the hotel yesterday to drop off my computer and VPN info. In case everyone is asked to work from home. Or, in my case, work from hotel. I will go into the office for a bit on Monday to get badged and HR onboarded, and then who knows? Probably hang out for the fast office wifi in the empty office … I know this sounds like whining (because it is), and I’m not put out by having a little inconvenience during a global pandemic. My issue is a lot more pedestrian – I miss having people to talk to! I’m used to a day basically full of talking to people. And now I’ve gone most of a week with basically no social conversation outside the daily FaceTimes with my family (which are life-savers!).

Kind of related to the previous topic, the front-desk staff came by and dropped off a little welcome gift of pasta, basil, and pasta sauce. Something they do for all the long-stay guests, I gather. It’s very nice and I really appreciated it. But it was a 15 second conversation. So, it doesn’t really count as socializing.

On to something more fun! Today, I had lunch at a place called Korvhuset (which means The Sausage House) and they have an all-you-can-eat sausage buffet. I’ll repeat that so it’s clear – ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT SAUSAGE BUFFET. I did not try all the advertised “101 types of sausages”, but I had a few. Even comes with vegetables – mashed potatoes and sauerkraut. Needless to say, I think this is very Swedish – the world may be melting down, but there will always be an all-you-can-eat sausage buffet! The icing on the cake was the staff-person – a heavily tattooed muscle-y guy with Swedish death metal playing (at respectfully low volume) on a tinny little boombox behind the counter. And spoke flawless English.