I’m just sitting on the train on my way back to Jönköping from Stockholm. Been a couple of intense work days but the weather yesterday was so nice I almost forgot I was there in business not in pleasure. It was a bummer thought that the AC in the office (which has huge glass windows EVERYWHERE, was broken so it was very hot in the conference room). Went to a place called Fåfängan today for lunch and the view of the city from up there was really nice:

Sweden

Simon’s booked his flight last night and has resigned from work so now it’s set. He’s departing Melbourne on August 12th for an exciting adventure in Sweden. I’m counting down the days!

We’re in the middle of planning and arranging Simon’s trip over to Sweden and our goal is for him to be here in beginning/mid August. The next step is of course for Simon to try to get a job which seems a bit tricky since he still knows very little Swedish. Read more

Here is a tip for all you Aussies living abroad missing the food from home. There is a perfect site for you – Great Aussie food. On the site you can order your TimTams, Vegemite, Weetbix, Cadbury Chocolate or whatever it is you’re craving and have them shipped to wherever you are in the world.

Australia’s prime minister Kevin Rudd was forced to step down from his post last week and the nation got its first female prime minister, Julia Gillard. The fact that they got a female prime minister is positive of course but I’m not too impressed at all about how the Australians have handled this. The people elected Kevin Rudd back in 2007 and now his own party who claim to have lost confidence in him voted for Julia to take over his post.

I’m far from an expert on Swedish politics and even less Australian, but after reading up on the news I can see that Kevin Rudd made a lot of good things happen (correct me id I’m wrong).

Things that Kevin Rudd has done and made happen as a prime minister;

• He did what should have been done a long time ago, he made an official national aplogy to all Aborigines and the Stolen Generations for their “profound grief, suffering and loss“.

• He worked hard on getting a carbon pollution reduction scheme through the  Parliament and one of his first offical acts after being sworn in was to sign the Kyoto Protocol, a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, aimed at fighting global warming.

• He helped Australia avoiding the recession, saving half a million Australians from losing their jobs.
  

• Australia is not as advanced in their housebuilding as us Swedes and even though it gets cold in winter and very hot in summer they still haven’t realised that insulation can both save them energy and money by keeping the cold and the heat out. As part of its economic stimulus program, the government offered householders a rebate for ceiling insulation. But lack of knowledge on how to implement this lead to 4 deaths and multiple housefires resulting in bad publicity for Rudd of course.

• He believed in a “Big Australia” and therefore increased the immigration quota.

• He established 20 regional cancer centres across the country.

• He looked over Australia’s workplace laws and added more “family-friendly work practices” to the former policy Work Choices. A National Employment Standard were set in the new Fair Work Australia policy including maximum weekly hours of work – 38 hours per week, plus reasonable additional hours, requests for flexible working arrangements – allows parents or carers of a child under school age or of a child under 18 with a disability, to request a change in working arrangements to assist with the child’s care, parental leave and related entitlements – up to 12 months unpaid leave for every employee, plus a right to request an additional 12 months unpaid leave, plus other forms of maternity, paternity and adoption related leave and annual leave – 4 weeks paid leave per year, plus an additional week for certain shift workers. Things like this makes me appreciate the system and benefits we do have in Sweden, read for example the post I’ve written HERE about the benefits of working in Sweden.
  

Michaela has written a long post explaining this further in her blog Svensk Down Under, go have a look HERE (in Swedish).

I ended up having a lovely Midsummer in the archipelago. I took the public boat out to Tjärö after waiting in line for an hour (was lucky though the queue got longer after I arrived and the boat only took 50 people at the time) and met up with Maria and Håkan there, they arrived already on the Thursday with their boat to get a good spot.

A weekend filled with lots of boats and people everywhere, no rain in sight and lots of sun, dance around the maypole, the cutest godchild I could ever ask for, good company, yummy food and rosé wine plus one or two schnapps. Nothing to complain about at all except that Simon wasn’t there to share it with me. Missed him a lot! Read more

Simon called me this afternoon saying he got his passport back from the Embassy and he thought the residence permit was in it but he didn’t really know since it was all in Swedish. He sent me a MMS of the passport and there it was – the residence permit and work permit granted for two years! Totally unexpected this week and the best news we could ever get, we are so happy!! Read more

Author: Winston Churchill

One positive thing happened today, I finally got through to someone at the Migration Board. I called what I thought was our case officer yesterday during her short phone hour between 8.30-9.30 am without any luck. Either the line was busy or I got a message that she was unavailable (maybe she went for a fika). When I got sick and tired of trying I left a message asking her to call me back which she didn’t do of course. Read more