Snotty Tissues and Bus tickets

After 3 months in South America we blew all our prescious money. Screw it, we had a good time! Now to The Land of the Swedes to get jobs and scrape together savings.

It's such a different cold here from that of the U.K. There the air is humid. The cold seeps into your bones. Your nose. Your throat. In Sweden the cold bites but the air is fresh and crisp and dry. Winters here are extreme but have a harsh, cold beauty. Like a diamond. British winters are wet and unpleasant. Like a snotty tissue.   

Snow lies everywhere. The Christmas tree is still outside, hung with lights.

Tomorrow we attack the paperwork for my registration as a Swedish resident. This is made easier by the fact that my mother-in-law is a Swedish social worker! She knows exactly how things work here. 

Apparently if I take these forms to someone in her office building I can obtain a sequence of 'identity' digits. You don't 'exist' in Sweden without these digits! Swedes are born with these numbers (called personnummer). When an employer or official asks for your 'date of birth' they are actually asking for this unique number sequence. According to Wikipedia, this number "is used in dealings with public agencies, from health care to the tax authorities. It is also commonly used as a customer number in banks and insurance companies". Temporary residents (like me) can get their own sequence but it's called a samordningsnummer instead of a personnummer.  Mine would be "811204-****". Again, I'll let Wikipedia explain:


The number uses ten digits, YYMMDD-NNGC. The first six give the birth date in YYMMDD format. Digits seven to nine (NNG) are used to make the number unique, where digit nine (G) is odd for men and even for women. The digit ten (C) is a control number. The minus after the first six is changed to a plus for people over the age of 100. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_identification_number) 


After I have officially obtained registration status I can get 3 or 4 Swedish lessons a week. Each lesson lasts a few hours. It's all paid for by the government. I can continue taking lessons as long as I need them. The system is very flexible to an immigrant's needs. If I find a job and need to cut down on lessons, I can. I can even do night courses. I can also take tests to earn a certificate indicating my level in Swedish.

Needless to say I'm pretty impressed with all this. The Swedish government will even pay for my bus ticket to the language centre  (which I hear is very expensive). Compare this to David Cameron cutting free English courses in the UK. Well done Dave, that will really help with social integration...