Furnished Apartment Tour.

I did one tour video before we officially moved in.  So here is an updated tour video, where you can see our new HOME that is furnished.  :)  It's not totally done, we still need little things here and there (and curtains in some rooms).  But those things are a long way off.

Oh and I sound like I have a lisp or something, but I think it's just because Nick kept making me laugh.  :)  I hope you guys enjoy the video!  Oh and I took the video using my digital camera, so it's not the best quality. Sorry.

Apparently foolish

In answering my last blog post, it was foolish.

I went back to school this week.  And by school I mean swedish language class through Komvux (adult ed courtesy of the swedish government...and tax payers).  I pulled like 15 kg of crap out of my backpack for class. All my workbooks, insanely heavy dictionary, notebooks, reading books, etc.  Well my teacher happened to view upon Stieg Larsson's first book in the millenium series...in swedish.  Immediately afterwards she pointed out that the book was still too advanced for me, and would take far too long to read.  So it has gone on the back burner.

In the meantime, she gave me another book to read and listen to on tape.  And when I say tape, I really mean tape.  When she showed me the cassette tapes I had to stop and think if we had any equipment in the home to actually play a tape.  Sure enough my sambo still has a boombox from 15 years ago that has a tape deck.  The book is called Den Röda Vargen by Liza Marklund.  That translates to The Red Wolf.  My boyfriend says that she is one Sweden's most popular writers and has won awards so I have high hopes for the book.

So Stieg out, Liz in!

Optimistic or foolish?

As many of you may know I am an American now living in Sweden.  I have been here for almost 2 years, and have struggled miserably with the language.  Nothing against the swedish language, I've struggled with all languages.  I was even in the slower reading group in primary school in America (but thankfully I've overcome those shortcomings).

So I had this ingenious idea, thanks to my boyfriend's mom.  I figured I'll work on my comprehension and vocabulary by reading a swedish novel.  I mean, I did the kids book thing, and my swedish teacher at Komvux (long story, will explain later) gave me a book to practice reading with.  Wasn't really for real young children, and yet not for adults, nor was it a novel, but rather like short stories.  So a few weeks ago my boyfriends mom gave me some books she said were must reads!  All in swedish of course!  So what does she give me?  Stieg Larsson's millenium trilogy.  You know The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and the other 2 books.

Random FYI:  In case you didn't know this already, the author is swedish, and they have already made the books into swedish movies.  Which have been quite popular here.  And I hear now they are intending to turn them into american movies.  And I hear that Stellan Skarsgård (Alexsander Skarsgård's father....he plays Eric in the True Blood series), is in the running for a role in the american trilogy.  So there's a bit of swedish entertainment facts and speculation.

Now, bare in mind that I watch tv english tv here with swedish subtitles and I can sometimes read the newspaper and easily navigate swedish websites.  So I figured a novel couldn't be too much harder.  Hahahaha.  So tonight I started reading the first book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Well, needless to say, I couldn't get very far without my handy dandy swedish-english dictionary nearby.  I didn't need to look up every other word, but anywhere from 1-3 words per sentence.  So I guess that's not too bad.

I mean, I'm really not that good with the language.  I can't speak it to save my life.  I sound like a blathering idiot.  And my vocabulary when listening and speaking seems to be quite basic.  Yet when reading I can generally understand or figure out what the word is, and then what the sentence is talking about.

I'm hoping that by this time next year I'll be finished with the 3 books.  If they were in english, I could probably get through them in a month or so.  But it took me 20 mins to read one page tonight.  lol.  I don't have the highest of hopes.

But I do hope the book lives up to all the hype.

Telia = Incompetence

I have never in my life experienced such idiocy.  This could be a super long blog, but I'm going to try to get the cliff notes version.

Our new apartment in Torshälla doesn't have cable already in the building.  Just antennae.  So we have to arrange our own cable.  And since the cable doesn't come into the building, most companies won't offer us service.  So we have to get our cable through the internet via only 2 company options (Telia or Boxer), or via satellite (and the equipment is super expensive).

Here's the kicker.  To get tv through the internet, you have to have your internet through that company.  So it kind of ends up having to be a package deal.  So we decided to sign up with Telia for phone, tv, and internet all through DSL.  Here in Sweden you have to give your utility companies 3 months notice if you plan to terminate.  At first we were just going to move the, but then that wasn't an option.  So the month before moving, my boyfriend calls and gives everyone notice (since he had 3 different companies for all 3 different utilities).  Well Telia says they'll handle the switch over, and we can get our boxes before we move so we can connect them ourselves we get into the apartment (as we were moving over a holiday weekend).  Yeah. FAIL!!!

First, no boxes.  Second, just about everything told to us when we signed up with them proved to be false.  Third, every person we spoke to on the phone over the course of about 5 weeks told us a completely different story, reason, date, excuse, etc.  Then we got our boxes (3.5 weeks AFTER moving), and they forgot the box for our second tv, and the box for our first tv doesn't work.  So we got a non-functioning HD record box and a modem.  The following week we get our replacement box (still missing box for 2nd tv but arrives a few days later), and they haven't switched over our phone from a land line to internet line.  So we get a bill for a phone line that we didn't order (which was 3x as much money).  Then the next day they switch over the phone to internet, but every time the phone rings or your pick it up to make a phone call the tv stops working and then the modem reboots itself.  Are you freaking kidding me?!?!!?  Well last week (1 week after having the new replacement box), there is an issue and the tv stops working.  I talk to 5 people over 2 days about getting it fixed and each person I speak to tells me a different thing, gives me a different reason for the outage, and then one tells me they need to send us ANOTHER box to replace the 1 week old HD recordable box.  Turned out to be a software issue that was fixed after 10 mins on the phone!!!

So I've pretty much been the one handling all of this crap for the last month or so.  My boyfriend is quite passive and isn't much for making a stink about things.  So every time I had to call I asked to speak to a manager, only to be told there are no managers there.  Say what?!?!!?  Well I end up getting a number to a complaint line, speak to them, get connected to their compensations department (bet your sweet ass there's going to be some compensating going on!).  So I deal with this nice gentleman who does his best to speed things along.  Been dealing with him for about 3 weeks now.  We are getting a decent financial compensation and we get a bit longer then normal to test out the company and see if we want to switch.

Now, this is the short version, trust me it was a lot worse then just one paragraph.  So, most of you are already probably thinking CHANGE COMPANIES!  That's what I've been saying, but my boyfriend doesn't want to switch to boxer because the channel selection sucks and they are more expensive.  I suggested switch to satellite tv and keep the phone and internet with Telia (as those haven't had too much of a problem).  But we have to pay for the equipment up front (approx 3500 kr or approx. 500 usd) and again might increase the monthly bill.

The good news is so far this week there hasn't been any major issues.  Or even minor ones for that matter.  But when I was speaking with the guy from the compensations department I asked him if they actually trained their employees and for how long.  Because I have never seen such incompetence in all my life.  And no, it's not a call center in Dubai or something.  I mean, they can see our file on the computer screen, and all remarks made by the previous people we talked to, and yet every single time we spoke to someone we got completely different and contradictory answers and remarks.  It was astonishing to say the least.  Well the guy said they do train them for 3 weeks.  Perhaps thats not long enough.  Total lack of consistency.

So the end result.  We went about 3-3.5 weeks without any internet or tv in our new apartment.  And then spent another 1-1.5 weeks having issues with one or all 3 of the utilities via Telia.

So I'm going to give them 2 thumbs down.  I even tried talking to Sweden's largest newspaper about running an article on their customer care and incompetence.  Only to read in the paper the following week about how Telia reported record high Q2 profits.  Only god knows why!

If your reading this in Sweden and looking for a company to switch to for your home services, don't bother with Telia unless your ready for a massive headache!

-FXA