All posts by Stella Sandell

On the road again

Sweden, Travel, Uncategorized

Ugh. My shoulders and back hurts like I’ve been trekking  with a huge backpack. I’m in a bad need of a massage.  Unfortunately, massages are one of the things Ola’s not good at… I just left him at Gothenburg’s central station and I’m now sitting on a train to Scania. Free wi-fi all the way down. Good stuff.

 

Christmas has been real nice, as it always is my in-laws and extended family. They live on the countryside on Sweden’s west coast, next to the sea, amidst farms and fields. An insane amount of food, washed down with mulled wine and . This was the last year we celebrated christmas in the house Ola grew up in, his parents have sold it to a cousin and build a smaller house farther to the sea. So I raided the barn on stuff the’ll be throwing away and I must say, I am impressed with how much I was able to push down in my luggage. In my bags I now have a cotton candy maker (which I bought in Sweden but it doesn’t work in Ecuador, so I’m giving it to my sister), 2 bottles of wine and a mortar (christmas gifts), 2 flatirons (on from the fifties, older), a hand drill, long as my forearm and with wooden handle, one copper pot on three legs with a little cup, also with legs, one big bottle, maybe 2liters and one wooden moose, also from the fifties. Good thing my sister is on her way to Scania with a car. Unfortunately I couldn’t bring the window frames with me, but my sister and her bbf are talking about doing a road trip to pick them up. One person’s junk, another one’s treasure.

It was nice to get some rest, now with Scania, the friend and family tour really begins. This time I’m spending a totalt of 4 days in south Sweden, which is one more day than usual, so I’m a little less stressed. But, normally I have my schedule done before I arrive. But I’ve been too exhausted, I haven’t even started to make it. But I’m not that worried, my friends are understanding to my lack of time and try to be flexible. Which is needed, 5-6 friends+my grandma and my cousins family and a birthday celebration in 3 full days and 2 half days is nothing you manage without some help.

Home, at last

Moving

IMG_3619

IMG_3620

IMG_3626

So, turned out the water leak wasn’t a made up thing. That was Wednesday, about one and a half week ago. I wanted to shoot myself. On top of it, we had the delivery of the bed the following Saturday which obviously couldn’t happen when there were piles of plaster and shit all over. I was told that they for sure were going to be done on Saturday. I was sceptic, but lo and behold, they were!

I came here on Saturday morning, preparing for the worst, but found a woman and her 2 kids cleaning the place. The kids not cleaning so much, given they were about six and one and a half. ACK! My Swedish, socialist, rich global north heart broke! Small children with runny noses should be with a baby sitter or something! But what can you do? Some hours later, when I returned, big sister was carrying her baby brother in a shawl on her back. No complaints were heard but it was a bit too much for me, so I took her outside and bought some fruit and candy.

Yesterday I managed to go to JapOn (where we bought washing machine, oven and fridge) and explain to them that the display on our oven doesn’t work, that I don’t know why and that I didn’t try the oven immediately after it was installed because we had a water leak and the place was full of workers, and that i DID ask if there was problem because the the outlet was for 220v and the oven’s plus for 110 but that I was told over and over again that there was no problem. “No problemos/no preocupe” are frequently used frases here. But yeah, I did manage to tell them there is a problem now and they are sending a technician on Monday or Tuesday. I am mighty proud of myself.
Then I went hunting for a table, which took the rest of the day. I was close to giving up, because everything is very big, heavy in dark woods or glass, which is not our style. Finally, with help of Vivi, I was taken to a market and found a dark table with 4 chairs plus cushions and home delivery for 130. Vivi was a big help with price negotiation.

In the evening we had our huasipichai, the moving in party, which was pretty successful.

No end in sight

Moving

Friday November 22, when we signed the contract for the apartment, the landlady’s brother asked to keep the keys until Tuesday, so they could finish the apartment. When we were there to receive the delivery of internet and the kitchen appliances this Saturday they still weren’t done. There were still holes in the ceiling for lamps, not all the lamps that were installed were functioning and the fan over the stove was only up, but not connected. We were obviously pissed and threatened to go look for another apartment. The real estate agent was duly mortified and promised to fix it before this weekend. Today he called and told us there have been a water leak in the apartment above us and 2 of our rooms are damaged and they need 8 days to fix it.
I’m suspicious but also WTF? This is a completely new house, how the FUCK did this water damage happen?!!?

Friday, last week

Ecuador, Moving

Bleh. This has been a hard week and at first I didn’t have time to write and then I got stressed because I hadn’t which made me so anxious so I couldn’t. Vicious circle of my life.

So, anyway! We got an apartment! Whoop whoop! I found it through , we looked at it last Thursday and signed on Friday! Huge relief, since this was the only one of the 12 we saw that we really liked. Ok, true, we saw some nice ones in Carolina, but we said from the start we didn’t want to live among all the other gringos, and the only reason we even looked there was because it was impossible to make the real estate people to understand we didn’t want to live there. This was -not- a language barrier, it’s quite simple to say “We don’t want to live in Carolina” but it just didn’t go through.

The rest of the Friday was hectic, Ola had meetings and we had to by hinking shoes and swimsuits since Rebecca and Panchito had invited us to come along to Baños. We left around 6.30, thinking it would take around 3 hours to get there, but of course there was traffic so we didn’t get there until 11.30. Also, in the dark it was pretty hard to find the hostel, we were told to turn left at the police station, but of course we drove straight pass. It didn’t help that the road to the place was a dark, suspicious looking dirt road either. But we got there, safe and sound and crashed.
In the morning, we were served freshly baked bread, coffee, juice, honey and jam and local produced tomatoes before we hit the road again.
And hit it we did. First thing that happened, as soon as we left the dirt road and joined real traffic, was a flat tire. Ola and Panchito managed to fix it and were very proud. Rebecca and I hanged out with a puppy. When we got to the meet-up place in Baños we were just 15 minutes late and after signing some papers and been given rain boots, we and 4 others and 2 guides was off to adventure!

Hello, please help

Moving, Quito

Before I first went to Quito this summer, I spent some time finding a FB group for goths and alternative people in Quite. At their wall, I asked for a guide who spoke a little bit English and was willing to take me and Ola around. I ended up with Majo, which was like winning the lottery. Not only is she in our age, she speaks pretty good English, knows everybody, is funny and intelligent and could answer Ola’s every political question. Unfortunately for us she got a scholarship while we were here and is now in Barcelona since a few months. But since she’s so awesome, she hooked me up with her mom (While she was here. She took me to he grandma’s place where I met not only her mom, but her grandma, her grandma’s sister and her moms friend) and with her sister.

Today for the first time ever, I spoke with her sister on FB, explaining in bad  Spanish that we are looking for a place to rent in Batan. 30 min later she and her dad picked us up. Neither of them speak English but  for the next one and half hour they took us for a cruise in Batan, looking for “to rent” signs. No luck,  but we really like the area.

I also followed my Spanish teacher’s (in Chicago) advice and contacted his friends who recently moved here from D.C. asking if she and her family would be interested to have a coffee with us. I feel slightly like I’m trying to get a date 5 minutes before the bar is closing.  But whatever, any contact is worth a try (Well hello there, beautiful, you don’t look like you sleep on the street, can go home with you? Please???)

Also, with some help from Rebecca, we turned on the washing machine. Soon we’re off to dinner with her and Panchito at a Chinese restaurant. I’ll bring my EPI-pen ad hope I won’t die.

Maybe if there was coffee

Culture Clash, Moving

We both slept very badly and woke up exhausted. Off we went to look at apartments. The one we looked at today is the first one I’ve liked. Unfortunately it’s in Bella Vista, which means lots of expats and that’s something we want to avoid. Got back to our place around 10.30 and crashed. We did set the alarm for 12, put when it went off, we just shut it off and slept for another 2h. When we finally got up, we walked over to MegaMaxi and got a few basics.

Now the big question is what  do we do with the garbage? I’ve looked, no garbage chute, so I’m out of ideas. And I’m still too tired to think. I just want it to be late enough so I can go to bed.

Restart

Moving

Late afternoon on our second day in Quito, Ecuador. Ola and the rest of the TW office are sitting in a room drinking beer and talking about encryption.  I do neither. Slightly bored.

 

So, recap:

Our last days in Chicago were tremendously stressful, full of good byes and small panic attacks. People kept asking how excited I was and the only thing I could say was that I just wanted it to be over. Too much, too much. The very last day, Wednesday , I got up at 4.45am, went to my last driving lesson, at 8am I got in line to do the road test, which  I did around 2 and half hour later (passed with no remarks, woho!) then got back downtown were Ola picked me up with a cab and then off to the airport. 2h flight to Houston, 2 hours wait there and then 8-10(?)h to Quito.  We landed around midnight and got to the hotel around 2am yesterday.

Fun coincident, the hotel’s name was Finlandia and located at the streets Finlandia/Suecia.

And there were balloons! Leslie had fixe so there were balloons and a welcome note!
I felt very welcome and then I fell asleep

 

Got up and out around 9 yesterday, went to the TW office, got hugs and coffee and then sat down and called my family. Good stuff. Both grandma and my brother were at my parents so I got to tell them that I had got my driving license the day before, which was a big surprise since the didn’t know I had been taking lessons.
After that, me and Ola went to register our visas, then back to the office for a bit before we went to check out an apartment in Batan Bajo. I wasn’t sold at all, it was big, but dark, only small, high up window in which you couldn’t look out, the floor was striped in light and dark wood and the ceiling was low.

Back to the office and I started looking at plusvalia.com for apartments. Then one of the girls at the office, Didi, called some real estate people, which we met up with at 5 and looked at 2 other places we didn’t like. At that point, we had had enough, it was food and bed time.

 

Today, I stayed at the hotel when Ola left for the office. He came back at 11 and we checked out and moved our stuff to a corporate apartment. Then we went to the office together. Since then I’ve been in front of my laptop, looking at apartments and FB. Ola fixed our phones, so we are now able to call and be called.

Tonight it’s welcome dinner at 8. I’m hungry now. And sleepy. But whatever, I’ll find myself some coffee and I’ll be fine.

Also, I now have beer.

 

Hello, goodbye, goodbye

Moving

A week ago we had our Halloween goodbye party, in less than 2 weeks I will sit on a plane on my way to a new home. I don’t know where exact that will be yet, we haven’t even booked our tickets yet. We will tomorrow.  Five days ago, a shipping company looked at everything we have here and told us how much it will cost to ship the things we wanted to take with us. Then we made lists; take this, take that, we’ll give away this, we’ll sell that.

My home is falling away from me and it goes too fast.

Oh, I am excited! This week is not only an epilogue, it’s a prologue as well, but it’s really hard you be excited for things to come when you only know what you are leaving behind.  We are both exhausted, stopping every 20 minutes, demanding hugs and support. We don’t sleep well and everything circulates around breaking up and saying goodbye. Tonight we had dinner with Grace at Mana Foodbar and we ate as much as we could, because it will be our last time at Mana. Everything is like that. Last time. Last time. Last time. I can’t even go grocery shopping without thinking it. “This will be the last toilet paper I’ll ever buy in the U.S.”