It was, however, inevitable that I experienced homesickness and longing for my family. But that's just how it is. Sometimes it gets so bad that I look through people's photos on Facebook just to see familiar landmarks, food, or even the ugly brown grass that Texas gets this time of year. I don't want to go on and on about my homesickness so I'll stop here, it's not fun to read about.
I mentioned in my last post that we received an early Christmas present which was a signed lease on our new apartment. It was really unexpected and exciting.
Basically I've been looking for us to move for the past four months or so. When we first moved into our current place we were so excited! We'd been living in a second hand rental for a year and it was a teeny, tiny one room apartment (460 square feet). Our current place is a huge two room apartment (730 square feet) with a very big kitchen. It is incredibly hard to get a first hand contract in the big cities (and Malmö is Sweden's third biggest city after all...) so we felt lucky to get our current place. It even has a patio! But the neighborhood was a bit iffy and we should've been tipped off by our neighbor's broken window but naively chose to think maybe it was the neighborhood kids playing ball...
It wasn't really until late summer that I felt the need move. The police kept visiting our neighbors, we caught a person trying to break-in to their apartment, and it just became a safety issue. We're pretty sure our neighbors are involved in something illegal. Our current apartment company promised they were evicting them but this is Sweden and that was going to take awhile (try three months, even after two big police visits!).
And then a bunch of little things started to annoy me. Like, our apartment is on the ground floor (which is ok) but our bedroom faces the street. We hear EVERYTHING! The lock to our laundry room was broken into and removed. It took three weeks until it was fixed. Our cellar storage has been broken into and stolen from a few times. The list goes on. It was time to move.
But like I said, getting an apartment here is HARD. Pretty much the only way to obtain a first hand contract is to have queue days. The longer you've been in a certain company's line the better chance you have at getting an apartment with that company. We had about two years worth of queue days with one of the major companies (MKB) but most people had four or even five years. It felt impossible.
We tried trading our apartment with others and deals that almost worked out (as in, the papers were signed and dated) fell through.
And we changed our search criteria to apartments ranging from tiny (355 square feet) to the outskirts of town. Still, no luck.
I applied to anything and everything that came our way.
On MKB's website I saw an apartment in an amazing area of town although a bit far out from the center. It was at the max end our budget and was a one room apartment, but a big one room (699 square feet, so similar in size to our current place). I applied for it and we were 7th in line. We got a chance to view it and found out there were only five other contenders. Since we didn't know how many dropped out we had no idea of our queue placement. We liked the apartment, we liked the area, we said yes.
We found out the day after viewing the apartment that we were 1st in line. That was a surprise. And the day after that we signed our lease.
To make a long story short: we're happy.
Now let me tell you a bit about the new place. It's a big one room apartment. I'm going to call it a loft because that sounds fancy. But we have plans to build a temporary wall to make it a proper two room apartment. It's on the ground floor but away from the street. We have an in-glassed balcony/patio. There is a walk-in closet, a HUGE bathroom, many windows, and even a utility room (washer and dryer!). The kitchen is big with a dishwasher and a dining place. It's a newly built apartment so everything has a high standard.
The area is really nice and quiet. The building are all built by the architect Charles Moore and are really spectacular. If we were one floor higher we'd have a view of the sea but that's ok. We're super close to the beach and I think it's going to be an awesome summer.
We move on February 1st!
As far as decorating goes, I'm a bit stumped. We will use the pieces we already have with a few new things that I've had on a wish-list for awhile. I can't really envision anything yet. But that will come.
I thought you'd like a picture or something so here is a very exciting one of our layout.
For privacy purposes I won't include any photos of the building but I'll try to take some of the area as soon as I have a chance.
The next few months will be crazy.
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