The second week in Stockholm involved me looking at several places since I need a permanent place to live after the apartment hotel. I spent the 17th, 18th and 19th of May looking for a home to live. At the suggestions of my work colleagues, I placed an ad on blocket.se and within a few hours I was, amazingly, getting responses!
I got to visit quite a few places around Stockholm as a result of the ad placement.
Rissne
At Rissne I met a woman who was actually Thai with a Swedish (I am guessing) husband and she has two young kids and all of them were in the house. The place was actually quite big, 68sqm and the rent was 8500 sek including electricity and internet. One bedroom. And it's fully furnished. The weird thing is the washing machine is located in a room as part of a different complex, and apparently that is normal in Sweden? Also the building is old, it's a brick building. But like, the place is big. There's also a very small balcony, and it's very close to the train. I can walk there within 5 minutes. The furniture kinda sucks but I can deal with that I suppose. They're moving out on the 4th of June I think to another suburb.
Funasgatan
I got lost a bit and had to ring the woman to find out where this place was, google maps was giving me wrong directions. But anyway the building is really weird, from the outside it looks like a commercial building but inside it's all new. The apartment was about 45 sqm, and it only had one mattress, a couch, a table and a fridge. There's also cutlery. And the apartment's on the 6th floor. The problem is it's not close to any food places, I have to walk at least 20 minutes to get to a grocery place. The apartment is new though, like only a year old or something. The washing machine and laundry was at the basement and you had to book a time to do your washing. The woman was looking after the apartment on the behalf of her cousin or something who is in Ethiopia now attending some burial? Anyway the rent is 8000 sek, but that didn't include internet or electricity. So it's probably going to be more or less the same I think compared to Rissne. It also has one bedroom. After that she dropped me off at the next train station where there's a shopping centre, which seemed nice. It's just that it's not so close. Like I have to take the train to get there. Somehow I don't know if I want to be walking 20 minutes one way to get to the closest grocery place and then 20 minutes the other way.
Rinkeby
When I arrived into Rinkeby I swear that I had arrived into Africa. I still went to visit this guy called Asif, he's from Pakistan and he's living there with his wife and 2 kids. The apartment was.. okay but the area is so bad. I mean the whole building's old and there was like pigeon poo all over the corridor outside. The guy was so nice though, even though I wasn't allowed to see his wife, he literally hid her in the room. He even made me tea and we talked a bit. He wanted me to rent one of the rooms there for 5000 sek per month and then said in July I could move to this other apartment (25sqm) in this other place for 8000 sek. They also have this really weird thing in Sweden where you go to the basement in the apartment building and that's where all the washing machines and dryers are. No one has them in their house for some reason. SO WEIRD.
Danderyd
After that I went to meet this other man in this area called Danderyd. It's the richest area in all of Sweden and if you look up the photos you'll see why! Anyway I caught the wrong train and so I was a bit late, the man whose name was Finn picked me up and drove me around. He's probably close to 70. He drove a lexus and also used an apple watch, which I found amusing. To get to the house you need to catch both a train and a bus. Which I wasn't so fond of. The house was okay though except I need to share with 4 other people, all guys. The rent was 5600 sek. He lived next door to the house that he was renting. So yeah, convenient. The area is SO nice though, like...yeah just look up the photos. He then drove me around the area and told me that he used to work in television. And that he was friends with Roxette!! We drove past her house as well. I didn't take pictures though, but we drove past one of the houses of ABBA, I shot a short video too.
Hägersten
Then we went back to the train station and I caught the train back to work. Did pretty much nothing again and around 4:45pm I caught the train again to this other area called Hägersten. Earlier this morning I got an email from an American professor asking if I wanted to check it out. I thought yeah why not. It's to the south of Stockholm though, it's a safe area with a supermarket and some shops. I liked the apartment but I think it's just too much for me, she's asking 10000 sek! And the max I offered her was 8500 sek. I don't know if I'll get it as she said she'll think about it. It was nice though. She told me some girl wanted to pay her that amount, and I think that girl is just nuts. It was about 42sqm which is decent. She only just got divorced. Funnily enough she wrote some books about Swedish culture and was married to a Swede. Her name was Barbara. She said I could ring her tomorrow but I don't know if she'll want to rent it out to me since that crazy chick offered her that much.
Solna
Right, after that I went to another place located in the same area as I am currently, Solna, which was actually student accommodation, this chick named Ceva and her brother in law were there to meet me. She sent me an email asking if I wanted to check her place out so I said yeah why not. The place was SMALL AS HELL, I'm talking like 25sqm or something silly. And it cost 8000 sek a month. She's a student doing dentistry and is going to do an internship in Dubai and the brother in law does some business there so he goes there at least twice a month or something. But anyway they were nice too. After that I took a walk to the mall of Scandinavia then just walked back home.
My friendly blocket.se ad
I got to visit quite a few places around Stockholm as a result of the ad placement.
Rissne
At Rissne I met a woman who was actually Thai with a Swedish (I am guessing) husband and she has two young kids and all of them were in the house. The place was actually quite big, 68sqm and the rent was 8500 sek including electricity and internet. One bedroom. And it's fully furnished. The weird thing is the washing machine is located in a room as part of a different complex, and apparently that is normal in Sweden? Also the building is old, it's a brick building. But like, the place is big. There's also a very small balcony, and it's very close to the train. I can walk there within 5 minutes. The furniture kinda sucks but I can deal with that I suppose. They're moving out on the 4th of June I think to another suburb.
Funasgatan
I got lost a bit and had to ring the woman to find out where this place was, google maps was giving me wrong directions. But anyway the building is really weird, from the outside it looks like a commercial building but inside it's all new. The apartment was about 45 sqm, and it only had one mattress, a couch, a table and a fridge. There's also cutlery. And the apartment's on the 6th floor. The problem is it's not close to any food places, I have to walk at least 20 minutes to get to a grocery place. The apartment is new though, like only a year old or something. The washing machine and laundry was at the basement and you had to book a time to do your washing. The woman was looking after the apartment on the behalf of her cousin or something who is in Ethiopia now attending some burial? Anyway the rent is 8000 sek, but that didn't include internet or electricity. So it's probably going to be more or less the same I think compared to Rissne. It also has one bedroom. After that she dropped me off at the next train station where there's a shopping centre, which seemed nice. It's just that it's not so close. Like I have to take the train to get there. Somehow I don't know if I want to be walking 20 minutes one way to get to the closest grocery place and then 20 minutes the other way.
Rinkeby
When I arrived into Rinkeby I swear that I had arrived into Africa. I still went to visit this guy called Asif, he's from Pakistan and he's living there with his wife and 2 kids. The apartment was.. okay but the area is so bad. I mean the whole building's old and there was like pigeon poo all over the corridor outside. The guy was so nice though, even though I wasn't allowed to see his wife, he literally hid her in the room. He even made me tea and we talked a bit. He wanted me to rent one of the rooms there for 5000 sek per month and then said in July I could move to this other apartment (25sqm) in this other place for 8000 sek. They also have this really weird thing in Sweden where you go to the basement in the apartment building and that's where all the washing machines and dryers are. No one has them in their house for some reason. SO WEIRD.
Danderyd
After that I went to meet this other man in this area called Danderyd. It's the richest area in all of Sweden and if you look up the photos you'll see why! Anyway I caught the wrong train and so I was a bit late, the man whose name was Finn picked me up and drove me around. He's probably close to 70. He drove a lexus and also used an apple watch, which I found amusing. To get to the house you need to catch both a train and a bus. Which I wasn't so fond of. The house was okay though except I need to share with 4 other people, all guys. The rent was 5600 sek. He lived next door to the house that he was renting. So yeah, convenient. The area is SO nice though, like...yeah just look up the photos. He then drove me around the area and told me that he used to work in television. And that he was friends with Roxette!! We drove past her house as well. I didn't take pictures though, but we drove past one of the houses of ABBA, I shot a short video too.
Hägersten
Then we went back to the train station and I caught the train back to work. Did pretty much nothing again and around 4:45pm I caught the train again to this other area called Hägersten. Earlier this morning I got an email from an American professor asking if I wanted to check it out. I thought yeah why not. It's to the south of Stockholm though, it's a safe area with a supermarket and some shops. I liked the apartment but I think it's just too much for me, she's asking 10000 sek! And the max I offered her was 8500 sek. I don't know if I'll get it as she said she'll think about it. It was nice though. She told me some girl wanted to pay her that amount, and I think that girl is just nuts. It was about 42sqm which is decent. She only just got divorced. Funnily enough she wrote some books about Swedish culture and was married to a Swede. Her name was Barbara. She said I could ring her tomorrow but I don't know if she'll want to rent it out to me since that crazy chick offered her that much.
Solna
Right, after that I went to another place located in the same area as I am currently, Solna, which was actually student accommodation, this chick named Ceva and her brother in law were there to meet me. She sent me an email asking if I wanted to check her place out so I said yeah why not. The place was SMALL AS HELL, I'm talking like 25sqm or something silly. And it cost 8000 sek a month. She's a student doing dentistry and is going to do an internship in Dubai and the brother in law does some business there so he goes there at least twice a month or something. But anyway they were nice too. After that I took a walk to the mall of Scandinavia then just walked back home.
On the night of the 18th I was about to throw in the towel and accept the place I found in Solna when I got an email to contact another man who wanted to rent out his apartment which was also located in Solna. So I went to visit the apartment on the 19th the following day. The man who owned it lives next door. He's really friendly even though he doesn't speak English very often. I eventually settled for it, it's not very big, just over 20sqm but for the price I'm paying I can deal with it.
Work wise I wasn't doing much. But I think I fixed a security hole at work and that was good enough progress for me since I was quite stressed with finding a place to live. On the 19th of May I also received my residence card and on the 20th of May I went to the tax office to get my personal number done. The woman informed me that it would take between 2 to 8 weeks to get it done!
The weekend of the 21st and 22nd I spent in Hölö which is on the border of Stockholm, stayed at Ida's place where we took a walk around the forest and played mario kart on the Wii.
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