My first week

My first week was spent without Sam. Although I would rather spend every minute of every day with him, it was not the worst thing in the world, because it gave me time to start organising my new life.

I have three immediate goals and in order they are:

1. To get a full-time job (for without one, I will be back in London, with my tail between my legs sometime soon after Christmas).
2. To find somewhere to live (this would be simple in London, but in Sweden, there are no letting agencies. Flats are rented out on a need-to-know basis. When I was first told this, it seemed so unlikely, but now I am here, I see renting a flat will be my first mountain to climb).
3. To make some friends (as fun as Sam as, it may be good to have the occasional adult conversation over a beer - although I can imagine anyone reading this, shouting back at the screen "but why didn't you ever have an adult conversation with me?")

My first day was spent at my new part-time job at GWP. I am paternity cover for an English guy called Matt Evans. Matt was really nice and even bought me lunch to welcome me (and did not take a receipt to claim it back!) He spent the day showing me all that he has done since being at GWP, and I have to say it was quite daunting although he is much more technical than me... I was in the office with him until 8pm (I had no Friday night plans, so I was ok with it).


My weekend, was as you can imagine quite quiet. My first conversation was Sunday night, on the phone to my mum... But my weekend was ok. I found a service (SVUPN Surfer) that for £5 a month can mask your ip address and make it appear you are based in the uk... So, I can get the BBC iplayer and 4OD on my laptop... Which I know it sounds silly but it did lift my spirits, because Swedish telly is really crap, and I will be spending many evenings home alone... Saturday I had a run, and also went to see Inception at the cinema which was brilliant...

Sunday I read the papers on my laptop in bed, watched the grand prix on iPlayer, and then went for a 4 hour walk. It would have been less far, but I got quite lost towards the end... boy, was I glad to see the flat eventually... even if I was accross the other side of the water from it, and it was still 20 mins away...

One of the troubles for me at the moment, is Stockholm is a city full of memories of Sam's mamma and I. Everywhere I went on Sunday it was a different memory and several made me sad for a few moments I can tell you....

Once I got home, I ate and then watched that new Sherlock on the iPlayer. Good it was... And that ended my first week in Stockholm.