10 years

Ten years ago today I arrived in Sweden together with five cats, a large dog, and my best friend (at the time). My husband had already been here since June trying to get the house into a livable condition and building a quarantine for the animals in the barn. We had bought the farm over the internet. My husband's mother and her parents checked the place out and liked it, though they did say it needed some work. In retrospect, we should have taken the bank's advice when they offered to recommend a good demolition firm, but that's a long story in itself.

The trip itself was absolutely grueling, 29 hours door to door. There were all sorts of airline hassles because we were traveling with animals. Once in Sweden, the animals had to be checked out by the county vet and interred in the quarantine for 4 months. They were miserable, we were miserable, and of course, it was raining. The summer of 1998 is known as the summer that rained away because there really wasn't any summer weather--it went directly from spring to fall. Going from the San Diego summer to the Scanian fall was traumatic to say the least. My friend and I were to run the quarantine (with it's plethora of ridiculous rules) and go to community college to learn Swedish. Running the quarantine was a lot more than just taking care of the animals. We also had to burn the waste. This meant going to the forest to collect wood for the fire, and if you think dog poo and used cat litter are better for putting out a fire than keeping one going, you're right. And then there's the smell--let's not even go there. So after four months in quarantine and two more months in house arrest, my friend took her three cats and moved to Norway with a guy she met on the internet. We had been driving each other nuts since I moved in with her in June, so that was the end of our 11 year friendship.

That first fall and winter was probably the low point of my life. I was cold, damp, dark, and more alone than I could ever imagine even though my husband worked from home. The darkness and silence were unnerving. This was when I discovered I have tinnitus (ringing in my ears) and some hearing loss at a certain frequency. Eventually I did learn the language and made friends with some other foreigners. Now I think I'm beginning to make friends with some of the locals too. It's amazing how far I've come.