Novembet 9, 2006

Dave took Jenni to the train station early this moring. The kids were sad when they woke up - they missed Aunt Jenni. We had a quiet morning at home - played cars and colored. Then Dave came and picked us up. We met Eva at the tax office to apply for Swedish IDs. Then we went to look at a house. It has 3 bedrooms, ahuge living room, a huge bonus/playroom, a laundry room/hall a long kitchen with room for a table, a bathroom with a shower and separate tub and two sinks, and a half bath. It has a smallish back yard and a driveway and a garage. (The garage isn't really big enough for a car, but we can keep bikes and outside toys in it.) We drove around the neighborhood and then Dave dropped me and the kids back at the apartment.

At 4:00 the kids and I went up to the top floor to start the laundry. Have I mentioned that in the apartment building we're in, you have to sign up for a time to do laundry? M-F you can choose between 8-12, 12-4 or 4-8. Only one person can do laundry at a time. S/S you can choose between 9:30-12 or 12-3:30. Anyway... I was feeling pretty good that I figured out how to work the washing machines (very different than what I'm used to. Also, the washing machines here only hold about 1/3 of what I would consider a normal load.) Then I got totally stressed out when I couldn't get the dryers to work. Ended up calling Dave and askin ghim to come home and help. I was freaking out because our laundry time was only from 4-8, and it was already 5:30 and I didn't even have 1/2 the clothes washed! Dave came home and was able to get the dryers working. But when we went back to check on the clothes they were still really wet. And hot. It seems there is a sign on two of the washers saying that you will need to put the clothes into a separate machine to spin the water out of them before putting them into the dryer. So we did. By the time we figured taht out it was almost 8:00 - and we were just starting to dry our first load of laundry! Fortunately there was no one scheduled after us (because no one is supposed to do laundry after 8:00.) So we just continued with our laundry. Only we couldn't get one of the washers to work, so now we were down to just two washing machines. And there were only two dryers. It was after midnight by the time we were finished. And we still had to hang up some of our clothes to dry, and we didn't get everything washed! It was a very stressful evening. And Tipton didn't go to bed until 9:30 because he didn't have any clean/dry jammies!! The next available time slot to do laundry was the 17th from 8-12. Hopefully things will go much smoother (especially since there's someone scheduled right after us!)

Day 7: Things I've Learned
1) How to work the washing machines
2) The washing machines (and dryers) are much smaller thatn what I'm used to
3) How to work the dryers
4) That I have to run the clothes through a separate machine befoer I can put them into the dryer
5) That there is a room next to the laundry room that I can use to hang up wet clothes to dry
6) I NEED to have access to the internet - so that I can feel connected to the rest of the world. It would also be nice to have access to weather reports and a translator...