A lot of important things have happened in our lives since the last post: some of them (too personal to be shared on a public space) have been very hard to cope with and kept us away from the blog, but others have filled us with joy, as for example the Egyptian revolution, that we followed almost minute-by-minute (in a way, that too kept away from the blog!). Nevertheless, back we are!

My first post for 2011 is to promote a long-term project that I initiated with a friend of mine last September. It is about building an autonomous sailing robot (i.e.: a sailing boat operated by a computer making autonomous decisions and getting the energy from on-boat solar panels) that eventually – in a few years time – will be able to circumnavigate the planet.

Does it sound like too ambitious? Maybe. But the thing with this kind of projects – at least for me and Erl, my friend – is about learning, rather than achieving our goal. It’s a bit like striving for perfection: one never gets there, but the tension towards it keeps you developing and improving your own skills. Furthermore the challenge of building such a boat is truly multidisciplinary; just to give an idea, these are a few of the domains in which some degree of knowledge is required: electronics, programming, aerodynamics, meteorology, carpentry, fluid dynamics, sailing, composite materials.

Without further ado, here’s the link to the Magellan Machine’s website: our very own autonomous sailing robot!

Once I tasted them I knew we moved to the right country!

What gives the Swedish cinnamon roll its distinctive flavour is the cardamom (حبهان) which is added to the dough, plus the pearl sugar on top. Unlike Cinnabon (an American chain that specializes in Cinnamon rolls and which surprisingly does not have a branch in Sweden), kanelbullar do not have the thick caramel layer on top (which makes them a bit lighter but definitely not to be considered as diet food!).

Since 1999 Sweden has even a national “kanelbullens dag” on the 4th of October of each year. No need to mention that we were happy to join this Swedish tradition!

I tried a number of different recipes along the past months and finally I think I reached a decent result with this recipe which I am most happy to share with you all. Even though the recipe is easy, yet the process is quite long (takes a minimum of two hours or even more) but it’s definitely worth it!

(Note: By clicking on the thumbnails, you can view a larger version of the photos in a slide-show)

Ingredients for the dough:

• 150 gm butter
• 5 dl (0.5 liter) milk
• 50 gm yeast
• a pinch of salt
• 1 – 1.5 dl sugar (preferably brown)
• 2 teaspoons cardamom
• 1,4 liters of flour (I use ecological allpurpose flour)
• for the filling:
• 50 gm butter
• 0.5 – 1 dl sugar (preferably brown)
• 1 table spoon of cinnamon (you can add more if you like cinnamon)

For decorating you will need:

• 1 egg &  pearl sugar

Now let’s get started!

Melt the butter, add the milk and heat the mixture until it gets finger-warm (around 37°C).




Pour the mixture in a bowl, add the yeast and mix well until the yeast is completely dissolved in the mixture.




Now add the salt, sugar, cardamom and around 2/3 of the flour.



Mix the dough with your a spoon or a kitchen machine and keep adding flour until you get a smooth non-sticky ball of dough like the one in the photo.


Cover the dough with a linen towel and let it rise until it becomes double the size. It should take from 30-45 minutes. Warning! Do not peek or else you let in oxygen the slow down the process! While the dough is rising, you can start preparing the filling.

Melt the butter, add the sugar and cinnamon and mix them together.






This is how the dough should look when it’s ready.



Divide the dough into two equal quantities, spreading each half to a rectangle, then add half of the filling you prepared earlier on top of the dough. This is the moment when you can add extra cinnamon if you like.

Now roll the dough like this!





Cut each roll into equal pieces. Depending on the size you prefer, you can get from 15-20 pieces per roll.



Put each one in a paper form, cover them with a linen towel and keep them in a warm place for around 30 minutes to give them to chance to rise a bit more.

Beat the egg and gently brush the surface of each bun with it. Finally, add the pearl sugar on top.



Put your kanelbullar in a pre-heated oven (around 200°C depending on the oven) and leave them to bake for about 5-8 minutes or until they become golden in colour. Be be careful though, since they tend to bake very fast.

Finally it’s time to enjoy the result of your hard work. There is also enough to share with friends and treat yourself to a luxurious breakfast the next morning!

Last weekend we finally had the chance to watch the French animated film “Persepolis”.  The film is based on Marjane Satrapi‘s graphical self biography with the same name.  I heard a lot of positive reviews about the book and the film and in this particular case it does deserve every bit of acclaim it received, that’s of course according to Mac and me. The film received numerous awards and has been translated to many language (I wonder if Arabic was one of them?! naaaaaaahhh….difficult to do if you have God and Carl Marx in the same scene!)

I found the graphic work really beautiful and the personal story behind it very touching. It is the story of a smart and stubborn child growing up in Iran in the early seventies and trying to come to terms with the painful social and political realities of her country. I liked the fact that Marjane was not afraid to share her faults and weakness but on the contrary invited us to laugh and cry along. Through telling her personal story we also got the chance to peek into the life of one segment of Iranian society, get a little taste of Iranian culture, a lot of politics, some feminism and some religion. Just the right mix for a MultiKulti.

Brava Marjane! The world is in need of more people who can share their personal stories in the way that only artists can.

Resident permit

Of course – Sweden being part of the European Union – things are different for EU citizens (and their relatives) and non-EU citizens. We have direct experience only with the first case that we can gladly share.

As an EU citizen one has the right to stay in Sweden for up to three months without doing any kind of paperwork. Same applies to a family member with an EU residency permit. If however you like kanelbullar, sill and hjortronsylt so much that you decide you would like to stay longer than 3 months, you have to register “your right of residency” with the Swedish Migration Board. You can either send the form by post or visit their office.

[Note by Mac: I am unsure about the legal status of the registration requirement. One of the three basic freedoms of EU is freedom of movement, so I don't think Swedish authorities could throw a EU citizen out of their borders just because he/she doesn't have registered, nor do I think that one would be considered as "illegal migrant" in that case. It is true - though - that without the registration one won't be able to have access to many of the public services. Besides the legal status, I find the idea of registering a right silly (you don't register your right of free speech or religion, why should you register your right of free movement?)]

Is it better to send the application by post or submit it myself at the office?

If you are sure that you have all the required documents (you can find a list here), go ahead and send it by post: you will save some time. On the other hand, if you have doubts or questions, you could have an employee check your papers on the spot if you go in person to the office. In the latter case, don’t forget to bring along a good read, for it can take up to 3 hours to talk to an employee, at least in Stockholm. The Stockholm offices are however well kept, with clean toilets, coffee machines, and a few toys freely available for the kids roaming around the hall. Migrationsverket also offers a good chance to taste some of the multikulti Sweden.

How long does it take to receive my right of residency?

In our case, we applied in July and we got it in October! To be fair to Migrationsverket, it was partly my [Nadia's] mistake, for I forgot to bring along one very important document. We had to send it later by post and this we think (but we can never be sure) prolonged the process.

Another factor that affected the long waiting time was the summer break! Do not ever underestimate the importance of the summer vacation in Sweden (something we really respect by the way). Lots of government (but also private) offices operate at a very leisurely pace during the summer months. [But we don't blame them... You would be crazy not to enjoy the beautiful long, sunny, fragrant and lazy summer days in Sweden!]

How much does it cost to apply for right of residency?

It is free.

Personnummer

What is a personnummer, and how much it is important to have one? Personnummer roughly translated is a “civic registration number”, but while in many countries CRN’s are not that important, in Sweden they mean EVERYTHING!  Without it you cannot start attending language classes, cannot open a bank account, cannot visit a doctor, cannot even apply for an IKEA family card!!!

Personnummer are to official paperwork is what underwear is to clothing (with the notable difference that you keep the first for life, but you should change regularly the latter).

A personnummer is composed of 10 digits grouped in two (6 and 4 characters respectively). The first six digits are your year, month, and day of birth. The latter 4 digits are a code assigned by the authorities, the last digit being odd for men and even for women. The two groups are normally separated by a minus (-) but on your hundredth birthday the minus is changed to a plus (+). For example, the number “880209-2346″ would be the one of a girl born on the 9th of February 1988, while “091023+3321″ would be the number for a man born on the 23rd October 1909.

Where do I apply for a “personnummer”?

At Skatterverket (the tax agency), where else?! You have to go yourself with your passport and any documents proving your civil status, birth certificates for any children who are moving with you, and your residence permit. One is normally registered where one lives, since the amount of tax differs from one municipality to another.

What happens if I change address?

When you change address in Sweden, you are to report the move within one week to the Tax Agency, the Social Insurance Agency, a postcenter run by Posten AB or online at www.adressandring.se.

They also handle requests for post forwarding. If you want your newly registered address to begin to apply from the actual date of moving, your notification must have been received by the Tax Agency, the Insurance Office or Posten AB at least one week before the actual move.

How much does it cost to change the address?

It is free. You have to pay though if you want your post to be forwarded to your new address.

Identity Card

Is the identity card the same as the personnummer ?

No. But you cannot have the ID card until you have a personnummer

Why do I need an identity card?

For European citizens, there is probably not a great need. However for citizens whose passports are deemed invalid as an ID document (like both the Egyptian and Russian passports), this is a very important document. You can find all the regulations here.

[Note by Mac: silly bureaucracy... since Nadia did not have a "valid" ID document, she needed a "trusted party" to witness that she was who she claims to be. So, she was initially denied the possibility to apply for an ID card as I was not "trusted enough" because I did not have non-Swedish documents yet. When I got my Swedish ID card - somehow - I become "trusted" and could witness. Have they ever thought of the fact that in this way it takes just one felon to let whoever else get a Swedish ID document?]

Where can I apply for the ID card?

At Skatterverket (tax office).

How much does it cost to issue and ID card?

At time of writing, 400 kronors (and you thought this is also going to be for free?!). Money can’t be paid on spot, so you must provide evidence of a bank transfer when you apply for the document.

This is what we consider the essential paperwork for moving to Sweden. If you have further questions, post them in the comments section and we will do our best to update the post with the missing information.

In our next post will cover: Learning Swedish!

One of the good things about those project was that participants were ordinary people, mostly members of small NGO’s that had as a primary concern other issues than the ongoing conflict in the region. Talking to each other and starting a cooperation was in large part just instrumental to access public funding from international institutions.

Paradoxically, I think that particular mix of participants maximised the outcome in terms of peace building. The fact that meetings were not targeting peace activists avoided the “preach to the converted” situation, and the fact the issue at stake was not “peace in the middle east” prevented the discussion to reach a standstill (participants had to challenge only some of their beliefs in order to co-operate, and not all of them, all together).

I have lots of beautiful memories from those days. It is really a life-changing experience to witness people’s mind opening up to a different perspective on the reality, dropping – at least in part – a curtain of prejudices that drove their flow of thoughts for all their lives. It is beautiful to see fear and diffidence between the parties transforming in the will to challenge the other’s point of view through engaging in a common project.

One of the realisations that I incurred in myself, was that in the global debate over the Middle East conflict, and in particular over the occupation of the Palestinian territories, there is a voice that is seldom heard and that is of Israeli Jews who are against the apartheid regime their government is enforcing. Somehow, in the mainstream western media, the parties at conflict are stigmatised as “Israel vs. Palestinians” or “Israel vs. Arabs”. There is almost no coverage of the “Israel vs. Israel” struggle, though.

Most often than not, international organisations and one-off initiatives aiming to defend the human rights of the Palestinians get more coverage in international media than the prolonged and long-lasting effort by local Israeli organisations.

It is paradoxical and sad, though: ideally, Israeli activists could benefit from the trust of both parties as they are undoubtedly loyal to the state of Israel, and undoubtedly against the violations perpetrated by the Israeli government against the Palestinian population. They could act as the trait d’union between the two poles of the conflict, as facilitators in a very challenging conversation.

In reality – though – they are seen with diffidence by both Palestinians (after all they are [Jew] Israelis) and by Israelis (who call them either traitors or self-hating Jews [or even - as I recently discovered - nazis]).

As I said, this is both paradoxical and sad. Paradoxical, because the marginalisation of Israeli organisations from the public debate hinders the progress towards what the international community at large sees as the desirable outcome of the conflict [a stable and sustainable peace, with both parties rights enforced and protected]. Sad, because choosing how to consider Israeli human rights  and peace organisations (central to finding a solution or marginal) is mostly a question of choosing if the glass is half empty or half full, or in other words, it is just a matter of point of view and not of absolute truth.

Why I blog on this today? Well… because the Swedish national television has produced and broadcasted just a couple of days ago, a nice documentary whose title is exactly “Israel vs. Israel“. The documentary revolves around the interviews with four Israelis:

• Yehuda Shaul, an ex army-officer from breaking the silence, an NGO formed by ex IDF soldiers and veterans aiming “to expose the reality of the occupation back home [i.e.: Israel]“;
• Ronny Perlman an Israeli woman originally from Czech Republic now actively involved in checkpoint watch, whose goal is “to monitor the behaviour of soldiers and police at checkpoints; ensuring that the human and civil rights of Palestinians attempting to enter Israel are protected”;
• Arik Asherman, a rabbi from Rabbis for Human Rights an NGO aiming to be “the rabbinic voice of conscience in Israel, giving voice to the Jewish tradition of human rights”;
• Jonathan Pollak, a young Israeli from Anarchists against the wall, an informal direct-action group that sees the construction of the wall as an act of ethnic cleansing.

Although the documentary is in Swedish, 90% of it is footage from the interviews, which were done in English [if you don't speak Swedish you will only miss some historical background on the wall and Israeli settlements in Palestine, but the graphics on screen will still allow you to follow].

The beauty of the documentary is that it does not offer a single take on the issue: the reasons and the means for which each of interviewee chose to take action are different, and they all find a space in the documentary to be expressed. For example, Yehuda says:

In Israel people shouldn’t get the right to vote before they visit Hebron. Once you understand Hebron, once you confront Hebron, you are confronted with the most important question, and that is: “What do you choose? The land of Israel or the state of Israel?” Whether what is important is equality, democracy, rights or land…. and the settlers are afraid that people will pick the state of Israel above the land of Israel.

but Arik sees things from a religious perspective:

For as holy as the land of Israel is, human life is more holy. So, if you can prevent blood shed by territorial compromise… as painful as it is to give up part of the places that are so kind to hour history… [...] human life – hands down – trumps. It is so much more important.

It is interesting – though – to remark that all of them, at different points in the documentary, explain how they simply felt compelled to do something regarding the situation. Some of them even say that they had “no choice”.

Let’s hope more and more Israeli citizens will feel the same way.

On the election night (SVT1 live coverage of the event), Jimmie Åkesson (the party leader) claimed that SD “are not against immigrants, but against broken immigration laws”. Not that anybody really believed him, but it is good to know that some of his fellow neonazis proved him wrong in a matter of hours.

From this article:

“Line the immigrants here on the film up against the wall and put a bullet between the eyes, then put them in a bag, stick a stamp on them and send them back to where they come from,” the Sweden Democrat candidate for Trelleborg in southern Sweden wrote on her Facebook page, according to the local Trelleborgs Allehanda daily.

On the other hand, there are rumors the other parties in the parliament are working out new rules for the parliament commissions, with the specific aim to exclude the SD from taking part into the work of them. Let’s hope they will manage to keep them at bay.

Even though I still do not have the right to vote in Sweden (non EU members need to be registered for at least 3 years before being able to participate in local elections), Mac on the other hand could and I profited from this occasion to observe, learn and be prepared for the next round in 4 years.

What struck me the most was the abundance of information in the media and on the internet on the different parties and party members. Before, during and after the elections. You could find full biographies of party members, their programs,  statistics, articles, videos, forums, etc…There was even an election compass to match your opinions about key issues with those of the different parties and party candidates. Information is certainly key.

The next observation can only be understood knowing that in my own country it is a common understanding that politics is too complex for the common woman/man. I say that politics can be as thrilling as watching a football game. You identify with one of the parties, learn the rules of the game and start supporting your team with your vote. On election day you get your adrenaline kick and you can brag about how accurate your analysis of the situation was. Of course the media coverage here makes it look like a reality show so it’s also entertaining. The only difference with football is that the outcome of elections shapes our future and maybe even that of our kids. Very empowering!

Another interesting fact is that Maria Wetterstrand and Peter Eriksson, the spokespeople for the green party who lead the party to its best result in history, are going to leave the leadership as per party regulations, which state that the maximum mandate is 9 years.

Now this last comment will be very hard to appreciate if you are not coming from a developing country or from a country like Italy, where politicians literally rot in their chairs!

Viva la democrazia!

Having successfully moved to Sweden, we are often asked to share our experience on how we moved here. We believe that our blog is a good place for sharing (and hopefully also exchanging) this type of information and experiences.

Our account is based on our specific case and is not meant to be comprehensive in any way. That is we can only share the experience of an EU citizen accompanied with a non-EU family spouse, who possesses a long term residency permit in another EU country.

Some information will necessarily be Stockholm specific, while other will apply wherever you choose to land in Sweden. The four challenges that we will tackle in four different posts are:

• Finding a house
• Paperwork
• Learning Swedish
• Job hunting

Finding a house

We heard and read many horror stories about the specificities and challenges of renting an apartment in Stockholm and we were prepared for the worst. Fortunately, with some divine help / luck and some linguistic mediation from a friend of ours, we managed to find the right apartment for us in less than a week, and after one year we are still living there (touch wood!). Here goes the story:

Once we informed a Swedish friend of ours (who lives in Stockholm) that we were planning to move, she sent us some links to websites where people offer apartments for rent. The ones worth mentioning are:

• Bostadirekt: this is a well known “second hand” rent website, and where we found our apartment.
• Blocket: think “eBay” but with a Swedish flavour.
• The forums on The Local:  “The Local” is an online newspaper in English featuring news from Sweden.

On the other hand, we definitively discourage you from using craiglist, on which we only found scams.

Amongst the “good sites” we found that bostaddirekt had a number of interesting options, so we booked a ticket to Stockholm to make an exploratory trip (none of us had previously been to Stockholm and it seemed a good idea to at least check the city before to move!).

Once arrived, we paid the subscription fee for bostaddirekt (at the time of writing about 70 euros for 45 days of access to their database) and we started contacting apartment owners by email. This proved to be an ineffective strategy, as by the time the landlord/landlady would check their e-mail, somebody else would have already arranged the deal via telephone. To be honest, we also suspected that some of the owners would give precedence to Swedish or Swedish-speaking tenants: we have no evidence for our allegations, but a recent study by Metro confirms that it is 4 times harder for a migrant [in comparison to a Swede] to close the deal for renting a house.

Maybe we were right, or maybe it was just by sheer coincidence, but when we ask I. to call and arrange for us a visit to one of the apartments, we were for the first time not turned down. On the contrary, we met the owners, we liked each other and we closed the deal in just a few hours.

After exchanging our experiences with other people who moved to Stockholm (both foreigners and Swedes from other cities), we heard different stories and here are a few points you need to consider when you are hunting for a flat in Stockholm.

The first concept you should get accustomed with is that of first hand vs. second hand contracts. A first hand contract means that you rent an apartment from the owner directly. A second hand contract means that you are rening the flat from a first hand tenant who sublet it (which is – just to be clear – a fully legal practice in Sweden, unless explicitly stated otherwise on the first hand contract).

Obviously a first hand rent is best, since it gives a tenant many more rights. Most importantly, most of the second hand apartments are available only for short periods of time (1 to 12 months). Because of historical reasons, in Stockholm second hand contracts are much more common than first hand ones, so even Swedish people tend to keep moving around for years or stand in rental lines forever until they get a first hand contract.

Additionally, there is a shortage of rental flats in Stockholm and flat owners are perfectly aware of that. You have to bear in mind that there are many people out there looking out for opportunities to rent or improve their rental situation: so you definitively need to act quickly if you think a given offer is of interest to you; if you are the kind of person who likes to think over stuff, you might find that by the time you have made your decision, the flat has long gone.

The downside to the need of acting quickly is that this makes easier for tricksters to cheat people, so never pay a krona until you meet and – above all – see the apartment with your own eyes.

As a foreigner, you are not really the first choice as a tenant. We guess it’s more or less the same in all countries: locals feel reassured when dealing with a compatriot and it is easier for them to trust somebody they can communicate well with. It also depends a lot on your nationality though, with westerners having a much easier time than, for example, people from Africa or South America. This is why it is advisable to get some mediation from a Swedish acquaintance, who can also be your reference.

The area of the city where the apartment is located is a very decisive factor both for the price and for the amount of competition you will have to face . There is a very sharp distinction between förort (suburbs) and centrum (city center), but even more between different områden (districts) of the city. Swedes tend to prefer certain areas (and they have a very strict list), while specific areas are considered more as “foreigner enclaves”. Price and availability of owners to rent out to foreigners will vary accordingly. On the positive side of things: Stockholm has a very efficient transport system, so living in a förort does not mean being cut out from the busy life of the city centre.

[On to section 2: paperwork (legal procedures for settling in Sweden)]

The clip is lengthy and – quite frankly – a bit repetitive, but it serves well the purpose of illustrating the idiocy of the human race. Some data and observations that is easy to extrapolate from watching the film:

• Considering that the overall number of detonations is 2053 and that the video covers a period of 54 years, it means that mankind has blasted 1 nuclear bomb every 9.6 days.
• It is easy to spot a simple pattern: whenever the CCCP blasted a bomb, USA did it, and vice-versa. A true nuclear-based testosterone escalation.
• The prize for the most idiotic behaviour in absolute numbers goes to USA, with just over 50% of the total detonations (1032).
• The prize for the most idiotic behaviour in geographical distributions goes to CCCP, who managed to spread their 715 detonations all over the country, instead of concentrating the experiments in a single location.
• The prize for the most idiotic behaviour in terms of futility goes to France, whose typical grandeur managed to blast 215 bombs (for comparison, think to the UK, who was in a similar geo-political situation than France during the cold war, and blasted a “mere” 45 bombs.

Curiosities: Hashimoto got the data he used for the film from a Swedish publication co-edited by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (go Sweden!). He also released another short film which – although poorly shot – uses a powerful metaphor to illustrate the folly of having over 20.000 nuclear warheads around the globe.