When I came to Sweden I always figured I could find some sort of work. It has indeed been harder than I really understood, but I am making some progress! I sent out an email to the entire American Women's Club after deciding that I should stop worrying if I would annoy everyone. I said that I had been here just a few months and that I have extra time, so I am available to babysit, clean, or just help out in whatever way I can.
I have been flooded with responses. The first couple days I could barely answer them all! I was shocked at the demand. I really thought I'd get zero responses, and I remember sort of praying if I could please just contribute something financially to the household I'd be so grateful. In that first week I worked about 15 hours.
At this point, I can confidently say I have 3 families I will be working for. There are other families that I have plans to meet with, and there are a lot of people who contacted me for more information but that I haven't heard from since.
It feels so good to be contributing something more concrete. I know that I help out a lot by cooking everything so that we're not paying for meals out, and that my work can allow Daniel to focus on his work. But to be able to make us even a little more comfortable means a lot.
The third month in Sweden! I've said it before and I'll say it again, it feels like so much longer. When I meet people and they ask how long I've been here, I surprise myself by saying only 3 months. I am still one of the newer members when I attend AWC events. But after three months I can report a few more interesting tidbits about Swedish society.
When you come into a house or apartment in Sweden, you can always find the bathroom. It's always in the same predictable place: right by the front door. I don't know why this is, but when I go to my bi-weekly lunches with a group of international women affiliated with Lund University, I never have to ask where the "WC" is. Just find the front door, and it'll be the closest room.
On a more serious note, I'm learning a lot about the way that unpaid volunteering and interning is viewed here. It's not what you would expect.
When I decided to come here, I figured I could satisfy my inner-over-achiever with a volunteer position. I would at least be padding my resume and career experience by helping out at a women's shelter. Since I have arrived I have sent out cover letters and CV's to the shelters in Malmö that I have discovered. They were met with no reply. I called each to follow up, and left messages with the appropriate individuals. No response.
Unpaid positions here are almost non-existent for a number of reasons. First of all, the state provides for far more services than the American government does. For example, instead of some shelters being privately-funded (think Mary's Place in Minneapolis, or organizations like Habitat for Humanity, Amnesty International), the state provides all of those services. They have a near monopoly on social work. Because non-governmental organizations (like the ones I mentioned before) might have funding issues, in the US (and in Kenya from my experience) they thrive on volunteers, often people in situations like me. Now if it's a government-run organization, they probably don't need as many.
But on top of the social justice-related organizations being well-funded and able to afford employees, there's also some sort of stigma surrounding volunteers. I was told a story about an individual who was visiting a person in an old folks' home. Apparently the individual was taking the elderly person out to lunch or something similar, once a week. Community members were unhappy with what he was doing; I think the argument was that he could be taking away jobs. Whether I'm getting the particulars of the story correct or not, the message was clear: volunteers are taking work away that could be giving someone else a job.
All of these factors make volunteering uncommon, which is the reason I attribute to the lack of response I've had when I have offered myself up to help an organization for free. Perhaps the person receiving it thinks it's weird that I would want to do that.
Next month I hope to write on the broad and complicated topic of how the social system works here, i.e. how much taxes are paid and what people get in return!
I alluded to the strangeness of our hotel, The Continental Hotel of Barcelona, on Facebook. I mentioned first that it was all pink. I kid you not, the walls, the bed, the chairs, the curtains, the tables: pink. the only exception was old and kind of gross green carpet that reminded me of the hallways of old apartment buildings. To be transparent, we paid 80 Euros per night for our hotel (including wifi, taxes, breakfast), a steal in a large European city. Rick Steves recommended it, so it has to be good, right?
We were also lured by the promise of a 24-hour free buffet that included an ice cream machine, wine, beer, and other snackums that could potentially save us money. When we got there, we scoped it out, and it was mostly weird. I kind of liked the ice cream machine, but the wine was definitely skunky and the food was probably previously frozen or at least a little old.
The room at first didn't seem that bad, but there were some things that grossed us out. The bathroom had mold on the pipes and the tiles' grout. We found a couple dark hairs on the sheets. And again, I didn't want to walk barefoot on the carpet.
Maybe I'm not the same adventure traveler that I used to be. I remember staying in a hotel in Lamu, Kenya with my good friend David that had a bathroom with no door or ceiling (hilariously awkward for us as a non-romantic duo), bowed mattresses, and concrete floors. To be honest, the same hotel might freak me out now. The lock could've been easily broken, and I read too much about bed bugs in the news to not check my pillows. But the $8/night rate decidedly did not freak me out just two years ago.
Anyway, one episode at this hotel pretty much made up our minds regarding the bad review we plan to give it on Trip Advisor. [Warning: if you're eating, or if you don't like gross stories, you might want to skip this paragraph.] As we were walking down the stairs to exit our hotel, we came upon something disgusting. There was, in the middle of the corridor, a giant pile of shit. Yes, shit. There was a big turd, and a smearing of nastiness surrounding it. There may have been toilet paper too, which is quite hygenic of the pooper considering what they did to the stairs! One flight down, there was a puddle of pee.
Even though we were on our way out, I took the elevator back up (no need to see that twice) and alerted the woman at the desk to the mess. She looked mortified, and as I walked out she picked up the phone to make a phone call. I do believe it was the first she heard of it.
Okay, fine, a gross mess probably by a drunkard in the hallway. But the next day when we came back, IT WAS STILL THERE. It had been at least 12 hours, almost certainly 24! I again, went upstairs and alerted the same woman working the night shift again. She said that they had called someone but they couldn't get a hold of them. This was unfortunately Sunday.
But seriously people. I have had to clean up similar messes at my jobs in housing facilities. It sucks, but with a good pair of gloves and an impromptu face mask, you're solid to do the work that needs to be done. I would've done it for $50, maybe even 30. But this hotel couldn't rally enough to clean up something that made them look like trash.
Hilarious but gross, I will probably remember this for years. It will only be funnier with time.
Sunday morning we woke up with aching feet and legs. I felt decidedly less energetic, but there was more to see. Unfortunately the forecast was rain, so we packed umbrellas.
We headed to the Casa Mila, another Gaudi building that was originally built as apartments then renovated to a museum. This was my least favorite sight, mostly due to crowds. But the rooftop view was amazing and we enjoyed the sun on our faces (despite the forecast!).
We then began a long walk that would sweep us past other notable Gaudi facades and then into the large Citadel Park. We started getting hungry, which can quickly translate to crankiness for me and perpetual indecisiveness for Dan. Most everything seemed closed, which is the norm for Europe outside of decidedly tourist areas. We walked past a place that was assumed was Chinese, and figured, what the heck. We're hungry, it's open, and other people are eating there so it can't be that bad.
As soon as we walked in we knew we wouldn't regret it. Turns out the lunch option was an all-you-can-eat buffet of sushi and high-quality Chinese food. And there was a dessert bar. It does not get any better than that in my world. But I ate so much of it! We figured if everything was closed that night and we were forced to eat Burger King, all would be okay due to the sushi.
We continued walking all through the city (five hours total of walking that day), ending our touring with a furnicular ride high in the sky overlooking the sea and ending on a large bluff/mountain before taking the train home. We didn't see a drop of rain.
After another rest (and an epic nap for Dan), we left the hotel for dinner. We walked up and down Las Ramblas, the popular and touristy pedestrian boulevard where our hotel was located. We found dinner, and settled on having a few more tapas, as well as seafood paella (Mom, you'd be so proud of me eating all those creepy crawlies) and the regional wine, rioja. We had seen all we wanted to see and eaten all we could eat. It was a perfect cap to an amazing weekend.
