Summer. That single word promises a lot. Time off, no school, days at the beach, travel, sun, shorts … and people leaving. Relocation prime time. Dear expat friends moving on to another country – or perhaps yourself. Time to say goodbye; to promise you will see each other again. Soon.
Personally, I like to leave first. How about you?
Read some tips on leaving/being left by Olga Mecking.
Are you thinking of expatriating? If you haven’t yet decided whereto local cost of living might have an impact on the decision. Even if you know which will be your new expat country it can be interesting to find out the local price ranges. Expatriating or not; perhaps you are just interested in comparing cost of living in different countries and locations.
On expatistan.com you can enter cities for comparison to get an overall percentage of how much cheaper or more expensive a city is to another. You can also get down to details as how much a bottle of milk is. The website service is based on user input of prices. Why not help adding prices to the cost of living comparisons?
The other day I learnt that merry-go-rounds in Sweden, as well as in the rest of Europe, generally turn clockwise whereas they in North America run counter-clockwise! A search on Google confirms this. Reality? Even though I’ve been an expatriate in both locations I must admit I don’t know; I never thought about it. What are your experiences? Comments please – let’s solve this expat problem!
En karusell (a carousel)
The world’s largest expat survey opens its annual questionnaire today. It remains open until May 31st and encourages expatriates to share their experiences to form the much appreciated and award-winning comparison of expat life in different countries. To take part go here.
In 2012 more than 5300 expats took part in the HSBC Expat Explorer survey.
Today I’ll provide a link to one of my favorite musical songs. It describes the life of an expat mother, but an expatriate life of past times and of much hardship. Expatriating today can be tough too, but hopefully not on all the levels Kristina experiences.
Listen to Kristina
From the musical “Kristina from Duvemåla” by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulveus (the Bs in ABBA).
Om du bor utomlands kan det vara roligt att ibland sjunga svenska sånger med barnen. Många föräldrar tar sina barn till svenska kyrkan eller andra svenska grupper där sång ingår. Denna möjlighet finns långt ifrån för alla expatriater. Nedan finns en länk till en av Barnplanetens listor på Spotify. Barnplaneten har spellistor i många kategorier, t ex Barnkammarboken, Klassiker, Buslistan och Favoriter.
Länk till trafiklistan – perfekt inte bara för bilintresserade utan för alla som är ute och går eller cyklar!
Living abroad and want to listen to Swedish children’s music? Klick the link above or go here to read a post in English about Swedish kid’s music.
Having moved to Sweden with children your family might want to listen to Swedish children’s music. Kid’s music is very much part of the cultural context, and apart from having fun a few bonuses to listening to it include
Barnplaneten (Children’s planet) provides lists in Spotify such as lists for classics, nap time, animals, play and dance as well as a teacher’s list.
I’m on a mission to find yellow. Both here in Sweden and in my extensive collection of photos from my expat time and travels.
This month’s #worldcolors is all about the sunny, golden yellowish nuances. Suits well with the arrival of spring and longer sun hours. Daffodils however – don’t think they will actually be here in April due to the long winter and late arrival of spring.
I read about the “assignment” yesterday morning in Naomi’s blog (via twitter). My brain and eyes tuned in on yellow and focused on everything of that color I saw during the day – actually a bit annoying; either it wasn’t worth taking a picture of or it was something I drove by and couldn’t capture anyway.
If you would like to read more, see interesting photos from all over the world and perhaps participate you find the details over at Anne’s at part time traveler.
BTW. Yellow is gul in Swedish. Want to know how it is pronounced?
Do you want to know how a word in a foreign language is pronounced? I found a website – Acapela – ; providing native speaking voices for 30 different languages; often also different local dialects. I tried Swedish and it worked well. So go ahead and listen to pronunciation of Swedish.
Learning English, Swedish, French or Chinese? Or any other language?
To work on your vocabulary when learning a new language I want to share the following tip with you. Put washi tape on items, drawers, shelves and boxes and write the object’s name on it. Remove when you have learnt the word and choose new objects.
Great for bilingual kids too, expanding their vocabulary! At home I use it for my children (TCKs) to not forget words after returning to passport country after expat life.
Washi tape is pretty masking tape, originating from Japan. It is removable and reusable, slightly transparent with a paper feel to it (made from rice paper). It comes in all sorts of patterns and colors; select one that goes well with text for this language learning project! Washi tape is commonly used for scrapbooking, art journaling and other creative projects.
Ready, craft, go! Learn!
