Cult of My Nemesis

New place, new set of washing machines to beat my head against. Actually, the machines themselves haven't changed that much this time, but the washing machine culture out here in Flogsta, well, that's something different. The fancy booking system back on Dragarbrunnsgatan meant that one could book the laundry room a week in advance, and then have it completely to yourself for a three hour block. Not the most efficient system, from a washing machine usage point of view, but awfully convenient—no trudging down to the laundry room with a full hamper just to find that there's no room at the inn.

Now we're washin' it Flogsta style, though. What does that mean? This is a pretty big complex, so there are four laundry buildings, each with 6 washers and four or five high-capacity dryers (plus and ironing board, and an electric mangle, just in case you decide you don't like having fingers anymore). That's one tvättstuga to just under 200 apartments, or if you prefer, one washing machine per 281 tennants. Nevertheless, it seems to work out pretty well; they are mostly students, after all, so they can't be doing laundry as often as they should. The first time I went, I tried the middle of a weekday afternoon, which up to now has guaranteed me a pretty empty laundry room. Again, though, students now, so naturally 15:00 Tuesday is a prime laundry doing time. There was an empty machine, and I proceeded to load into it, but then I encountered something you don't come across that often here: a chatty Swede. This fellow helpfully pointed out that the machine I was about to use "hadn't been working so well today," (indeed, upon closer inspection, I think it was completely broken), but that there was another one that was "on zero" (all the machines have countdown timers, so this was just a machine that had finished its load) which would probably be a better bet. It's a good thing he was there, actually, or I would have felt a little tentative about the procedure: apparently, when someone's wash is done you just take it out and put it in one of the dozen or so white wire laundry carts scattered around the room. The Swede said, "It's a very un-Swedish system actually, but it works. You just put the clothes in a basket, and no one gets mad that you moved their clothes." He then went on to detail his long standing feud with the crazy girl who uses all six machines at once to wash her equestrian gear and saddle(!?), which he doesn't think is allowed, never mind that you just can't take all the machines. He said that once she was using five machines, and when he started to load the sixth she said he couldn't because she was going to need that one, too, but he explained, "Look, I'm sure that works in southern Stockholm or wherever you're from, but you just can't do that here, even if you do use that tone you just tried on me that I'm sure used to work on your mother." I'm telling you, once you find something they're interested in, the floodgates they do open.

Oh yeah, almost forgot: see the little blue bag on the floor? The virtually ubiquitous laundry bag of Flogsta, better known as an Ikea shopping bag.

Well, many loads of laundry later, we're all clean here again. It's been a long and sort of trying week for a variety of annoying little reasons (such as Jennifer's recently contracted head cold), some of which we'll try to cover over the course of our quiet and restful (fingers crossed) weekend. In any case, we decided we deserved a treat, so tonight we ordered pizza from Luna, the little pizza place in the apartment complex. We've hesitated to do it, as the menu has some oddities, but tonight we figured we should just try it. We ordered a Mexico (ground nut, pepperoni, and bacon?) and a Tropikana (ham, bananas, and curry—verdad!).



OK, so by pepperoni I think they meant banana pepper, but the "ground nut" must have been a mistranslation, because it was Italian sausage! The bacon was in three inch long strips, odd but tasty. Oh, yes, the bananas and curry with ham? Well, it tasted like bananas and curry with ham, which really was pretty good. Live and learn, I guess.

By the way, Jennifer informs me that since this post is about infernal gadgets and our relationship to them, I am morally obligated to relate the final word on the little Husqvarna dishwasher. After the first week, it functioned only as the most expensive, awkward and inefficient dish drying rack we've ever had. Sigh. Farewell, little Husqvarna. Maybe someday you'll grow up to be a sewing machine, or if you work very hard, a chainsaw.

So, where do you get softener salt?

Turns out, it's easier to find dishwasher salt than it is to find garbage bags (long story—it took me a couple of days to find trash bags because they don't put them in boxes—Okay, it's not so long a story). But look, the salt light turned off! Are my dishes any cleaner? Sure, why not.

Revenge of My Nemesis

I'm feeling more comfortable with the washing machines now. I managed to figure this new one out without recourse to a dictionary for help with the instructional chart. Call me crazy, but it just doesn't seem like washing a load of clothes should have quite so much required reading material.

Today's little laundry revelation: I'm a laundry outlaw. A sort of illegal immigrant of the laundry world. I've been washing clothes without registering for a session first. Mind you, the English guide to this apartment failed to mention the bokningstavlan, but I suppose ignorance of law is no excuse and so forth. Anyway, I went down earlier to do a load of laundry, and the door was locked. This had never happened before—I'd just been walking right in—but this time I was forced to stop and look around. That's when I noticed the swipe pad for the electronic lock next to the door. This apartment building uses these little key fobs to give access to common areas, as well as to get you in the front door, in fact I'd just swiped it a moment before to get into the basement, so it wasn't too big a shock. This time, though, it didn't open the door, but rather activated another thing I hadn't paid any attention to, this:

Ah, yes, perfect, another inexplicable electronic device with two pages of instructions, that's exactly what I needed to make my day complete.

Turns out, you have to use this thing to reserve the laundry room in advance. You pick a three hour window sometime in the coming week, reserve it, and then show up at the appropriate time with your laundry. When you swipe in during your reservation, the gadget will unlock the laundry room door to admit you. The only reason I was able to get in before is that the lock tends to stick, so the door wasn't closing all the way. It's byzantine, yes, but actually quite civilized, and certainly better than the alternative…

Bride of My Nemesis

Our temporary apartment came with an interesting new feature: a tiny, countertop dishwasher. Specifically, it's a Husqvarna 95i Harmony dishwasher, interesting mainly because I hadn't previously realized that Husqvarna manufactured anything other than sewing machines and chain saws (although, in retrospect, I suppose it makes sense that they would make something in the middle there). The only problem with the Husqvarna 95i Harmony dishwasher is that it's never been marketed outside of Sweden (well, except for in Finland, but that hardly counts) so there doesn't appear to be an extant copy of an English instruction manual. No fear, half an hour spent pouring over the Swedish instructions with a dictionary yielded most of the information necessary to run the thing (I still don't know what the little knob on the sink does—perhaps it's unrelated?). Unfortunately, after getting it loaded and switched on there were more indicators lit up than it seemed there should be, and indeed, a little more investigating led to the cause: our dishwasher is out of salt. Well, that's no problem, I'll just—hang on, out of salt? Surely not. Just a minute, let's see here… "Signallampan indikerar när det är dags att fylla på salt i avhärdaren." Yup, it's out of salt. I wonder what one does about that, when one apparently lives in a country which has yet to discover kosher salt? Sigh. Well, at least it's a quiet little thing, even if it doesn't pre-salt my dishes.

My Nemesis Returns

Sunday afternoon at the Hotel Uppsala, and it's time to wash clothes again. Now that we're living a little closer to the real world, the laundry is no longer free, and let me tell you, at 10 SEK a pop the pressure is on. Despite the directions (Jennifer points out that it's never a good sign when your directions end with the phrase, "Good Luck!!"), things went a little more smoothly this time, as I apparently guessed correctly which buttons not to push. I'm glad I talked to the desk before attempting it, though, as there was a very specific sequence of events needed to get things started: put clothes in machine, add soap to box, select appropriate settings, put 10 SEK coin in box on wall, come back and press start button. If you haven't got the machine set when you put in your money, well, you just lost two potential trips to a public toilet, matey.
Drying was another matter. Having been forewarned by the desk that the dryer was free, but didn't do anything except for, "blow lots of cold air on your clothes for a really long time," I opted for the Wascator, a sort of small closety thing that blows hot air over your clothes while they hang there and (presumably) get dry. After a couple of hours, this had our clothes near enough to dry that I think they'll be ready to go in the morning.
Tommorow we move to the extended stay apartment if all goes according to plan, where (hopefully) there will be a new set of washer challenges to face (if not, it's the shame and humiliation of attempting to use a public laundromat in a foreign language).

Adventures in Bus Riding

Sunday night was a minor adventure. I had found a promising looking sublet listed on a database maintained by the Student Union (I must digress momentarily to wonder why this little gem was never mentioned in our months of apartment searching…Hmph.), and a phone call to the owner resulted in an apointment to meet at the apartment Sunday night at 7. The apartment is in Gottsunda, an outlying neighborhood to the southwest, well out of walking distance but only a 15 minute bus ride, so it was obviously time to brave the busses.

I don't want you to get the impression that the busses are frightening. They are large, clean, and well lit; what's more, they run from 6 in the morning to after midnight, even on the weekends for the most part, and they are both frequent and on time. In fact, they sound like a public transport dream, and they mostly are. There is just one small hump to get over: getting a ticket. Now, you could certainly just get on the bus and pay cash money for a bus ticket, losing nothing in the process except for the respect of the bus driver and 30 SEK (that's $4.50 at the current exchange rate—yes, that's right, $4.50 to ride the bus). I hear you cry, "But Joe, what other option do I have? I need to ride the bus!" Oh, you have options, gentle reader, never you fear. Got a mobile phone? Why, just SMS the bus, and you'll be charged a mere 20 SEK (that's $3 for those of you who are keeping up with these things), and all you have to do is flash the SMS to the bus driver upon his arrival. No phone? Well, proceed to the nearest major transfer point and purchase a ticket in advance from an automat (coins or credit cards only, please)—it can be used anytime in the next thirty days, and is good for unlimited bus rides in a 90 minute period once used (actually, that's true of all bus tickets in the city).

But surely these methods must seem pedestrian (and thereby unsuited to a patron of public transit such as yourself). What truly elegant solution presents itself? Just buy a bus pass. What could be simpler? Wait, first you must choose: do you need a value card (värdekort) on which you load a few hundred kroner, thereafter using the card to purchase half price tickets on the bus (note that we're down to $2.25 now)? Or perhaps a monthly pass, unlimited rides for a mere 500 SEK (call it $75)? Even better, 4300 SEK ($665) for a year? Of course, there's alsoa couple of regional cards, something called a Tim-Kort (haven't the faintest), and a few other options. Oh, and don't forget the 75 SEK deposit for a card, plus maybe another 150 SEK for spärravgift or 75 SEK for expeditionsavgift (again, no clue). Oh, and some people claim there's a discount for university students, but the employees of the bus company do not appear to rank amongst them, so that one's probably a no go.

Well, it being Sunday afternoon in a socialist paradise, all the card options were out (actually, we probably could have purchased one at the newsstand around the corner, but we wanted to talk over our options with someone more official than the nearest quickie mart clerk, for the first time out, anyway). Being cell phone free at the moment (don't even get me started) the best option was the automat, as there just happens to be one a few blocks away from our hotel. I might have gone more smoothly if I'd known in advance that it didn't take paper money, but OK, we can bail to the credit card option. It took me 10 minutes and the unknowing assistance of a native (who also didn't appear to understand the machine, but who did manage to procure a ticket), but I finally latched on to a nearly random sequence of button pushing and card swiping that resulted in a pair of bus tickets. I swear, there's just something about control panels in this country...
All right, I know, what's really important here is the apartment. Long story short, it's a cute one room apartment (not a studio, the kitchen is a separate room, but the bedroom and living area are the same), on the ground floor of a little complex in Gottsunda, with a patio and a small garden. The owners have moved to a suburb of Stockholm to be closer to work, but don't want to give up their apartment (which they've lived in for 15 years), partly because it's about the same size as their new house, and they can't fit two apartments worth of furniture into it. So, they will happily leave us a set of simple furniture (for a little extra, of course). Oh, and they dote on their adorable dog Myra (sp?), so they don't mind cats at all. They were at pains to point out that children were entirely unacceptable, but cats are fine.

We agreed on a very reasonable rent, which took a little while due to a moderate language barrier (only one of the couple speaks English, so there was a lot of time spent translating back and forth). Then we ran into our two hitches: the form for the sublet requires our personal numbers, which the state won't issue for another week or so, and after the application we have to wait another 2-3 weeks to get approval from Uppsalahem (the landlord) for the sublet.

Ouch. Four more weeks? Nothing for it, though, as we would run into the same trouble at any other place. So, we're off to work on interim housing. Jennifer found a hostel-apartment typ place through a new colleague, and they appear to have an apartment available for a month for a mere 8000 SEK ($1200), which is OK for one month. Certainly better than the 800 SEK a night for a cheap hotel room.

Wow, this is a long entry. Well, after all that, the fact that Jennifer took the bus to work for the first time this morning, after buying a monthly pass, doesn't seem like such big news. Oh well, here's a picture, anyway:

My Nemesis

Now, you know I'm all for the high-tech gadgets. But seriously, it should not be this hard to do a load of laundry. Admittedly there's lot's of knobs and buttons, all labelled with obscure international symbols for, I don't know, doing laundry during an eclipse or while stuck in a maelstrom or something. But there's an instruction manual, and it isn't all in Swedish. There's a copy of the English instructions in the binder to the right of it, all 28 pages of instructions for the dryer, and a half dozen not-entirely-illuminating charts for the washing machine. Plus a wall chart. And extra labels someone printed out and stuck on the machine. All of which I read. Twice. Some of it three times. 

The result? Three hours into my first putative wash cycle, I had a pile of soapy laundry resting in a pool of lukewarm water, while the machine did occasional half-hearted impersonations of a spin cycle. After I spent half an hour convincing the machine to relinquish my clothes, they sat in the dryer for another hour, which changed my cold wet clothes into hot wet clothes. 

I give up. I'm going to go have a sauna.