Fall is beautiful here! Preparing for winter

When it first got cold in September I thought I would never last through the fall, but the rest of September was better weather and October has been pleasant as well. Everyone has been saying its unseasonably warm, and I guess that means it could have been a lot colder. It's funny, when its 40 degrees now I say it's warm! That's my new perspective!

The leaves have been changing colors and I have captured a few pictures. 

Alex and I were walking Sox and it looked like it was raining leaves...

So I have been noticing they do many things here to prepare for winter so all the signs are here that snow will be here soon...first thing I noticed was all the people putting their trampolines away back in September. Next, I noticed the poles being placed on the sides of the roads and in our driveway to indicate to plows where the roads are...

Luckily they are made of rubber so if I hit them, I won't ruin my car:)

Last weekend when it looked like it finally might be so cold this week that the base filled with water in the basketball hoop might freeze and crack, we took down the hoop for the winter...

It was so sad:( but I promised to take Alex to these outdoor courts as much as possible, so Monday we went and the fall leaves in the background were beautiful!!!

Then this week it rain during the day on Wednesday, but when the temps dropped in the night supposedly it snowed...we didn't see it, and there was no evidence the next morning, but the boys did find a frozen puddle and were prepared with winter jackets...

Finally, this weekend, Thomas has taken on the task of putting on winter tires for my car. They have spikes so now I'm prepared for the winter!

I guess fall is over soon...

Ben has taken up a new sport...

Soccer season has ended and Ben had a really great time with the team that adopted him during the middle of their season. Alex practiced a couple of times with his classmate's soccer team, but when basketball started in September on the same nights, he could no longer continue with the soccer team. (Even though he never actually played in a single soccer match, they have invited him to the end of the year party this Friday so they were very welcoming to him as well). 

So basketball was the obvious choice for Alex this fall/winter, but what about Ben? 

First, let me start off with naming a few winter sports that are available. Ice hockey, cross-country skiing, down hill skiing, bandy, and innebandy to name a few of the ones that you could choose around here. 

Bandy is a popular sport in Sweden similar to hockey on ice except you use a ball. 

Here is a picture from the web showing the ball they use. The rinks are much larger than hockey from what I understand. 

They say each town has a preferred ice sport, either ice hockey or bandy. Sandviken, our town, has one of the best national bandy teams in Sweden and the large arena by our house is home to the team. We are looking forward to going to a game. 

So back to the sport Ben has chosen...innebandy (aka-indoor bandy or floor ball). This is just like hockey only played with a ball indoors and not on ice. 

This is the equipment they use (along with safety googles), but no padding because the ball is softer. 

Here is Ben ready for practice...

Notice his Addidas sport pants he is wearing. The kids all wear them to school and for soccer and sports. Notice they are similar to our Addidas pants in the states, but they are tapered at the bottom like skinny jeans. I think they are really comfy in the winter for school where you have to put on and take off snow pants so much for recess. 

In floor ball the goalies stay on their knees. 

Here is Ben taking a shot on the goal during practice. 

Also you can't shoot the stick above the knees so there are no slap shots like in hockey. 

Ben is doing great and I'll keep you posted after some games. 

We bought a car in Sweden! How much is gas here???

Thomas has a car through the company and since the town is so small, I figured we could get by with just one because sometimes one of us could ride our bike, or I could drop him off at work since its only a five minute drive and we would make it work. I think as soon as the temperatures went into the 30s and Alex started basketball half an hour away twice a week and we needed to be everywhere at once, Thomas pointed out it would be a lot easier with a second car.

So we started car shopping on the Internet on Friday. We were just looking for something small to get around town in since we have an SUV on order for Thomas. (Basically, he ordered a car that his company bought back in April and it still isn't made yet, it will be ready at the end of October. Most new cars are not in inventory here so they get ordered then you have to wait a few months usually to pick them up.)

We started off really inexpensive (relatively speaking) and tried a 2004 Peugeot that was about $7000. It was a tiny hatchback and when the boys got in the back they cracked up because it had roll down windows! 

It was standard, and it didn't have power steering! After that test drive, the salesman showed us a brand new car of the same model, that was about $23000 including winter tires:)

We went on to a different dealership looking now at used Fords and they had some nice looking sedans that were a few years old, but we were still thinking smaller for fuel efficiency and light driving around town. Then we saw a 2013 Ford Fiesta that was almost Gator Blue. We liked that it was so new (it had been leased for 1 year) and the mileage was low too. We took it for a test drive and were pretty happy with it. (The front windows are power, but the back still roll:), it is standard, but there are heated front seats). The price was $18000 including the winter tires. 

When we came in from the drive, we were talking to the man and he asked what we thought and let us know if we didn't want it, there was a couple that had come in waiting to see if we were going to buy it because they were interested. Because they don't keep much inventory especially on new cars, it is very rare for them to have newer barely used models. I asked how often he gets in 2013, and he said this was just one of 2 all year he received and the other one sold in one day and this was the second day this one was here. We decided to buy it and the man went over to the couple and told them and they left. 

It was a quick decision, but we knew it was a good deal, the new model would have been around $24000 and in a couple of years it will still be a newer car and so possibly easy to resell. There is also an advantage that Sweden offers for half price insurance on all cars up to three years old so for at least 2 years we have a deal on insurance too.  So we signed a paper and he put sold on it and asked when we would like to pick it up. 

Thomas went to the bank on Monday and worked out the payment of the car and we stopped by Monday night to pick it up signing only one more piece of paper. 

It was pretty easy. Even the insurance was easy. The guy showed us that Ford offered an insurance for the car at half price for the first 6 months (actually half price off the half price we are already getting because it's a new car) so we pay about $25/month for that. (In Sweden the car is insured, not the driver, so they don't ask questions about the driver's background). I know they have property taxes that they will be sending a bill for to the house, but there was no sales tax to us as the second owner of the car, only Value Added Tax or VAT is added for new cars from what I understand and that is part of the price of the car when it's listed anyway. 

I will have to get a Swedish license eventually, but they allow me to have a foreign one up to a year before I need to get it. I think it is really expensive and includes a drive in icy or oily conditions as hazard practice, but I can blog about that when I do it. 

So off I go driving home when my first passenger Ben, and we are playing with the radio and chatting, etc., when I realize that I don't recognize the part of the highway that I was on. Sure enough, I got so carried away I forgot to exit onto a different highway to bring us home. When I turned on the GPS it said I was 14 miles until the next exit (my GPS still gives it to me in miles though all signs posted are in Kilometers). I drove 30 minutes out of my way, (so much for in town driving only), but Ben and I had a nice ride in the new car!

Ben taking pics when we were lost:)


So how much is gas here?  Well we both have Diesel engines, which is better on gas mileage, but today I drove by the gas station and the prices were comparable for unleaded fuel too...

Diesel Gas is currently 14.38 Kroner/Liters... so with an exchange rate of 6.5 Swedish Kroner/$1.00, that makes it $2.21/Liter...converting Liters to Gallons, you have 1 Liter for 0.264172 Gallons and so the grand total price for gas here in Sweden is.........

$8.37/Gallon!!!