It occurred to me as I was swimming this moring, that you may be interested to know that apparently having a life-guard on duty is optional in Sweden.  Or at least it is in Malmö.  The place where I used to swim in Malmö, a large public pool, always had several life guards watching the swimmers.  But where I swim now (not as often as I should), is a smaller pool at a club.  Occasionally a guard is in the room, but typically not.  I have also only rarely seen guards at beaches.  - For non-American readers: for a pool or beach in the US to not have a life guard on duty is rare. 
Anyway - just thought I would share. 

Elections

It makes me smile that I am getting SMSs (texts) asking who I will be voting for in the upcoming Swedish elections.  I guess SMSing is just the next step in technology, as I used to get phone surveys in the US.

And from The Local, the English language Swedish news-source:

Politics

Elections 2014

Sweden's Prime Minister hopes to cling on to power. Photo: TT

Tight race as campaign enters final week

Published: 08 Sep 2014 10:17 GMT+02:00
Updated: 08 Sep 2014 10:17 GMT+02:00

UPDATED: With less than a week to go until Sweden's general election, mixed opinion poll results and undecided voters suggest the outcome is far from clear.

• Alliance close gap to red-greens in new poll (07 Sep 14) 

Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's Alliance has been performing badly for months and over the summer it appeared extremely unlikely that his government could get re-elected.
But as The Local reported on Sunday, fewer Swedes are planning to vote against the Alliance than a week ago and support for the Social Democrat-led opposition is dropping.
Sweden elections: Who's who in politics?
However, just how much the Red-Green lead has narrowed varies widely according to different opinion polls.
Sunday's survey by Novus put it at 8.6 percentage points but another survey released over the weekend suggested an even smaller gap of 4.5 percentage points, down from 7.3 points a week earlier and around 10 percent a month ago.

The poll by Stockholm-based research group TNS Sifo includes responses to the election manifestos revealed last week by the governing Alliance and the Social Democrats.
It suggests that an extra 135,000 votes for the Alliance could put them neck-and-neck with the Red-Greens, indicating that the election result could be much closer than many had previously speculated.
Sweden allows its citizens to cast their ballots in ahead of polling day in some parts of the country, but a fall in advance voting also appears to suggest that many voters remain undecided.
According to Sweden's Election Authority website, 881,364 advance votes had been recorded by Monday lunchtime, compared with 912,156 a week before the election in 2010.
There is also speculation that turnout could be lower than in previous years.

Sweden elections: How do they work?
Political commentator Dr Stig-Björn Ljunggren told The Local he believes the final outcome won't be too surprising.
"It is very unlikely that there will be such a dramatic change that the Social Democrats don't end up in government," he said on Monday.
But he argued that it was plausible that Fredrik Reinfeldt might attempt to stay in power if the gap between the Alliance and the Red-Greens continues to narrow.
"There are a lot of people speculating that the Prime Minister could seek help from the Sweden Democrats," he added.
"However everyone who knows him will tell you he hates everything they stand for, so I think that is very unlikely."
Dr Ljunggren said he believed there were several factors that could influence the election's outcome during the final week of campaigning:

• A political scandal involving any of the party leaders or top candidates
• Russia flexing its muscles further in Ukraine. Voters are more likely to select a sitting government during a international crisis
• Unexpected new policy announcements on key election issues such as healthcare, unemployment or immigration

On Sunday Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said that he was still "completely convinced that we can still change people".
He told reporters "a lot of people have indicated that they're still uncertain, and in that sense it's an open race".
"I will fight to do that all the way until the polling booths close," he added.

Welcome!

I know, I know: it has been too long.  I'm sorry.  Let's put it be behind us, and move on.  

I thought it might be interesting for you to take a look around our apartment.  Although Sweden is different from the U.S., it is not so very different.  I, however, took pictures of some of the things in our apartment that, for good or bad, differ from State-side homes in which we have lived.

The apartment building in which we live was constructed in 1910.  It is very solid.  The walls are, as you can see, quite thick.  I think they may be plaster over brick.  I know when I try to drive a nail in one I meet with limited success.  Also note in the picture that the walls are white.  This is not just common, but I will go as far as saying that having non-white walls is uncommon.  Lastly, and this will be hard for you to see, around the perimeter of the door frame is a white electrical cord, secured with white hooks.  Because the building is so old, and the walls are somewhat impermeable, when one adds electrical outlets, or whatever, the wiring is run this way. One of these days, we will get around to paint over the wire, which is what one does.

What I love about this door is that it is on the interior of our apartment.  It is between the livingroom and what is, for us, the second bedroom and the full bath.  Having said that, the second bedroom has a door to a back stairwell, so it may have once been a maid’s quarters.  Maybe.  I have no way of knowing.  But I like it.

This is the door to exit our bedroom.  I love the pattern on it.  Yes, it is wood.  Above the door is a storage closet.  Note how tall the ceilings are.

City living.  We love it, although I admittedly miss gardening and seeing green.  But I really do love walking out of our apartment and being able to go to a shop or grocery store etcetera.  Again, more white, thick walls.  Notice there are no screens on the windows.  In Malmo, there are, pretty much, no flying bugs.  We are right on the water and it is breezy, and bugs just don’t hang around.  The opposite is true farther north in Sweden.  There, I understand, one can kinda get eaten alive if one doesn’t cover-up (including donning a cap).

I love this little chandelier.  There are few things to say about it.  One it was purchased at IKEA.  Of course.  Two, although electric, it involves (fake) candles.  As .  Three, it is plugged into an outlet on the ceiling.  Convenient?  Yes.  But: because of that, when one moves, one takes their ceiling lamps with oneself.  That is totally fine, but it was a surprise to us, when we moved in, to find that we had no ceiling lights! 

Our kitchen.  It was remodeled around 2008.  Three things of note.  One: our small, weak microwave. Small enough that my large plates cannot fit in it.  Of course I am sure there are bigger ones in other apartments, but this is ours.  Hey, it warms my cup of coffee just as well as another microwave.  Two: Note the electrical outlet above the water-kettle.  That triple outlet (with and electrical adapter plugged in) was the only outlet visible in our entire kitchen.  When the kitchen was remodeled by two owners-ago (how does one say that?), even that outlet was not there.  It was added later.  Yup.  So what did we do when we wanted another outlet on the opposite side of the room?  We accessed the outlet that was in the cupboard above the microwave, plugged in a very long extension cord, and traced it around the wall and window trim and floor boards until it reached where we wanted it.  Sound familiar?

I could write more, and maybe someday I will, but I really need to post this!