It is that time of year again when everyone takes a good cold look at where we live, and start planning that time away somewhere warm. A couple of my friends have given me some ideas that I would like to share for those looking for an excuse or a destination. I will start with the excuse first. Cape Town, South Africa: Cape Town is a wonderful place for a vacation but also a great place to study. [...]

Another fall weekend is nearly upon us and I wanted to write a post with suggestions of fun thing to do on the weekend in Stockholm. Brunch: Brunch is a classic in North America and I don’t feel that many people take advantage of brunch spots in the Stockholm area.  If you are looking for reviews of brunch restaurants in Stockholm, a group of expats have recently started a blog that reviews different [...]

I have been thinking a lot about motivation and how leaders can motivate employees.  It is inherent that if you are a good leader, then you will be a good motivator.  Maybe I should be writing about leadership and the lack there of it in the workplace where we have managers leading teams.  This is perhaps about as good as an idea as hiring a blind bus driver to take your kids to school. I guess [...]

Dear Tele2, I write this open letter to explain why it is that I have chosen to end my subscription at Tele2. It is also to educate those who are about to sign up with Tele2 so they know what to expect from point of sale to customer service. I would have sent this email via an email service if only I was given an email address when I asked your customer service agent for it. I was instead told that [...]

I was contacted by SEST (The Stockholm English Speaking Theatre) and shown a they will be performing, and I wanted to share with my fellow Stockholm expats out there. Please share if you are going, and what you thought should you see it. SEST also has a Facebook fan page which I encourage you to Like UPDATE:  I was just advised that a new website was set up for SEST and can be found at http://www.sestcompany.com/ The [...]

Black Friday came a little over a week ago. Under the Bush Jr. administration gambling with the use of a credit card was outlawed,  but a number of online poker and casino companies continued a newly illegal practice of allowing Americans to use their credit cards to gamble.  Here is the new related to black Friday Last week a number of poker rooms had their domain names seized, and the FBI issued [...]

It was only 2 years ago that my eldest daughter was born in Sweden.  As life now picks up speed and the babies are becoming children, I am thinking that it is time to find a nanny or an au pair for my kids.  I recently found a good service that has listings of nannies where ever you are in the world, and the best part is, it is all in English.  Check out greataupair.com and you will see the listings [...]

It was only last year that we saw Greece and Ireland go bankrupt, and once again I am watching a third unfold from my IKEA sofa.   We all knew for a while that this was going to happen, but because of the way we have constructed our world, so countries are walking a financial tightrope, it is until their rears are in the flames that the government pulls out its head to say they have found a problem. This [...]

I was just watching intellectuals on the news talk about issues that are center to American foreign policy.  It is amazing how they all speak with one voice and seem to back a very similar viewpoint – even if that viewpoint is not that of the current administration. It just gets me to thinking that perhaps the Senate and the House of Representatives are not  currently what they are supposed to [...]

It has been five years or so since I moved to Sweden, and I have yet to see someone wanting to make it in Sweden like this guy.  His name is Martin, a friend, who has moved to Sweden about a year ago and wanted to continue a career teaching English while keeping his students in the Czech Republic where they had moved from.  His solution was to start teaching Skype English classes and started a website [...]