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Where are we, exactly?

First, we are in Sweden. Not Switzerland. Sweden is in Northern Europe, it's part of Scandinavia, in between Norway and Finland. We are on the west coast of Sweden. The capital, Stockholm, is on the east coast. Sweden is about the same size as California. The part of Sweden that we are in is located at about 60 degrees north latitude. That's farther north than all of the United States (except parts of Alaska) and most of Canada.

Photo from http://geology.com/world/sweden-map.gif

The nearest town is Strömstad. It has a population of about 6,000 people, so it's very small compared to San Diego (population of over 1 million). Strömstad is a seaside town. It's known as a vacation spot in summer, but in winter, it's cold and quiet. Strömstad is about halfway between Oslo, Norway (to the north) and Gothenburg, Sweden (to the south). They are both about 2 hours away by car.

Here's a typical street in Stömstad.
Photo from https://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/960357.jpg

We are living in Tjärnö. As far as I can tell, Tjärnö is not a town. It's an island. There is not much here. There are a few houses, one church, a small school, and the Sven Lovén Center, which is where we are staying. The Lovén Center is a research lab affiliated with the University of Gothenburg. There are science labs, offices, meeting rooms, dorms and apartments for visiting scientists, a small cafeteria, a small gym (with a sauna!), and an aquarium.

This is a view of the Lovén Center in summer.
Photo from http://loven.gu.se/digitalAssets/1335/1335776_tj--rn--.jpg

Getting to Tjärnö is a bit of an adventure. The drive from Strömstad takes you along a narrow, winding road. For much of the way, the road has no street lights, no bike lane, and no sidewalk. It's wide enough for two cars to pass each other in opposite directions, but just barely. And there's no line down the middle of the road to help you stay on your side. This road at night looks like the setting of a horror movie: dark, isolated, scary.

This road also takes you over at least two other islands on the way from Tjärnö to Strömstad. In both cases, the road goes over a single-lane bridge. At each end of the bridge is a stop light, letting you know when it's your turn to cross. There are wooden railings on both sides, to prevent you from driving off into the water far below. Every time I cross over these bridges, I'm reminded of the Universal Studios tour, and the old bridge that would "break" when you were halfway across. I'm not a fan of these bridges.

At the Lovén Center, we're staying in a one-bedroom apartment, the ground floor of a house on the lab's grounds. It looks like it was furnished entirely from IKEA, because it likely was. The girls have twin beds in the bedroom, and Jeremy and I also have twin beds, which are in the living room.

The girls' bedroom.

Jeremy's bed and my bed.

Our kitchen is an upgrade from our kitchen at home. It's much larger and has a dishwasher, which we don't have in San Diego. Our laundry room is nice, but we share it with our upstairs neighbor. The washing machine is very small and very slow. Our dryer is a giant box, the size and shape of a refrigerator, with racks inside to hang clothes on. We think it is supposed to heat up, but it does not. While waiting for it to be fixed, we have resorted to hanging all of our clothes out to dry. I miss my extra large dryer at home.

Our IKEA kitchen, with a door out to a patio where our neighbor's cat sometimes sits.

Thumbs down, Sweden. Clothes-drying rack in the living room.
Also, see our TV? Haha, that's just a picture of an owl on the wall where a TV should be.

Finally, a few words about our shower. It's is about the size of a phone booth, which makes our bathtub-size shower at home feel spacious by comparison. Water goes onto the tiled floor and down the drain. We were sure it would flood the entire bathroom, but the water mostly stays in place. We used the squeegee meant to dry the shower doors to coax some of it back toward the drain. Definitely different from what we're used to at home.

The bathroom, and our small and interesting shower. 

And there it is. Home, sweet home! For the next six months, anyway.