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Australians need advice/links to help us in our expatrition to sweden

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Nigelb13

Hi , my wife & I & our 4 young children wish to move to Sweden to live & work there. We recently returned from a holiday there & visited a good friend in Allingsas. Both my wife & I are Australian born with Aussie passports with our closest direct European/British relative 4 generations back which means we can't apply using a European relative (father grandfather mother grandmother). My wife is a government health dept.worker here in Brisbane Australia & I am an unqualified chef. Any help advice or links would be greatly appreciated. We intend to commence swedish language classes next month here in Brisbane.
Thankyou
Nigel & Lisa Brown

kenjee

Hello Nigel & Lisa Brown and welcome to Expat.com

To give you a greater visibility on the forum, kindly note that a new thread has been created as from your post on the Sweden Forum

Hope that some members will be able to give you some advice soon.

Regards
Kenjee
Expat.com Team

KB77

I would suggest think long and hard about this.  If you decide to go ahead do a lot of the leg work from Australia.  Housing (to rent) is like finding a needle in a haystack. That's just the start of it!
While Sweden was a great experience and I wouldn't change it, I was also more than ready when it was time to leave.
Make sure you have a firm grip on the language. Yes, most Swedes do know English, but a lot also don't want to use it.

appa

I'd second all that KB77 said.
In addition, moving to Sweden would very likely be a larger cultural shock that you've imagined. You may already have made up your mind but I thought I'd mention some things. While Sweden can be nice and enjoyable in several ways, I rarely meet expats here in Sweden from the richer parts of the world, e.g. U.S/Canada/Aus/NZ that want to stay here long term. The weather is one of those factors. Please note that it's very different from Brisbane. You'll see the sun maybe 1 day out of 4 during all winter. Winter itself is very prolonged and what the locals refer to as spring or summer may not at all be in line with what you expect. I've been living with another expat here in Sweden  for several years and she still feels sad that she hasn't been able to use any of her summer dresses she brought along (numbering 40 dresses or so). Second, the people aren't outgoing as in the other countries I mentioned so you'll have a different conversational environment with strangers. This may take a lot to get used to. If you're ambitious you'll have to cope a lot with the extremely progressive income taxes (and all other taxation in Sweden). Basically, while Swedes around you will be very proud that there are no poor people in society, you'll wonder why noone wants to pay you well for a job well done and why noone really cares for that mentality. This depends a little on how you feel about socialism in general. If you're ok with it you may not be bothered but be prepared that Sweden is very socialist, regardless really of left wing and right wing politics here, at least when seen in a more international perspective. Also beware that Swedish culture, while not very pronounced (unlike in continental Europe) is very homogenous especially when it comes to lifestyle and values. You'll see a lot of the prothestant/lutheran ethic, even amongst young people.
The main good point of living in Sweden imho. would be the very generous terms when having and bringing up a child. Some people from abroad also enjoy some of the weather characteristics but it seems mostly confined to snow or enjoyng snow related activites.

I could make this post much longer and much more detailed but I'll wait for your questions or comments first.

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