Yesterday I went for a walk around Björkskatan (district where I live now). The walking/cycling tracks are really nicely maintained and there are a lot of them, through the forests, near the sea, through town, everywhere. I finished the walk near university (yes I still don’t have internet) and found something between pond and lake full of (baby) ducks; a great setting for photos.

Later I managed to set up my Swedish phone number and with a nice surprise, I got a (bonus) 500MB of data for free. I paid 100SEK for fill up card, and got for (it says) 800 SEK worth of mobile data, it’s really handy now that I don’t have internet at home yet. Although the amount of data provided is not enough for normal web browsing, it’s enough to check e-mails and some chat over Skype. Oh yes, and they have 4G coverage everywhere (in the middle of forest, although this middle of forest is in the centre of town :)).

Today I had a long day. I started at 11’o clock, and went to the landlord to ask for translation of one paper and to fill in complaint about fire alarm and window. Fire alarm was buzzing all the time, they told me to change the batteries (I knew that, but wanted to get away without having to buy new ones; sadly this plan didn’t work). The window is causing more problems, it’s almost impossible to close and trust me, here you want to close windows in the evenings. Lastly I asked about the internet and they gave me phone number of ISP support.

After that I walk to the centre of the town to pay rent at the bank. The main street was surprisingly crowded, I didn’t expect so much people there. Shortly after I found a bank and went it. When I asked if I can pay the bills I was in for a shock, I would have to be a member of the bank in order to pay the bill, so I went on a search for another bank. I found a small bank / currency exchange thing, where I was told I could pay the rent. After waiting in line for quite some time I was finally able to pay 2 bills (rent for 2 months) and I was in for a real shock next, the fee was 50 SEK (around 6€) for each bill (I changed bank in Slovenia to get 10 cents cheaper fees per bills…). Guess I’ll try to pay rent over Slovenian banks from now on.

After paying rent I went for a bit of sight-seeing through centre of Lulea. The main street is very nice, full of shops, restaurants and hotels. There are very few traffic lights in the town and even where they are, people just go over the street even if there’s a red light on. Maybe there is some rule that you can cross if there is no traffic, I’ll have to check this one out. On my way home I took some pictures and found few people swimming in the sea. What the heck, I was wearing jeans and long warm shirt and was still a bit cold, and they were swimming? Well at least when the girl was going in she was screaming so it must have been cold.

When I came home I decided I should call ISP support line to try to get my internet going. After 15 minutes of explaining the problem (and spelling my name 8 times), we determined that it’s not possible for me to register on some form because I don’t have Swedish security number. They said that they will forward my problem to the IT that is configuring internet in/for Lulebo (landlord) apartments. Hopefully I’ll be able to connect before end of the week.