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The beginning of our tale starts weeks ago when Astrid was in England. Dwight had food to eat up until Astrid was coming back. Trying to be nice Dwight went grocery shopping before he went to pick Astrid up from the airport so there would be plenty of food options the next day and neither would have to worry about it. While Dwight was shopping he did notice that the milk carton looked to be a lighter green than he recalled. However there was no other 1 liter green cartons, so he figured it was a redesign of the packaging. However had Dwight taken a second to read the container he might have figured out why exactly it didn’t look like milk.

The next morning Dwight excitedly sat to eat his breakfast. He had survived almost a week on his own with the dog and could enjoy the company of his wife that he had missed sorely. However his milk did not pour right and it didn’t smell right either. Dwight was devastated when Astrid came over and pointed out that Dwight had bough mellanfil (medium fat yogurt) instead of mellanmjölk (medium fat milk). Dwight was so distraught that Astrid had more than enough time to get the camera to document this moment forever in a picture.

Dwight and Astrid went down to Stockholm for the weekend again a little while back. They had a good time meeting up with friends and going to a steakhouse for dinner with some one night. The next weekend Astrid’s parents, Kalle and Ingrid, came up and helped install the cabinets mounted on the wall for the lounge. Also some things were sorted out with storage and the office such that everything is essentially set up or in storage. Here is what their lounge looks like now:

On the floor is all the electronics. The cables are actually neatly hanging off the floor in cable organizing tubes and/or with the aid of twisty ties. Astrid and Ingrid were both happy to see Dwight making this happen. The same style cabinets are on the wall, but instead of electronics, it’s storage for things to put in the electronics. Also the doors above are glass and eventually will get some sort of prints in them. The current plan is to do something stylized photos of the nieces and nephews.

Dwight has started SFI. The two most immediate affects have been an increased Swedish vocabulary and a greater appreciation for the weekend. Things covered in the first week and a half include being able to say about yourself and ask someone else about them, name, age, where you come from, where you live now, how long you have been in Sweden, what language you speak, how you get to school, the weather, numbers and the alphabet, vowels being the most difficult.

Class is every weekday (sv: varadag) at 8:20 (sv: tjugo över åtta) for three hours not counting a 20 minute break in the middle. Luckily for Dwight it’s about a 5 minute walk. There are two teachers, one Monday and Tuesday (sv: mondag och tisdag) the other the rest of the week, and they both seem to be fairly good. There is also an afternoon class on Wednsday (sv: onsdag) but it seems to be more aimed at the refuges to learn the town and things and other integration knowledge that Dwight gets from Astrid. The class is made up of about 20 students. Mostly refuges and people from other parts of the EU. They come from China, Thailand, Iraq, Kurdistan, Kosovo, Bulgaria, Somalia, Eritrea, Poland and Spain. The group Dwight is in is level C, there are four levels to the SFI (Swedish for immigrants/Svenska för invandrarer). That means that he’ll just have level D and some evidence points to these both being done within six months and not 12-18 like Dwight originally thought. That will give Dwight approximately a 5-6th grader level Swedish. Level C is for people that are starting out with Swedish, but have had 9 or more years of education at home. Levels A and B are for people that may not be educated much if at all with the most basic course A sometimes teaching people literacy for the first time and in the Swedish language.

Motley of course has his own take on this thing. Faithfully and after some more sleep Astrid and Motley come to visit Dwight during his break. Motley isn’t too keen on standing around much so it turns into a short walk around the area the school is.

Overall Dwight is enjoying SFI and even though it’s early it’s nice to have it over before lunch. He still doesn’t know very much Swedish, but he has probably doubled his previous efforts to learn already and there will be class on Monday again.