Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Insurance

A condition of my lease was to get insurance for the flat. I tried to do this online before I came, emailed a bunch of people, and had no luck.

Found it much easier to just walk into the insurance place (Dina Försäkringar, on Lille Fiaskaregatan near Bytareg) after I arrived. They have the life-sized green horse in the window (out front on nice days).

Good news:

The woman who works there was very nice. she gave me a temporary personnummer so that the insurance could be active asap. (You need to bring your passport with you, and have an estimate of the value of what you're insuring).

It is cheap (insuring 400.000 SEK of our belongings cost only 1.175 SEK for one year).

Bad news:

It doesn't cover much. The Swedish insurance system has pretty low limits on the maximum value for things (i.e., about 8.000 SEK max for a bike... that doesn't come close for many of ours!), and things depreciate quickly. For example, clothing is insured for its full value when it is less than 1 year old, but only 25% of its original value 3 years later. It is not set up to cover replacement value, as in the US.

I think for big-ticket items like laptops, jewelry, and fancy bikes, it may be better to get a "personal articles policy" from a US company. These are good worldwide and cover replacement cost. (It is also possible to have a separate policy for some things with Swedish insurance, but not for bikes).

Bill Pay & Banking

If you work for the University, your bank will be Nordea. Yes, you are not in the US any more, you don't get to choose your bank. (OK, technically it may be possible to switch banks after you open an account at Nordea and start getting your paycheck deposited there, but seems prohibitive in practice.)

Nordea is located at Stora Sodergatan 2 in Lund, across from the Tourist Office and H&M. It is inevitably a 30 minute wait to speak to a clerk (take a number when you walk in). Bring something to read. Try going first thing in the morning. It seems very busy between 11:30-14:00.

You will not be able to open a bank account until you have a personnummer. Believe me, I tried. Don't waste your time standing in that line! You may only open an account once, and it must be with your personnummer. They will not let you open a temporary one and add your personnummer later. (I've talked to people for whom this was not the case, but they were staying in Sweden for less than one year. If you have a work visa, they are not going to want to open an account for you until you have your personnummer. Then, your bank account number will be the same as your personnummer... seemingly without security concerns... weird!)

This creates problems if you need to pay a bill in the meantime. As near as I can tell, bills in Sweden must be payed using "bank giros." These are electronic payments sent from a bank. Once you have a bank account, you will be able to send them using online banking (I think). Until then, you will need to pay a fee to send a bank giro.

Nordea charges non-customers 150 SEK to pay a bank giro, and charges customers, 80 SEK.

I was told that you can go to the ForEx office (across from the train station) and pay a bank giro for only a 35 SEK fee. (I was told this after waiting in line for 45 minutes at Nordea, so I ended up taking care of it then and paying the higher fee). Note, at ForEx you can also change foreign currency at favorable rates, and get it back at the same rate if you don't spend it all. Handy.

Old sources say that you can pay bank giros at the post office, but I tried this, and this service is no longer offered in Sweden (since the official post offices have closed and now there are just small service centers inside the ICA stores, etc.)

To open an account, you need:
1. Your personnummer
2. A letter stating the terms of your employment (monthly salary and the length of your contract) from your employer.
3. Your passport.

They will open the account for you and give you a "device" for online banking. This is something that looks like a calculator, and that you put your ATM card into to access your bank account online. CRAZY! They will also give you a lot of printed information in Swedish.

Ask for a copy of the Nordea "Guide to Internet and telephone banking" so that you can use these systems to manage your account.

You will get your ATM card in the mail in about a week. (It is ready to use and does not need to be activated.) You will also get two different four-digit codes.
1. The PIN code ("PIN-kod") to your ATM card is hidden under a sticker that you have to peel back. This number cannot be changed (you can't choose your own PIN).
2. A log in code (personliga) to use with simplified online log in or phone banking.

To deposit a bank giro, you can either:
1. bring it to the bank, wait in line, and sign it over. You will be charged a 50SEK fee, and the money is available immediately.
or
2. Put your account number on the bank giro but do NOT sign the back, put it in a special envelope, drop in a postal mailbox, and wait several days for the money to show up in your account.
Apparently you cannot deposit money at ATMs.

Once you have an account, to pay bills:
1. Log in to the Nordea account (following the directions in the English guide)
2. Go to Betalning PG/BG and sign up for payment services (this costs 12 SEK/month; you need to select "sign" on your device and enter the response code after accepting this fee.
3. Add the recipient to your list of payees.
4. Click Betalning PG/BC and set up the payment. (You can specify monthly or recurring payments here).

The true pain in the ass is credit cards. My Chase United Visa is not widely accepted in Sweden because it doesn't have a chip and seems not to have a PIN (make sure you get mailed your PIN before you leave home, the only way to change it is through the mail). I have been repeatedly told that you can't get a Swedish credit card in Sweden until you have been working there for at least one year. Apparently there is an AmEx card for Americans living abroad that I'm going to look into. Because this means that you can only have a US credit card, which must be paid in dollars, and yet you will be making money in kronor, and it's really a pretty big nightmare. Currently to pay my US credit card bill, I have to make an international wire transfer of SEK from Nordea to USD to Bank of America, wait for the money to appear, then pay my bill from my online BofA account. Not ideal.

In any case, to make a wire transfer, you need the following things. These are for Bank of America in Northern California, more options here.

Swift code: BOFAUS3N
Wire transfer routing number: 026009593

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Air travel

It's not eco-friendly, but sometimes you gotta get home to see the fam, or get to the Mediterranean to get some freakin' sunshine. These sites will be useful:

All the regular US sites like Kayak, Orbitz, and Expedia will work.

Cophenhagen (CPH, called "Kastrup") is the closest airport, easily reached by train to/from Lund (running every 20 minutes).

They have a nice web page which includes a flight timetable and route maps by destination city so you can see all flights in/out of the airport, a page where you can look up and buy flights to/from CPH on some budget airlines, and even a free iPhone app (for info on flights and gates when you're at the airport).

The budget airlines that fly out of CPH (and don't seem to be listed on American search engines) include:
Cimber Sterling
OLT

Some helpful Euro search engines for cheap flights:
whichbudget.com
vayama.com
edreams.com

http://www.travelfinder.se/

Finally, some airlines have special pages for Sweden (customer service, mileage plus, etc.) You can buy tickets in your local currency. The page for United is here.


Getting to the airport in Malmö:

Miljö taxi costs 315 SEK 1 way from Lund. 046-30 66 04

Airport bus is 199 SEK roundtrip to Sturup from Lund. http://www.flygbussarna.se/

Friday, August 20, 2010

US Embassy in Sweden: registration, voting, etc.

Americans living abroad should register with the American embassy in their host country, so they can be contacted in case of emergency.

Create an account and register at this State Department website.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Transportation in Lund

We are embracing not having a car (for me, for the first time since I was 16!).

Interactive Europe-wide train schedules in English from DeutschBahn.

Helpful Europe-wide train & ferry schedules from Seat 61.

National SJ Swedish rail site in English. Tickets are released 90 days in advance and get more expensive the closer to departure date. Cheaper Last Minute (Sista minuten) tickets can be bought through SJ.se (but apparently only for students, under 26 or pensioners), or by auction via Tradera.se. Night trains are also much cheaper (i.e., Lund to Stockholm, 5 days in advance day train, 1100 SEK each way; about 550 for a sleeper car on the night train).

The regional train system is Oresundstag (English page here). This gets you around Southern Sweden (Malmö, Lund) as well as Cophenhagen (including the CPH airport, "Kastrup" station). This line runs from Helsingor south to Copenhagen in Denmark, across the bridge to Malmo and Lund. After Lund, the lines split into three: Landskrona/Helsingborg/Bastad/Goteberg, Vaxjo/Kalmar, and Kristianstad/Karlskrona.

Skanetrafiken runs the city and regional buses in southern Sweden, and somehow, some regional trains as well. (English site here). They offer an "Around the Sound" ticket for 2 days of travel on all train & bus & metro lines in Cophenhagen & Skane for SEK 249. You have to cross the Oresund bridge in 1 direction and the Helsingor/Helsingborg ferry in the other (they are supposed to cross off or punch out on the ticket when you cross the bridge or ferry).

They recommend the "Jojo Travelcard" if you will travel 8-10 days out of the month (unlimited travel for 30 days, around 2000 SEK/month), or else the "Jojo discount card" which you prepay in any amount, register so you can cancel it & get a refund if it's lost or stolen, and gets you 20% off the fares.

Note that if you're traveling with two people, you should get a "duo/family" ticket rather than paying for 2 adults, it will be cheaper.

Lund has a car sharing program (similar to Zipcar, etc. in the US). The website (in Swedish) is here. Agneta, the helpful woman whom I emailed, said:
  • To become a member, you pay a deposit of 2000 SEK, which you get back when you leave.
  • The annual fee (due Oct 1, covers the year starting on that date) is 500 SEK if you do some volunteer work- otherwise, 1400 SEK/year.
  • You pay 12.50/hour, c 2kr/km depending on what care you use.
  • There are 12-14 cars parked around the city.
  • Gas is about 13 SEK/L (about $7/gallon).
Avis and Hertz also have rental car agencies in Lund, behind the train station. Prices I saw were around $120/day with unlimited km's.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Telephone dialing and mobile phones

First, make sure you unlock your current phone before you leave home! It's likely to be cheapest to use it with a new SIM card you buy in Sweden.

My phone is getting old & I wanted a new iPhone 4. I was told a whole lot of different information. The woman at the Telia store said I would have to pay 6195 SEK cash and wait 5 weeks to order it- yikes!! I got out of there fast.

Fortunately, the guy at the Telenor store said that if I came back with a personnummer (working on it) and a letter from my employer showing that I made a good salary, he could sell me the iPhone at the regular price. The cost is 299SEK/mo for the minutes (at ~29 ores (cents)/minute, that's ~1000 minutes/month, which includes unlimted data) plus 200/month for the phone. So, 499 SEK/month for 2 years, at which point you own the phone and just pay for usage. Not bad considering the service alone for AT&T on my old iPhone was upwards of $80 (585 SEK)/month, plus texts!

I was not successful in calling AT&T back in the States and getting them to unlock it over the phone (not sure if this is actually possible or not).

I did not find anywhere in Lund that can unlock cell phones. I finally found a place in Malmo: Sweden PC-Phone at Admiralsgatan 16. 070-476 09 15, pc-phone@hotmail.com.

So for the time being, I bought a new SIM card (100 SEK) and got the World plan from Telenor (99 ore/min for international calls and 39 ore/min for calls within Sweden; you only pay for calls you place, not receive). When you buy this at the store, make sure they use your phone to call for you and change the menu settings so they are in English; otherwise you will not be able to call and check your balance. Apparently this cannot be done online.

Dialing phones:
Hold on to your hats here.

Let's say my cell number is: 07-123-456-78. Cell numbers are national numbers, that is, they do not have a region code.

To call this number from a Swedish phone: Dial directly, dropping the leading zero (7-12345678).
To call this number from Skype, dial the country code for Sweden (46) plus the number without the zero: 46-7-12345678.
To call this number from the US, dial 00 for international, then the country code & phone number: 00-46-7-12345678.