Rough Neighborhood

Trike on Odengatan

Seen on Odengatan. Don’t forget to lock up your tricycle!

Is my name Swedish?

Since my first month in Stockholm, I’ve known that my first name is quite a common name in Sweden (though pronounced differently…a “y” sound for the “j” and with two syllables). And my middle name isn’t unheard of either in Sweden. But if you asked me this: in which non-English-speaking country does “Franklin” have the highest rate of occurrence, I would not have guessed Sweden! Yet it’s true. Check it out for yourself.

By occurrences per million, the U.S. and Australia lead the pack at about 400, and New Zealand and the U.K. are close behind in the low 300’s. But then after Ireland and Canada, around 100, the next one is Sweden, with about 37 people per million sharing my surname. Where are these people? And (yikes!) is there a genuinely Swedish Joel Franklin running around somewhere? That just won’t do.

One year and counting…

Today marks the four-year anniversary of my first arrival in Stockholm. Between the first stay of a bit more than six months, and this stay that’s been about six months (once you deduct the 3 weeks I was just gone for the holidays), I’ve basically been in Stockholm for a total of one year. So just to make things easy on myself, for accounting purposes, I’m marking this day as the day I had lived here for one year.

Now for nostalgia’s sake, here’s a look back at the travelogue post from that day of my arrival in Stockholm the first time around…

The first bona fide* snow

(*pronounced the American way, “bonah faihd“)

Yesterday, from early morning until a bit after noon, we had big, white, fluffy flakes of snow, leaving a nice, light dusting of white everywhere. The view from my office window yesterday afternoon:

First Snow

It’s snowing in Stockholm. The view out my window:

It’s not really a nice snow – mixed with rain, and it’ll melt by morning.