Five years in London

As of today I've lived in London for five years. It seems like a good time for some kind of retrospective.

I've gone back to Sweden about once a year. I appreciate the architecture of Stockholm much more now. I feel like a foreigner (I guess it helps that in Sweden I stay in someone's spare bedroom and don't have my own place). I say silly things in Swedish (I've been Dolphed).

I appreciate speaking two languages fluently, in that some expressions that come naturally in one language are much harder to express in others. And language does steer thoughts, to some degree.

Take "övervakning" (surveillance) as an example. In English it sounds like "survey", but in Swedish it's closer to "over watching" (well, not really, but the word "over" is part of it). As in "watching from above". A co-worker found a sign in German that said "videoüberwachung" funny, because to him it sounded like it meant "videos are being super-watched", which did not occur to me as a Swedish and partial German-speaker.

Taxes. OMG Taxes. I had to do a self-assessment this year, which means I couldn't just squint at what HMRC sent me and go "uh... yeah that sounds about right" and do nothing. I had to actually run the numbers myself this year. So I got an accountant. The accountant was expensive. The back was taxes three times as expensive. But at least I've moved my tax liability for my savings and investments in Sweden to instead be in the UK. I am not a tax adviser, and I barely understand the annotated filled-in tax form my accountant gave me, but this appears to be beneficial to me.

What's still different about London:

• No mobile coverage on the tube. This is still crazy.
• Bank websites are still shockingly stuck in the past.
• I don't feel like I've fully internalized the value of the British pound. It doesn't help that all the prices are different here (food is cheaper, rent much more expensive) and that I'm making much more money here than I did in Sweden.
• Weekly scam phone calls: PPI protection and "We've been told you had an accident in the last few months, is that right?"
• Ok, so PPI protection is not a scam, but they won't stop calling even if you tell them "I was not in the country when this settlement happened. This does not apply to me. Please take me off your list."
• If you get the "accident" one, just ask "what address or name do you have on file for this accident?". They will hang up on you if you ask that.

What's different about Sweden:

• Why does a country of only ~10M people have their own language?
• I miss snow. Don't let the locals fool you, they don't really have winter and don't actually get any snow.
• "What do they know of England, who only England know" applies to Sweden too.
• Jantelagen is stupid.

My plans now:

• Get Permanent Residence Card. You can get this after 5 years and holding it for a year is a prerequisite for applying for citizenship. (if you are non-EU citizen you instead apply for Indefinite Leave to Stay (ILS).
• Continuing to live and work here.