Scandinavians

[Stabu 0]

Yey, my case for removing of conditions was approved today

Good for you . Can you apply for citizenship next year or will that have to wait? (I'm not sure about how K-visas function, I know I can apply for a citizenship 2010.)

[Stabu 0]

Been posting on VJ for about 1 year now....never really noticed this forum until now. I'm just curious...to those who're already in the U.S. what do you miss most about back home??

I don't miss many things from Finland that much. But then again I've only been here for four months... Still, I don't think I'm ever going to witness a culture shock since I've been quite well pre-adapted to American life. Also I never really thought that things in here are so great either... I dunno, here's my short list of things I miss:

- My little dog, a miniature Schnauzer

- High fructose corn syrup free chocolate (Hersey's btw. sell "real chocolate" with real sugar only)

- High fructose corn syrup free soda (can be found from smaller soda manufacturers or in some stores as "Mexican coke" or "Jewish coke")

- Other stuff without damn high fructose corn syrup (e.g. Breyer's ice-cream is about the only ice-cream with real sugar only, LU brand cookies don't have it either, neither do most candy you find on the so called "Brittish aisle"). I really dislike that you find HFCS in stuff like ketchup etc. I always have to go to great lengths to avoid it. The good thing is that ones you check out the brands you can always safely pick them up without having to eat that nasty stuff.

- People that drive safely, although the roads are neat and wide with multiple lanes and the cars are new and safe etc. I still do freak out myself every ones in a while, especially when entering high ways

- Salmikki (very close to the Dannish saltlakrids)

- Rye bread (nearly impossible to get)

- Atheism, I really liked how atheistic Finns are and how even those who believe in god keep it to themselves and tend to have a "meh."-attitude towards religion. In here you run into deeply religious people all the time. The only good thing is that they don't have a state church in here like they do in Finland...

In general I'm way happier in here than I ever was in Finland. I love the fact that you can shop 24/7 and that you get a high wage. I also love the quite low taxes and that I don't have to pay for all those "great government ideas" that I don't support and don't use at all anyway...

[nin 1]

You can get rye bread mix at IKEA!

[SanDan 0]

Hi there everyone

Here's my list:

Rundstykker

Real cheeses - I'm sick and tired of cheddar

Real butter

Chocolate that doesn't taste 'fake'

Free healthcare and education

People that can actually drive

People that doesn't think Denmark is the capital of Sweden!!

Chocolate and good cheese are on top of my list too. You can get good European chocolate from quite a few super markets here though and some stores have a pretty good international cheese selection. The good ones naturally cost more... Utah doesn't seem to be big on dairy products. I miss e.g. quark and all the great light cooking creams from back home. I made quark myself once but let's just say that wasn't a success.. Utahns are scary drivers too. I hate driving on the freeway or in rush hour traffic. That's because of all the crazy people out there who supposedly have a driver's license Oh and btw, one of my coworkers thought Finland was the capital of Denmark

- Salmikki (very close to the Dannish saltlakrids)

- Rye bread (nearly impossible to get)

Yup, I have my mum send me a bag of salmiakki every once in a while. Luckily the local Dutch store has "liitulakuja"...*drools* I sometimes get rye bread from the Russian bakery. It's not quite the same but it does the trick for me.

You can get rye bread mix at IKEA!

I LOVE going to Ikea. I'm more interested in the food market than the furniture though I always stack up on Marabou chocolate, lingonsaft, pärlsocker (for baking), vaniljsocker (for baking), vaniljsås etc. Can't get al the good stuff that cheap anywhere else here.

Can you apply for citizenship next year or will that have to wait? (I'm not sure about how K-visas function, I know I can apply for a citizenship 2010.)

I sure can. I'm thinking I'll wait for at least 2 years though. I need a break from the immigration stuff

Edited March 17, 2008 by SanDan

[The Robinsons 0]

I LOVE going to Ikea. I'm more interested in the food market than the furniture though I always stack up on Marabou chocolate, lingonsaft, pärlsocker (for baking), vaniljsocker (for baking), vaniljsås etc. Can't get al the good stuff that cheap anywhere else here.

Marabou About my favorite chocolate in the world!! Why oh why dear God is there not an IKEA in North Carolina??!! I love IKEA by the way. Back home my entire apartment was straight out of IKEA.

None of the stores around here really sell anything Scandinavian. Except Danish cookies which are kinda nasty. Oh well I once saw 'Danish' cheese at a Sam's Club but we don't have a membership so.....

Oh and yes drivers over here SUCK! I'm tired of people pulling out in front of me on the highway and hitting my car!

As for the religion part. I married into a family with not 1 but 2 preachers. Needless to say I miss people keeping their religion to themself - what ever little they have in Denmark.

[nin 1]

The food section alone is worth the trip "To the mothership"

The furniture is for viewing, not buying. It brings back memories of studentkorridorsliv when we used to have "put-furniture-together parties" and get lots of hardware left over that no one could find a reason to use

[Stabu 0]

I don't bother using quotes now, since I will be replying to a lot of what you guys said at random.

First I don't fully get it why you guys have had such a trouble finding good cheese? Yes, the cheese in the cheese aisle consists of 100-different types of cheddar and nothing else, but most stores seem to have a separate aisle. Our current store (Stop and Shop, a chain that exists only in Northern New England) has mozzarella, parmesan, pepper cheese, blue cheese and brie at least, which means pretty much all the cheeses we commonly use. When you add cheddar to the mix to use instead of Edam or Olterman (or other common cheese) you have pretty much all that you need . Or am I missing something in here?

We don't have an Ikea in New Hampshire either, which is rather strange considering the fact that this is one of the least taxed state in the union (the only one without an income, or a sales tax) and Ikea tends to like those kinds of places . The closest Ikea is south of Boston, about 2 and a half hours drive away. We go there occasionally to buy furniture and to buy some candy, preserve and müsli. I especially love the gooseberry (karviainen/krusbär) preserve. I'm a little sad that the cloudberry preserve they sell still has stones in it, it really sucks. My wife is very fund of the lingonberry one which she says tastes more authenthic than the ones on sale in here. It may be that the lingonberry preserves in our local store have that damned corn syrup again . Our Ikea also had a lady who could speak real Swedish, it was really pleasent and I do love it how all the books on their shelfs are Swedish. I could just use Ikea as a library actually . It's also strange how much better the Ikea assembled furniture is in comparison to the same found in say Tarkeg or Wallmart. Our assembled furniture from these stores always look like a bunch of retards would have done the handy work . Albeit neither one of us is very good with handywork, the result should still look better. Like our bookshelf is bent in more than one way and it looks like it could fall over any second .

My wife doesn't have the rye mix, but she has real rye flower which she mixes into almost any food she makes instead of mixing wheat flower only, so I do get my fair share of rye (of course it's not the same). I'm a little sceptical towards the rye bread. Has anyone of you tried this? Does it work well? I've heard that real rye bread is extremely hard to make...

There's also a scandinavian store in Concord (about a half an hour from here) but it's fairly expensive and sells mostly Swedish and Norweigian cooking equipment.

[Stabu 0]

*Hump* *hump*

...sorry

...I meant to bump it

[Alexandra_v 0]

Anyone here?

[Krepander 0]

Hei to all Fellow Scandahuvians!

I'm a Finnish girl who's marrying her American (well Finnish-American by blood;) fiancee next month. We're filing for a K-3 visa. This site and especially you guyses posts have already proved very useful and we hope to share our fun times with visa process here and get and offer advice and support. If anyone's situated in the Puget Sound area, let me know, as that's where my future hubby lives.

Happy New Year To All

(hope I posted this the right way it's a little confusing)

Hei hei.

I am Norwegian, hubby is American. He is from Seattle and I lived there for a year when I met him. Now we live in Norway but in a few years we will move back (most likely). The Pacific Northwest is beautiful. Good luck with your visa application!

[Wendy+Greger 0]

Hi, I am here in U.S. and my Fiance is in Malmo, Sweden. We are miserable and I hope this goes as quickly and smoothly as possible.

[Alexandra_v 0]

Just have faith in god! And everything will go just fine!

I wish you good luck !!!

[Wendy+Greger 0]

Thanks! I just wish I could have sent it to the VSC instead of CSC! What a difference!

[Mr.Bean 0]

Hi im new to this forum. i have the love of my life over in finland. im looking for any information that would help to bring us together. Were looking for any kind of advice for you guys out there who have done this before. thanks in advance for any help you can give.

[Mrs.Bean 0]

Hi im new to this forum. i have the love of my life over in finland. im looking for any information that would help to bring us together. Were looking for any kind of advice for you guys out there who have done this before. thanks in advance for any help you can give.

And that would be me...

Heippa kaikille munki puolesta! Tässä nyt lähinnä mietitään, että mitä tehtäis ja miten edettäis. Näyttää hirveeltä koko prosessi, huh huh... Lykkyä tykö kaikille!