Has anyone come across this bit of info yet:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2014/08/28/u-s-hikes-fee-to-renounce-citizenship-by-422/

Not sure if OK to post links on here so in case it gets removed, its an article about a HUGE increase in fees to renounce US citizenship. I know not all of us are seeking to do this but for those that are its bad news. This financial punishment of US expats is getting worse. Trying to fix the stats by throwing more taxes and fees at us will only make more people leave.

Also BunBun85, do you happen to know if we still have to go through this process when/if we become Norwegian citizens since I think its suppose to automatically cancel?

I have a little to say about Sweden! It's so hard to find modern conveniences in Swedish stores! I miss Walmart and Target, you can just walk in and get pretty much everything you need under one roof and it's not so expensive usually and you have a WIDE selection! In Sweden all the stores are small unless you travel a bit and go to a bigger store and even then the selection is always pretty small.

I cooked Thanksgiving dinner (for the first time in my LIFE) last year for my boyfriend and his whole family, a whopping 9 people including myself and boyfriend. It was hard to find anything I needed in the selection in stores! In the US there are a lot more shortcuts you can take like cranberry sauce in the can, which tastes delicious IMO lol, also pumpkin puree in a can would have been nice. I'm sure it was a little healthier since I had to make everything myself but back then I wasn't worried about "healthy" food or my weight. I had to learn how to: cook 2 turkeys, make my own gravy (miss the good old heinz turkey gravy!), make my own stuffing!, make my own cranberry sauce and how to puree a pumpkin and then make pumpkin pie and also had to learn how to make a "graham cracker" crust for my chocolate pie. Mind you, there aren't actually graham crackers in Sweden as far as I could find so it was a "digestiv kex" crust, really. Came out good though!

It's also quite annoying when I hang out with my boyfriends friends and their girlfriends, EVERYONE can speak perfectly good english except for 1 girl, she speaks much less english. Do they speak english though? Nope! Everyone thinks their english is terrible and are afraid to speak, even after they are drunk they rarely speak to me and usually keep their convos swedish and I just sit there like, "why am I even here?". One of his friends is the exception though, we have the same exact conversation every time I go with them to hangout, he's always drunk and forgets we've had like exactly the same conversations before but I don't even care because at least someone is making an effort to talk to me, lol.

Also, IMO, swedish is a difficult language to learn for english speakers. Or maybe just for me! I went to SFI (swedish for immigrants) and learned alot from the intro and from my first course teacher in 3C, then when I tested and passed into 4C the teacher was just awful and taught us next to nothing. At that point I just stopped going because I could learn more at home if I felt like doing it. Also for all of the limited swedish I did learn, I can not understand a single freaking word when someone actually Swedish speaks to me in swedish. Dunno if any other expats in Sweden or anywhere experience this too. All the teachers I had in SFI were finnish and swedish was their second language (as in Finland they teach you finnish and swedish, in Sweden they teach you swedish and english in school). They spoke quite clearly in Swedish and at a pace where you could understand their words. When you meet a real swede or even a finnish-swede who assumes you know swedish, they talk SO fast I usually have to ask them to repeat or ask if they can ask again in english! Which I feel is very rude at me but I swear it takes my brain like 2 minutes of going over what was said to actually figure out the individual words.

The one thing I have to look forward to is I won't be stuck in Sweden forever! My bf absolutely loved the US when we visited together, especially Florida. After his uni studies we plan to move to the US together and really start our lives there.

@lugiagirl249 I've also noticed this lack of inventory control in Sweden! Particularly for me I noticed it at the dentist office in my town! I had to get a bit of work done there due to never having dental insurance in the US and cavities being untreated by the cheap medicaid type dentists in the US for years and years. So I went to the dentist Quite often for the first year I was here in Sweden and half the time they would run out of paper towels in the bathroom or toilet paper. When I worked at a store in the US we always had like HUGE boxes of all bathroom supplies and cleaning supplies always stocked. I guess in Sweden they just really don't pay attention to keeping things stocked! Also like when they have a sale in, let's say ICA, on tuna fish cans, they are instantly sold out and they make no effort to restock so they can sell more! I visit my local ICA almost every day (walking there and back is almost a mile so it's a great way to add a little extra exercise for me with power-walking!) and in the past 2 weeks they have not bothered stocking up on tuna again!