Happy (late) Midsommar!

Hey y'all!

Glad midsommar to you all that celebrated midsommar this past weekend! I heard that the weather was typical Swedish (rainy), but I hope the celebrations were good anyway! To be honest, I had actually totally forgotten about that it was Midsommar until the same day.... Charles and I "celebrated" by going to a Stephen King based horror movie "1408". :)

More than three weeks have passed since I last updated my blog. I can't believe how time flies! On Friday I will have worked for a whole month and this weekend Charles and I will have officially been living in Atlanta for two months!

Let me tell you a little bit more about my job. The last time I wrote, I had only worked for a day. I can now, after 3 weeks, confirm that I am really enjoying my new job working in an audit firm. What I like most about it is the exposure to different companies and different types of companies, companies that are going well and some that go less well. Fortunately I have a lot of use of my prior accounting experience (from the "other side" as they say). It's the calm season at the firm, so I have time to learn and really get to know the different aspects of the job. During the low season everyone works with Tax Returns, tax returns mainly for Foreign Corporations, US Corporations, Parterships and Individuals (mainly for non US residents). I can proudly announce that I completed my first foreign corporation tax return on my own today! Of course, it will be reviewed by one of the CPA's of my team and I definitely will have many corrections to make... but still! :) So that's basically what I'm doing... analyzing the financial statements of a companies and preparing the tax specific statements before doing the actual tax return, sounds great, huh? Hihi... I love it and then fact that I get to speak German everyday makes me love it even more!

Well, y'all it's getting late and do I need my eight hours of sleep. I'll get back to you soon! Take care!

Kram!

One month in Atlanta

Hey!

I have officially been living in Atlanta for a month now. And I can happily say that both Charles and I are starting to feel at home now.

Last week I spent my last week in "freedom" before starting my new job at Rödl & Partner. Honestly, I didn't do much, except for shopping, laying at the pool and being cozy with Casey (our cat). So, Friday was my first day at work. Suprisingly I wasn't as nervous as I thought I was going to be. I was mainly nervous about not getting there on time... which ended up at me being there ½ hour early. :) My first day wasn't very exicting though, I mainly met with all my collegues, had orientation about the company and about the benefits and was invited to a nice lunch with another woman (she's about my age) who also started on Friday and some collegues. So after Friday, I wouldn't have been able to tell you much about the job its self. But what I can tell you is that I really believe that I have found a wonderful company to work for. The firm has about 40 professionals, about half of the people are around my age (around 30 and under) and about half of the people are German (there's also one Romanian and one Italian), I believe that we are also half women and half men. The atmosphere is very easy going and family like, everybody makes sure that you feel welcome and part of the team. So even though I didn't have much of a feeling about the actual job after work on Friday, I definitely felt that this is a company where I will fit in well. After work, Charles and I "celebrated" my first day and his second week with ordering pizza, drinking Buds and falling asleep at 10.00 pm. :)

The weekend was pretty easy going. On Saturday, I took the opportunity to shop for furniture for the balcony and went to explore a huge french antique store, while Charles was at the university working with his study group. In the evening we experienced our first night out in Atlanta. We met up with some of Charles classmates at a great latin club called Loca Luna in downtown. Wow, talk about a place with great music, lots of latinos and just a wonderful atmosphere... everybody happy, dancing and drinking in the pre-summer heat. On Sunday, while Charles was busy studying (poor him, he really studies constantly), I kept myself busy being the woman and the man of the house and enjoyed the afternoon laying in the sun at pool.

Today was my second day at work and I left from home 15 minutes later than last time and managed to be there just on time. Until we have a better solution, I am driving Charles to the university in the morning and continuing to work and picking him up afterwards, unless he gets a ride. It takes me about 40 minutes to get to work, even though the distance is only 13 kilometers (8 miles). Audit season (a.k.a. "busy season") at the firm is primarily January to the middle of April, so from the middle of April until preparations start at the end of the year, everyone basically works with tax returns; individual, corporate and partnerships. So that's what I'll be learning and doing for the next 6 month period. Today I had tutoring for the tax system that we use, which I was very happy for because now I can actually start doing something. (Anybody who knows me and my working habits, knows that I hate having to little to do.) I've basically gone through the tax return process with a tutorer today and also studied a finished tax return on my own, to get to know the system and how things work. I tell you one thing... I have a lot to learn! If any country would be awarded for having the most complicated tax system in the world, I do honestly believe that USA would win first prize. But, who knows... if you ask me again in two months I might just say that it's a piece of cake. :) So overall I feel quite satisfied about my second day at work and I'm actually looking forward to going back tomorrow again!

I'm sorry that I don't have any pictures to post this time... but I'll try to take some snap shots during the week. Lots of hugs and kisses to you all!

Getting a job and getting a cat

Hello there!

It's me again! I know that it took a while for me to enter my second entry... but my past week wasn't as easy going as I thought it was going to be, as I thought last weekend. So instead of telling you about all the wonderful sightseeing I thought I would've done, I'll go ahead and tell you about my past week. :)

The first half of the week I spent preparing job interviews, going to job interviews and writing thank you letter for previous interviews. I went through 6 interviews this week, that makes a total of 10 interviews in a week. In the beginning I was quite nervous, because I really haven't interviewed since I first started working for Luna in 2001. But thanks to some preperation help from a recruiter I was able to catch the employers' attention. By Wednesday this week I recieved 2 great offers and on Thursday I accepted the Staff Accountant position at the international proffessional services firm Rödl & Partner (mainly a CPA firm = revisionsbyrå). What made this opportunity so interesting for me is the fact that the firms origins are German and therefore many of the clients and my collegues will be German. For me it's simply a dream job to have the possiblity to combine both accounting and German. Anyway I'll be starting my new job in downtown Atlanta on June 1st, that's this coming Friday. For the first 2 weeks I will go through a planned introduction and I have a mentor assigned to me. I must say that I very excited about starting this new job, in a new company and with lots of new international people!

So except for driving Charles to school and picking him up every day (we still haven't organized how he will be taking himself to school, because I will be the master of the car :) ) my time has been focused on the job situation. On Friday I actually treated myself to some shopping at Lenox Square. I didn't buy very much, I think I was a little overwhelmed by all the great shops and all the sales. To anyone who is looking for some great shopping - you'd better get over here! Friday evening I joined Charles with some of his classmates at a nice bar, where I enjoyed some great iced tea (I was driving) out on the terasse in the 80 degree warm air. That is something that I just love here... and that's the heat. During the days it's about 85 degrees (30 C) with clear skyes and a beaming sun and in the evenings it stays around 75 degrees (25 C). I know that summer has hardly started here and it's going to get very very hot, but luckily we do have an air conditioner. :) That's me with our Ford Focus.

After Friday, Charles and I decided to go to a couple of animal shelters to look for a cat who needed a new home. We both really wanted a cat, we would actually love to have a dog as well but that will definitely have to wait. There are so many animal shelters in Atlanta, you can't even imagine. We finally visited 3 shelters and went home with a pretty good idea of which one we wanted to take home. We agreed that we would adopt Casey the next day, a shy little 1 year old grey-brown tabby, who was hiding at the top of a shelf at the Atlanta Pet Rescue Center. So after speaking to one of the volunteers this morning we agreed to come and pick Casey up. Casey (who by the way has had several different names since we got her, but I think we've finally decided for Casey) seems to just love it here with us. The only thing that gets me a little stressed out is the fact that cats usually live until they're about 15 years old.... and if Casey is about a year old that means that she will theoretically live until I'm 43 years old!!!! It's that crazy?!? I know I'm a little paranoid... :) Well, the main thing is that Casey will be a great pet companion and so far it's promissing. Here a couple of pictures from our drive to the animal shelters and back at home with Casey.






















Well I hope you all had a great weekend and had the opportunity to enjoy some spring weather. I sure need to get out in the sun a little more this week! Talk to you soon and take care!

Atlanta here I come!

Hello everyone!

Finally, I have gotten around to creating my new blogg. As most of you already know, Charles and I moved to Atlanta, Georgia on May 2nd. Two and a half weeks have past since then, but oooh what crazy weeks they have been. This is acutally the first day that we have been able to relax a bit and actually catch up with our jetlag (we slept 11 hours last night). :)

(For those of you who don't know why we moved to Atlanta... Charles was accepted to an MBA program at Emory University in Atlanta in the middle of March. Once he had been accepted we started discussing what we should do, go to Atlanta together to start a whole new life or stay in Sweden and hope that Charles would learn Swedish and find a job there. As you already know, we decided for the first alternative... even though it was a very tough decision to leave my wonderful family and friends and a great job.)

So I'm sure you all are wondering why I haven't written you or called you yet... surely she has had the time... it has gone more than 2 weeks!!! Well, after finding an apartment, getting bank accounts, getting customer accounts with the gas company and the power company, extending the hotel because our apartment was not ready, searching for the best cell phone deal, buying cell phones, moving into the apartment with only our 4 suitcases, shopping for the most necessary things for the apartment (air matress, plates and glasses), running back and forth with our rental car to the nearst Panera Bread Co. to have internet access, ordering a set up for telephone, internet and cable TV, looking for furniture (went to IKEA, of course), Charles is starting his introduction at Emory, buying some used furniture from a girl who just finished the same program as Charles (but we have to wait a week to pick up the furniture), I recieve phone calls from recruiters wondering if I'm still looking for a job and setting up meetings, going to welcome dinner with the international students in Charles class, looking for a used car to buy, finally internet has been hooked up, buy a TV, found a used car we like but the money wire hasn't arrived yet, looking for more used cars (still no money), renting Uhaul to pick up furniture, exploring Target almost everyday, finally recieved money wire, went directly to Carmax and bought a Ford Focus barely before closing hour, I started going to interviews with recruiters and directly with companies... about then is when Charles and I fell asleep (still on our air matress) at 10:00 p.m. last night and woke up 11 hours later, happy that we finally could relax a little. So even though I know that there are no excuses for not emailing or calling you all, but I have been quite busy. :)

So, anyway to give you a little more details, we now live a The Park at Briarcliff (not far from Emory University on the east side of Atlanta). It is a closed community, meaning that we need a card to get through the gate, and has a very nice peaceful atmosphere, lots of trees and space between the buildings.









There's a nice pool with a beach volleyball court, tennis courts, a small gym and a nice little lake.










I think I'll wrap things up for this time. Next time, I'll try to give you an idea about how life is in Atlanta, now that we feel pretty settled down.

Kram, Gloria