12th anniversary of my arrival to stockholm

12 years ago today I arrived in Sweden to what I officially consider my immigration day. Chapters were closed in Budapest and I had just spent over two months back in Boston after a 2+year absence. Here I was. Officially. Permanently. Or as it's said in Sweden...until further notice.

I shared a taxi from Arlanda and the other guy got out at the Grand Hotel. I was originally focused primarily on the encroaching twilight at 3.30pm, but I saw that Kunsträdgården, the large park square in central Stockholm, was fenced off.

The driver informed me that the police barricades were a result of the anticipated neo-nazi demonstrators who would convene at the base of the Karl XXII statue, their adopted mascot.

That made me smirk. How ironic that my "immigration day" to Sweden would coincide with "skinhead day" as I have come to call it.

12 years on the demonstrations in Stockholm have moved to Salem (a suburb) and to another date (December 9). The anti-immigrant sentiment seems more subdued today, but there are hints of a relapse into blaming immigration for growing social ills.

All in all. I am happy as a resident of Stockholm.