Eric Morales never set out to live in Scandinavia. He wasn’t dreaming of fika breaks, long winters, or trying to wrap his tongue around words like sjuksköterska. But in 2015, a job opportunity in Stockholm changed all of that. He and his wife Leslie packed up their lives in New York and moved to the Swedish capital, where they spent the next six years traveling, navigating the quirks of the city’s culture, and meeting, as he puts it, “wonderfully, delightfully weird” people. During an interview with Open Oslo in 2025, he shared his humorous take on life in Stockholm, the quest for the perfect burger, and a spicy dog named Bigby.
Settling in—the logistics, successes and unfounded fears
Most people who travel to Scandinavia rave about the beautiful scenery, clean cities, magical summer nights, and the high price of, well, nearly everything. Of course, what separates vacationing there and living there is a whole lot of logistics, like finding a place to live, navigating the healthcare system, setting up a bank account, and more. Morales said he was braced for a bureaucratic nightmare, but the experience was easier than expected. “Finding an apartment in Stockholm can be tough,” he said. “Stockholm is a really rent-controlled market, which means it’s not easy to find apartments if you’re not Swedish.” His employer, a U.S.-based IT company, provided a moving consultant who helped with finding housing and getting settled, “which was great,” he added. They first moved to Östermalm in the city’s northwest before settling southwest of the city in Hammarby Sjöstad, a short walk to the T-bana (metro) and only a 20-minute commute to the city center. “That’s the beautiful thing about so many Nordic cities,” he said. “They’re so small and compact and easy to get around.”
He also navigated the process of bringing his small dog, the aforementioned Bigby—described by Morales as small in stature but big in personality, “the Kevin Hart of dogs”—to Sweden, something that required a lot of advance planning. “We were super stressed out about it,” he said. “We basically adopted our dog off a van in Manhattan. He was a stray and we’d had him for maybe a year before we decided to take him to Stockholm, and so we were reading all the rules and trying to wrap our heads around the requirements. We had to get a vet check, we had to get him certain shots in a certain order, he had to get a Euro chip, which is different than the North American chip, and we had to time it all correctly. It’s also a long flight from JFK to Stockholm, even though we flew direct, so the poor guy has been in a bag for nine hours,” Morales recalled.
“We landed in Stockholm and we were a little concerned, what if they put him in quarantine, what if we did all the shots in the wrong order? We go to the customs desk, we have all these conspicuous bags, and this dog that’s freaking out—and there’s nobody there. So we ring the bell and this Swedish guy ambles over and, he was like ‘hej hej!’ We tell him, ‘We’re moving here, and we have our dog, and please let me know what the process is,’ and he looks at us, stamps a paper, and says ‘Välkommen till Sverige’ and he just turns right back around and then walks away in the other direction and that was it.” Morales laughed that he “could have waltzed right into the country,” but he’s glad to have done it the legal way, and relieved that the process was so straightforward when they arrived.
Similarly, he had positive things to say about his experiences with Swedish healthcare. “I had an exceptional experience with the healthcare system,” he said. “I’m a Type 1 diabetic, so there are annoying things that I have to do, and all of these medical devices and supplies that I have to constantly get. Purely from that context, regardless of how bureaucratic the process can be, the fact that it’s effectively free is really special,” he said. “I was an overpaid tech worker, but the same would be true for anyone, including those in lower paid roles, and without the crippling costs associated in some countries. I certainly didn’t take that for granted.”
He said he did experience some scenarios that were a little frustrating, like waiting longer for some kinds of non-emergency care, and differences in expectations around customer service, but he discovered a “hack” that he shares with others as a humorous story. “I hope I don’t offend anyone who’s from the Nordics,” he smiled, “but if you’re willing to make a Swedish person or a Norwegian person mildly uncomfortable for like 30 seconds, you can almost always get what you need.” He gave an example of asking to see a specialist in a hospital and being offered an appointment seven months out. “I’d reply with ‘Oh, thank you so much, that’s really kind, but it would be really helpful if I could see them in two weeks,’” he said. Being consistently kind and gracious, while thanking them for “making an exception,” would result in getting that exception, he said, “almost every time.”
Cultural surprises and the spouse experience
Morales and his wife both have fond memories of life in Stockholm, and felt they were pretty successful at creating a network of friends in the city. He fully admits, however, that his ability to quickly connect with his English-speaking colleagues in Scandinavia is a contrast to Leslie’s experience as a “trailing” spouse who moved in support of his career. Despite working as an architect in the U.S., the differences in the education and training process meant that she was unable to be a working architect in Sweden. “She was able to enter the field eventually because she had the expertise, but she wasn’t able to necessarily exercise all her skills. That’s just what was available for her,” he said. “And also, the business language is not necessarily English, like it was for me. She had a tougher time.”
She enrolled in Swedish classes and found that to be a very positive experience, not only as a way to learn the language, but also for meeting new friends and integrating into society. “That actually introduced her to people in a very similar position,” Morales said. “Some of our closest friends in Sweden were folks she met in those classes.”
As most internationals will attest, moving to a new country is almost guaranteed to result in a few funny misunderstandings that are told and retold for years. Morales recalled establishing his first Swedish bank account about two weeks after arriving in the country, and asking the banker to create a joint checking account with his wife. “He looks at me and goes, ‘Sir, are you sure?’ I said, ‘What do you mean, is there an alternative? Like a different type of account in the Nordics?’”
The banker replied “If you do that, she’ll have access to all your money,” Morales said. “I was like, ‘Yeah that’s the idea. We’re married,’” he chuckled. “He was being so earnest and sincere, and I wondered if it was a language barrier or something. Then, he looked like he had some sort of realization, and he said, ‘Oh, oh, okay, because you see, in Sweden, women work.’ It wasn’t like some sort of shot across the bow—he was really like, ‘Over here, everyone has their own accounts.’ You know, you get a bank account when you have a job. We definitely chuckled about that.”
Finding reminders of home
While Morales and his wife enthusiastically embraced Swedish culture and all that Scandinavia had to offer, a bit of homesickness is all but inevitable after an international move. They found small reminders of home and created new routines that helped them feel connected to their past lives. One of their favorite discoveries was the unexpected presence of Brooklyn Brewery beer in Stockholm. “We had previously lived near the Brooklyn Brewery in New York, and it was just part of our weekend routine to stop by,” Morales said. “It turns out that Brooklyn Brewery’s second largest market at the time was the Nordics. We learned that they have a subsidiary called Nya Carnegiebryggeriet, that was basically founded in an old lightbulb factory. It was the most hipster story you can imagine, and it’s like a five-block walk from our apartment, so we would go there all the time. It was a fun weekend afternoon thing that we used to do when we were living in New York, and it felt like this American ritual for us.”
Something else he did to “get an American vibe,” is seek out foods that reminded him of home. “My number one thing to feel connected, was this place that had big, egregiously overpriced, American-style burgers,” he said. Morales and his wife created a sort of tradition to scour the city for familiar foods, no matter how silly or out of place. “We would seek out food that has no reason to be good in northern Europe,” he laughed. “Like, what was the best taco place we could find? What’s the best burger place we could find? And those were challenging tasks, but we were able to find places we enjoyed.”
Fond memories and future possibilities
Reflecting on his time in Scandinavia, and some of the social and political struggles that took place across Sweden and the rest of Europe during that period, Morales acknowledged that the experience wasn’t without its difficulties. “It wasn’t a hundred percent sunshine and roses all the time,” he admitted. “But the net experience is that these are some of the best years of my entire life. Getting to live there, travel there, and meet some of these wonderfully, adorably weird people in this part of the world—it was incredible.”
He and his wife still talk about their time in Sweden often. “Maybe we can go back one day. Maybe we’ll retire there, figure out a way to do it,” he mused. “We’re not citizens, but maybe we can elbow our way back in. Who knows?”
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