Autumn painting... Swedish colors...

On Sunday, I woke up at 7am. Laundry was waiting for me. In Sweden, you will not find washing machine in the flat\house. Only in the special places where you wash and dry your clothes,... it is a real process. The only empty slot I got was Sunday 7am.

Since I had started day very early, I was curious to know what else can be interesting to know about Sweden. Then I did small research.

• Sweden is the 5th largest European country, in terms of land area, after Russia, Ukraine, France and Spain.
• Some of the greatest pop bands and singers are Swedish, viz. Abba, Roxette, Ace of Base, A*Teens, The Cardigans, Robyn, etc.
• Sweden has the highest number of McDonald restaurants, per capita, in Europe.
• Sweden is second most technologically advanced country in Europe.
• Sweden ranked second in the European Union and fifth in the world, in terms of Human Development Index, in 2006.
• The first ice hotel of the world was built near the village of Jukkasjärvi, in Kiruna district of Sweden check it out here.

• The largest shopping mall of Europe is ‘Nordstan’, in Gothenburg.
• The proportion of personal computers, per capita, in Sweden is the highest in Europe.
• The favorite dish of Swedes usually comprises of meatballs, with potatoes and lingo berry sauce.
• The strongest girl in the world is Swedish! Pippi Longstocking :)
• Sweden is the land of the Midnight Sun! Every year, Swedes celebrate Midsummer (Midsommar) on the twenty-third of June. On this longest day, in many parts of Sweden the sun never sets.
• As of 2004 you can pay your Swedish taxes by sending an SMS message from your cell phone.
• You can take sick leave during your vacation if you are ill.
• Parents get a total of 13 months of paid maternity leave and the father is required to take at least 1 month of it.
• Parental leave can be used to take off time for parenting classes before your child is born.
• Parents can save up their maternity leave for more than 5 years (i.e., use it for doctor's appointments, school visit days, etc.).
• The sun rises at 3.30am in the summer, The sun sets at 3.30pm in the winter.
• Christmas is celebrated on the evening of the 24th. The father always goes out to buy a newspaper and while he is gone Santa arrives (in person) to deliver presents.
• Recycling is taken so seriously that one company (FTI) is trying to put up video cameras to make sure people sort their recyclables correctly. (June 2006)
• Learning to speak Swedish is frustrating becaues everyone in Sweden already speaks better English than you will ever speak Swedish.
• Santa Clause comes from Laponia, it is in Sweden.
• Aurora borealis, Northern light here.

Week went so fast and next had already started.

Autumn is beautiful in Stockholm. Colors and paintings are taking you so magically to come outside. You could see leaf falling from the tree, dancing on the wind.


From the window of the muffin bakery you could see people enjoying the weekend, doing their shopping, meeting friends. Muffin and late macchiato were so tasty and delicious. Enjoying with friends brought special feeling and fulfillment that afternoon. It was a moment, meaningful conversation, people, place, don’t know, but I felt so nice. Next day I was so cheerful...














Some time last week, by chance, I found a blog post about change:
http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/bregman/2009/10/i-lost-18-pounds-in.html

It made me think about 'time', i guess, sometimes it goes so fast, you see one picture in front of you, when you turn your head after some time you can see serial of different drawings, full photo album. Sometimes it is so difficult to remember every picture, with excuse ‘’I was so busy didn’t have time to think’’, and then you catch yourself blowing one candle more on your birthday party, one year has just passed.

... Maybe one thing I do more now is spending more time on the things I really like to do and enjoy doing. It makes me smile and be happy.

Enjoying my first painting...

It has been a week since I arrived. Stockholm, who will believe few months ago that I will be here. Once I was sitting with a friend and he told me, ‘’You know you never know where life will bring you, once you see the place you will know that it was with the purpose, there is something behind it’’.

Sweden is great country to live http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden, so many advantages for young people, employees, and old stars. You can feel hospitality of Swedes from the first moment you talk with them, they are so supportive, caring individuals. In their company you will feel trust and joy.

Hm, that was strange feeling, again in foreign country, new people, language, and way of living. Every time you start new life chapter you say, ‘’Ok, this is the last time I am changing and getting everything new again’’, but you never know. It is interesting to learn new things. Stockholm is very international city. So many good brands and people are coming from this area. Nobel was born here. This week Nobel Prize announcement took attention of the whole world http://nobelprize.org/alfred_nobel/. IKEA, Volvo, Sony Ericsson, H&M, Scania, Electrolux are just some of the famous Swedish brands.

New friends, it matters. They make your life more flavored and colorful. I am working in team of 30 people from 15^th different nationalities, imagine how different we are. I met one Brazilian, one Malaysian colleague, great girls, my first new friends here. It was so interesting one day to present ourselves and say something interesting about us. I realized why the biggest wealth of Electrolux is people. It is a great company to be part of. Going with the latest technologies and trends in the world, company is providing people challenging environment to work in. I like my job, working on huge Global HR Transformation project. First week went so fast. Long days at work, but I enjoyed it. Next week I will use gym in the company to relax myself after work. I find very nice Swedish passion and spirit for doing sport. Also we have free fruits inside the company building.

Next months I will move to live with 2 friends of mine, I met some time ago. One is from Latvia and other one from Italy. Looking forward to enjoy moments with them. For now, I live with Hungarian family. I have my room and very cozy moments here, I can use sauna to unfreeze myself after long day. The best moment I experienced so far was one morning when I woke up. I was sitting in the warm room, looking through window, sun was arising, people blocked in their scarfs, hats, gloves, big jackets, you could see their breaths making fogs around them. It was very cold outside -2 degrees. Trees got nice ice decoration. Dogs had latest modern suits to warm them up. Everybody was running somewhere. It was very nice picture to capture. I felt warm inside myself. We need to be grateful for this kind of moments. How many times we even don’t have time to ask if we are hungry, and that is a basic need. At the beginning of this year I said to myself ‘’Live in the present, enjoy now’’.

When I caught that moment that morning, I realized that the real beauty of universe is the opportunity to enjoy every fraction and bit, opportunity to feel ‘’now’’. Once you get this feeling your life is becoming fully colorful.

Today I enjoyed drinking coffee with friends; long time didn’t taste so good late machiatto.

I guess painting had just started. You are all invited to come here and paint with me. Come to enjoy moments together.