Life in colors

Winter in Sweden

2010-02-07T00:30:00.000-08:00

Stockholm is white. Streets, trees, houses, cars, everything is white. It didn’t get more then 0 degrees the whole December and January.

Swedes have very strong collective thinking. I guess we all heard for swine flu. Don’t know what to think. Is it real disease; is it normal flu or just good marketing for pharmacies to earn some money? Nevertheless, Swedish government bought vaccines for the whole country. One day they came in Electrolux. They brought enough for everybody. I was confused. Didn’t want to take it.

Usually I am able to make quick decisions, but that morning it took me longer then expected. I was sitting in the office looking at my Swedish colleagues; one by one they went to take it. I asked them why you are taking it. They said in order not to influence others if they get flu, everybody is taking it, I should do it as well… That's how conversation started. Few hours of great chat with some of you, Swedish colleagues, one Russian colleague.

At one moment I was sitting alone in my office, everybody went to take. They looked at me, like the black pig avoiding the others. Eastern Europeans are different than Western people. I guess history made us question things before we decide something, also being betrayed in the past, we are not used to trust, we think everything is bad and can kill us, like ‘’promaja’’. People here don’t question their government, they trust, they had never got betrayed. They have such a strong collective.

Still I don’t know why but I took vaccine. There must be something good.

Doctors in Sweden, that is the other thing. You need to get appointment if you want to get to the hospital. Only if you are really bad, you can get directly. They think you should get healthy naturally, building immune system without medicines. So, people here can sit at home 3 weeks, getting naturally healthy and that is fine for them.

The best way to prevent being ill, playing basketball and table tennis in the morning before work in the company gym :). Great feeling sitting at 9am in the office after exercises. Couple of us did it few mornings, it was so refreshing.

City was so nice for Christmas holidays. Decoration was making it special. Great nights out with the friends, cosy flat and warm tea, different new places, exploring the city, making first gibanica and baklava :), watching movies, ice skating, company Christmas party, Serbian New Year with international friends, 3 weeks with Vasko...

Just few days before New Year, sitting with Vasko and thinking where to celebrate. I think sometimes is good to do crazy things hehe :). Crazy or not, we spent amazing New Year in Belgrade. Club 13 :). Excitement of arriving 2 hours before New Year, moment when I saw friends will stay with me forever. My family was so happy as well.

Stockholm has Serbian church. It was -20 degrees on January 6, but so nice celebration of Christmas Eve there.

Mid of Janaury was reserved for Bonn :). I saw Masha again :) and we ate muffins like in the old time :).
For the first time, I got chance to watch hockey on the ice live. The best 2 Swedish teams playing against each other. The big arena was full of people cheering. 2 things. 1st, Swedes have positive philosophy of cheering. They cheer for their team, singing nice songs, encouraging their team to win, but never cheering against the other team. The worst thing they said against was ‘’we don’t like you go home’’, no swearing and bad words. Heheh, well yes…

2nd thing, during the game each player can get 2 minutes out for different kind of fouls they can make. What amazed me is that they don’t criticize arbiter, they don’t fight after arbiter stops the game. They accept the arbiter decision and leave out for 2 minutes. Such a strong discipline.

And of January, traveling back home :). 4 amazing days with family and friends. Positive energy, great meaningful conversations in the downtown and during ‘’musaka dinner’’ the day after ;).

My second month in Stockholm

2009-11-29T10:58:00.000-08:00

Hi friends :), two months in Sweden had passed already. Time flies so fast. Swedes say that November is very depressive month, a lot of rain and it had already started to be dark around 15h. My November was very colorful.

Still it is not so cold 8C, actually it is warmer then in October. The only missing thing is sun. Three weeks I didn’t see sun until I went to Copenhagen last week, it was sunny day.

I realized that during the working days I don’t see daily light at all. Weird isn’t it? Going to the office 7.30h still is dark, living the office usually around 19h again dark. You can see daily light from 9-15h.

Beginning of the month I was in Bonn. I don’t know should I say home or not, but I felt being at home. From the moment I touched down on Cologne’s airport, so strong feeling was arising. You know when you walk on the streets of your home town, you just walk, and you don’t think should you turn left or right, your heart knows every inch. I felt somehow similar. Breathing the air of Bonn streets and nature again was very special. I guess finding my love in Bonn makes the city even closer to my heart ;). I visited my former flat and land lady. Masha’s, Mici’s and my name is still there on the post box. I was in front of the door searching for the key in my bag, it was so real, like few months ago and time didn’t passed.

Week after, my childhood friend Natasha was here. When you know someone for 20 years you don’t need words to enjoy the moments. It was great weekend, long chat with coffee and muffins, playing rummy all night long like in old time. Refreshing memories from the childhood, laughing on the crazy moments from the past.

That weekend Jimmy Shoe launched his shoes collection for H&M. Girls got crazy. ‘Oh my god, it is Jimmy’ still I hear them screaming. That Saturday, line to enter H&M was huge; you could see girls running out happy carrying out fancy blue bag with shoes... I like authentic people, having own personality, attitude, behaviors. That day I realized that we are creating uniformity, creating one stream we should all follow? 80% percent of those girls had never had and worn similar shoes, they were in their simple shoes, sneakers, and now we are all fancy, ‘oooh’ – again imagine their voices, ‘I should buy one pair of shoes of Jimmy Shoe collection, my friends will go and buy I should buy it as well’. I am wondering if any of them really like what they bought. I respect women who enjoyed wearing nice shoes, like Tamara ;). Seeing these shoes on her will be something I will expect to see, she likes shoes, it suits her personality… I guess we will always live with the question should I buy something because I really like it, this is me, or should I buy it because so many people is wearing it, it is so popular to have it. I will choose the first option.

Weekend number 3, but before that something interesting.

- If you want to enter bus in Sweden, you can do it only from the first door, showing your ticket, all others are for going out. I tried to imagine how this can work in Serbia, after some time I gave up.

- Swedes invented smart alarm system as well. If alarm feels the smoke in the house when you are or not there, you will automatically receive the message on your cell phone that your house is burning and sms will be sent to your neighbors as well.

Weekend number 3, Copenhagen :). First time in Denmark. Copenhagen is beautiful city. Definitely worth visiting.

So far, job is going very well. They keep me busy. It is very interesting and I am learning everyday. My manager made party for our team at her place last week. It was great :).

This weekend we went out. Opera bar, fancy place where Swedes go out. It is old Opera hall organized like bar now. I felt like in celebrity and prom party. It is so different then in Serbia, even Germany. People here like to dress up a lot. By dressing up I mean women night elegant dresses and hair dresses from Abba time. Man wore suits; a lot of them had red tie and white sweater (like the tennis players).

One day at work I ate ‘musaka’ for lunch, so tasty and delicious, but not with meet, it was with minced fish :), I guess I need to wait for end of January to taste the real one :).

... Next weekend Rasha and Sergio will come :).

... There is one more thing which marked November, 19^th of November. I tell you more when we see each other ;).

… Stockholm got Christmas colors.

Autumn painting... Swedish colors...

2009-10-19T14:16:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-10-10T16:02:00.001-07:00

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.