I can’t believe it’s here – my last day.
In celebration of my pending departure, Landskrona served up a brilliant spring day. Sunny, blue skies, no wind, about 12 degrees. Perfect.
Spent the day at work finalising some things that I’d been working on, writing some final emails and generally taking it a bit easy. Took the time to get some photos of the office and some of the people I’ve been working with. Said goodbye to the nice girls on reception who have helped me translate the lunch menu each day.
My Milo I left with Jens, since he remembered it from his time in Darwin back when he was eighteen years old. What remained of my Bushell’s Australian Breakfast tea I left with Jan, the only other tea drinker in the office.
It was reassuring that lunch was just as much of a guessing game on my last day as it was on my first. Roast potatoes with gravy and some kind of sliced ham – not too bad. In the afternoon Johan organised a surprise fika or, as he put it in the email – “one last fika for the Ozzie dude ;)”. We had ice cream with chocolate topping with our coffee (or hot chocolate in my case).
He’d also arranged a parting gift for me – a box full of traditional Swedish foods to take home with me. It included their famous Kalles Kaviar (in a squeeze tube of course), a can of Sill (or herring), some Swedish pâté, a kind of vanilla butter, and some hard breads to eat it all on. In return I gave him my precious tube of Vegemite with careful instructions on how it should be eaten (less is more, don’t put too much on!).
Anders also organised a couple of Besam t-shirts, a Besam branded belt (by Gant), and a copy of a Besam cook book produced a few years ago with recipes from different countries around the world. I don’t know how I’m possibly going to fit it all in my already full suitcase but I’m sure going to try.
This will be my last post from Sweden – the next time I write will be from the comfort of my couch back in Australia. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed living it.
Hej då för nu och vi ses snart!
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Day 66
Woke up feeling a bit crook this morning – slightly sore throat and a bit of a cough. This might explain the crappy sleep I had.
The day at work went surprisingly quickly. We had the EMEA AD/Exchange project team arrive in Landskrona for a two day meeting. They’re IT people working for different ASSA ABLOY companies around Europe that are part of a team that will coordinate a big project for the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East and Africa) to do with IT stuff. The countries represented were England, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, France and Sweden, of course. I’d spoken with most of them on the phone and met a couple, but it was good to finally meet the others.
We had a long meeting that took most of the afternoon and, before you knew it, the end of the day had arrived. We all headed out to our evening activity – Curling. For those of you that didn’t watch the Winter Olympics, Curling is kind of like lawn bowls on ice. Instead of balls you slide these 20kg rocks down to a target at the other end and try to get closer than the other team. It was a lot of fun, even if we did look a little ‘special’.
I’m happy to say my team (Jens, myself, Guido, Tero and Anders) won the night. We celebrated our victory with a buffet dinner and some Swedish beer. Niklas had organised a Swedish quiz for all the international visitors. Thirteen questions, multiple choice. I came second to the Finn, but given that he speaks Swedish and lives just across the water I reckon I did pretty well.
As a going away present I got given a Swedish flag, some ‘warning – moose ahead’ road sign stickers and a cheese slicer. The cheese slicer might sound strange, but the Swedes use them almost every day.
The day at work went surprisingly quickly. We had the EMEA AD/Exchange project team arrive in Landskrona for a two day meeting. They’re IT people working for different ASSA ABLOY companies around Europe that are part of a team that will coordinate a big project for the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East and Africa) to do with IT stuff. The countries represented were England, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, France and Sweden, of course. I’d spoken with most of them on the phone and met a couple, but it was good to finally meet the others.
We had a long meeting that took most of the afternoon and, before you knew it, the end of the day had arrived. We all headed out to our evening activity – Curling. For those of you that didn’t watch the Winter Olympics, Curling is kind of like lawn bowls on ice. Instead of balls you slide these 20kg rocks down to a target at the other end and try to get closer than the other team. It was a lot of fun, even if we did look a little ‘special’.
How do you turn a bunch of IT geeks into studs? Make them wear super cool helmets!
I’m happy to say my team (Jens, myself, Guido, Tero and Anders) won the night. We celebrated our victory with a buffet dinner and some Swedish beer. Niklas had organised a Swedish quiz for all the international visitors. Thirteen questions, multiple choice. I came second to the Finn, but given that he speaks Swedish and lives just across the water I reckon I did pretty well.
As a going away present I got given a Swedish flag, some ‘warning – moose ahead’ road sign stickers and a cheese slicer. The cheese slicer might sound strange, but the Swedes use them almost every day.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Day 65
The weather in Gothenburg today was grey and cold but luckily the rain held off. After packing up my inflatable mattress and getting my things together we headed out for some more sightseeing.
We drove up to the top of a mountain lookout only a few minutes from Emma’s apartment that overlooked the Gothenburg city. Like all the parks I’ve been to here it looked amazing – and you could almost picture what it would be like in summer. Great place for a picnic or just to hang out and enjoy the warmer weather. I think that’s one of the things I like most about Gothenburg – how close to places of such natural beauty they are.
We then drove into the city and walked the Avenyn (similar to Bourke St Mall) to Götaplatsen, one of the main squares in Gothenburg. Here we found the famous statue of Poseiden, the state theatre, concert hall and library. Unfortunately the place was pretty deserted.
Stopped for lunch at a cute little coffee shop and had toasted paninis after which we went for a walk around Slottsskogen. Slottsskogen is a massive park not too far from the city centre and, among other things, has a free zoo complete with Swedish animals. Most of them were hiding but we did spot a couple of reindeer and a female moose.
Took our afternoon tea at a little restaurant by the lake. Had some yummy berry crumble with vanilla sauce and tea, of course. By the time we’d finished it was nearly time for me to leave. We picked up Emma’s brother, his wife and daughter before dropping me off at the bus stop.
Made it back to Landskrona by about 8.30pm. Really enjoyed my short trip to Gothenburg. Glad I could spend my last weekend in Sweden with such great people.
We drove up to the top of a mountain lookout only a few minutes from Emma’s apartment that overlooked the Gothenburg city. Like all the parks I’ve been to here it looked amazing – and you could almost picture what it would be like in summer. Great place for a picnic or just to hang out and enjoy the warmer weather. I think that’s one of the things I like most about Gothenburg – how close to places of such natural beauty they are.
View of Gothenburg from the top of Keillers Park
We then drove into the city and walked the Avenyn (similar to Bourke St Mall) to Götaplatsen, one of the main squares in Gothenburg. Here we found the famous statue of Poseiden, the state theatre, concert hall and library. Unfortunately the place was pretty deserted.
Stopped for lunch at a cute little coffee shop and had toasted paninis after which we went for a walk around Slottsskogen. Slottsskogen is a massive park not too far from the city centre and, among other things, has a free zoo complete with Swedish animals. Most of them were hiding but we did spot a couple of reindeer and a female moose.
Mrs Moose looking a little bored
Took our afternoon tea at a little restaurant by the lake. Had some yummy berry crumble with vanilla sauce and tea, of course. By the time we’d finished it was nearly time for me to leave. We picked up Emma’s brother, his wife and daughter before dropping me off at the bus stop.
Made it back to Landskrona by about 8.30pm. Really enjoyed my short trip to Gothenburg. Glad I could spend my last weekend in Sweden with such great people.
Day 64
Woke up around nine this morning. Had a simple breakfast of green tea and bread with cheese and cucumber. Around 11am Mats came and picked us up and we headed to the shops to get supplies.
The first thing I noticed when we got to the supermarket (apart from it being much bigger than what I’ve been used to) was that they have a whole display of these ‘personal’ barcode scanners at the entrance. If you have an ICA supermarket card you can take one of these devices with you while you shop and use it to scan each item as you put it into your trolley. Once you’ve finished shopping there’s a kind of express checkout where all you have to do is pay and you’re done. Much better than our ‘self-checkouts’ at Coles/Safeway!
We bought some soy sausages (because Mats and Emma don’t eat meat), hot dog rolls, cookies, some Bostongurka and – most importantly – a disposable BBQ. Bostongurka is a pickled cucumber relish made with spices like paprika and mustard seeds. Kind of like pickle relish from the US.
We drove out to a place called Jonsered, where Emma had grown up. It was only about 10 or 15kms from the center of Gothenburg but was basically what we would consider ‘the country’. We met Åse and Tresse there and all hiked to our picnic spot. The area was beautiful! There was a big lake called Aspensjö close to where we parked the car. We walked through magnificent forest landscapes for about 10 minutes (up some quite steep hills) before arriving at a clearing with a few buildings known as Freden croft.
Apart from the buildings (one of which was a café that was closed for Easter) there was a hiker’s shelter. Two small wooden huts and a permanent stove/campfire area between them – perfect for our picnic. We fired up the BBQ and within 10 minutes were munching down hot dogs with tomato sauce, mustard, Bostongurka and dried onions. Delicious!
We went for a short walk to another lake that was close by – Stora Rammsjön – before heading back for tea/coffee (which we’d brought in thermoses) and cookies. Talk about a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
Emma and I stopped at the supermarket on the way home to pick up supplies for dinner. Being the good house guest that I am, I offered to cook. Given the vegetarian restrictions I decided to cook pasta primavera (pasta with vegetables). For dessert we cooked Kladdkaka – a fantastic kind of gooey chocolate cake – topped with M&Ms and whipped cream.
The first thing I noticed when we got to the supermarket (apart from it being much bigger than what I’ve been used to) was that they have a whole display of these ‘personal’ barcode scanners at the entrance. If you have an ICA supermarket card you can take one of these devices with you while you shop and use it to scan each item as you put it into your trolley. Once you’ve finished shopping there’s a kind of express checkout where all you have to do is pay and you’re done. Much better than our ‘self-checkouts’ at Coles/Safeway!
We bought some soy sausages (because Mats and Emma don’t eat meat), hot dog rolls, cookies, some Bostongurka and – most importantly – a disposable BBQ. Bostongurka is a pickled cucumber relish made with spices like paprika and mustard seeds. Kind of like pickle relish from the US.
We drove out to a place called Jonsered, where Emma had grown up. It was only about 10 or 15kms from the center of Gothenburg but was basically what we would consider ‘the country’. We met Åse and Tresse there and all hiked to our picnic spot. The area was beautiful! There was a big lake called Aspensjö close to where we parked the car. We walked through magnificent forest landscapes for about 10 minutes (up some quite steep hills) before arriving at a clearing with a few buildings known as Freden croft.
Apart from the buildings (one of which was a café that was closed for Easter) there was a hiker’s shelter. Two small wooden huts and a permanent stove/campfire area between them – perfect for our picnic. We fired up the BBQ and within 10 minutes were munching down hot dogs with tomato sauce, mustard, Bostongurka and dried onions. Delicious!
Our BBQ
We went for a short walk to another lake that was close by – Stora Rammsjön – before heading back for tea/coffee (which we’d brought in thermoses) and cookies. Talk about a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
Emma and I stopped at the supermarket on the way home to pick up supplies for dinner. Being the good house guest that I am, I offered to cook. Given the vegetarian restrictions I decided to cook pasta primavera (pasta with vegetables). For dessert we cooked Kladdkaka – a fantastic kind of gooey chocolate cake – topped with M&Ms and whipped cream.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Day 63
I was woken up at about a quarter to five this morning by a call from the Volvo IT systems monitoring team. The main web portal for ASSA ABLOY was not allowing users to log in. This was quite a major issue, particularly because this week/weekend is one of the most important financial reporting time of the year and the application is access via this web portal.
After spending about half an hour checking things to determine where the issue lay I called in reinforcements – Jens. I explained what I’d found and he took over. I tried to get back to sleep and was woken up with updates at 6am and 7am and at 7.05am my alarm went off.
Let’s just say it wasn’t the best night’s sleep ever.
I made it to Helsingborg to catch my bus at 9am. The bus trip to Gothenburg took a little under three hours, not much more than the train. I finally managed to catch Alicia online for the first time since I’ve been here! It was great to chat with her, even if only through Facebook (she hasn’t quite figured out Skype yet). Also had a good catch up with Jodie on Skype. Weird to think that this time next week I’ll actually be home with her…
Emma met me at the bus stop, we picked up some Subway for lunch then went out for a ‘picnic’. We caught a small ferry to Hönö, one of the many little islands off the coast of Gothenburg. Had a wonderful walk through the ‘bush’ until we reached the rocky coastline. Found a spot slightly sheltered from the wind and sat in the sun eating our sandwiches and drinking tea. We hiked the long way back, over and around big rocks. It was a lot of fun.
After some down time at Emma’s place we headed out to her mum’s place for an Easter dinner. We picked up her brother Kelle, his wife Melanie and their 4 month old daughter Heidi on the way. Åse and Lise met us there and brought along Åse’s beautiful 3 year old long haired retriever, Trasse. The nine of us had a wonderful evening.
I tried a traditional Swedish holiday food – Sill. It’s small pieces of raw fish, served in some kind of sauce or pickled. We had some with mustard sauce, some with a white sauce and some that was picked. To be honest it wasn’t too bad – the fish didn’t really have that much taste and had a texture similar to sushi. Apart from some Swedish beer we were drinking a Lindemans Shiraz Cabernet from Australia.
Eventually made it back to Emma’s around 12.30am, inflated my mattress and went to bed.
After spending about half an hour checking things to determine where the issue lay I called in reinforcements – Jens. I explained what I’d found and he took over. I tried to get back to sleep and was woken up with updates at 6am and 7am and at 7.05am my alarm went off.
Let’s just say it wasn’t the best night’s sleep ever.
I made it to Helsingborg to catch my bus at 9am. The bus trip to Gothenburg took a little under three hours, not much more than the train. I finally managed to catch Alicia online for the first time since I’ve been here! It was great to chat with her, even if only through Facebook (she hasn’t quite figured out Skype yet). Also had a good catch up with Jodie on Skype. Weird to think that this time next week I’ll actually be home with her…
Emma met me at the bus stop, we picked up some Subway for lunch then went out for a ‘picnic’. We caught a small ferry to Hönö, one of the many little islands off the coast of Gothenburg. Had a wonderful walk through the ‘bush’ until we reached the rocky coastline. Found a spot slightly sheltered from the wind and sat in the sun eating our sandwiches and drinking tea. We hiked the long way back, over and around big rocks. It was a lot of fun.
After some down time at Emma’s place we headed out to her mum’s place for an Easter dinner. We picked up her brother Kelle, his wife Melanie and their 4 month old daughter Heidi on the way. Åse and Lise met us there and brought along Åse’s beautiful 3 year old long haired retriever, Trasse. The nine of us had a wonderful evening.
I tried a traditional Swedish holiday food – Sill. It’s small pieces of raw fish, served in some kind of sauce or pickled. We had some with mustard sauce, some with a white sauce and some that was picked. To be honest it wasn’t too bad – the fish didn’t really have that much taste and had a texture similar to sushi. Apart from some Swedish beer we were drinking a Lindemans Shiraz Cabernet from Australia.
Eventually made it back to Emma’s around 12.30am, inflated my mattress and went to bed.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Day 62
As you can imagine I slept in today. Until 12pm.
I’m on call for work over the long weekend so I did some work while I ate my breakfast and watched tv. Got up about 2pm, had a shower, saw it was a beautiful sunny day outside and decided to stay in and watch more tv. Some might say this was a bit of a waste given it’s my last weekend in Sweden…
Around 4.30 I decided I couldn’t stand to be indoors any longer so decided to get out and enjoy what was left of the day. Luckily for me we switched to daylight savings time last weekend so the sun doesn’t go down until after 7pm. I borrowed a bike from Martin and Tina (my neighbours) and headed out for a ride.
The bike was an old (we would call it vintage), single speed with a basket on the front and the kind of brakes you apply by back peddling. I rode down to the beach and along the coast. It was beautiful – the sun was shining, the wind was at my back and the scenery was lovely. I rode past a couple of little marinas, the local camping grounds and the golf course. Stopped to take a few photos but mostly just enjoyed the ride.
The trip back wasn’t quite so perfect. This was mainly due to the wind now being at my front and the limitations of riding a bike with only one gear. At least my legs got a good workout! Once I got back to town I rode to the Citadel and took some photos as the sun was setting so now I have some shots with and without snow.
Went down to the local pizza shop for dinner and a beer with Martin. It was good to have someone to eat with and it made for much more interesting conversation. Skyped with Jodie at around 11.30pm and eventually made it to sleep around 12.30am.
I’m on call for work over the long weekend so I did some work while I ate my breakfast and watched tv. Got up about 2pm, had a shower, saw it was a beautiful sunny day outside and decided to stay in and watch more tv. Some might say this was a bit of a waste given it’s my last weekend in Sweden…
Around 4.30 I decided I couldn’t stand to be indoors any longer so decided to get out and enjoy what was left of the day. Luckily for me we switched to daylight savings time last weekend so the sun doesn’t go down until after 7pm. I borrowed a bike from Martin and Tina (my neighbours) and headed out for a ride.
The bike was an old (we would call it vintage), single speed with a basket on the front and the kind of brakes you apply by back peddling. I rode down to the beach and along the coast. It was beautiful – the sun was shining, the wind was at my back and the scenery was lovely. I rode past a couple of little marinas, the local camping grounds and the golf course. Stopped to take a few photos but mostly just enjoyed the ride.
The beautiful Swedish coast
Went down to the local pizza shop for dinner and a beer with Martin. It was good to have someone to eat with and it made for much more interesting conversation. Skyped with Jodie at around 11.30pm and eventually made it to sleep around 12.30am.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Day 61
Work was okay today – spaghetti Bolognese for lunch. We had little chocolate eggs to eat all day thanks to Volvo IT and had some ice cream for Fika in the afternoon (since we weren’t going to be here on Friday).
Did you know in Sweden they have ‘Easter Witches’? I didn’t either. As the story goes, the witches are said to fly off to ‘Blåkulla’ on Maundy Thursday and return again on the Saturday. According to Wikipedia, Blåkulla was a legendary meadow where the Devil held his Earthly court during a witches' Sabbat and could only be reached by a magical flight.
As you can imagine, there are plenty of jokes made (by men) about wives/girlfriends being witches. They go something like “Don’t forget to take your broomstick with you to Blåkulla tonight honey”… you get the idea. Kids get into the spirit by dressing up in witch outfits and going trick or treating, just like the American’s do at Halloween. I didn’t actually see any, but this is what I’ve been told.
I went to a music quiz night at Inferno (one of the local bars) after dinner. It was hosted by Johan and Karl. They played a song and teams had to answer a few questions relating to it (eg. who wrote it, what movie was it from, what year did John Lennon die). I was in a team with Anna (one of the receptionists from work), Agnes (one of the waitresses from Två Sex Ett), and a German girl called Chrissy who’d recently moved to Sweden with her boyfriend.
We didn’t do too well, but had a great time anyway. It was good to have another non-Swedish speaker to compare notes with!
Most of us headed out to Tages after Inferno closed. I swear I’m getting too old for nightclubs. Finally made it home by about 3am and was in bed before 4am.
Did you know in Sweden they have ‘Easter Witches’? I didn’t either. As the story goes, the witches are said to fly off to ‘Blåkulla’ on Maundy Thursday and return again on the Saturday. According to Wikipedia, Blåkulla was a legendary meadow where the Devil held his Earthly court during a witches' Sabbat and could only be reached by a magical flight.
Swedish Easter 'Witches'
As you can imagine, there are plenty of jokes made (by men) about wives/girlfriends being witches. They go something like “Don’t forget to take your broomstick with you to Blåkulla tonight honey”… you get the idea. Kids get into the spirit by dressing up in witch outfits and going trick or treating, just like the American’s do at Halloween. I didn’t actually see any, but this is what I’ve been told.
I went to a music quiz night at Inferno (one of the local bars) after dinner. It was hosted by Johan and Karl. They played a song and teams had to answer a few questions relating to it (eg. who wrote it, what movie was it from, what year did John Lennon die). I was in a team with Anna (one of the receptionists from work), Agnes (one of the waitresses from Två Sex Ett), and a German girl called Chrissy who’d recently moved to Sweden with her boyfriend.
We didn’t do too well, but had a great time anyway. It was good to have another non-Swedish speaker to compare notes with!
Most of us headed out to Tages after Inferno closed. I swear I’m getting too old for nightclubs. Finally made it home by about 3am and was in bed before 4am.
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