My Drop of Sweden: January 2010

Jan 29, 2010

Swedish Bars

"å" pub

just beer

AC DC ROCKS!

beer, beer, and again beer...

Jan 26, 2010

Making Coffee is More than an Art...

This is definetely the saying of the day...or maybe one of the motto s of my life.

Because of a very funny "incident" that happened today, I decided to study carefully the ART of making coffe and make a thorough analysis.

So, my Latvian collegue Roberts came to my place to have lunch together: Romanian soup. roberts and I both are coffee lovers and after finishing eating, I offered myself to make a coffee. I put water on the cooker and the I add the sugar. And then roberts comes into the kitchen and asks: " Why do you boil the sugar?" Good question. Never thought about it. I had no answed. But the surprise was about to come. His shock and mine as well came when I confessed that I also boil the coffee in water. "WHAT? You BOIL the coffee? How so? Let me get over this!" was his answer. And he kept on staring while I was putting the coffee in the boiling water. I was told that in Latvia they simply put the boiling water over the coffee that is already placed in a cup, then they add the sugar, mix, and the coffe is ready to be drunk.

This is their normal way of cooking the coffee, the Romanian way sounds so weird to him, and maybe weird to others as well. But it is my innate way of doing it...of being an artist of coffee...

My First Swedish Research

Apparently, this is just a window. A typical Swedish window, without curtains, the Romanian would say. But to me, it is more than that. It is the object of my research since I came here.

This window is vis-a vis the bus stop Fatbursgatan from which I take the bus every day. Since the first morning I noticed an old man ("en gubbe" how the Sweds say) getting into the kitchen at about 9 o'clock, taking a pack of coffe from a cupboard, a cup from another, a spoon from another and making his own coffe at the cooker.

Next morning around the same hour I find myself in the same bus stop, in front of the same window. The old man reappears, and does the caffe ritual precisely the same. And I am not exagerating when I call it a ritual, since he does things in the same manner every single day, at the same hour: same cup, spoon, coffe, chair, table, movements, facial expression.

And I followed him as a spy for 6 mornings and nothing was different... or maybe I was the only one different, every day in a diferent mood of contentment...

Barn Hus

Barn Huset i en Bok Affar

Mumin

Pippi Långstrump

Mumin och Pippi

Bamse

We found this house for kids in a book store. All the characters loved by children were there...

Adina in the Eyes of the Swedish And International People

I am here for 10 days, 10 days in which I met a lot of people from all over the world, apparently different one from the other and from the people at home. But they all have something in common: the way they perceive me. So, in here I am as follows:

explosive
"interjectional" or "onomatopeical"
talking too much and too loud
"sugar girl"or "söker flickan" or "zuker mädchen"
"chocolate girl"
mother-like
physically resembling a French girl
having an American accent ( for this reason I am sometimes mistaken for an American)
with a weird way of cooking coffe
forever and for always happy and smiling

The real truth: I am all these into one everywhere I go...

Jan 25, 2010

All Sorts of Food...

Diego's Guacamole

Tylor Taylor's bread

Kenny's chilly

Romanian tocanitza

White sallad

All cooked by us personally for our international meal on Friday night at Junior

People Do Care! Even About Foreigners!

Sweden does not fail to shock me! And Swedish people are not less surprising! today maybe even more than ever so far.

Today I left my student accomodation, and like every day, I went to the bus stop. I had no coins to buy the ticket, but I had my credit card that I used for the same purpose several times so far. But today, it would't work! The bus was already in the stop and I kept on trying once, twice, three, four times to get a ticket. But NO! It didn't work! And the bus was still waiting. It waited for 5 minutes, for me to get a ticket.

And then, an old lady, en gumma how the Swedish say, said: " Kom hit! jag ska betala biljettet till dig! Kom!"(" Come here! I will pay the ticket for you! Come!). So I got in the bus and the lady gave some money to the driver and so the bus left. I think I thanked her tens of times. And she kept on smiling.

She was the kind of person that comes into my life only once, but precisely when I need.
Tack, anonym tant!