There was quite some controversy over the posting a year later when the president emailed me accusing me of slander and threatening to take legal action and to contact my web host to remove my site. Of course, they were only mean threats as no serious actions were actually taken. The emails themselves seemed quite desperate and petty, but I stood up to the bullying and held firm on keeping my post up (although I decided to change the title to something less subjective) and responded to them with the following:
D----, I had only just received your emails as I have not had the opportunity to check them in the last while. I find it very presumptuous of you to assume that I had simply tossed the matter aside when it had only been 3 days since your first email. I'm sure you now have an idea of how I felt when I was given the runaround for over a month. With that said, please do not suppose yourself to be the epitome of respect and politeness with your accusations of my "rudeness."As for the issue at hand: my blog is my journal and I have every right to express my personal opinions and experiences of my every day life. This particular post to which you refer simply documented a chain of frustrating events that I had wanted to share. There was no malicious intent in the post to defame the company, yourself or P---; in fact, the post is in no way, shape or form defamatory since the events I had outlined were completely factual (you yourself had even acknowledged that in your last email). To accuse me of "slander", especially from a blog post written well over a year ago, is utterly ridiculous. I am completely over that experience and expressing myself in writing was a good way for me to do so. As you can see, I have never wasted my time or effort to ever write about or "slander" the company after that particular post.
I understand your concern about the title and I will consider changing it to something less subjective. As for the post, I truly believe I have written nothing defamatory as it simply documented events I experienced.
Then last year in December I received an email from Omar Rizvi, the new VP Finance & Operations, whom I had never met, who had actually apologized to me (the first apology I had received from the company). The email went something like this:
"Basically I wanted to apologize for the bad experience you had with us and let you know that we have been purchased by a large media company. We have a whole new leadership team and many of the people you were dealing with have since left the company. The current leadership team is all about conducting business in a professional manner and taking the company to the next level.So I would appreciate very much if you could take your blog about us off your site since when you Google us it comes up on the first page and hinders us and our efforts to re-launch our company."
However, a month later I received an email from someone contracted by Mindblossom:
Hi Michelle, We've completed a cabling project for MindBlossom and specified they must pay by cheque upon completion. It's been two weeks and we've received similar excuses to what you've pointed out in your blog ("signing authority" is not here now, etc.). We're going down there today to attempt to collect. The "head guy" you referred to, was that Omar Rizvi at the time? Regards, E---
And just yesterday I received this comment to my post:
A photographer friend is having a similar "nightmare" dealing with Minblossom. They owe her over $10,000 and refuse to pay.I've taken it upon myself to try and help her out by by getting the word out about Mindblossom = BAD NEWS!!!
dead beats!!!!
Any help you can provide could be useful.
You can read the about the entire situation on their own site. Unbelievable eh? I'm glad I stood my ground; now others will now that they aren't the only ones being shafted by this company.
]]>[read more] ]]>The wonderful thing about living in Europe is that you can travel such a short distance and be immersed in another world of a different culture, language and people. Oh, and who can forget the 5-6 weeks of vacation per year? :)
Here are some recaps of a few more of my past trips...
Swedish Lappland (mid-April)
Christian came to Sweden for a week to visit me and we took a 3-day trip up to Kiruna in the arctic circle. We took an overnight train up north and right when we arrived in Kiruna at 10am we were taken straight into the wilderness for a serene dogsled ride with Alaskan huskies. For lunch we stopped in a forest camp and had a delicious Sami meal of reindeer meat and potatoes with lingonberry sauce while sitting around a campfire on warm reindeer fur. Our musher, Stefan, recalled a story of when he was hiking in the area and just encountered Mats Sundin in the middle of the arctic woods!
In the afternoon we suited up for a snowmobile tour to the town of Jukkasjärvi, home of the original Ice Hotel. We were joined by 4 others, who just happened to be from Toronto as well (small world!) I only rode in the back on the way there, but it was an exhilarating experience. The Ice Hotel is built along the Torne River, from which all the ice for its construction was farmed. There's a huge ice factory right next to it that farms all the ice for next year's ice hotel as well as for exporting to the Absolut Ice Bars in Stockholm, Copenhagen, London and Tokyo. Inside the hotel we saw the Ice Church, where many couples get married, the original Absolut Ice Bar, and of course, the artist-designed rooms and suites, which were really amazing.
I had the chance to drive the snowmobile back, but we hit a lake with really deep snow so when I tried turning, we started leaning over too much and toppled into the snow. And it happened again. And again :P Whoops. After making Christian faceplant into the snow 3 times I decided it was time for him to drive again. We arrived back to our base camp at Lake Alta and had a dinner of more reindeer, potatoes and lingonberry sauce (yum!) Because we were so far north, the sun didn't set until 10pm and even after sunset there were a few hours of twilight. That meant we had to wait until midnight to even have a chance to see any glimpse of the Nothern Lights. So after dinner we just hung out in the sauna and socialized with two other guys visiting from Germany until our tour guide came by at midnight to pick us up to take us to some mountain for a better view.
Our guide was pretty skeptical of our chances of seeing it that night though so he just brought us back into town to our hostel. I had been pretty much resigned to the fact that we probably wouldn't be seeing because 1) peak season was only November - March, 2) we were only staying one night and nighttime only lasted 2 hours 3) the last occurrence was 2 weeks prior. Once we got to the hostel, I got out of the van and made a beeline to the door — that's when our guide told us to look up. Lo and behold, it was the northern lights dancing above our heads!! At first when I looked up I didn't think it was anything since it just looked like a streak of milky clouds, but then it turned into green curtain streaking the sky. It was sImply amazing!
The next day we just explored the town of Kiruna, which didn't have much to see except a nice Sami-styled church that was named the most beautiful building in Sweden in 2002. We had an overnight train to catch back to Stockholm but when we arrived at the train station, we encountered Slovak signs all over the place and even the train station sign said Bratislava. It was really quite confusing until we noticed a film crew further down the tracks!
Russia (early May)
During Valborg Sweden had another super long weekend so I took advantage of the extra days off and headed off to Russia with Melissa. We spent 2.5 days in St. Petersburg and visited Peter and Paul Fortress, Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood, and the Hermitage, and explored the Nevsky Prospekt and Mariinsky Theatre areas. We took an overnight train to Moscow and I must say I was highly impressed by the comfort level of our couchettes. I was actually really apprehensive about the overnight trains because I read that they were pretty dirty and ghetto, but this train was actually the fanciest one I've ever been on: plush carpet, 4 beds (instead of 6) ready-made with nice linen and real pillows, free toiletries kit with slippers, breakfast box in the morning, and a car attendant serving free tea and coffee.
Moscow was beautiful and unbelievably clean, despite everyone from St. Petersburg telling us that it was dirty and there was nothing to see. On the contrary, I enjoyed it more than St. Petersburg, and it seemed more Russian to me, whereas St. Petersburg felt too European. Our Moscow sightseeing included the must-sees like the Kremlin and Red Square, touring around the metro system and visiting the ornately-decorated stations, window shopping at
Since the entire country was preparing for Victory Day on May 9, Lenin's tomb was closed off so we couldn't visit it. We also tried getting ballet tickets in both cities but they were all sold out :(
Copenhagen (mid-May)
I absolutely LOVED Copenhagen — it is by far one of my favourite cities: lively atmosphere, vibrant art and design scene, amazing contemporary architecture, and super friendly people (they don't even seem Scandinavian!) Whenever my friend or I were looking at a map on the street there was always someone stopping to ask whether we needed help. One couple even directed us to a huge outdoor flea market nearby, where I snatched up some cheap finds: a scarf, tank top, and bag all for $9! The vendor that I shopped at suggested us to lunch at a popular patio restaurant on the canal so we rode our bikes over for an amazing meal out in the sun. The rest of the weekend in Copenhagen involved the obvious tourist sites like walking along Europe's longest pedestrian street, Strøget, visiting the colourful Nyhavn harbour, exploring the community of Christiana, riding bumper cars in Tivoli Gardens, visiting the The Danish Design Centre, checking out all the contemporary architecture dotted throughout the city, and of course, making the trekk to see the Little Mermaid sculpture.
]]>[read more] ]]>One of my favourite things about Barcelona is the wonderful architecture of Antoni Gaudí dotted throughout the city. Gaudí-designed buildings and public spaces such as the Sagrada Família, Padrera, Casa Batlló, and Parc Güell, and public street furniture like whimsical lamps and benches give the city such a unique and fantastical character.
The highlight of the trip was renting a scooter for a day and riding from Barceloneta beach across the entire city northwards and all the way up to Mount Tibidabo, where we had a breathtaking view of the city. From Tibidabo we scootered over to the western hill, Montjuïc, site of the Olympic stadium and Mies van der Rohe's beautifully simplistic Barcelona Pavilion.
I absolutely loved Barcelona's Gothic Quarter and El Born areas for their labyrinths of narrow alleyways filled with boutiques, cute cafés and restaurants, public squares, medieval architecture and random street performances. Everywhere you walk there's a surprise at each turn, whether it be a beautiful massive cathedral, bullet holes left intact from the Spanish Civil War, a cloister courtyard that was home to 13 geese (each goose represents one year in the life of the martyr Santa Eulalia), or a performer twirling sticks of fire.
I also checked out the Picasso Museum, which had been set up by Picasso himself and to which he personally donated a huge collection of his early works. I was completely blown away with his Las Meninas series, in which he painted 44 stylized interpretations of Velázquez's famous painting. Another great museum I visited was the MACBA (Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona). Since I came here the morning of my last day I only had enough time to check out an exhibit on Barcelona's Francesc Torres, a multimedia and conceptual artist focused on themes of memory, culture and politics.
I was really looking forward to amazing food on this trip but was slightly disappointed. I guess we weren't going to the right places, but we encountered undercooked chicken or almost raw minced meat at several restaurants we chose x_X Thankfully Paul, who had lived in Barcelona for 2.5 years, met up with us a few days later and took us to a great place by Port Olympic and we enjoyed seafood paella on the beach. We did it Spanish style too, starting our lunch at 3:30pm and eating until 5pm — it was a fantastic meal with good food, nice scenery, beautiful weather, and great company ^_^
]]>[read more] ]]>Grad School
The biggest update is that I'll be moving to Hong Kong in the fall for grad school starting in September. I got accepted into their one-year MDes program in Interaction Design (with a scholarship to boot!)
I basically had no life in January and February as I was applying for my schools. On top of preparing my portfolio and motivation letters, the killer was applying for the Swedish schools that asked for a ridiculous amount of work: Malmö University had a hard-core design assignment (imagine doing a full CSC 318 project by yourself!), while Konstfack in Stockholm required a thesis proposal and then some. I was asked in to an interview with Konstfack in front of a panel of 5 faculty members. It was probably the most intense interview I've ever experienced, during which they grilled me on my thesis on emotionally expressive communication devices and the current/future ethical issues within the design field. The program at Konstfack is Experience Design, which encompasses a wide variety of disciplines, so they were planning to accept only one student each from a different specialization (architecture, sound/light design, interaction design, etc.) to create a small "dream team," I guess you can say.
In the end I was actually accepted into all my schools, including Parsons School of Design in NYC (however, with prestige comes ridiculously hefty debts, even after taking into consideration my scholarship offer.) The Swedish schools seemed really attractive, especially with the free tuition, but I'm not sure if I'd be happy living here in Sweden for another 2 years (especially in the winter.) Hong Kong seemed like the best choice for me since it's specialized in Interaction Design (Parsons and Konstfack are not), it's a short, yet intense, 1-year program, the expenses won't entirely break my bank account, and it'd be another interesting change of environment (perhaps I'll even improve my Cantonese too!)
]]>[read more] ]]>The day of my last deadlines for grad school apps, I jetted off to Vienna for a well-deserved break! I didn't have too many expectations of the city but when I started exploring I was absolutely amazed by the beauty and extravagance of all their historical buildings lining the streets. I visited the Mozarthaus, which was Mozart's biggest, most expensive and prestigious apartment he owned — it was also where he wrote The Marriage of Figaro, gave students piano lessons, and gave intimate performances for Hadyn and other important contemporaries. Having grown up playing piano, it was such a surreal experience for me to walk through the apartments of one of the world's greatest composers.
Of course, what would a visit to Vienna be without a night out to the symphony? My friend and I picked up last minute tickets at the Musikverein for a performance by the London Philharmonic. Aside from the fact that the last-minute ticket holders had to stand in the back the entire night (my poor legs and feet!), the performance was really nice. The next evening we attended marionette show of The Magic Flute, which was sung in German, but visually stunning nonetheless. We learned that it takes 3 years to master the art — to just make the puppet walk takes 3 months to get it right.
Since Bratislava, Slovakia is just an hour train ride from Vienna, we had made plans to make a short stop to explore the city. Coming straight from Vienna, which I was not ready to leave, I didn't really enjoy my time there. It was cute and quaint, but there was nothing really to do except to see the buildings and architecture in the Old Town. The contrast of the atmosphere of the two cities was quite surprising, given their proximity.
Berlin
In Sweden we had Good Friday and Easter Monday as holidays so it was an extra long weekend... perfect for a vacation! I headed to Berlin that weekend and my first impression the first night was that I amazed with the slew of Asian restaurants everywhere, including Vietnamese (yes, I'm deprived in Stockholm!) So of course, I had to go out for a bowl of Pho and I also tried a really fun Indo-Malasian restaurant completely decked out with tropical plants and gigantic paper umbrellas... the food there was great too :)
Berlin is a fascinating city that's still quite rough around the edges. While it has an oppressive history and is filled with historical remains and sites, it has amazing modern architectural buildings, a thriving art scene, vibrant atmosphere on the streets, and so many great museums (we visited the famous Persamon Museum, the Daniel Libeskind -designed Jewish Museum, and a contemporary art museum.)
My friends and I joined the free walking tour that took us to the main historical sites like Brandenburg Gate, Reichstag, Holocaust Memorial, Hitler's Bunker (which is now just a nondescript parking lot), Berlin Wall, Book Burning Memorial, Checkpoint Charlie, and Humboldt University, which boasts 29 Nobel prize winners including Albert Einstein.
Hang tight... more travel summaries in later posts!
It was quite a drab winter since this was the mildest winter they've had here in 250 years. Snow would have definitely helped to brighten up the sky, but all I saw was rain. Incidentally, the only days where the temperature dipped below -5C was last weekend, during which I found myself lining up for 1 hour to attend Lykke Li's concert, only to be rejected so close to the entrance because the venue had filled up. Frost-bitten toes did nothing to ease my disappointment :(
However, I'm in high spirits now that the worst is behind me. I've been so obsessed with daylight that I've been counting the amount of extra sunlight we're gaining every week (almost 30 min!), and apparently most people here do so as well. In the city centre there's an area with rows upon rows of benches installed all facing one direction but I was quite confused when I couldn't find a stage. I just learned last week that these benches are facing the direction of the sun - in the spring and summer people just sit on the benches, close their eyes and just let the sun shine on their faces.
I'm just absolutely ecstatic for 20 hour daylight in the summer... but by then I'll probably be complaining about how much I miss dark nights!
]]>[read more] ]]>This evening I was invited out to a new year dinner at a Chinese restaurant with a Chinese group I had just met. It was a bit weird for me though because they were mostly speaking Mandarin and Swedish so I couldn't understand anything unless they spoke to me in English o_O I was so fascinated though by how they just switched back and forth between Chinese and fluent Swedish, it was pretty cool. The dinner was my first taste of European Chinese food (something I had been really reluctant to try) but it wasn't too bad. The cuisine was more northern-China style so it was quite heavy and saucy, which I'm not used to.
So it's finally February, thank goodness. It felt like January would never end with all my endless nights slaving away in front of my computer. It was such a brutal month for me and I swear I almost turned into a zombie with the little sleep I had. But I did manage to squeeze in a few fun activities to keep my spirits up.
Dinner at Koh Phangan
For a friend's birthday we went to to a really great Thai restaurant called Koh Phangan. Right when you walk inside it feels like you entered a tropical paradise of beach huts, bridged walkways, waterfalls and caves. It even had a "rainstorm" in the middle of dinner. The food actually wasn't too bad. I just ordered a simple vegetarian plate of pad thai, but at $25 that was the most expensive pad thai I've ever had!
Colombian Night
My Colombian roommate gathered her Colombian posse over to our place one evening and cooked us a dinner of arepas, chorizos, and beans. Very yummy indeed. They continued the festivities into our living room by cranking up some Latin music and taught the non-Colombians some salsa dancing. That was great fun, but I was stepping all over people's toes :P
Konserhuset
I attended my first symphony concert here watching the Stockholm Philharmonic one afternoon. It was so nice and I got all nostalgic for my symphony-going days with Christina back in Toronto. The repertoire they played that day was a modern set - very punchy, playful and oddly rhythmed, which is something I wasn't used to hearing but I thought it was so fantastic.
Hawaiian Pub Night
Every last Friday of the month my office holds a pub night. This time it was a Hawaiian theme to bring some sunshine to our dark and dreary Scandinavian winter. Some people acted as bartenders all decked out in Hawaiian shirts and mixed colourful fruity drinks complete with umbrellas and pineapples. The Hawaiian island music and leis were the perfect finishing touches... totally made me want to go to Hawaii!
Riga Cruise
Last weekend a group of us took a cruise to Riga, the capital of Latvia. It was an overnight boat trip and everyone was prepared to party and take advantage of the duty free alcohol prices, but our tiny boat was hit by a storm by 9pm. With the extreme rocking and shaking, most of us ended up with pretty bad motion sickness, including yours truly. We finally made it through the night though and spent the next day exploring the city. Riga is pretty small so we were able to see most of the main sites within the day. It still seemed pretty European though... I was expecting more of a Soviet feel. We boarded the ship again that evening and for the ride back we armed ourselves with motion sickness pills. The storm on the second night was actually even worse than the previous but luckily we were already lying down in bed by that time. What an experience... I'll stick with bigger boats next time to Finland and Estonia thank you very much!
I did the typical tourist run of the city exploring the Old Town, city centre, and various museums. I was quite disappointed with the two art museums: the fine art museum only had one exhibit of mish-mashed works by a local art collective and its Hasselblad Centre featured a photographer whose works weren't enthralling to me, and the Röhsska Museum was a design and decorative arts museum but the temporary exhibit featuring a video and sound installation was the only thing that stood out for me. The Museum of World Culture was a surprisingly fantastic however, and the building itself was a gorgeous work of architecture. I spent over an hour in one of the feature exhibits called Trafficking, about the human trafficking of women and children mainly for prostitution. It was so appalling reading and watching videos of horrible stories that have taken place in all parts of the world.
Göteborg is the birthplace of Volvo so of course I had to visit the Volvo museum. Unfortunately Paul and I didn't realize how far it was from the city centre so our trip took about an hour. Since we also slept in super late that day we arrived to the museum at 3:30... and the museum was closing at 4. Amazingly there was another pair of visitors that arrived at the same time as us and the museum employees told us to take our time to explore. We didn't realize how big the museum actually was and ended up taking 2 hours to watch an intro film and to walk through all the exhibits. Although I'm not a big car person, I love looking at old-fashioned cars and I'm such a big sucker for the whimsical designs and colours from the 50's. They also had a section for experimental prototypes that was really neat. It featured environmentally friendly concept models including one that actually cleaned the air when being driven!
On my second last day in Gothenburg, the rain finally stopped and we saw sunlight for the very first time! We took advantage of the weather and took a nice ferry ride out to the archipelago to visit one of the islands. We took a quick walk around and admired the quaint traditional Swedish houses, which are mostly wooden and colourfully painted. I love them... I couldn't stop snapping away!
Since Paul's a dancer at the Opera Company I had the pleasure of watching him perform in Askungen, a fun and colourful adaptation of Cinderella. The performance was great... I think that was my first time watching a modern dance performance rather than a ballet so it was quite different and interesting for me.
Reading back on last year's year in review I realize I finally achieved what I had dreamed of doing for so many years: living in Europe. Even though it's what I've always wanted, the reality is that it hasn't been a magical ride as I had though. It was a bit of a struggle to adjust but now as I'm slowly meeting people, learning to accept the lifestyle differences, and traveling as much as I can, I'm looking forward to see where this adventure takes me this year. I've learned from my past mistakes of letting opportunities pass me by, and although I might question some decisions I've made over others to get to where I am now, there's no point in looking back or having regrets. I'm a true believer that everything happens reason.
Once again, here's a list of the things that stood out most for me for 2007:
Showed my photography at the You Are Here exhibit · my first opera Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk · finally figuring out how to do an S-curve in snowboarding · Nuit Blanche in Montreal Christian, Vanessa and Jeremy and getting into a random snowball fight with hooligans · being the proud owner of my very own Hasselblad · shopping frenzy in HK · visiting mainland China for the first time with Christian, but ending up in the hospital · my first photography showing at the CONTACT festival · photographing Siren Sounds benefit concert featuring local bands, Melissa O'Neil, and Fefe Dobson · family road trip to New England and Montreal · watching the live match of the final Argentina vs Czech Republic FIFA U-20 game · getting my first pair of rollerblades and bladed 3 hours along the lakeshore from the west end to the east and all the way back (and nearly collapsing in the end) · attending the awesome Daft Punk concert · watching a hilarious yet brilliant interpretation of A Midsummer Night's Dream in High Park · going to the CNE for the first time in over a decade and having a blast · racing and winning medals with Banana Boat dragonboat team · Eyal and Julie's wedding · road trip to Bruce Peninsula · staying out until sunrise for Toronto's Nuit Blanche · watching Cirque du Soleil's Kooza from the front row · making a fabulous Thanksgiving meal completely on my own · 1500km 3-day road trip (I drove the entire way!) to Pennsylvania, seeing Fallingwater House and doing mad shopping in Grove City (and randomly bumping into 3 groups of friends we knew all in the same store) · kicking butt in floor hockey with my beloved team · ate my way through all my favourite restaurants in Toronto for the last time · starting a new life on my own in Stockholm · reuniting with Jason for a weekend in Paris · seeing the amazing Christmas market in Frankfurt · experiencing Swedish Christmas · spending Christmas and New Years with Paul in Gothenburg
I hope you all can look back on the past year with wonderful memories and that any not-so-good experiences has made you a stronger person. I wish everyone all the best for an exciting, happy, and prosperous new year!
]]>[read more] ]]>I arrived in the city on Christmas Eve and by the time my train came in at 2pm the sun had already disappeared! :( Paul took me back to his place and we snacked on different cheeses and knäckebröd (Swedish crackers) while catching up. It was wonderful to find out how much of a foodie he is and that's all we talked about until dinner when he made me a delicious dish of couscous with stir-fried veggies, raisins and walnuts. Then we relaxed by the TV and watched Sex and the City (I had never seen it before believe it or not) while pigging out on dark chocolate and drinking glögg. Mmm living the lazy life!
This morning we totally slept in and made crêpes that we ate with various combinations of nutella, cheese, honey, lingonberry jam, and butter. We couldn't really call it brunch since it was 2:30pm by the time we sat down to eat! There's a pattern that's starting to repeat itself: we just can't stop talking about food! Living in Sweden, it's so expensive to eat out that you don't really have the same luxury of eating out all the time as we would in Toronto or HK. So we just fantasize about all the food that we miss back home and just drool over the places we'd eat at when we go back to TO or HK... it's quite pathetic really! Paul however is a master in the kitchen so I'm hoping to learn some cooking tips from him during my stay :) He whipped up a simple but yummy Christmas dinner of Swedish meatballs with lingonberry sauce, mashed potatoes and green beans.
A friend gave me a great recipe for Mjuk Pepparkaka (soft gingerbread), but since it came from a Swedish recipe book the measurements use decilitres instead of cups. I bought measuring cups here (in metric of course) so now if I want to use my own recipes from home I'll need to convert everything to dL.
Anyway I tried out the recipe with Sandra and Fernanda and although it was a bit dense instead of fluffy (probably from over mixing) it tasted fabulous. The lingonberry inside added a really nice surprise to the gingerbread taste.
Mjuk Pepparkaka
100 g butter
2 dL sugar
2 eggs
1.5 dL sour creak
1.5 spoons gingerbread spice
1 tsp baking soda
3 dL flour
1 dL lingonberry jam
1. Preheat oven 175° C
2. Combine butter, sugar and eggs in one bowl.
3. Combine spice, flour and bicorbanate in seperate bowl.
4. Mix dry ingredients into the egg mixture and add in sour cream.
5. Mix in lingonberry jam.
7. Pour batter into a greased pan and bake 40-45 minutes.
Back in the olden days, December 13 used to be the darkest day of the year, which was the day that Lucia Day was and continues to be celebrated. It's quite an important day in Sweden and here it marks the beginning of Christmas. I woke up early that morning to watch a Lucia concert, in which a procession of girls dressed in white and are led by a girl chosen to represent Lucia, who wears a crown of candles on head. They stop and sing Swedish Christmas songs and then continue their procession. At my office that day we ate lussekatter (saffron buns), which are traditionally eaten only during Christmas, and drank warm glögg with raisin and almonds. That particular glögg had 10% alcohol however, and although I only took about 10 sips, I was pretty much out of commission the rest of the afternoon, zzzz.
julbord. It was my first time trying Swedish food, which consists of a lot of cold salmon prepared in various ways, raw herring in different sauces, and cold cuts. There weren't many warm dishes but the meatballs and Jansson's Temptation were delicious. I did make the effort to try the fish dishes that I normally wouldn't eat. I didn't realize the herring was actually raw so it came as a nasty slimy surprise. I also tried the fermented herring, which is a very Swedish dish. I never though I'd ever eat it when I read about it before coming here, but it's not as bad as it sounds when you eat it with potatoes. I probably won't ever eat it again, but now I can say I've tried real Swedish food :P Later that evening the restaurant converted into a karaoke bar at one end and a disco on the other, which seemed pretty strange to me. People were going nuts in the karaoke area singing out of tune to cheesy Swedish 80s pop music. I've come to realize that Swedes LOVE to sing. I hear them singing out loud everywhere I go: subway trains, dinner tables, airports, bars, and especially at karaoke. The dance floor was no better; the DJ was spinning all Euro dance, which I can't stand, LOL.
Over the weekend I visited Skansen, which is an open-air museum featuring historical pioneer buildings transported from all over Sweden. You can visit each building and watch people dressed in costume demonstrating things like bookbinding, glass-blowing and weaving. My friend and I primarily went there to see the Christmas market and I picked up an English copy of a Swedish cakes and cookies recipe book that I'll be trying out this weekend. I think by the end of my year in Sweden my goal is to be able to read enough Swedish to buy myself a cookbook in Swedish :)
Good news on my housing situation: I got a new roommate from Germany, who's awesome, AND my landlady's finally moving out! Hallelujah! For a while she was being so wishy-washy about whether she was actually going to move out by the end of the month (her son had bought her a new flat, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to move there). But my roommate and I just kept persuading her with cheesy lines like her son will be so disappointed if she doesn't take the place, etc. In just a few weeks we'll be free to have pork, wine and boys at our flat, haha.
* The sun rises at 8:45am and sets at 2:45pm, depressing huh?
]]>[read more] ]]>Since Frankfurt is mostly a financial hub, there's not that much historical or cultural attractions to see, but I did visit three excellent museums: Museum für Moderne Kunst (Museum of Modern Art), Deutsches Architekturmuseum, and Schirn Kunstalle Frankfurt. The MMK had an amazing photography exhibit featuring the works of an American who persuaded her way into some of the most private spaces kept away from the public and documented what goes on inside, including an HIV research lab, death row facility, cryo-preservation unit, Microsoft prototype house, nuclear waste storage area, and headquarters of the KKK. The images were powerful enough on their own but reading the descriptions and background behind each shot really put me in awe. The architecture museum was small but it still had some interesting exhibits like Shrinking Cities that examined social, political, economic and architectural factors for population loss, Contemporary Architecture in Korea, and Gaudí Unseen that put some of Gaudí's unfinished works and ideas on display. The Schirn Kunsthalle's Art Machines Machine Art was the most fun and engaging of the three. It looked at artist-created machines that produce unique and random art and examined the role of artist as engineer and the machine as the art but also the "artist." Viewers were also invited to interact with the machines, thereby becoming part of the art-making process. I felt like a kid again going to all the different stations — two hours later I left the gallery with 4 pieces of original artwork :D
I spent my two evenings walking through the Christmas market. It really required those two nights to see everything in the market since it's SO massive... it goes along various streets and alleyways and spills into not one, but two public squares. I really didn't buy much in the markets, just a cute Santa Christmas ornament and a wooden figure that "smokes" when you open him up and put an incense cone inside. I mostly spent my money on food! That weekend I didn't sit down once to eat because I did all my eating at the street markets. It was the most unhealthy thing, but it was so fun to try all sorts of food from the various stalls (tasty too!) Some of the things I had included: a foot-long sausage, greasy deep-fried potato pancakes with apple sauce, dark chocolate covered fruits on a stick, humongous pretzel, broccoli and cheese pizza, corn on the cob drenched in garlic butter, apple-cinnamon glazed almonds, and a hot mug of apfelwein. I also saw my first Starbucks since arriving in Europe (there's surprisingly no Starbucks in Sweden considering they're the world's heaviest coffee drinkers after Finland), so I caved and treated myself to a 4€ small cup of gingerbread latte (but I was so disappointed they didn't have my peppermint hot chocolate *cries*).
Every last Friday of the month my company holds pub nights in the office, so two weeks ago we had a Polish pub night. I saw the cupboards completely CRAMMED with alcohol - it was nuts. I tried some really good Polish food like breaded meatballs and a sort of coleslaw dish. Afterwards I left for a friend's wine and cheese tasting party. He's French so his mom mailed over TONS of difference cheese from France. I liked the milder cheeses, but I tried one of the stronger ones and I had a hard time digesting it. As for the blue cheese, I just stayed far far away from that.
I got together with a friend at her flat to make homemade Christmas cards and baked a mjuk pepparkaka. Unfortunately I didn't get to taste how the cake turned out but it smelled heavenly, and it must've been quite interesting with the jam mixed inside. A traditional Swedish holiday treat I did try though was glögg, a mulled wine with spices that we warmed up and added in raisins (you can also choose to add in almonds.) I actually quite enjoyed it — the alcohol was quite weak and the drink was nice and sweet. I only had a tiny bit of it yet I still felt like falling asleep while I was crafting... I'm so weak!
]]>[read more] ]]>I arrived in Paris Saturday morning after only getting 2 hours of sleep the night before, waking up at 3am, taking a 1.5 hour shuttle bus to the airport, flying for 2 hours, and taking another 1.5 hour bus into Paris. Such is the cost for such cheap airfares: the buses end up costing more and take twice as long as the flight itself. Over the course of the trip Jason and I visited the Rodin museum, Notre Dame, went up the Eiffel Tower at night (but we just rushed around the balcony since we were absolutely freezing from the 1 hour wait for tickets), shopping along the Champs-Élysées, climbed up l'Arc de Triomphe, and explored the Montmatre area. We didn't really go on a hard-core sightseeing run and so it was a pretty relaxing trip, which was a nice change of pace for me. A lot of the time we just stayed in restaurants and cafés chatting and EATING! Since I first arrived in Europe I haven't really dined out but in Paris I totally pigged out... and it felt fabulous! Duck, rabbit, pasta, fruit tarts, crêpes, and French pastries, yummy yummy! You can't find this sort of good food in Sweden :(
On our last day together Jason had a flight to catch to Rome so we checked out of the hotel at 6am. After that I was left on my own to explore so I went to la Défense in the downtown area. Since it was still too early to do anything I lounged around at a café with my newly purchased French design magazine until the streets (and myself) started to wake up. I did some shopping, exploring, took another break at the nicest McDonald's I've ever seen, and then walked an hour to the bus station (but I was told that the walk was only 20 minutes.) In any case, my back felt completely broken from carrying my big backpack the entire morning. I really didn't pack that much, but I asked Jason to help me buy a sleeping bag from the States (plus a few cans of macedemia nuts :P), and I bought quite a bit of stuff, and tons of heavy magazines. Buying the magazines before I reached the airport was actually pretty dumb because I ended up having to pay an overweight surcharge for my bag at check-in. It turned out that I could have easily found my magazines in the airport terminal, DOH! But I really wasn't sure with these tiny airports so I erred on the safe side.
Even though this was my 2nd time in Paris, everything felt so new and exciting to me once more. I completely fell in love with the city all over again. The weather was gorgeous, people were so friendly and happy (as opposed to Stockholmers), I understood the language, and it reminded me again of Montreal — I didn't want to come back to Stockholm! The saddest thing was that I had to resort to do my shopping in Paris... definitely not the cheapest option, but still considerably cheaper than Sweden!
]]>[read more] ]]>Here are some of my thoughts about living here:
People
My colleagues are super nice and friendly so I really enjoy my work environment. Strangers however, sometimes seem quite cold upon first impressions but they are generally polite and friendly when you talk to them or ask for help. I'm still not used to salespeople in stores because they never greet or even acknowledge customers. They'll even completely ignore you and continue talking to their co-workers while blocking the shelf you're trying to look at. I'm told that this is quite common in Sweden since salespeople find the service industry to be beneath them so they tend to act snobby.
The thing that most surprised though is how pushy people are here. Multiple times, when walking up the escalator or walking along the people mover, people who wanted to walk faster (and everyone who's walked with me knows I'm definitely not a slow walker) would actually push me over the the right just to pass by. Like, what the hell? Who does that? Apparently lots of Swedes. The worst incident was yesterday when I was walking up the escalator and had to stop because there was a woman blocking the path. So I stopped too. But then a hand from behind extended over my should and pushed the woman and she fell over her kids! So then I turned around to the old man and told him he didn't need to push. And then he started to push me aggresively! Seriously, what's wrong with these people? Unbelievable! I wish I turned around and elbowed him in the face or something, but of course I did nothing.
Language
My company enrolled me in a Swedish class so I started learning Swedish last week. It's fun, but it's pretty hard. My teacher is really good but she speaks only Swedish to the class so most of it still sounds like gibberish to me. I did learn some basic things like counting numbers, saying "My name is," "I come from," "I speak English," and so on. The pronunciation is the trickiest because things aren't pronounced the way they're spelled. For example the letter 'K' can sound like 'sh', so "Kina" would be pronounced "sheena", which means China. The city "Göteborg" looks like "gotburg" but it's really pronounced "yur-teh-boray".
The Swedish language is still kind of difficult for me to distinguish (it sounds nothing like the Muppet Chef!), so sometimes I can't really tell if someone is speaking Swedish or not. If I were in a different country and I heard Swedish, I probably wouldn't be able to pinpoint the language. I thought it would be a bit similar to German, but it isn't at all - it's much more soft and melodic. Also, everybody here speaks English (and they don't sound like the IKEA guy) so I'm never forced to bust out my phrasebook.
Shopping
This place is freaking expensive! From the prices I've seen, many things are 2-3 times more expensive than back home. The most outrageous price I've seen was a puny head of iceberg lettuce for almost $8 yesterday!!! I almost dropped dead. I went shopping for running shoes since I couldn't find any sizes in the States or styles in Canada, and a simple pair of Adidas costed $200. Body Shop body butters were $30-$40 and books were double the price of the Canadian prices. On the streets in Stockholm, everyone sports a Canada Goose jacket, and even back home those cost a pretty penny, but here they seriously cost over $900!!! The most confusing thing is that full-time salaries are equivalent to those in Canada, but people here pay more income tax and sales tax and high living costs so I'm so confused how people can actually afford everything!
Fortunately, the prices at IKEA are cheaper than in Canada so I've already made 2 shopping trips there :) They also have a nice line of shower products and lotions so now I know where to go instead of the Body Shop!
Food
I still haven't actually eaten out at a real restaurant since it's quite expensive. Pretty depressing huh? I've eaten a tiny plate of rice and chicken at IKEA that cost me over $10, and a food court meal, which also cost $10. Lunch time is when the best deals are to be had. That's when restaurants have fixed-price menus called Dagens Rätt offering salad, bread, entrée and a drink. I went to one place for lunch that had a huge selection of pizzas and I chose one called La Banana, which had curry, pineapple, banana, and ham. Sounded really unique and it tasted really good! The rest of the time I make myself dinner and lunch but It's usually boring stuff. I really miss good Chinese food. I did find a Chinese grocery store yesterday and bought some sauces and noodles... but... I don't know how to make anything yet :S
Flatmates
It's only been a week in my new place and already I've gotten quite annoyed with the 2 other women I live with: one is the landlady and the other is a Swedish woman and they're both middle-aged. My landlady is really nice and sweet but she's imposed some rules like no friends or visitors and no alcohol. There was a third rule I found out after I bought a package of spare ribs: no pork. She's muslim so she doesn't want pork around and made me return it to the store. I was pretty angry about that because I thought it was wrong for her to impose her own dietary restrictions on me. But being the softie that I am, I returned the ribs (surprisingly you can return meat...?) She's also been moving my stuff around in the kitchen and bathroom and comes into my room when I'm not home (and my door is kept shut all the time), so I had to speak to her about that.
As for the other woman, I had only met her over the weekend... sort of. She had gone travelling when I moved in and had returned on Tuesday. Her bedroom door was open and the light was on so when I passed by the door I looked in, but there was an old half-naked woman standing around! Yuck! That was awkward so I didn't say anything. The next day after returning to my building from work, the woman held the elevator door for me to go upstairs. I tried saying hi but she ignored me, so I thought she didn't realize I was living in the same place as her. But when we both got off on the same floor and she left the apartment door open for me after going in, it was obvious she knew who I was. Then I watched her take off her dirty shoes and throw them right onto my house slippers! That peeved me off but I didn't say anything. Later on when the landlady introduced us I said hi and smiled at her, but all she did was just look at me with a blank stare. No smile, no 'hi', nothing. Hmph, rude. The next day after coming home I saw her shoes on top of my slippers AGAIN. I wanted to say something to her but I didn't really see her come out of her room that night. So this morning I purposely put my slippers away to the side, pushed my two pairs of shoes together to the side of the shoe rack and made sure she had lots of space on the rack. But when I came home after work, there was an empty space on the rack and the woman's shoes were dumped onto BOTH my pairs of shoes!!!! *huff* I don't know what's wrong with this woman, but I was so mad I threw her shoes off of mine and off the rack. I still didn't see her tonight but I'm making sure I speak to her tomorrow.
Fortunately for me the Swedish woman is moving out in 2 weeks and the landlady is moving out end of December. There's a German girl my age coming in next month. Caaaan't wait.
]]>[read more] ]]>