Chapter 0: It's over ....man!!

The second week here in Sweden, was about lessons and trying to do something for the individual design mission. Days were only with small variations basically like this: I woke up at 6:45. Stayed another 10 minutes in bed partly dreaming, because in the room was so cold. After some necessary morning routines around 7:15 I left the hotel towards the pier from where a boat at 7:30 took me three stations to Lindholmen to our classroom. I had my first cup of coffee.

Yes, A CUP OF COFFEE!! I never drink coffee, but because there was no possibility to buy Magic Man energy drink for 30 euro cents, I had to somehow inject myself to stay awake during the long day. Actually that was not a real coffee. It was half coffee and half milk and a lot of sugar to taste as much as possible like cacao. There was a free supply of this delicious drink during the whole day so I had several ones. But it wasn’t without consequences. After like four big cups my heart rose on frequence and I felt like a heart attack was trying to steal my life. I don’t plan to commit suicide, so after that I started to drink water.

Lessons started at 8:00. Some of them were really interesting, some of them less, but one thing they had in common…first coffee break around 9:30. My breakfast time, because when I had found out last week that in addition to free coffee they served free sandwiches and cookies, I gave up hotel breakfast to sleep 20 minutes more.

12:00 and lunch time. We had a free lunch at a restaurant downstairs. I was kind of fast food, but a very good one, every day offering a soup, a fish meal, a meat meal and a vegetarian meal. And to that you could take any amount of various vegetable salads. Light and healthy. But this was nothing unusual. Swedes seem to like a healthy life style. You can always see them running on the streets or at least riding a bike and low fat vegetable alimentation fits perfectly to that style. Typically nice, slim and good-looking Swedish girls are the proof :)

Good food is one thing, but this does not entitle them to steal in the restaurants!! And it’s legal!! OK, it is not exactly stealing, but it it’s a very big minus for Sweden. What it is about? When you go to the restaurant, basically in the center and a better one, you HAVE TO put your jacket to a cloakroom and you also HAVE TO pay for it a price of a half of a beer. Even when I am writing this at the Vienna airport, I am getting angry. So nasty!!

Lessons ended around 4pm and then I took a boat back to the hotel switched on the TV and spend two hours either with writing, slowly progressing with my mission or watching stupidities. Then with the classmates living in the same hotel we went to have a dinner to some restaurant nearby. After that I went back and keep working or watching some TV crap. Whole my life I don’t have a TV at home and I am so happy about it. These two weeks proved that TV is an evil hydra trying to steal my time and somehow I am weak to resist. Only solution is to throw that infernal device away. Only then I can be free.

Day by day the week was passing and suddenly there was the end of our training, final test, mission presentation and course evaluation. The day before somebody came up with an idea to go for a dinner to the city, because it was our last day. So we went to play pool and had a hamburger in an Irish pub. Bar hopping is for previously stated reasons very expensive fun, so after the second pub we all went home to tune our missions. Like always it would have needed a couple more hours to finish it to perfection, but at 2am I had to switch the TV off and go to sleep.

But on the Day D everything went smoothly and I was told that I did a great job. Very well then :) Mission accomplished.

As Randy, my colleague from Dubai told me “Here in Sweden everybody is so cool and nice”. And have to agree with him. All of the Scandinavian classmates, teachers, Envac colleagues or people around make kind of friendly environment that pushes the others to behave in the same way, to not spoil it. If not the cold and jacket fees, great country with great people :)   

To be continued…