Monday 30 August 2010

Riding Skåne

Today I woke up at 6:30 to do my work for Alfa.lt, have breakfast, have a shower and ride to university for the very first class of my master's degree.

When I woke up I checked the flag outside to see if there was any wind. It was limp against its pole and I rejoiced.

By the time I got going on the bike though it was another story with a decent gale of wind pushing me back with every turn of the pedal. I was already 10 minutes behind schedule due to a talkative house mate and thinking I had misplaced my keys. In fact I had already put my keys into my bag the day before in case I forgot them, but I forgot that I did this :)

Look at me go. Bat out of hell!
With just 45 minutes to belt it about 12 km against the wind from Lomma to the School of Economics and Management at the university in Lund, I started to worry that I wouldn't make it. I pedaled hard and eventually made it with a few minutes to spare at the lecture hall, albeit with jelly legs.

On my way home I started thinking about how many kilometres I will ride each day here in Sweden. On Sunday we went to Malmö and around and I rode over 30 km. Today I rode around 24 km or so. I suppose on a regular day I will be riding around 25 km. Its also a 2 km round trip on the bike to the supermarket where I go almost every day, so I can add that in too.

Soon I will be fit as a fiddle — I just hope that in winter the road doesn't get so slushy that I can't ride anymore.

Sunday 29 August 2010

Let there be bread

In my quest to live within my means in Sweden, I tried making my first batch of bread in the country.

At the shop I was surprised to see that a smallish loaf of bread costs between 20-30 kr (€2.00-3.00) and they don't have the bread that I like, which is nice and dark.
I tried to make it twisted, but the baking forms
cooked it into nice rectangles. Oh well. Its still bread.

So I bought a 2 kg pack of flour and Vik and I have been going nuts with it. We finished the packet  off with the bread, but we also made two apple cakes with apples from the neighbour's tree.

Yeast (or jäst in Swedish) is pretty cheap at 1.50 kr for 50 g and flour is cheap too at 7.89 kr for 2 kg. Add a bit of water, sugar and salt and you have four loaves of bread, which will last two or three days each for one person.

Each loaf then costs roughly 2 kr or €0.20. Plus it tastes good and its sort of fun. Torsten, my landlord has a mixing machine with an attachment that kneads the dough, so its really quick and easy to make it too.

The only thing missing that would make me really happy is dark, coarse flour, which is better for you than the super fine white flour. If I can manage that, I'll be laughing.

Saturday 28 August 2010

War on personal responsibility rages...

Governments are again trying to draw up rules and boundaries on the internet — a nation-less domain they clearly have no right to touch. The free market rules on the internet and people are free to use it or not use it as they see fit. That is of course unless you live in a country that censors the internet like China...or Australia.

Click to view the story. From the Wall Street Journal
(Europe edition) on Aug. 26, 2010. Page 5.
Now Germany is considering making laws that would ban employers from looking at a (potential) employee's social networking pages (Facebook, StudiVZ.de etc). [Click on the article to expand and read].

This makes me laugh like all of the other privacy rubbish that people harp on about with Facebook and other sites.

People want their privacy and thats understandable, but we know that Facebook shares our information and our photos (which become public domain when you upload them) with everyone and anyone, particularly those people that make apps and so on.

There is the pseudo-private option of blocking off your profile from public view. You go into your privacy settings and change them all so no one can see anything.

Or if you don't want people looking at your life, the simple and effective way to protect your privacy is not to upload your information.

So back to the newspaper article in the Wall Street Journal, if you don't want your employer or a company you apply to work for to see things like you necking vodka out of a plastic penis on a hens night, then don't upload it! No one is twisting your arm.

Also if you don't want people to know you are affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan, you don't need to upload it.

I know, I know it sounds insane not to exist. I mean some people could not imagine the crazy and unthinkable anonymity of not validating your existence on the internet. If its not on the internet, it doesn't exist. Oh wait is that the point?

Friday 27 August 2010

Microfinancing culture

While hunting around for an alternative for Facebook (which is getting a bit lame these days) I ran into the site called Kick Starter.

Look at all that money in those small hands!
It could be you or someone you know!
This site is made for people who have an idea and want to get it going, but don't have the cash. There are so many projects that would be great except they aren't big enough to invest in, but too big to finance on your own. Perhaps they don't fit in with any grants on offer or perhaps you just don't want to be involved in the bureaucracy that grants come along with.

Anyway Kick Starter (Beta) is a site where you can put your project up and ask people to fund it. People with a cool idea will attract people who are sick to death of boring old crap. They will give you money, like in this example.

Its the perfect way to fund culture and its proof that people will actually give money to things they think are worth paying for.

With the new micro-possibilities that are open to more or less everyone on the internet, Kick Starter is going to be one of many sites where people can get some dough together to make the world that little bit richer with culture and ideas. God knows we all need some in this media-syndicated world.

Oh by the way, its only available in America, so people reading at home in Australia, you can't use it. Don't worry though, it will only take an Australian about four years to invent the same thing, going by the rate of technological advances in the country. Oh but by that time the internet will be censored anyway. Tough luck.

Thursday 26 August 2010

Words of the day

Three words that I have easily been able to remember are "meatballs", "chicane" and "end". Thats because they sounds sort of funny in English.

Meatballs is köttbullar, which looks like it should have a k sound at the beginning. However in Swedish, when k is followed by a soft vowel, such as "ö" it becomes "sh". So it sounds almost like "shitbullar" or shit balls. Easy to remember.

Chicane is farthinder. Its easy to remember because hinder, means to slow down in English and fart is like fahrt (n. drive/ride) in German, which means to drive. Drive-slowerer. Got it.

End is slut. The u is nice and long like all Swedish vowel sounds, so it sounds a bit like sloooot. At the end of a film, where you would normally see "the end," you see "slut."

A few other words I've learned are smör (butter) and ägg (egg).

Tuesday 24 August 2010

Centralised vacuum cleaner

Today I had the pleasure of vacuuming the house. It was easy because the house where I live has a centralized vacuum system, something I'd not seen before. Getting rid of the dust and crumbs was as easy as plugging in the hose into a special socket in the wall.

The vacuum turns on, you do the cleaning and the simply take the pipe with you to the next room. No worrying about electric cords or lugging aroung the heavy bastard or worrying about if the bag is full.

Makes it easy to keep clean.

It's a nice coincidence that I enjoy this luxury technology, but in the last post I was talking about how it's nice to struggle. Life is strange isn't it?

Rolling the stone

I just finished reading the book "The Age of Absurdity: Why modern life makes it hard to be happy"

The book covers a lot of different subjects from consumerism and unbridled desire for everything (and then the disappointment once you have it) to poignant subjects such as the rejection of responsibility. The book also covers modern interpretations on love, work and death.

Following a terrifying chapter about death, I finished it with the summary of the book. More or less, the author's message is that happiness is derived from struggle: that if you are always striving towards something, you will be happiest then. Throughout the book the example of Sisyphus and his eternal struggle to push the stone up the hill is referenced as a metaphor for the happy life.

I won't summarize the whole book here, but finishing reading it at the point when I moved from Lithuania back to the west was perfect timing. While going through it, I started to be able to qualify the feelings of happiness and contentment I had in Lithuania.

The country is quite basic, for lack of a better word. Everything is as it was many years ago, except for technological advancements. In Lithuania they do not suffer from many of the ills that the western world does such as the habit of shirking personal responsibility (for example no one would EVER claim there that they are fat because of a genetic disorder. They would take full personal responsibility and say they ate too much and did too little exercise).

They also have enough to do in their everyday lives to keep them occupied. Doing mundane things like walking to the shops instead of driving and washing the dishes by hand keep you occupied and you don't get bored.

In Sweden I have already noticed that I have too much time on my hands. I cook and then all I have to do with the dishes is throw them into the machine and when its full press the button. Not exactly new technology I know, but I haven't lived with this luxury before.

I guess the thing is that Lithuania is a good place to live because there is always a bit of struggle. You don't have time to sit around and wonder about things because you are always busy just trying to keep up.

Its a very hard subject to write about — to fully explain what I'm trying to say would take two or three books and then some — so I'll just leave it at that for now. Read the book, maybe you will get what I mean...

The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life Makes it Hard to be Happy

Monday 23 August 2010

About Lomma

Here are some facts about the town where I live. (I got the information from the municipal government):

Lomma municipality
The municipality, situated in the west of Skåne on the coast of Öresund , was formed in the 1960s when the small market town of Lomma was merged with the large rural district of Flädie. In January 2009 the population amounted to about 20,450 inhabitants. Prominent features include good housing standards and the nearness to Öresund which affords ample opportunities for a rich outdoor life.


Population
The municipality has three population centres: Bjärred with 9,250 inhabitants, Lomma with 9,700 and Flädie with about 240 inhabitants. The remaining 1,300 inhabitants live either in one of the villages of Fjelie, Önnerup, Lilla Lomma and Alnarp or in the outlying rural areas.


There is considerable commuter activity from Lomma: about 6,700 of the inhabitants work in other municipalities, chiefly in Malmö or Lund, and about 2,600 people from other areas commute to work in Lomma.


Transport
It takes about 15-20 minutes to drive to Malmö from the different parts of the municipality. Public transport is well developed with frequent bus connections with Malmö and Lund. The travelling time Lomma-Malmö, Lomma-Lund and Bjärred-Lund is 20-25 minutes. The distance Lomma-Malmö is 8 kilometres , Lomma-Lund 10 km , Bjärred-Lund 10 km and Bjärred-Malmö 15 km .

Watch this tourism video about Lomma. I think they took every single angle of the town for this, because it really isn't that big.

For those totally excited about the district of Lomma, there is more info on Wikipedia here, though it is five years old now.

Saturday 21 August 2010

Meat!

In Sweden I am living on Lithuanian wages and because of that I've set myself the difficult target of eating for 100 kr (~10 euros) a week. More than a budget constraint, I am interested to see if I can actually do it.

I have been going to Lidl, the German chain supermarket that sells bulk items at cheap prices. Just in case you wanted 10kg of sugar in one trip to the supermarket, this is your shop. Oh and don't forget the 20 cans of corn at discount rates.
The remainder of the pork that Erik and I didn't eat.
Lunch tomorrow.
The problem with Lidl is that it doesn't have much in the way of fresh food. You can buy fresh meat, but the choice is limited and you need to buy 10kg of beef mince or something...they don't really have the small packets.

So I went to ICA, the expensive, but more regular supermarket with a larger range of vegetables and meat products. Fortunately they had a sale on marinade pork ribs for 19.90 kr per kilogram — unbeatable value.

My friend Erik was visiting for a barbecue, which is why we were buying the meat. At that price we got one kilogram of ribs each and took them home and grilled 'em up. 

We didn't finish them of course, but they were so good I went back to go get three more kilograms for the freezer — to let a good deal like that go to waste would be sin and wouldn't help me reach my 100 kr goal.


Cold water

Today I decided to be a bit crazy and go swim in the Öresund channel, which runs between southern Sweden and Denmark.

I rode my bike down to the water, just half a kilometre from my home (one of the advantages of living in Lomma). The wind was strong and clouds filled the sky, but I thought it would be a great way to kick start the day after doing a bit of morning work at my job at Alfa.lt.

I got to the beach and was comforted by the fact that there were a few kids around wearing bathers.

I rode down to the southern beach — not where sunbathers and swimmers usually go, but where my landlord Torsten suggested — and I was all alone. I took off my shirt and ran into the water. Pretty cold, but not totally shocking.

Wading in I realised it probably wasn't going to get much deeper. Those in the know told me that you need to go about 400 metres before getting into swimming-depth water, but I was too lazy to go so far, so I just lay down when I got in knee-deep.

My my was it...refreshing. I put my head under and wow, what a feeling! After pulling all the seaweed and crap out of my hair I felt like a million bucks. So I stayed in the water until I started to feel cold then went back to the bike and rode off.

Very fresh indeed.

Friday 20 August 2010

Around Lomma on a cloudy day

This are some photos I took quickly so you can get an idea about what the town looks like where I live. To view the photos, click on "fullscreen". Enjoy.


Picasa SlideshowPicasa Web AlbumsFullscreen

Thursday 19 August 2010

Shocking bus ride


Taking the bus from Malmö gave me quite a shock that I wasn't expecting. I saw a bus driver try to steal from a passenger — behaviour that would be almost expected in a place like Lithuania, but seemingly unthinkable in the west/north.

An Iranian guy, who had not done his research into the currency used in Sweden (or into anything else for that matter) got on the bus and said to the driver: "Hello, I am from Iran and I don't know how much it costs to get on. Could you please help me?"

Following this the Iranian held out €20. Just so you know why this is dumb, note that the currency of Sweden is the Swedish Kronor (€1.00 = 9.44Kr) and euros are not accepted. Obviously.

So I was quite amazed when the driver took the money and put it in his wallet. Not only did he take the money, but then he gave the Iranian 7 kr back as change.

I couldn't stand seeing someone cheated like this — even it if was clearly their own fault being so ill informed — so I got up and told the driver to give the €2o back and also gave the 7kr back too. I asked the Iranian if he had any kronor and he said "no, but I thought the currency of Europe was the euro?"

The bus driver pretended he didn't know the exchange rate between kronor and euro - something that is clearly impossible given that the Swedish economy is closely linked to Europe's.

I paid the 29kr for this guy's ticket so he could ride the bus. When we got to Lomma we would go to a bank, change some money and everything would be fine.

When we got to Lomma we found a bank and asked for the currency to be changed. No chance because they were a cashless bank: a bank without money. Of course, how obvious! We went to three other banks and found the same thing: no chance to change your money here. Sigh.

In the end I just took the €20 and gave him 100kr back. That is 188.85 kr minus 29 for the bus and minus 40 for a currency transaction leaving a little leeway for currency fluctuation.

It cost the Iranian 10 euros to ride a bus that should have cost three, but then again, if you don't bring the right currency, what do you expect? Better than him getting cheated out of the whole 20. I still wish I didn't need to go to the bank to change it myself though — at least I helped someone out that day.

Wednesday 18 August 2010

Trading places

Since early 2006 I have been on the road more or less constantly, always looking for a new direction or a new way to enjoy the place where I'm at. There was always one rule though: the new place is going to be exiting and better.

Leaving Lithuania after three years living there for yet another new start actually daunted me for the first time. Even though I lived the life of a pauper in Vilnius with a terrible flat filled with appliances that didn't work and a landlord that was such an asshole that he wouldn't fix the lock on the front door, I had sort of settled in there.

Things were familiar and I had my circle of friends and acquaintances. I had also achieved some sort of standing in the local media industry, a very important thing to have in a place like Lithuania where knowing someone is the difference between success and failure.

So when I got on the plane to Sweden I was actually a little anxious for the first time since I started travelling in Europe four years ago. I was wondering whether I'd cope with money given that I would still be writing for Alfa.lt with Lithuanian wages in a Swedish-priced world. I was also anxious about whether Vik would come over and be able to find a job quickly given that Europe is still struggling out of recession.

Denmark

Arriving in Copenhagen was a mixed bag of experiences for me. First of all, people were actually smiling. Its something I had seen rarely in Lithuania, a country so obsessed by its own misery that smiling seems like it must be illegal or something. There was also the excessively well-organised aspect of Denmark that hit me. It was as if I didn't need to struggle to live anymore. I didn't get a sore back riding the bus or have to wait in line only to be yelled at for something I didn't do. Electronic goods were not made 30 years ago. Everything was working with clockwork precision.

Keep in mind though that this sort of level of efficiency comes at a cost. This was a major shock coming from Lithuania. One bus ride in Copenhagen costs more than what it costs to eat for a day in Vilnius. Coffees in Denmark's capital are five times the price of those in Lithuania's, which are already unaffordable for most people there. The new price scheme compared to my bank balance was quite a shock.

After spending a few hours in Copenhagen I made my way to Sweden using the train that goes over the massive bridge to Malmö. It didn't take long to get all the way to the next country and suddenly it was a new language again. Good thing I only picked up a few words of Danish.

Sweden

I arrived in Sweden and went to my new house. It is a clean room and I have my own bathroom next door with an enormous bath I will probably never use. I am living on the top floor of a house owned by a retired doctor who likes sailing a lot. He seems to be a really nice guy who has devoted his life to high education and a functional society.

The town I'm living in is called Lomma (see map) and is something like Palanga in Lithuania. It is the seaside resort town of Skåne, the south-western region of Sweden. There isn't much going on when its raining (as it has been for the last few days), but I'm hoping that there will be at least another hot day or two when I could go for a swim at the beach.


I also made a quick trip to Lund, the city where I will be studying. It is very picturesque and is full of vibrant student life. The feeling is tangible (and I don't mean that like shitty travel journalists bandy the term 'tangible' about. I actually mean this place was vibrant. No really). In fact, after my initial anxiety from the move wore off, the excited feeling for whats up ahead came back to me in bucket-loads.

After a day of worry, I'm ready for what the future holds. I've turned the page and this is the next phase of my life.