Ion Ciorici

…as usually I am lucky to see only the first half of the things

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“We’ll always have Paris. But then again, that means we’ll always have a lot of French people .”

View from Notre Dame de Paris, top floor

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This weekend was reserved for a short-long trip to Kolmården Zoo (Kolmårdens Djurpark) – approx. 150km far from Stockholm.

The Kolmården Zoo is Scandinavia’s largest Wildlife Park and basically is packed with quite exciting experiences, where you can meet almost 750 wild attractions from jungle, savannas and oceans.

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When talking about Sweden all the time somehow comes to my mind IKEA, Volvo, Saab, ABBA, blond girls, nature and why not modesty. It looks that after visiting some of the royal residences the word modesty is not the most appropriate for this selected Swedish family.

Below you’ll find some pictures with the castles/palaces owned by the Swedish royal family and believe me you won’t find inside any IKEA decoration .

Drottningholm Palace

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Maybe the main reason I agreed to go to Finland is because Finland is the motherland of the most weird events. You won’t believe what the Finns are up to when it comes to weird annual events, contests, and similar activities…and so here they are, the world’s weirdest events!

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I guess the best word, which describes the last week is spontaneous random adventure . It started with a peaceful Monday morning in Sweden, but ended with less peaceful late nights somewhere in the Baltic Sea

Monday – Tuesday

My responsibilities at my old new job are becoming more significant and more varied so that on Monday and Tuesday I was appointed as the official paparazzi of the that mysterious company . The only thing remains to increase the salary for this risky and hazardous job . Monday and Tuesday were really busy, full of meetings, quarterly reports and so on. I guess the purpose of these meetings is to accentuate that the main reason for being successful is not because we have a strong and tall CEO , but actually it’s because of us, every employee who is making the company more successful day by day. To motivate us for better results and to perceive this successful first quarter, our manager reserved a small boat and invited us to go for a short-long trip to a nice and lost island.

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I need a lot of dictionaries with synonyms to write this article.
It’s really impossible to write about one of the greatest day of my life – just a single day was enough to visit:

- Astonishing Swedish Lappland
- The highest mountain in Sweden – Kebnekaise
- The immense Swedish and Norwegian frozen lakes – Torne, Kalix, Vittangi, Könkämä & Rautasälven
- The most coldest hotel in the world – Ice Hotel
- The oldest wooden Sami church in the world
- The biggest iron mine in the world – Kiruna mine
- The deepest located mushroom farm – Kiruna Svampodling
- The most beautiful sunset next to the Atlantic Ocean
- The magic Aurora/Nordic lights
- The mysterious fjords in Norway
- An more than 200 amazing reindeer’s and 500km per day on icy roads!

Of course now you see the list and say that it’s impossible to see all the sights during one day, but when the sun is rising at 3 o’clock in the morning and never sets. Starting May in Lappland (Northern part of Sweden and Finland) nights are missing at all for more than 50 days

Departing to Lappland

We first took the Arlanda Express to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, which is the fastest way to go to the airport, is kind of Swedish Maglev Train.

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After 2 weeks of no writing any posts and not having Internet here comes the boom as Mr. Mallon likes to say .

I shall start first of all with more culturally things and then end with less culturally attractions .

One place in Stockholm which is quoted with 5 stars in all the guides is Vasa Museet. The Vasa Museum is Scandinavia’s most visited museum. The Museum is so famous because of the warship Vasa – the only remaining, intact 17th century ship in the world.

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When asked about stereotypes about Sweden the first thing foreigners often think about Swedish population is blond hair and blue eyes, which actually coincides only with a small percentage of the population.

During the dinner organized by International Committee at Stockholm School of Economics we were advised not searching for many blond girls, because they represent a small percentage at the university and it’s better not to call them Swiss, because we are now in Sweden .

I believe Swedes are quite good at ice-hockey:

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It was a busy, but wonderful night before leaving Prague. Having a nice dinner with Silvestru Family and than exclusively they provided us an unforgettable night tour around Prague, for few minutes we transformed our car in a horse carriage, which means that we have the permission to drive through Old Town Square and other places :

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After a very comfortable journey to Moldova in very comfortable ***** bus (with individual seats inside (of course not adjustable), with option to carry somebody’s bag in front and below your seat in order to have a better aerodynamic coefficient inside the bus, and exclusively which was stopping every 5th hour in order to survive to next customs point I thought it’s a good idea to change the old traditional way of reaching Prague by another less overcrowded way of transportation.

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Brussels is the city with one of the highest density of people wearing ties on the km2.
I can divide the population of Brussels into 2 categories:
1) Those who are wearing EU ID badge, of course with EU logo,
2) Those who don’t: they can be simple tourists or not EU fans .
Sometimes I have the feeling that I am related to some terrorist groups, not because I am behaving like them, just of the simple fact how the police officers from
the entrance of the European Commission:

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It’s been 4 days since Brussels became my “home”, but not a very hospitable one.
Life in Brussels is kind of strange: no English in metro, no English in the buses, trams, no English inside all the EU institutions, if you speak French or Dutch (I don’t ) you are welcomed inside the EU capital city.
Before writing how nice Brussels is, it deserves to say some words (some bad words :- ) ) about the whole integrated Brussels transportation system. It is so unclear and illogical, no description, no English, no English speaking people. Brussels’s transportation doesn’t speak at all, I mean there isn’t any announcement about the next station, and even they don’t have led display with the name of the next station> so all the time we poor foreigners are supposed to:
1) to count the stations;
2) to watch through dirty windows of the metro/tram the name of station which is graved at each station (size 12, Times New Roman .

During the nights sometimes I am sleeping at the Royal Residence, a very nice place with hot water, something like Kolej Jarov .

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When you are coming to the Czech Republic, people are recommending you to visit Prague, maybe Karlstejn, Karlovy Vary etc. When you are coming to Denmark, people are recommending you to visit… Copenhagen, no; Legoland no… Malmö, which is actually is not located in Denmark. Denmark and Sweden are like a family, simply friends forever and they can recommend all the time to visit its neighbour.
After lessons we went to Sweden, because of the Malmö Festival – a culinary festival,music and culture festival. My 15 minutes break is over, it’s time to return to classes, I’ll write later.

What a pleasant morning: no waiting for the tram (I must admit and say that Danny was right I do use sometimes public transportation in Prague , then no waiting for the metro and strange waiting only 2 seconds for the bus. The atmosphere at the airport was ok, no terrorist at all, even in the plane. Let’s go to check-in.
The lady, who was doing the check-in was nice, but after she saw the colour of my passport she started to behave not very pleasant, because through SkyEurope you first of all make the reservation for the flight ticket and then you are validating it on the chek-in. But still the lady was not able to find my reservation.Oh really , that’s nice I am not going to Copenhagen. She was so stupid, instead of “Ciorici” she typed “Cirici”, 1 minute of Drama and I have ticket . Next, Sir your bag is too heavy unfortunatelly you should pay for the extra kg. Oh really , weigh it and the magic number is on the display 19,8 kg !
Plane was ok, some Boening 737-500. After only 48 minutes!!! I am in Copenhagen. What a beautifull view, so many islands, so many brigdes, simply amazing. The airport, in Danish = Kastrup , is located on the island of Amager, about twelve kilometres south from Copenhagen.
Public transportation is a little bit complicated (too many lines, too many strange letters). Anyway after one hour I am alive in centre of Copenhagen at CBS (Copenhagen Business School), ready for the blocked seminar. The blocked seminar is entitled “Cross Cultural Management: Team Dynamics in Global Context”.
The main departments of the university are situated right in central part of the town. At 16:30 we had some introduction about were are we coming from (I am proud to represent Republic of Moldova and of course at the same time the Czech Republic ). The blocked seminar seems to be really interesting, 35 students from the most biggest economic universities of EU. The thing is really interesting, because there are a lot of different nations which actually are not representing the nationality of the home university. Was really funny how everebody was introducing: “Hello my name is “blabla” I am from University of Economics from Prague, but I am originally from Moldova….hello I am from London School of Economics, but I am originally from Nicaragua… hello I am from Cologne University, but I am originally from Brasil .
After the introduction we had some dinner.
Today 20th of August, the whole day we were dealling and trying to anylise, solve different cases regarding the cross cultural management. At the end of the day in order to relax we had some “Lego Serious Play” .
At this moment I haven’t managed to take enough pictures, because almost the whole day I am spending at the university.
Tomorrow (21st of August) we are going to solve some cases with some managers from Shell Company and then after the lunch we have a trip to Sweden, exactly to Malmo.
Now, time to take some sleep, after so many Tuborgs .