Time is passing by so fast that we don’t even realize how fast the seasons are changing, I still have the feeling that the university started yesterday:

The semester ended with the final presentation of the business project. The business project is an obligatory part of the CEMS MIM curriculum and is supposed to be a real life learning experience for students. Basically student teams solve a real business problem as a one-semester part-time activity tutored by the company and a professor in parallel. The project results are evaluated by an academic and corporate supervisors. Sounds quite easy, but when you have an academic supervisor like ******** P.O. it is just intolerable. For example in the official curriculum of the CEMS organization is said the we need to write a report of about 10-12 pages, but Sweden would be all the time an exception, and is better to write a report for at least 50 pages…never mind, the most important thing it was a great opportunity to meet new people, make friends, was really a very pleasant team to work with – I guess this is the most important factor when you do a project like this.

During the past week there were not so many gay events in Stockholm, except the Quarnevalen .
Quarnevalen is kind of Scandinavian Rio de Janeiro carnival, the only difference is that you don’t see nicely dressed Brasilian ladies, but strange Swedish students from Royal Institute of Technology, still there were some exceptions :

More pictures HERE

Oh yeah I forgot about the Olympic stadium from Helsinki, quite a nice place…

front of the medal:

back:

The following weeks: exams, projects, presentations, work – see you in 2 weeks!

Our group for one of the projects

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.

Finally during this weekend I’ve managed to see changing of the guards at the Royal Palace, quite a funny thing:

Some other pictures I find interesting:

1 strange sign and 2 boys:

guess what’s this

Combining university life with my new job resulted in 3-4 hours of sleeping per day (more detailes about the new job in the new post). In order to shorten this long time I decided to do a short visit to Älmhult. Actually the visit wasn’t so short, since this place is about 500km far from Stockholm. The best solution was to take a X2000, which is kind of Swedish Maglev Train:

The number 2000 is not average speed, it’s in fact the number of seconds after the train broke . This really happened after about 300 km far from Stockholm. Since I was close to miss my interview I asked the train conductor how far was Älmhult. He was so kind and answered that actually they don’t plan to stop there, since it’s a very small and unimportant village. Then he remembered that SJ (Swedish railways) is obliged to cover all the expanses for passengers in case of delays. I was really pleasant surprised when he said they will stop in Älmhult only because of me

Älmhult is a small village with about 8,518 people (including me ), which is famous because here for the first time Ingvar Kamprad opened his first IKEA store and since then here it’s located IKEA’a headquarter. I decided to visit Älmhult not only because of my interview with the company mentioned before, but also to see how looks a typical Swedish village.

Another boom was a nice trip to Swedish Faroe Islands .
Ratana (Switzerland), Thomas (Germany) and Henneke (Netherlands) decided to celebrate their birthday together somewhere out Stockholm and they made a good decision. We went to a cabin in Saltsjobaden which is property of the Student Association at SSE
The cabin is not so far from Stockhom, but when you arrive there the only thing which comes to your mind is WoW :

People living there really enjoy their lives. Everything is so natural and untouched by people, silence all around and just the breeze of the sea.
But when the exchange students are coming , the atmosphere and the magic silence is being replaced by ….hm.. let’s say international workshops and of course the music of nature by the music from the modern Ipods:

…encouraging and supporting for better results

…singing the Swedish anthem :

…making a family picture:

…building peace:

…receiving the most desired gift :

…even though it’s not much ball space :

and in case you forgot how do I look like, here is a fresh photo

to be continued….

Today, at long last, the sun decided to grant us a bit of attention, so finally no more black/white pictures:

Now I can enjoy making new pictures with the blue-blue sky and those from Milan may envy us :

During the last week I didn’t participate at any global events, so as usually I spent a simple, unglamourous student’s life.
Life at university is an every day exam. We meet new people, face new challenges and if we want some pages at the end of the book with all the right answers – we have to write them ourselves.

The most Wau thing I’ve seen during the last week was maybe the Stockholm Public Library (oh no, again books ).

The library is really something amazing in the way how it looks and is built. The first time when you see it, you may assume, that it’s a prison for bad students from Stockholm School of Economics :

The architect’s name also is a little bit ghostlike: GUNNAR ASPLUND

The name Stockholm Public Library is today used for both: the main library as well as the municipal library system of the City of Stockholm. It includes more than 2 million volumes and 2.4 million audio tapes, CDs and audio books.

So, welcome inside the Stockholm Public Library

Having still the same difficulties to spend my first scholarship I’ve decided this time to check for some student’s discounts at a more affordable mark:

You may guess that I didn’t like the colour, so I’m still confused what car to buy. Anyway on the way to Audi showroom, had the chance to see some nice local boats:

(this picture was attached to the invitation, so I suppose I have all the rights to post it on my commercial blog )

I suppose, that they organized this event in order to bring together all the international students and guest researchers and not because of future elections of the local mayor . Anyway it was a great honour to be invited by mayor in the same hall, where the Nobel Prize Banquet takes place.

In my travel guide is stated that Stadshuset (City Hall) is one of the best examples of modern architecture in Europe. The picture above shows how beautiful the building is and how it fits into the rest of the architecture in Stockholm. What makes Stadshuset extraordinary, however, is the interior. There are two courtyards, one uncovered, called the Blue Hall, which is actually Brown and one covered, called the Golden Hall.

The Blue Hall of the Stockholm City Hall was supposed to be painted blue, but the architect changed his mind when he saw the beautiful red brick walls. Although he decided to not cover the brick with blue plaster, he kept the name Blue Hall since it was found on all the plans of the building. The Blue Hall is the City Hall’s largest room, and the Nobel Prize Banquet takes place here on December 10 every year. On this occasion, around 1,300 guests enjoy the Nobel Dinner, listen to the toasts and speeches and witness the evening’s entertainment. The Blue Room also has one of Northern Europe’s largest organs with over 10,000 pipes and 138 stops.

Then there is the incredible Golden Hall: a huge room with walls entirely covered with handmade mosaics (18 million pieces). Formed from gold foil pressed between two layers of glass, the Golden Hall is truly golden, and the warm glow makes the room intimate despite the vast size. The mosaic figures on the walls represent important events in Sweden and the world.

The City Hall is not so far from the Main bus/train station, but because it’s located on the next island it’s a little bit complicated to get there. Since we were going for the first time, none of us knew the right directions. So we played a little bit the game “sheep-man and all the sheep following him” . Anyway after some 10 minutes all the students were at the destination, somebody took the taxi, others crossed the highway, more brave ones swam .

The reception was well prepared including short welcome speech (excepts Richard’s ):

…tasty food…

food enough for 700 hungry students :

Just a simple question for those who were there, have you read the descriptions of dishes, which were in front of each plate I doubt that you did .

and as usually Moritz was the hungriest one

As I see Kim liked the sausages and Andrea as a proud Italian was degustating some pure Swedish wine:

Armen finally bought a suit and as usually showed his Spanish passion for every friend:

Anyway was a nice evening with nice people:

and I hope next time they will provide some ABBA songs, because Gergely and Christina were very much looking forward to dancing :

But piece by piece, Sweden is the motherland of rules not only regarding alcohol and anti-alcohol policies. Actually these rules and policies violate the European Union’s rules of fair competition. These kind of measures, rules, limitations I found not only within alcohol industry.

During my 2 weeks in Sverige I concluded that Sweets… sorry Swedes have many rules, too many – and maybe this is good in order to have a high level of living, respect in the society and bla bla bla.

Strange rules, restrictions and prohibition signs are everywhere, in front of the school, kindergarten, night clubs, below my bed, in front of my door and even in front of McDonald’s (which is supposed to represent the place of all possibilities) :

Restriction measures as it was expected are also in the clubs, more explicitly in front of the clubs, because we didn’t get the chance to visit many of them. It’s difficult to say why they do this (bodyguards usually don’t allow exchange students inside), maybe because we don’t “Pratar/talar Svenska”, or maybe we are not too blond. On thing is clear, exchange students make a lot of troubles and the bodyguards represent some 0,0134 % of the total population, so it’s OK to have some black sheep in the country .

Restriction measures are not only in front of school, you can find them also inside … the Stockholm School of Economics and inside its system.
I will just state few examination rules at SSE:

You must take the seat assigned to you!

You must stop writing when the invigilator announces that the writing time is over. A student who continues to write despite of the invigilators request will not get his/her exam marked.

Calculators may be permitted, however just only one type : Casio FX- 82S : (good business for Casio)

I was not waiting so impatiently for this journey, but anyway there were some questions like :
Tickets? Check.
Passport? Check.
Filebox with instructions? Check.
My head? Check…
Putting things in and out the luggage, trying to think rationally “Do I need an extra pair of socks or will I be fine with the 100pairs I already have in my bag

The goodbye ritual which was prepared by my friends on the bus platform was really unexpected and very funny, thanks everybody! Even in the bus, the guy, who was next to me, asked me “Emigruješ do Švédska nebo co? ” (Are you emmigrating to Sweden?). I am convinced that everybody remembered our goodbye ritual, because today I was walking in the center of Stockholm and one Czech student recognized me and said “jeee ty seš ten co měl velkou rozlučku“ (oooh, you the guy who had big goodbye ritual).

My bus took off at 17:30 from Prague, the capital of Czech Republic . Yes, bus, because with my extra 20kg I was not planning to pay some extra 60EUR at the airport and also I took the bus, because the ticket wasn’t so expansive, exactly 0,00 CZK .

The journey was quite pleasant, except the thing that it seems Czech Republic is not so welcomed in Schengen. German custom stopped us and again they didn’t like the color of passport of some passengers. 2 people left the bus for a short trip to the local police station. From Germany to Denmark we swam in a ship of the size of 2 Republics of Moldova. During the 45 minutes journey to Denmark, all the passengers were obliged to leave the bus and go upstairs to play some games, make some shopping or just swim in the sea. From Copenhagen the bus was almost empty which was good for my legs.

First impressions about Sweden:

- cleanness, green trees everywhere, it seems that in the central part of Sweden didn’t snow at all this year:

- everybody has 1 Volvo and 1 Saab :

- nice people, everybody speaks good English.

- interesting prices.

- so many lakes, I read somewhere that Sweden is the land of 100,000 lakes.

- only 4-5 hours of sun per day !!!!

The day of my arrival, the 19th of January, was a little bit windy. The first impressions were absolutely positive: everybody was very polite, Swedish people are very friendly, for example: i was standing in the middle of the T-Central station (main bus/train station) with 2 huge luggage looking around for directions when noticed a blondish girl looking at me. When our eyes met, she just smiled, walked to me and in a fluent English she said: “You look a little bit lost. May i help you?”. Even older people that i asked for, the way talked good English, the city looked very clean, nice, rich in architecture, busy.

Stockholm is really an amazing city, the only how I can demonstrate this thing is to place some panoramic photos:

But nothing is compared with Stockholm during the night (btw. photos are made at around 15-17 o’clock) :

More photos as usually here.

the entrance of the European Parliament:

….and all other EU institutions treat me. This time it’s not because of the color of my passport or my photo in the passport, but because of my high/tallness and not having a permanent EU badge with fancy EU stars . These Belgians girls (police officers) really like to control/check/pocket me. To enter in the European Parliament/Commission is like to enter the North-Korea’s cellar full of atomic bombs and the procedure is the same every day. First of all they need to draw you face, print your silly face on a 10EUR badge and then you ask your self, where the *ell are the EU funds. By saving money on EU badges, those hardly working parliamentarians/deputies can invest more effective the EU money: e.g. translating into ENG all the transportation descriptions in Brussels.
Anyway the experience from Brussels is a very very pleasant and successful one and of course the most harassed/forwearied one. Now I understand how is to be a politician (a small one ). Is very difficult to carry 4 bricks at the same time, but it seems that is much more difficult to absolve 7-10 interviews and presentations per day.
Since we won the Michael Bosak Award 2007, we also won the possibility to negotiate and present our projects to EU commissioners/ambassadors/ parliamentarians/deputies – a difficult job , but it’s a high honor when an EU commissar accepts your visit and gives you the chance to receive an internship or a permanent job.
Until today (8th of November) we managed to present our projects to:

EU Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Youth (Mr. Figel):

Milan Gala, Member of European Parliament:

Zuzana Roithova, Vice-Chairwoman of Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection:

with 2 members of the European Economic and Social Committee:

and many others who didn’t accept to make a photo with us …

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

The residence is located just few meters from all EU institutions, so not so far from my temporary place of doing something. The view from the window is really astonishing when all commissars are working during the night (I mean their assistants ;).

Brussels maybe is one of the cleanest places I have ever seen, buts it is not so clean as Copenhagen or Stockholm.

On Sunday (4th of November) I had the chance to visit some other parts of the city, which are located max. 5-10 minutes walking from the city center. Believe me or not, but I thought for a few minutes, that I am in Turkey: so many flags, so much patriotism and of course so less discipline …

More details later ;).

*Micahel Bosak-used to be the Governor of the First National Bank, also the richest Slovak. He is one of the most famous Slovaks of the 20th century. He was also sponsoring, re/building many schools, churches and also his name is on the Pittsburgh agreement.

The question was easy for those who are not lazy to take a look on the web page of Studentský list. As long as I am sometime in the category of these persons I thought it doesn’t worth to search the correct answer. After 0.012 seconds of searching I found the right answer, I was just curious, when the Studentský list wast established. The next step was the most complicated one, because I was supposed to open my e-mail account and to send an e-mail with the right answer and of course my name, surname, patronymic, girlfriends name (in case I have one).
It was almost midnight (last day of the competition) and I was thinking’ to try or not my luck. I was lazy, but not pessimistic – so finally I ‘ve send the e-mail.
……………………………………………………………………………….

One week later

… a normal Sunday, sunny day, working as usually and around 2 o’clock somebody is calling:
Strange guy: Ion Ciorici?
Me: Yes, please, what I have done :- ) ?
Strange guy: You just wan 2 tickets (both-way around Evropská unie), congrats!!!!!!
Me: Oh really I lost my consciousness…. just kiddin’ , I stayed calmed and this is the happy end.
So my dear friends don’t be lazy and believe me or not it’s ****in’ cool when you are winning something – it can be a simple candy, but the energy and happiness you are receiving are not compared to anything