nedjelja, 08.01.2012.
When in Sweden, do as Swedes do... but buy in Lidl
Lund. Finally. The first thing you can notice are the wooden houses that seems to pass so nicely to the green landscape. It doesn’t look like the winter at all, except for the gloomy weather - sun, I miss you. All houses are made of wood and are extremely warm inside which makes me wonder how come we in Croatia insist on brick and cement when we build our houses. The temperature here is significantly lower and I dare to say the wind is as strong, if not even stronger, as the one we have in our Coastal cities. Interesting I say.
My apartment is situated 40 min by walk from the city center. It is really nice and quiet neighborhood: full of little one-floor-houses that look really sweet. They are all comprised of two and one bedroom apartments. Next to our complex of buildings is a student corridor which looks so much different than those we can see in Croatia. It is again comprised of little houses with 2 or 4 apartments - lots of it, surrounded with grass and nature. We don’t have a washing machine inside the apartment but we have the laundry rooms just a few meters away and you have to book your laundry time in advance. I have a special plastic key for that. All I have to do is to press it next to the device and it opens the door. Nice. Like in the movies when agents are entering the secret places :D. However this key is really special indeed. If I loose it, I will have to pay almost half of my salary for it. Point of the story is: Don’t loose the key. The same thing is with the garbage cans. You have special places that are bordered by wire and you use the same key to enter the can area. Special key I say. And off course you have to sort the garbage into the appropriate can. The key opens as well the place called Magic Room. There you can find things such as lamps, tables, shelves, even TV’s. People just leave it there in case they don’t need it anymore or in case they are moving into the another apartment so you can take it and use it if you want – for free. Cool way to share things.
Lund is the city of bicycles. I bet every single person has it. We have special storage in our street just for them. On the city streets you can find lots of bicycles as well: children, students, business people, elderly people… No one seems to care it’s -2 degrees. As long as you have bicycle, everything is fine. Yesterday I was waking by the main train station and saw the parking place with literally hundreds of bicycles. It looked really nice. Point taken - I should buy a bicycle.
There are buses driving around the city and you have to buy a special jojo card in advance to enter the bus. It is actually something similar to credit card. You just press it against the device when entering the bus and you can charge it with as much money as you want. For my Balkan friends: there is no way you can cheat and enter without the ticket, and if you do so, you can pay an extremely high penalty so it’s definitely not worth it.
My apartment is small but cozy. It is comprised of 2 rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. I share it with a girl from Iran. I have to say she’s extremely sweet and friendly. She’s studying in Sweden and looking for a job in HR area. We get along quite well so far: every morning we eat together and we cook lunch together. We are entering each others rooms and talking about different topics. There is so many similarities with our cultures – more than I expected - especially in the way we are treating our guest and we are communicating with our families and friends. I even tried some delicious Persian food. The first thing however I noticed when I came is that she hug me like you hug a friend you haven’t seen for a long time. It is something you cannot expect from the Swedes. She even offered her assistance in helping me to decide what to wear my first working day. Yeah, women are the same everywhere 
. Back to the apartment itself: The water and the central heating are included into the rent. The heating is really awesome – I am wearing my t-shirt constantly and it is like that 24h per day. There is nothing better than to wake up in the warm room. The company that is providing us with the heating is situated in the city and it supplies the whole city. You can regulate the temperature by opening the window or just by lowering the heating temperature. Amazing. Me like it.
Gambro - the company I’ll be working in is situated just 2 min walk from my home. I can almost see it from my window. It looks huge and really impressive, comprised of a few buildings with 4 different entrances – it’ll be interesting to find the right one at Monday. Anyways, it is making me feel amazed and frightened at the same time.
Next to the Gambro, there is a grocery store called Willy:s. It is known for low prices and it is supposed to be my main food supplier. To be honest, I feel I don’t have to move at all because everything I need seems too close. I did my first food shopping in Willy:s and almost get lost within the articles. I have to admit it is really challenging to find the groceries you need when everything is written on a different language. However I found Podravka Čajna Pašteta in the middle of store. Go Podravka 
Prices are slightly higher but not that much. You can even find some things that are cheaper than in Croatia. However the price of the bread is surprisingly high. You cannot find it below 15 kunas. Shampoos and cosmetics are more expensive than in Croatia. The thing that is extremely high is the tint - you can find it in Croatia for 30 kunas and here the same package costs about 100. So this is another thing I would kindly ask for my soon-to-visit friends to put on the list. Thank you girls.
Second day of my Lund experience I discovered Lidl - 10 min away from my apartment. My roommate says it is even cheaper than Willy:s. Cheapest or not it felt like home. Gambro is waiting for me tomorrow and this new experience is about to meet the purpose but no matter what, I have my favorite cereals with me. Thank you Lidl.
- 19:37 -
