So, after all my trips to Romania, a relatively poor country even by Balkan standards, I get an infinitely better trip, this one to Sweden, in a much improved neighborhood.
Unfortunately the smoke monster, coming from the frozen barren wasteland of Iceland continued to spew smoke out at an alarming rate, ruining anyone's air travel. Even mine was ruined. Instead of taking a direct flight to Stockholm, or a transfer through Helsinski, I ended up transferring over London.
JFK could not have been more chaotic. I met so many people who kept on saying "Quick, can I cut you, I have 25 minutes to catch my flight". Seeing the airline people work their non-magical also must have been painful. To be stranded in another country for days on end no doubt must have been troublesome. A book kept me company as small snippets of conversation came into my ears. One piece, directed at me, asked if I had a smaller suitcase, which was easily the dumbest request I'd ever heard. When I said no, they shook their head and said I'd pay for such a large item. A whole $50, oh my, what a worry.
The bigger problem happened when I got on the plane. Some people say that you need to enjoy both the trip and the destination. As someone who has been on enough international flights, I can tell you how true that is. And American Airlines has to be one of the absolute worst airlines ever. Now it doesn't even have to do with it being an American plane, I flew on Delta before and was perfectly content. But American, your movies are terrible (Invictus, Lovely Bones, really?) and your charges for alcohol ($8 for wine!), completely out of whack. Plus, your frugality with the space, duly noted. I just ordered water, no need to see if I get charged for a soda, you evil wretched people.
Stockholm rules. I can't begin to describe the sheer, wonderful joy of the country. Everything is so clean that when I told my coworker how clean it was, he replied "Hm, that always seems to be the first thing people mention to us." Their politeness took me aback, being from New York. Like, think of those people in Fargo who were polite almost to a fault. That's basically their mentality. People spoke English better than most of my (well-educated) friends, and treated foreigners wonderfully. Plus, they have these delightful little race car gummy candy called Bilar which absolutely knock my socks off.
Driving around, you get the feeling that everything sprawls, which is true. Land doesn't seem to be a commodity they are concerned about. Even within Stockholm city limits, you get people with lawns, nature trails, etc. I know a certain amount of this exists in the boroughs (like Staten Island, Bronx, etc) but within the very small islands, it is a real joy. Beers there taste like actual beer, the lamb there tastes much different from what I'm used to (I usually have it spicy) and I even got introduced to a "Cuban Tea" drink which tasted great. I'd recommend it to anyone, really just a solid drink.
That was only the night, of wandering around with my colleagues there drinking. Daylight came early, and I woke up as soon as I saw the first rays of sunshine. Colors looked great in the early dawn, and the cobblestone could not have been more even. Waterways within the city are so clean that during the summer, people can actually swim in them. Compare that to New York water which might possibly give you new forms of cancer, and you might be able to gauge my delight.
Ikea started here, and looking at the homes, I knew why. Every space looked as if they designed it to be admired from every angle, not just to overwhelm the skyline. The skyline negotiated with the surroundings and came to an agreement, where natural development took place.
Most of it is very pedestrian and biker friendly. In fact, they have two lanes for bikers, which are heavily used. That part freaked me out a bit, since it is pretty cold most of the year. Yet not one person ever complained about the cold, or anything really. Finns seemed to get some sort of derision, basically the Swedes called them "Pussies" at any given opportunity. So if you're very pro-Finn, you might want to avoid that topic. Also, meat was everywhere. I have no idea how vegetarians can exist there, but even for a salad, I needed at least two types of meat placed on it before the server felt satisfied.
As for work, work felt kinder. For my office, they apparently stay after work on Fridays, drink beer at work and play Grand Theft Auto. None of those things happen at my job and it makes me stay up late at night crying. Public transportation could not have been better either, anyone who tells you about our great subway system in New York probably hasn't traveled a lot.
This brings me towards the end of my discussion on Sweden. Basically, they don't worry about taxes the way we do because they seem to get something out of it. Perfect, clean everything, manufacturing all done locally, and paying considerably more for it. Sure, we might pay less for a lot of our basic consumer goods, but we suffer for it. Most of our manufacturing, the locally-made kind, is done on the cheap so much that it is annoying. They seem perfectly happy with how things are, and they also get the joy of great social mobility than we currently enjoy (thank you Economist for that article, I forget the issue number). Just sometimes I wish that we could meet the potential I know we have, and learn a thing or two from these countries we mindlessly bash.
Sweden, I really want to visit it again. Easily one of my favorite places to visit, right up there with Malaysia. My only complaint would be the cold, but I guess anyone would get used to it. And, as an added bonus, the British Airways flight had virtually every movie I had intended to see (A Serious Man, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Dark Knight). Yes, I know how far behind I am in movies.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Timisoara, Romania
I've been too busy to write about this place lately, mostly since I always end up going there randomly. In March I went there twice.
The first time I had plenty of time to get through security and remembered everything. A large group of Hasidim Jews joined me on the journey, at least 50 or more of them. While I sat there, watching movies of varying degrees of pass ability (The Invention of Lying was Ho-Hum, Where the Wild Things Are made me choke up in tears, and The Informant bored me and somewhat brought me down) the pilot advised the passengers to pray in their seats. Landing in Timisoara, I realized that the rain I left behind in New York followed me. Going halfway across the world couldn't save me from the gray dreariness.
Romania's main city has nothing on this one. For one thing, much of the architecture looks beautiful, maintained, clean, with very little to indicate that it had gone through the same Communist period that befell Bucharest. My guide advised me that the city had been built on a swamp long ago and the architecture was from the Hapsburg Empire. So much so that people called it "Little Vienna". A low rise city, it literally couldn't be torn down. Due to being built on a swamp, those gross communist blocks could not be replicated en mass like they were in Bucharest. Soil conditions generally did not permit buildings taller than 10 stories (without great expense of course). Thus, the architecture was saved by its environment.
Rain poured through every hole. I managed to get through to the center, where I saw the main square. The square looked beautiful, and reminded me somewhat of Krakow in Poland. You could see small wooden stands that sold various flowers and other not very necessary items. Absinthe is available there, like it is here. However, it is more fun to buy it in some seedy liquor store there. Over here, our liquor stores don't have that weird vibe, just one of depression and sin.
Snow showed up the next morning as I explored the country side. Even this looked better than Bucharest, though not as pretty as the central city. Random fields of pollution lay about, and I got to see a cart lead by a horse with car tires. Thankfully I did not take a full picture of the rider, since that sort of thing would be disrespectful. All these colors came about, that normally are off limits in our strictly regimented color scheme society. Glorious shades of orange, olives, pinks, turquoise and other unspeakable joys. Finally the sun came out and I went home, running through airports to make my necessary connections.
When I left to Timisoara the second time the weather was beautiful. I made the flight on the skin of my teeth, running around like some chicken with its head cut off. Barely made it before the boarding call. Didn't even get to read my book, Mason & Dixon, which has been floating around in my mind for so long.
No one interesting boarded the flight with me. Everyone seemed to be pretty content in their various worlds, and left me to my devices. Movies reappeared and I re-watched the actually good movie An Education with Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and the surprisingly intense movie Pope Joan, which had some wonderful fighting scenes. I attempted to watch New Moon, but just couldn't get through more than 2 minutes. Dreadful, dreadful movie probably used to torture inmates somewhere (please, just smash my toes with a hammer again! What's the point of this movies, the acting is terrible!)
Got there and the sun shone brightly on everything. This time everyone stood outside. I was given the worst yogurt I've ever had in my entire life and the worst traffic I've experienced in a while. Separate, neither would mean much. Together they made my life hell and I walked through the city with a gross feeling in my stomach. Dinner helped with that, as did the unreasonable amount of sparkling water. THX 1138 played on the TCM movie channel, as did the movie Dracula. I thought to myself "Why would a country promote this blood sucking jerk? Wouldn't they want to show a deeper, less well-known part of their culture, like the movie "Youth without Youth"? But nah, I guess foreigners were expecting vampires. Oh well.
Friday felt fantastic. I walked through a gross rat infested pollution park to get to a major roundabout. Walking through the grass, I noticed a part of someone's lower jawbone lying on the grass. Yes, please do not mess around here please, it seemed to say. Immediately upon seeing this, I changed the direction I was walking it.
Instead I found a beautiful, very low rise part of the city, mostly residential. Good thing that skull fragment showed me the way. And the sunlight helped illuminate everything. Finally I even found some decent sweets for once, which eluded me on my first visit.
The trip home consisted of me passing out and taking way too many trains.
The first time I had plenty of time to get through security and remembered everything. A large group of Hasidim Jews joined me on the journey, at least 50 or more of them. While I sat there, watching movies of varying degrees of pass ability (The Invention of Lying was Ho-Hum, Where the Wild Things Are made me choke up in tears, and The Informant bored me and somewhat brought me down) the pilot advised the passengers to pray in their seats. Landing in Timisoara, I realized that the rain I left behind in New York followed me. Going halfway across the world couldn't save me from the gray dreariness.
Romania's main city has nothing on this one. For one thing, much of the architecture looks beautiful, maintained, clean, with very little to indicate that it had gone through the same Communist period that befell Bucharest. My guide advised me that the city had been built on a swamp long ago and the architecture was from the Hapsburg Empire. So much so that people called it "Little Vienna". A low rise city, it literally couldn't be torn down. Due to being built on a swamp, those gross communist blocks could not be replicated en mass like they were in Bucharest. Soil conditions generally did not permit buildings taller than 10 stories (without great expense of course). Thus, the architecture was saved by its environment.
Rain poured through every hole. I managed to get through to the center, where I saw the main square. The square looked beautiful, and reminded me somewhat of Krakow in Poland. You could see small wooden stands that sold various flowers and other not very necessary items. Absinthe is available there, like it is here. However, it is more fun to buy it in some seedy liquor store there. Over here, our liquor stores don't have that weird vibe, just one of depression and sin.
Snow showed up the next morning as I explored the country side. Even this looked better than Bucharest, though not as pretty as the central city. Random fields of pollution lay about, and I got to see a cart lead by a horse with car tires. Thankfully I did not take a full picture of the rider, since that sort of thing would be disrespectful. All these colors came about, that normally are off limits in our strictly regimented color scheme society. Glorious shades of orange, olives, pinks, turquoise and other unspeakable joys. Finally the sun came out and I went home, running through airports to make my necessary connections.
When I left to Timisoara the second time the weather was beautiful. I made the flight on the skin of my teeth, running around like some chicken with its head cut off. Barely made it before the boarding call. Didn't even get to read my book, Mason & Dixon, which has been floating around in my mind for so long.
No one interesting boarded the flight with me. Everyone seemed to be pretty content in their various worlds, and left me to my devices. Movies reappeared and I re-watched the actually good movie An Education with Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and the surprisingly intense movie Pope Joan, which had some wonderful fighting scenes. I attempted to watch New Moon, but just couldn't get through more than 2 minutes. Dreadful, dreadful movie probably used to torture inmates somewhere (please, just smash my toes with a hammer again! What's the point of this movies, the acting is terrible!)
Got there and the sun shone brightly on everything. This time everyone stood outside. I was given the worst yogurt I've ever had in my entire life and the worst traffic I've experienced in a while. Separate, neither would mean much. Together they made my life hell and I walked through the city with a gross feeling in my stomach. Dinner helped with that, as did the unreasonable amount of sparkling water. THX 1138 played on the TCM movie channel, as did the movie Dracula. I thought to myself "Why would a country promote this blood sucking jerk? Wouldn't they want to show a deeper, less well-known part of their culture, like the movie "Youth without Youth"? But nah, I guess foreigners were expecting vampires. Oh well.
Friday felt fantastic. I walked through a gross rat infested pollution park to get to a major roundabout. Walking through the grass, I noticed a part of someone's lower jawbone lying on the grass. Yes, please do not mess around here please, it seemed to say. Immediately upon seeing this, I changed the direction I was walking it.
Instead I found a beautiful, very low rise part of the city, mostly residential. Good thing that skull fragment showed me the way. And the sunlight helped illuminate everything. Finally I even found some decent sweets for once, which eluded me on my first visit.
The trip home consisted of me passing out and taking way too many trains.
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