Globalisation

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This is about my Stockholm trip. I reached Stockholm at 6.30 am, got a shock due to cold weather (9C) and rain. Of course 9C should not have shocked me after I saw Minus 23 C, but when I left Finland, it was warm and sunny so I was expecting that in Sweden too.

On setting foot in Stockholm, you will notice the difference, something which will tell you that you are not in Finland. The bus drivers, the ticket clerk at train station all will speak English. I had to go to the other side of city and I had to reach there at 8 am. I was a bit apprehensive whether I will reach there on time or not, but Stockholm has such an extensive network of Metro or underground train (they call it “tunnelbana”) that it is quite easy to reach any part of the city in very less time. Only thing you need to find out which metro goes there, which again is not difficult due to the maps which clearly show the metro lines. When I bought the ticket, the ticket clerk gave a map also, which had details about the metro routes.

I reached the examination center, which was the executive block of the KTH University and the exam started. When the test manager came to me to get my signature on the attendance sheet, she checked my passport for identity verification and then she exclaimed “An Indian living in Finland and writing exam in Stockholm!!”. She was bemused while I thought that this is called “Globalization”. It was after a long time I was writing the exams, there were few other people also and one strange thing I noticed, all of them had stacked, coffee, coke, apples and banana at their desks for the during-exam-refreshments! I was surprised; I have written so many exams but never saw this!

I had two sessions of three hours each, by 4 pm when the exam finished I was totally tired, came out and went to a café for some snacks and tea and then proceeded to see around Stockholm (details about this in other post). One thing that was again different in Stockholm was the Swedish Kroner, anything that you do the price will be in excess of 50 Kroners. Being in Finland for the past so many months I don’t have the habit of paying for stuff in terms of fifties. In the café I had a cup of Black English tea and one kind of cake and I paid 76 Kroner!! Expensive eh!

The return trip of cruise was more of pleasure than the onward trip as this time I didn’t have the exam tension (will write about the cruise in different post). I reached Turku at 7.35 am and then took the bus to Hameenlinna, most of the time I was sleeping in the bus. I got awake by the ring of my cell phone, something which brought me back into the real life of work and Hameenlinna, and it happened as the bus was entering the limits of Hameenlinna.

On Wednesday I am again flying to Italy, so if I don’t get time to post more about Stockholm trip, I will do so after coming from Italy, combined with the posts about my trip in Italy.