The best movie ever…

I am not a movie fan, as a matter of fact I have to think two or three times before sitting a couple of hours in front of the TV, but last week in Kalmar I spent one night alone in the apartment, so I went to a small fast food restaurant near the place and bought a “Chicken Pasta Salad”, to give you an idea about it, picture a big bowl with five hundred grams of cheese, tomato, lettuce and chicken, then with everything ready I sat on the living room with my laptop and decided to watch “Jerry Maguire”.

Yeap the best movie ever, at least that’s what I think :P the guy is on the top and everybody loves him, he has money, ladies and a great job, then he starts doing what he feels is good and he ends up on the bottom, after that he spends the rest of the movie fixing problems and in between he finds love and a new meaning for his life.

I just love the idea of someone fighting and living for what he really believes, even though that means losing part of the comfort zone that everyone likes. I think we should all sit down at least once in our lives and write down our own mission statement, not a memo, a mission statement (as Jerry says on the movie) about what we believe, what we like and don’t like and what we really want to do in this world, without caring about what everybody thinks and finally losing the ability to bullshit, and maybe then if we truly fight for our mission statement we’ll become great, “Hanging our balls out there”.

Anyway, it’s a great movie and after watching it many times I never get tired of it, and now to close this post I will leave here the best phrase of the movie by Jerry’s mentor, the great Dicky Fox:

“Hey I don’t have all the answers… in life, to be honest, I’ve failed just as much as I’ve succeeded but I love my wife, I love my life and I wish you my kind of success”

Have fun ;)

Trip to Sweden...

So after an unlucky airplane trip I managed to make it here, Kalmar, a small city at the south eastern coast of Sweden and the main office of my new project. Let me tell you a bit about the trip:

Checking in Tallinn is always quick and is the airport in which I have been treated better so far, they even told me that my passport is the most original one they have seen there :P ironically Maiquetia’s airport (the one in Caracas) is the worst one in the list, in this case they even asked me to sang the Venezuelan national anthem to probe that I was not lying about my nationality, but as I read from a friend’s nickname: shit happens :P

After one hour across the frozen sea we made it to Stockholm and oh my God you must have guts to be an airplane pilot. We were about to land and I was wondering “where is the runway?” because all I could see was some clouds on the wing, then all of the sudden the clouds disappear and one second later the airplane was on the ground, and in that moment I noticed how easy is my job seated in front of a laptop 8 hours a day, compared to that pilot landing a 50ton airplane at 200km/h through the clouds.

Arlanda airport (Stockholm)… is beautiful and as the matter of fact it doesn’t look like and airport. The place is huge and this time it’s decorated for Christmas with big green and red rings hanging from the roof, unfortunately the luggage belt was broken and there was a looooong queue to check in and since I was going to take a domestic flight to Kalmar I had no other choice but to enjoy the queue.

Kalmar airport, before continuing let me remind you that Kalmar has approximately 60.000 habitants, ok now you can Imagine the size of the airport, I have seen houses bigger than that :P but on the other hand it has a Swedish touch that just some images can explain, anyway I took pictures of the place and you can take a look on my picasa.

I didn’t had the chance to withdraw money in Arlanda because of the queue so I was expecting to do it on this airport or at least to exchange money, but the place didn’t anything like that, lucky me that Swedish people love cards just as much as I do (I hate cash) and I could pay the taxi with the card.

Everything looks in order in this town except for the fact that there are no taxis! So I waited along with fifteen other passengers our chance to take one of the four or five available taxis on the place. After waiting for ten minutes an Iraqi driver chose me between the Swedish people, probably to have a chance to speak with somebody about the problems of having a life abroad. The guy’s pronunciation was awful, so it was kind of hard to establish a conversation with him, but now I know that in Iraq Chavez is respected and they would like to have him as president, I told the driver that we hate him and many Venezuelans would be happy to send him as a gift to Iraq if they want him over there. I heard that in India they also like Chavez but I’ll confirm this with my Polish-Indian source (Eliza) and probably we can also send him there as a gift for a couple of years.

Back on the taxi, the chat was nice and gave me a different point of view of the life in Iraq and also from Sweden if you are a foreigner, but the guy decided to take me to the wrong address (I noticed this a few minutes later) even though the freaking taxi had a GPS. Once there I decided to call my contact in Kalmar and the new surprise was that my mobile is not able to call or send sms in Sweden. No mobile, no internet and an empty street, what would you do? I decided to walk a bit and find somebody alive that can guide me to a solution. I found two elderly talking in a street, one of them knew some words in English and after explaining him the situation he told me that I was on the wrong address and gave me a ride to the right place, despite he lives on the other side of the town.

Before living me there I asked him to call my contact to pick me up on the entrance of the building, but he didn’t have a mobile. I was not going to stay there waiting for something to happen, so I stopped a girl entering the building and kindly asked her to make the call for me, finally she managed to talk with Victor, a guy from Netherlands living on the company’s apartment in Kalmar, and Victor explained her that the address they gave me in Tallinn was wrong and I was in another street but he came to pick me up and after a weird evening I was having some rest on my new bed…

Now I’m on Arlanda Airport again, this time waiting for the airplane back to Tallinn, and after five days in Sweden I can say that the people is really nice here, if I told you before that a lot of people speaks English in Estonia I can say that almost everyone here speaks English so that makes it easier if you are a tourist. This is my second visit to the country and it’s different from what I use to imagine when I was in Venezuela, a lot of blonde tall people with snow covering everything, well I can tell you is not like that, there are more blondes in Estonia and here you will see many people with dark hair.

I love food and they took my out for lunch every day in Kalmar and every time they asked which kind of food I wanted to eat I said the same thing: Swedish food! Come on! I am not going to visit Sweden to eat Italian food, anyway the first day I went for lunch with the “Chivos”, in Venezuela we call Chivo (goat) to somebody important in the company. We ate Swedish fish with potatoes and lingonberrys, tasty and very good, it’s not common for me to have something sweet with the main dish but anyway it was nice and it seems to be popular in dishes here. The next day I tried another dish which was basically a big fried pancake with big pieces of bacon and again lingonberrys (Raggmunk med fläsk), it’s easy to imagine that is not very healthy but it won’t kill you if you eat it once in a while although the guys in the office eat it every week.

The architecture is another thing I noticed and the difference between Eastern Europe and Scandinavia is quite obvious in the colors and the types of buildings around the city, I took a walk across Kalmar to take some pictures but unfortunately I spent the whole day working and I only have pictures in the evening but at least they will give you an idea of what I am talking about, anyway I think I am coming back on two weeks and probably I will stay for the weekend and then I will do a better job ;)

Snow and a life between ice...

So the snow is here and it is for a loooooooooooooooong time.

The city is white and the temperature is getting lower and lower and now my way to the office is under snowing skies and I come back home under dark but also snowing skies and I feel like a kid enjoying everything ;)

I have reached the point in which -2 degrees is not coooooooooooold anymore and I will read this post in two or three months and I'll remember the good warm -2 degrees days. Today they told me in the office that this is the perfect time to have snow fights and snowmans cause below -5 the snow is frozen and it will look like sand, so I expect to have some snowman made by me soon and of course you will know about it.

It's funny now before going out I putt on my usual Caribbean clothes and then I start to build a shelter on top of it, starting with the priceless magical winter jacket, gloves made of wool or something different than leather because I don't want to take the skin of a poor animal to feel warm, scarf (actually I don't have this one but I'm pretty I will need soon), a hat because you can lose 70% of body heat through the head (thanks for the tip Asia ;) ) and my Rambo boots which I bought in Venezuela to do some hiking but never had the chance to really use them until now, and after all that preparation I can go out for walk a fall down on the street completely protected from the cold weather :P

On my way to Raatuse (home) while walking down the bridge I almost fell down because there was ice on the floor, I ended up skying down the bridge because it seemed more safe and funnier than doing it really slow :P and then I wondered how a poor old lady can walk through these places without getting hurt and the fact is that a lot of them break their legs or hips on winter.

You know, some people are afraid of spiders others of snakes and others of heights, well in my case is breaking something in my body. Why? well I used to play basketball everyday (literally) and I broke one finger (I needed surgery for that one and still is not working very well) and sprained badly both ankles several times, and each one of them created some psychological damage on me.

I am pretty sure I will fall sooner or later, so I will focus on doing it nicely, that means without breaking anything that's attached to my body, anyway I'll keep you posted ;)

Loneliness...

Shocking word right? Usually we associate this with something wrong but is not always like that, all of us have felt it before and we will feel it again in a future and in my case I just felt it a couple of hours ago after walking through the city center on my way back home.

I don't feel bad or anything like that and it is not related to me moving 14.000km away from my previous life. It is something that happened here, in Caracas and in Barquisimeto and that is not necessarily related to have people around you, I just think is a state of the mind and body at certain moment... but every time I feel it I try to see the bright side of it and today for example I decided to write about this.

Loneliness may sound bad but it gives you time to think about yourself and the world that surrounds you, it is also good to get to know what you like and what you don't like because everything is up to you in that moment.

I think I felt like this a few times in Caracas since it was my first time out of my hometown in a big, dangerous and stressful city like Caracas, but I learned so much in those moments, and all those things are really useful for me right now and I am pretty sure I will also use them in a future...

It comes to my mind one time I was inside one of those buses in Caracas on my way home after work, a lot of people in the bus, 6pm, huge traffic jams as usual there, everyone is dirty because of sweating the entire day and all of the sudden I started to feel really sad and lonely in the middle of the chaos... I stopped and took a good look around and saw the posters on the city and the places and the people... and right there I thought that it was my choice to feel good or bad at any point of my life, and it is up to me to see the bright side of each situation... and at that moment I chose to enjoy the music in my ears from my mp3 player, the people in the bus and the view of the city and I felt happy controlling what it was supposed to be a bad evening.

Right now I keep doing it, every time I start to feel sad I analyze the situation, I take a look around, I hear the music in my ears and everything is fixed, I feel happy again walking along the river, looking at the lights on the old town and the snow falling on my face and then I thank God because of everything...

A regular IT project...

Snow...

For the first time in more than a decade I see snow, yeap is just frozen water but it brings this nice feeling to everyones life and a nice bright touch to the city.

I was there on my seat inside the airplane when all of the sudden I saw something white through the window and then again some other piece of white land, I wasn't expecting snow on this time of the year (or ever according to my previous experience) so my first impression is that the place was really weird, then the airplane was flying lower and lower and I realized that everything was covered with snow.

Right now we have something between -1 and -5 degrees and I am glad to tell that I am not the only one feeling cold here, my roommates also thinks this is cold and they are Europeans.

I am just trying to get used to this because it is just starting, the real cold weather comes in February and then we'll have -25 degrees. First 15 was cold, then 10, then 5, now I miss the 5 degrees weather because at least you go for a walk without feeling pain :P

But as I told you before, I am happy here enjoying all the experiences and I am pretty sure I won't forget this one...

Warsaw trip

Hello everyone I wrote this while traveling last week to Warsaw...

Ok today’s new thing: Tallin’s Airport! yeap I am traveling to Warsaw for a week, I will visit Mary and we are going to the Apocalyptica concert next Saturday :P you may be asking yourself how did he got one free week in his job? They fired him? Well nope, none of them, I didn’t sale my soul to the devil neither I just asked for five days and of course I will be working on Saturdays until the end of my life… actually four more days (I already worked last Saturday).

Anyway I am happy to visit Warsaw, I don’t know why but I really like that city my hypothesis is that I have good memories everywhere there and was the first European city in which I had the chance to live in, I went to many museums, walked a lot through the streets, went to Palaces and historic places, I had parties, met a lot of people, had my first European hair cut and tried several types of beers.

Right now I am in gate number five with a bunch of people waiting to get inside the airplane that is going to take us there…

... now I am back and this time in the LOT Airlines airplane at about 8Km above the sea level and according to the captain flying over Lithuania, and in my curious mind I am wondering why do we a cliché about good looking stewardess? I am not a frequent flyer but since I took the airplane in Barquisimeto I flew six times through Venezuela, Germany, Sweden, Finland and now Poland and I have never seen a good looking stewardess, it’s the same with nurses, I don’t remember one beautiful nurse in my life and I am from Venezuela! We are supposed to have gorgeous ladies everywhere, so my conclusion right now is that the cliché only exist because they are wearing nice uniforms… aaaaanyway we’re about to land in a few minutes and the stewardess wants me to turn off this…

… Ok this is me again now on another airplane this time on my way back to Estonia, I spent one really really good week in Warsaw and of course I was way too busy to sit down a few minutes to write something in my blog.

I am going to start saying this: I love Warsaw :), I always have a good time there because of the many places to visit there, friends and of course my girlfriend :P I went to new parks and squares and restaurants and also to same old places like the Pizza Hut in the center of the city or the old town and the Pierogeria (Pierogi restaurant).

This week we had the Halloween Party and Asia prepared a party at the flat with a lot of people, she was wearing a bumble bee costume like the ones in the No Rain video from Blind Melon, in my case I don’t have many options here so I took my Cardenales de Lara baseball shirt and dressed as a Regetonero-Baseball player-Malandro, and I was even wearing a diamond earring and some jewelry on my neck, and after eight beers (0.5L each one) I had a good time there, and the party was so good that even the Europeans were dancing really good, you can take a look at picasa if you want to check the details ;)

In Poland the first day of November is the Dead People’s Day and (almost) everything is closed that day because everyone visits the cemetery, is impressive, we went to the Wilanow cemetery at the south side of the city and the place was full of people bringing candles and flowers to their relatives and the place was full of these stuff, there is also a video about this in picasa.

Something we were expecting since we arrive to Europe is the winter time change, this event happened last Monday, right now Warsaw has a +5 hours difference with Barquisimeto and +6 with Tartu (instead of +6 and +7), but the funny thing is that nobody told us that, so Mary went to work on Monday at 7 instead of showing up there at 8, of course nobody was there. But the scariest thing about this time change is that our lives changed in two or three days, why? Well, you may think that living in Europe is hard because of the language, or because of the cold winter, or because you are away from your family, or because you are a foreigner, let me tell you that for me and Mary the worst thing is that we don’t have sun anymore! Or at least we have less sun right now because is setting at 16.30…

Sorry the airplane was about to land so I took a long break to pick up my luggage, buy some chocolate, take the bus from the airport to the bus station in Tallinn, have “lunch” (a really crappy hamburger) and right now I am on the bus on my way to Tartu.

The time is 16.38 and as I was telling you in the last paragraph in this moment the sun is setting and it looks like 18.40 in Venezuela, when we noticed that last Sunday it was shocking :S you feel like it is really late and that the day is ending and you should be on the bed in a couple of hours when actually you have half of the day left, yeap this is a cultural, weather or geographic shock, any of the words can apply right now.

But despite all the bad things you can imagine, add to the list that your skin gets soooooooooo dry that you must use creams to have a normal life, because of the cold and dry wind your lips will break and you will have blood in your mouth, the beautiful snow can be very slippery and many people break their legs because of this, despite all these stuff I am enjoying the experience a lot! Everything is new and after 24 years in the sunny Caribean it was the right time for a change ;)

If you want to see the pictures click here