Moving to Gustavsberg - 1 year in Stockholm

It is now officially one year since living in Stockholm. I remember the anxiety and enthusiasm with which I waited to be back to the big city life. I must admit taking this gap year, in which I learned a new language, worked and kick-started a new life in Stockholm, has proven to be a good step forward for my personal development. It is so how one achieves life experience, that will make you a better and a stronger person during your life time. The academical background and work experience might help you in your career, but life is not always only about this, there might be moments in which you can just choose to follow your heart and your dreams, because guess what? The truth is that we all get only one life, one chance, so why have any regrets, when you can grow old knowing that you did everything that you ever wanted.

Even now, I must admit that I still love everything about Stockholm and I further consider it the chosen place. But despite my driven and ambitious personality, and the fact that I am an active person continuously on the movement, I discovered something new about myself.

The thing that made fall for Sweden and Scandinavia in general is its unique lifestyle. And by that I mean a balanced lifestyle, calm, where one works, but also has the time to be with the family, friends or just in its own company. It is amazing how beneficial outdoor activities and being in the nature can be for ones mind and health being.

Despite my initial desire to live in the central Stockholm, moving to an apartment in the Stockholm's archipelago made  me realize that maybe the best place to live is somewhere a little bit outside Stockholm, where you can enjoy the peace and the quietness, where you do not have to deal with queues or stressed people and where everything is small and cozy.

The thing that I like most about Gustavsberg is that it gives me the feeling, that somehow I moved back to Småland into a small city. My whole first experience of Sweden is now coming all back to me; traditional Swedish red houses, calm happy people, sticking to the local culture and brands , small shopping center, everything being so cozy and welcoming.

So, taking this thoughts into account, I came for myself with a new resolution and goal. One day I need to buy a summer house in the archipelago, move here and live exactly the life that I want and do things that I love doing.

This year is no longer a gap year, I truly found myself, my confidence only grew stronger, so this year is all about the right career, whereas the future remains open to the unknown and new opportunities. At the same time I am looking forward to the day when life will take a different meaning, and my focus will be on family, writing and running my own business.

Interview with Swedish Jan Björkman, Business Development Manager at IKEA, Bucharest

I met Jan at the corporate IKEA office in Bucharest and we did the interview in a room with a wall-sized picture of Småland, the place where IKEA started, where Jan originally comes from. Småland is also the place which brought me to Sweden in the first place. Småland became  my first home abroad.

Through the interview and discussion that I had with him I managed to find out more about the cultural differences and how a Swede perceives life in my home country, Romania as opposed to Sweden.

Interview with Jan Björkman – Business Developer Manager at IKEA, Romania

First of all, I will shortly give you a short background. I moved to and lived in Sweden for one year and eight months now. I did not know anything about Sweden from the beginning. I moved there in order to study my Master in Strategic Entrepreneurship, but later I fell in love with Sweden.  I felt myself at home,  and that Stockholm was the only place in the world I would like to live in, for the rest of my life. When I started to write my book about my life in Sweden I met Yvette Larsson, who lives in Helsingborg and is passionate about Romania. She gave me the idea and asked me to write this article for her during my stay there.

Now Jan, I would like to ask you a few questions about you and your life as a Swedish expat in Bucharest.

R: – From which city in Sweden do you come from?

Jan: – I come from Älmhult (small city in Småland, where Ingmar Kamprad started IKEA).

R: – What can you tell us about your career at IKEA?

Jan: – I have worked at IKEA for 29 years and my main specialization was logistics. I worked at the office in Småland but I was traveling a lot with my work. I had many business trips, but I very seldom got the chance to see something else than offices, airports and hotels. I had the desire to live outside the country in order to experience and to feel other cultures. I first moved to Vietnam for four years. These were four fantastic years of my life, but it was hard to keep in touch with our family because of the time gap. It was very difficult for us and our children to talk to their grandparents in Sweden. As a result, we thought it would be better to move to a European country, but it had to be somewhere new, so we chose Romania.

R: – For how long did you live in Romania?

Jan: – 3 and a half years.

R: – Did you know something about Romania before moving here?

Jan: – I knew about the Communism period, Ceausescu, Transylvania, bears, Dracula, and Vlad Tepes.

R:- Did you have any cultural shock in Romania? Which was that?

J: – I had a tough time when it comes to being accepted. I felt like people are hard to get to know, and they do not talk too much about themselves, but as soon as some trust has been built up another way of friendship is shown.

R: – It is very interesting to hear this because I have heard the same thing from most of the expats who moved to Sweden and I lived under the assumption that it is harder for a foreigner to be accepted in Sweden, but now I am starting to think that this might be a common feeling for many expats who move to another country, and they are entering another culture, which they are not acquainted to. This is why I think it might be very interesting for the readers to learn about the importance of traveling and meeting new cultures. It really contributes to the development of their adaptability, both in the professional and personal life.

R: – What do you think about people in Romania as employees? What about their education and knowledge?

Jan: – I think employees here have a high level of education and competence. They are hardworking people, target oriented and ambitious. However they are not as much used to looking outside the patterns as Swedes are. They work more according to standards and by the book.

R: – Which are the top three things that you love most about Romania? What disadvantages do you find in living here?

Jan: – The first thing I like most of all is the nature, especially in Transylvania. There is something very special about the nature there, which you cannot see in Sweden. The second thing that we love in Romania is the wine. This country has really good wines to offer and I think that nine out of ten wines that I usually drink are Romanian. Me and my family we love skiing so the climate, especially the winters with a lot of snow, it is something that we really enjoy in particular. That would be the third one. About the disadvantages I could mention the dogs and the traffic.

R: – Did you face any cultural challenges in Romania?

Jan: – I was not used with the seeing such big differences when it comes to people and social classes. In Sweden, we are all the same. Another thing that really surprised me was the fact that in Romania, comparing to Sweden where children in their 20s or even younger move away from their parents’ home, here they continue to live with their parents until a later age.

A challenge that I have faced is when I hear people talking about Romanians who move outside their country. Many people think negative things about them and they confuse them with the Romas. I do not agree with this as I lived here and I saw how people truly are.

R: – Are there any similarities between the local culture and your home country? What about the difference?

Jan: – Both in Romania and in Sweden people celebrate a lot during the high season, like Christmas for example and are family dependent. The difference is that religion plays a more important role in Romania. People are more religious than in Sweden, like for example during the Easter time. Another difference consists at the same time in the lack of obligation towards the family. As an example we can call our family and tell them that we have something else planned for Christmas or Easter and we could meet another day instead and that would not be regarded as disrespectful.

R: – Is the business environment different or what could you tell us about this?

Jan: – In Romania the manager has more authority and companies function according to a vertical hierarchy whereas in Sweden there is a more open and flexible environment.

R: – It is known that Swedes love to travel a lot. Many of them even move to other countries, and even though a few of them fall in love with the places and decide to relocate, Swedes love their country and most of them end up coming back to it. What about you? Are you planning to move back to Sweden? What do you think?

Jan: – I have talked with my wife a lot about this subject. What we came to conclude was that we could have two addresses: one in Sweden and one outside the country. We are traveling for a few weeks to Sweden about two times a year, but we are planning to spend a few months of the year in Sweden, once we will retire.

R: – I personally love Sweden and from my own point of view I consider Sweden the best country in the world to live in. But again, that is my personal opinion. What do you think, as a Swedish citizen, who has also lived abroad?

Jan: – I would say that Sweden is the best among the best countries to live in. If you want to pursue a good education, you are a smart person, good at what you are doing and you are earning good money it can be good to live in almost any country. But if you have a wider perspective, looking all the time at the possibility to become better and you compare yourself to the others in order to continuously improve yourself I would say that Sweden might be one of the best choice. Other countries which can compete with Sweden according to my knowledge are Norway, Finland, Denmark and Australia.

Roxana  : I started writing this article while leaving towards Bucharest and finished it exactly when I was almost back home, on the airplane above Stockholm. 

I could tag this trip as a nice short holiday and experience, during which I rediscovered Bucharest, confirmed the cultural differences and challenges between Sweden and Romania, which I already knew and discovered new ones. I met new people as well, and maybe this travel proved to have a greater impact for myself than I could have imagined. 

But right now only by looking over Sweden at night time from above it seems like another world. The clouds, the sky, the light and the nature are different, with so much water and cities which look like gold jewelry among the forests. This is the only place where I want to be. 

By Roxana Olteanu

4th of May 2014

Reverse cultural shock

“When Yvette Larsson heard about the fact that I will be traveling to my home city Bucharest, knowing about my passion for Sweden, how fast I adapted there and how quickly it became my home, as an expat herself who has been living abroad for 13  years,  she gave me the great idea of writing about the reverse cultural shock that I will be experiencing while being away from Sweden for the first time after almost two years. Taking into account the similarities between us, at the same time being exactly in the opposite situation I said yes to her request. I reckoned it would have been a good idea to start writing straight away as I was experiencing or seeing different things, so that I would not omit anything that came along during my journey in Eastern Europe. 

After planning quite fast and spontaneous my travel, straight after a long day at work I left the next day my home and beloved Stockholm, facing an tremendous fear of stepping out in another part of the world besides Sweden. I was sitting on the plane, with the first stop in Poland, country in which I haven’t previously been, where the flight attendant talked to me in Polish, even though I said to her that I could not speak Polish. Then again she continued to talk in this language which sounded so funny to me. At that moment I thought I will really miss hearing Swedish during my trip. Just before getting of the plane at Warsaw I was so surprised how the nature looked from above. My first thought was : where did the forests disappear? ,  being used with the large amount of forest in Sweden.

When I stopped by a café at the airport, while changing my flight, I went straight to a café, as  determined as Swedish people are. One thing that I learned to forget was that here you get served at the table by the waitresses. When I entered I went straight to the display in order to order and then the waiter asked me to sit down and order. It felt very pleasant and the waitresses were nice and willing to meet all your requirements and needs.

When I first arrived in Bucharest, my parents were waiting for me at the airport. On the way home, by looking from the backseat windows I could not realize that much that I was in another country. I noticed the huge difference comparing to Sweden, but at the same time I did not remember it so well. My first impression about Bucharest was how similar the style of the city and the architecture is to Paris. When it comes to the cultural shock, the first one was the height of people. During the whole time I was in Bucharest, I felt so tall and fit. Men seemed short and women, even though they are beautiful and feminine, they seem very fragile. I never perceived them like this before, but now I was more used to the Scandinavian people, who are known to be very tall and well trained. I consider this difference is because in Romania people do not pursue a high interest for sports and neither do they train regularly.

When it comes to the weather I can really say that spring in Romania was almost like summer in Sweden. Another cultural difference that I noticed from the first day when I went to eat with my father at a restaurant, was the fact that in Romania people are not using their smartphones as much as Swedes do, especially when they are sitting at the same table with their family and friends. Another difference is that grownups in their 20s would not hang out with their parents, while as in Sweden it is quite often that children would go out for lunch with their parents for example. This might be also because in Romania, children do not move away from their parents’ home so early. Many continue to live with their parents even until their 30s, which is extremely rare in Sweden.  

When it comes to traditional Romanian food, I could say that going out to a Romanian restaurant can be a full cultural experience. I am a big fan of food in Sweden; I consider that its quality is much higher and that Stockholm really has to offer a good quality and variety when it comes to restaurants. On the other hand, when coming to the restaurants that serve local traditional food I think that Caru cu bere in the old center offers a real taste of the Romanian food, an exceptional service and at the same time a feeling of the local culture. 

 

One of the big  difference between Stockholm and Bucharest when it comes to prices are the taxis. If in Stockholm I would pay around 30-40 euros for a 5-10 minutes one way trip, in Bucharest I traveled only by taxi a whole day, from one part of the city to the other one for only 10 euros, including tips. I heard many foreigners and tourists saying that Bucharest can offer one of the best nightlife and entertainment in the world. Being so used to it I could not understand that at that time, but after experiencing a more strict and very expensive nightlife in Sweden, I appreciated my night out in Bucharest as being the best nightclub and night out in my whole life. Partying as a foreigner in Bucharest, taking into account the glamorous nightclubs, the fact that you can go from one club to another paying almost nothing on the taxi and neither any entrance fees, the beautiful women, cheap alcohol and the freedom to do whatever you feel like, gives you the feeling that you own the places, you really feel like the king of the night.

The purpose of my trip was to take off a little time for myself, step away from the speed of life, relax, spend time with the family and re-experience life in Romania in order to write an interesting article about the reverse cultural shock with real insights from the expat perspective. Besides the last one, which was also the most important one, nothing went according to my plan, and life managed to surprise me once again with interesting events and exceptional people who I met.

When it comes to religion, maybe besides some communities in Småland, people in Romania are more religious than in Sweden. Since I have not been to the church for two years now, my mum insisted that we would go together to the same church that she has been regularly in order to pray for me. After I wrote my “acatism” (piece of paper you write your prayers to God and ask for his help, like with some important things in your life that you would like to accomplish), she introduced me to the priest, who asked me where I was living, and to my huge surprise he started to talk to me in Swedish. He said that he also lived in Sweden for a few months, country which he really liked. He added that he really admired the society, the culture and people in Sweden and also that his son who is a doctor is considering to move to Sweden. I do not know which were the chances of meeting a priest in Romania, who could talk Swedish and lived over there, but this happened the same day, and right after I went to pick up my mum from her office, where I met the accountant, who told me that her son was working as a teacher at Stockholm University and she offered me some advices concerning my life in Sweden.

It seems like just before I left Romania the first time, and even when I came for a short visit, all the ways lead to Sweden and I can only take it as a sign that Sweden is my faith. David Costello, from the Embassy of Ireland was one of the exceptional people I have met during my short trip to Bucharest. I first met David almost two years ago, at an event organized by me for the expats community in Bucharest, when I was working for Aidan Joyce, the businessman who used to own James Joyce Pub and Restaurant in Bucharest. David is a very important person for the Irish community in Bucharest, and despite the fact that he is a busy person; he is very nice person, warm and really easy to talk to. I really appreciated the fact that he took his time in order to meet me and he came together with his daughter Hanna and we had something to drink at at a café. Before traveling to Bucharest I was telling him about the article and I asked him if he knew some Swedish expats in Bucharest, thinking it would be nice to exchange some information about the cultural differences between Sweden and Romania. But maybe the biggest and most surprising experience of the whole trip was the fact that David booked a meeting and introduced me to Jan Björkman, a manager at IKEA in Romania.”

By Roxana Olteanu
27th of April, 2014

I love Sweden

Summer of 2012 I was just a fresh graduate from Business Administration at University of Economic Studies in Bucharest. I never lived on my own before, or apart from my parents and though I liked to think of myself as a quite mature person for my age.

Now, when I look back, I realize that just like all other graduates in their 20′s and I had little life experience comparing to nowadays. But I was full of hopes, dreams and excited to move abroad to Sweden in order to study a master in Entrepreneurship at Jönköping University.

At that moment I did not know whether I will live my whole life in Sweden or not. My plan was to experience living and studying abroad. I did not know much about Sweden either, except which is the capital, that they talk a hard and impossible language to be learned, that it is very cold but they have long days during the summer and of course that it is the country of IKEA.

When I first got to Jönköping, almost every foreign student was experiencing a cultural shock. Foreigners first impressions about Sweden were that Swedes are cold and hard to get to know, that everything is over-organized and you need to stand in queues for almost everything and that the prices for alcohol are exaggerated.

During my time in Sweden, many people never really adapted to the new country, as a result almost everyone moved back to their home countries after studies. I, on the other hand, I felt how everyday I was becoming more and more Swedish, until the point that I felt always so natural and like I was finally being home. The feeling I have experienced is hard to be described but I could associate it maybe with the feeling of being free. I feel like around Swedish people, I can truly be myself and they get me. I never laughed in my whole life as much as I did here. I was told once by my father that I do not posses the sense of humor, but the truth is that I never understood the sense of humor in Latin cultures. Whereas when I joke with a Swede, I find so many things to laugh about.

    The truth is that Swedes are not cold at all. They are amazing and intelligent people, well organized and very efficient. They do not let you in easily but once you get to know them you have a true friendship. I made more friends in Sweden that I had ever made anywhere else.

And so I decided to stay in Sweden. But it was the moment I first came to visit Stockholm for the first time in April 2013 that I realized I will be living here my whole life. I was fascinated by it and I fell in love with Stockholm. I was looking over the city up from Slussen and told to myself that this was the one for me. The place I want to spend my whole life until the very last moment.

Now, exactly one year later, and almost two years since I have been away, I decided to finally visit my home country. But the truth is that I am scared. I know that I will experience a reverse cultural shock. I might not feel at home or that I fit in the culture from any point of view. I might continue to be as I am Sweden. Many things that seemed normal before might appear strange to me now. But for sure this would make an interesting experience to write about. “

By : Roxanna Olteanu, Stockholm

7th April 2013