Sweden vs. Greece

I'd under-estimate the weather in Sweden, it is very cold tonight...

It is early-summer in Sweden now, and for the last few days, the sun is bright, either in Copenhagen or Helsingborg, and the temperature is slightly above 20 deg. C, but not tonight. Vegar from Norway had ask us for a dinner + watch football tonight, and as usual, I worn only sweater + short pants, but it is a windy night, the wind is very strong and cold, and it is only about 10 deg. C only, I'm regret for never wear my long pant along.

Beside beer, European loves football, I'm not really into it, but tonight is the match between Sweden and Greece, and I'm in Sweden now, so we are looking for a dinner place with TV, but all pack, after searching for fews restaurant, we end up our dinner in a restaurant without TV, and it is all empty. After dinner, we search for a pub for watching the match, all pub in the city is flooded with the supporter that wearing the Sweden jersey, and we can't even get a place to sit after looks for a few pub, Swedish are patriotic, and the result is 2:0, Sweden win the game, the atmosphere in the pub is superb, the fans was shouting, jumping, clapping, dancing and singing around, you can see the youngster running on the street, it'll be nice if I can watch match live in the stadium. Too bad I never bring my DC along.

Picture above is the souvenir that gave by Jonas on his last trip to Malaysia, and I'm wearing this on the match, lol~

Helsingborg

It's 11pm now, but it's still bright in Helsingborg...

I came to Helsingborg by yesterday noon, it is a small town in Sweden nearby Copenhagen, and our Nederman HQ located here. The daylight is extremely long here, it start to turn bright from 3am, and turn dark only after 11pm...

The weather is slightly cooler in Helsingborg, and the food is 'cheap' if compared to Copenhagen, the ham, the sausage + sauce, and the beer here is superb!!!

What's impressive here is the beer, European loves beer, they drink beer 24/7, and the price of beer in Helsingborg fluctuate a lot, depends on which place you buy it. I bought my dinner at 7-11 on the first night, it's 10pm but it is as bright as 5pm in Malaysia, and theres not much food left in 7-11, but a LOT of beer inside there, and it is only 17kr/ bottle for a Tuborg, while a bottle of coke cost 11kr, the only left spaghetti cost me 35kr, and the volume can't even fix 1/3 of my stomach.

Monday morning, I took a very full breakfast, inc. sausage, omelet, salad, coffee, apple juice in the hotel, in Nederman HQ, they provide free lunch for their stuff, erm, it's ok, some Malaysia company did this too, but, they provide free beer too, they called it as light beer, only 3.5% alcoholic, so my lunch is fish + biscuit + beer, lol, 5pm sharp, the factory is almost empty, European enjoy life, because it is not worth for them to earn much, as they have to pay almost 50% of their salary to the govt.

Their mall closed latest by 7pm, before they closed, I'd went to shop around there, and whats surprising me is, the beer is only 25kr, for half a dozen........ 1 bottle of Tuborg is only about 4.2kr, it is cheaper than the tax-free beer in Langkawi... the consequence, as you seen on the picture, there is 2 dozen in my room's fridge now, haha. Dinner is provided free by the hotel, ang mo version rice and very nice sausage + coleslaw + coffee (yeah I drink only beer and coffee here, never even drink a drop of plain water for the whole day).

After dinner, I went to drink + watch Euro 2008 with Nederman's people from Sweden, Siberian, Norway and Singapore, a mug of Tuborg here cost 40kr, so the conclusion is, you can buy a Tuborg at Helsingborg, range from 4kr to 40kr, it's all depends on where you buy it. So the summary of the beer price as below:

Beer in drinking place: 40kr - 50kr
Beer in 7-11: 17kr
Beer in shopping mall: 4kr - 6kr
Beer in Nederman HQ: FREE, lol!!!

I'm drinking the 0.5L 4.2kr Tuborg while typing this blog, listening to Radiohead - Creep, and it's 11.30pm, but the day is still not-so-dark, and there is still 22 cans of Tuborg in my fridge, lol!!!

*RM1 = ~1.82kr

Copenhagen

I get my chance to attend for a 2 weeks Nederman advance training in Sweden, and before I depart to Sweden, I'd stayed 1 night in Copenhagen, Denmark.

This is the first time I come to Europe country, everything seems impressive to me, the weather, atmosphere, building, and the superb high cost of living here.

It is summer now, the sun is bright, but not as hot and wet as Malaysia, and, whats surprisingly for a tropical-country boy like me is, when I woke up by 10pm (due to time adjustment, I'd slept from 4pm), it's still bright, and the night is not that cold.

There is lots of Gothic style building here, and it looks so natural, erm, actually it is, unlike some tourist place in Asia country, looks fake, even the hotel's building where I stay is those old European style building.

What's make me unsatisfied is the extremely high cost of living here (just Google, it is the no. 6 costly city in the world) . The hotel where I stayed, without air-conditioner, no bathtub, cost 1300dkk+ (about rm900+) per night, and the lunch I took, a frankfurt + coke, from a hawker stall, cost me 48dkk, (about rm30+), my dinner on Burger King, a 'best price' package which inc. a cheese burger, fries and a regular size coke, cost me 39dkk, terribe...