Heya.
This time im not really bored while writing. Ive kinda switched the boredom to tiredness. For you who still don't know it, i now have a job. My title is Technical support agent and the company is called stream. The way stream works is that it takes care of other companys support. The biggest company we/they support right now is called Adobe. You might know of photoshop... Anyways, Im still in training so I haven't officially started yet. I think the training is gonna go on for another week, but things are a bit unsure. There are many other swedish people people working at that place. 2 other swedish guys started the same day as me and for the same thing. They are really nice guys. One is called Mattias and has rasta-hair and is a music kinda guy. He also running linux. The other one is called Anton and is studdying art. I think it was called "audio-visual art". There are 3 already working at Tech support and a bunch others at the customer support as well. I would estimate it to about 10-12 swedes total. So, its now the end of the third week and Im not anyway near bored. I think its gonna be good to start with the real work too.
These weeks has been full of traveling and Adobe programs. The trains are really crappy so they are more than often late and both fridays i've been home later than 20:00 because of delays. Let's hope that tomorrow is different... oh wait im not going home tomorrow. Im going to a concert with Lucca, Dantje, Nic, Jitske and more. In Leiden, im sure its gonna be cosy.
Another thing that comes up when you talk with other Swedish people is of course why we are here and the differences we've come to notice about this new land. One thing is sinterklaas, which we dont have at all in Sweden. It's basically the same as santa claus, just that he comes from spain(?!) which is weird cause he has the same beard as santa and as far as I know Spain is warm as hell. Then he got helpers. The difference from santa is that those are "Piets", black people who helps the lazy big white man. I think those Piets have a background from beeing black slaves, but no one says that, they are now officially chimney-divers. Another thing that's really different from Sweden is the amount of foreign people (well, ok Im foreign too, but I mean people with a bit more "exotic" touch). Especially in Rotterdam and my old home town, Den Haag, there is a large concentration of people from Turkey, Marocco and Surinam. This is of course due to the colonial times and its very noticable if you're not used to it. When I get back home for christmas I will notice it even more, Im sure.
Mattias, my swedish travel companion (Leiden) and co-worker is also a linguist (sp?), as in knows a lot about languages. Its really interesting and fun to talk about. It also involves a lot of history which is my main subject from the teachers education. He makes very interesting analyses over speaking dutch and we make some tests on some words that are very hard for either us swedes or for the dutch people to say. The reason seems to be that you make your own language like a template for learning another one. When you learn another language you hear what you are used to in your own native language and then you speak with an accent of the new. The reason people have a hard time letting that go is because they never hear the difference when they say a word in the new language. But of course, practise over time makes it better.
Another "new" thing is Dune. If you dont know what that is, its a science-fiction series made by Frank Herbert in the 1980's. There is also a game series for the computer. Anyways I have always seen it in the library and wanted to read them. Now I have time on the train and I got the first book last weekend. I really like it. I played the game a lot a couple of years ago and I regret not taking the latest one with me here. Anyways...
So.. christmas is comming up. Still have a lot of presents to buy. Gonna make that in the weekend. At least that's the plan.
hugs on yah all.
Mika
En vers för farfar följer,
