Round one

Ok,
this might seem pretty pretentious to some, and of course totally uninteresting to most; but at long last i have my own blog. And whats worse, its in english! With two "native" languages you would think i might opt for one of those. But i realised that if i start writing in Swedish or in German only one half of the people i care about will be able to read the damn thing.

I resisted the urge to blog for a long time, knowing that i would never have the energy to keep it going for more than a few weeks at best. Now however i feel like i might have the motivation to keep writing. This blog is in no way meant to be some kind of interesting social commentary and i hope not to many people will actually read it. Its just a way for a guy who just moved to another country to let his family and friends know how he is doing.

Now that that is out of the way i guess its time to actually recap what has happened so far.

It started in the end of May, i had a reasonably cozy job in Stockholm (where most of my childhood friends live these days) but felt like i was getting a bit to complacent, which in turn made me border on boredom from time to time.

The dream of living in a different country has been with me for a long time, and i started to feel that if i didnt do something drastic soon i would never manage to make it come true. Which is why i put my CV on some websites that specialise in non swedish jobs. I had not really made any decision about moving or anything, it was more of a spur of the moment thing. One evening i just put my CV out there to "see what kind of jobs are around".

Well, it took about two weeks before i got an offer from a French company that needed more people in Barcelona. I was quite startled since i hadn't really thought that i would be moving within the next couple of years, if ever. But when the chance came like this i couldn't really say no without admitting to myself that i had become to old, lazy and complacent to ever turn my life into the adventure i always thought it was supposed to be.


So i accepted and told them i would start working in Barcelona one month later.

Now, i was obviously aware of the fact that in Spain the majority of people do in fact speak Spanish. A language i know nothing of or about. I also knew that in Barcelona things are even a little bit worse since people also talk Catalan, which means you really have to learn two languages if you hope to ever communicate freely with people.

Before i accepted i also did some research on normal wages and other work related regulations etc. This was not a great moment for me since i soon realised i would have to take a severe pay cut and a little bit less holidays in Spain.

And still i accepted.

It is somewhat difficult for me to explain why i did this. Its not a bad but not a great career move. I make a lot less money in a city that has higher rents and otherwise similar costs to what im used to. And I moved to a country where the typicall store owner makes your average french dude look like a triple doctor of linguistics with English as his speciality.

There are of course also a lot of good sides to it. The weather for one; what people here curse as a bad day would have people in Sweden gather in the parks to take advantage of the weather. The city itself; Barcelona is fabled for its amazing atmosphere, architecture, night clubs and other things.

I could make this list very long indeed, but in the end it was not the thought of a better life in Barcelona that made me move. I am not here because i think in Barcelona i will find happiness for life. Rather what i liked was the idea of 'adventure', of getting to know not only a new place but myself as well.

Spain is a nice middle way, its a part of the EU and a fairly safe choice. But its not like moving to Austria or maybe the UK where i already know a bunch of people and the language. Its an experiment to see if living abroad is something i can really do. If all goes well maybe i will try something a bit more exotic next time; always did want to give Asia or south America a try...

So where was i?

Ah, yes. I got a job offer that i did not expect and felt like i had to accept it or be a wimp for the rest of my life.

This meant that i had a fairly intense month before i left Sweden. I already had a busy schedule until i was supposed to go on vacation near the end of June. Now i also had to settle everything from cancelling phone lines etc to saying good bye to everyone of my friends. To make it all a bit more interesting we also had two break-ins at work which made my month truly insane.

So those weeks went by very quickly. On Friday i left Sweden for Germany. Had a very nice family reuinon style party there on Saturday (Martina, Martin i will write SOON i promise). I might have gotten somewhat intoxicated, which made flying to Barcelona on Sunday a bit more tiring than it should have been.

The company paid for a hotel at least, but getting there was a bit of an adventure with my cab driver stopping at 3 separate gas stations asking for directions. This was after i gave him the notes with the adress, written instruction in spanish on how to get there and a map with a big dot where the hotel is at.

Anyway, i knew that there would be at least one more person starting work on Monday with me. So i asked in the reception if they knew anything about the other people working for my company. Instead of some vague rumours i got seven peoples nationality and room number! So i started knocking on doors. I met Stefan first, a well organised German guy who already knew how to get to where we had to go next morning. After a quick chat i let him get back to bed and went down to the lounge for a quick pizza.

Here i met Jonas (Swede) and Aurelien (French), i am not sure anymore but maybe Denis (French) was with us also. We went out for a beer or three and talked about what was going to happen at our first day of work. The morning after we had to go to the social security office to get our numbers and then go to company premises for "training".

Having no idea about the job i would be doing i was a bit excited about the start of the training. But we managed to meet everyone in the morning and ended up travelling 7 strong to the social office and consequently work. The first day consisted of us signing a lot of papers. It was truly astonishing to see what kind of paperwork comes from working with an american company. I seriously had to put my signature on more than 30 separate documents that day. (and this was before the proper contract, which we had to sign in 7 separate copies the week after).

Anyway, things speeded up after that. I got some basic work training and started getting to know the other guys a little bit during the next week. I stayed at the hotel for 10 days before moving into my current home (more on that some other time).

I have now been in Spain for 3 weeks and am of course still more tourist than actual inhabitant. But im working on it. I have a place to live, work is ok and the city truly is amazing. But i really have to stop writing now and will tell more about the last couple of weeks another day...