It’s not a lie to say that it made my life totally changed with this journey.
On the spring of 2009, The company I was working, informed me to get ready to move to Sweden. Well honestly I was not surprised with this as it was already what I expected from the discussions which I had with my company those days. I had to takeover TL role of first line support team of the my work place. The role was a more of a technical support thing.
For me, that never being into Europe before, lot of preparation work had to be done. though it was not necessary at the level i prepared,. However preparation involved lot of time and effort than i thought. From buying baggages to winter cloths. exchange money to some Euros, Opening some bank account as requested by my working place.
My mom was prepared me some local food items which prepared in special way that it can preserve for long time. Thats a kind of every mom would do in our culture perspective. They always prepare such kind of food items and pack them.. thinking that their kids would go starv without having food they used to eat as their supper :-). In certain aspect, its true because anyone need few day to unpack things they brought, find some food stalls, raw food markets, getting used to cooking and etc., so for me it was so helpful to bring some food items pre-cooked.
I never forget the day i started my journey. Due to two reasons., First it was a heavy rainy day., which flooded the road to our international airport and on our way to airport, the vehicle we were travelled was broken down due to floods on the road. the engine was ceased by water sucked through air inlet. So we had to get down … travel by foot in water, soaked our cloths, etc, however i was alway keen enough to keep my baggages dry.. and we took public transport bus to travel the rest of the drive to the airport. Second reason is sentimental. Though i say a proper goodbye to my mother and farther… by hugging them… worship them as our cultural practice before i get into the vehicle..to go to airport., but i never thought that, it was the last time i see my farther. 🙁 … (He passed away a month after). so that day has deep spot in my mind all the time.
Though the day was memorable., in two ways… i was excited… first due to travel long distance and that is to Europe. Second the work i have to takeover there. As of i thought it was a challenging work environment for me. so finally we came to airport just 1 1/2 hrs time left for my departure due huddles I had on the way. It’s worth to mention that 1 1/2 hrs was never enough in our airport … I was rushing through the baggage counters, emigration counters, towards the gates. Sometime i had to explain my situation into the crowd in queues and they were very helpful. finally i managed to get through the gates and go to the waiting area for boarding.
My expected total travel time was 30hrs including two transits. My itinerary says that i have to go Abu-Dhabi first in Srilankan airlines flight and then to Amsterdam in KLM and then Amsterdam to Arlanda airport, Stockholm again in a KLM flight. Lucky for me that there aren’t any manual luggage check-in in between flights. Nothing in flight hours to commemorate except food i enjoyed in-flight and I watched the “Sex and the City” movie on board in long flight from Abu-Dhabi to Amsterdam and due to less passengers i got full four seat row … that i slept like was in a bed. 🙂
when I landed in Amsterdam, Netherlands. If i remember correct, the time was around 6.30a.m in the morning. I got to know that it was the point that they check Visa for verification and clearance to enter into Europe.. it is because of the schengen zone. So they will not check my Visa or the Passport again at Stockholm (Which surprisingly got to know later when I landed safely in Stockholm). at the immigration clearance, one memorable thing was that Visa officers checking my passport and struggling to read my name. *Well i have very long name … inherited from my family .. I had very hard times, whenever i was required to fill my bio data due to this fact. These Visa officers were very friendly… I can still remember their dialogs:
Immigration officer : Hello how are you… Can you pronounce your name please… (I told them my name)
Immigration officer : OMG… your name is so long … (laughing..) how could you remember your name. (I laughed them at too… though i didn’t tell anything… i didn’t want to reject my entry 😀 )
Immigration officer : Are you first time to enter Europe ? (Then i opened my mouth .. )
Me : Yes … this is my first time to come Europe. sorry about my long name …
Immigration officer : (Laughing friendly … ) Don’t worry… we don’t usually have long names … I’m Stuard… this is Michael (Showed me the guy sitting next to him ) Are you excited to coming into Europe ?
Me : Yes… I am excited … (Then he stamped embarkation in my passport)
Immigration officer : Welcome to Amsterdam … Please enjoy …
Its not the first time that i had problems due to my long family name. However was not become an issue at that point.
In Amsterdam, i had 2 hrs transit time then i took domestic flight to Arlanda airport, Stockholm. After around 2hrs of flight time I landed to my destination. After clearing my baggages … was surprise to know at that time no more passport checks/visa check and hey! here i am already I’m walking out of the Airport. So before I go out .. as per instructions i got from my family and colleagues at work, i had to wear a sweater and a jacket to feel worm from cold weather. Sweden is a very cold weather country. Which has long winters, short summers and mean temperature , around the year is below 10. However the day i landed was a worm day. But since I’m coming from a tropical country and the temperature is always above 25. I felt the coldness and low humidity in the weather as soon as set my foot out of the Airport building.
I took a taxi to go to the place where i intended to stay… in Kista (pronounce as Shista [As K pronouce sh in locally]). which is walking distance to my work place. Kista is the largest Information and Communications Technology (ICT) cluster in Sweden.
It took me 495 Kroners to travel 30km distance from Airport to Kista. Actually Kista is situated near E4 expressway between Airport to Stockholm city. From Airport to Stockholm its 43kms.
I stayed in saltholmsgränd road.. very quite place…
Well… lots of things happened afterwards …. I sure will share few in here.. like some travels we did … etc.,
