Wow it's already 2017, and February as a matter of fact. Time sure flies. Last year was mainly a year in transition for me. Moving to Sweden, joining the startup fiasco of a company, and then resigning at the end of the year and starting at a new company tomorrow. Well let's hope it won't ever be like the Titanic ever again, I surely doubt anything could beat that disaster of a company. It's more like a fake company (Wish Trump would tweet that!). Truly never again. But hey, lesson learned.
I was in Singapore from the 24th January to the 15th of February. Mainly celebrating Chinese New Year, visiting some friends and being a tour guide to another friend from Germany. From the 17th I was in Germany until the 19th. On the 18th they had a carnival in Bonn! I was here in December as well over Xmas.
But first back to Singapore. It is always truly amazing to see how far Singapore has come. Even though going back always makes me sneeze, the food is always good and life is pretty good compared to more developed countries. Did you know that the average salary after taxes in Singapore is 30% higher than in Sweden? Neither did I. That's a pretty large chunk of change, The last time I was there (just in September last year) Visa PayWave wasn't even a common occurrence, but fast forward to today it's almost everywhere, that's really fast deployment compared to most of the world. From my experience so far, Sweden doesn't attract the best in the world to this country. From my former work mates who were mostly here only in anticipation of getting a Swedish passport in order to escape their "wonderful" home countries, to attracting refugees, to bank imposing negative interest rates, it just doesn't seem like the future is very bright for Sweden, at least presently. Sweden also boasts the highest marginal tax bracket in the world at 60%. Which is just insane because the salaries here are even lower, much lower, than Norway which is also one of the highest taxed countries in the world. Before I even step foot outside of my door the government's already taken more than half of my daily bread. And rent is comparative if not more expensive than Norway.
Anyway I'm not going to bash Sweden further because I live here for now, but in my mind I can't help comparing since I've lived in four countries now!
So I was in Düsseldorf and Bonn a couple of days ago, and they are celebrating their carnival festival now which is pretty interesting to say the least. I am unaware of the origins, but it's definitely fun to participate. Apparently it happens along towns that are part of Rhineland, where the river flows. Parades of people and performers walk down streets throwing (literally) candies and other goodies (sanitary pads (yes really), chopsticks, bratwurst, t-shirts, are some of the things that were thrown!). Of course I had an orc gave me a 2 euro chocolate coin, some young girls giving me an Indian music CD, and a man giving me 2 pairs of chopsticks. My friend even got a carrot. If you shout "Camela", they give you more! Needless to say I was shouting a bit.
After an hour or so the parade ended, and we had about 3 bagfuls of candy. More than enough to give you diabetes within a day if you are crazy enough to finish it all.
The day before I was in Düsseldorf. The weather wasn't so great, but we walked around downtown and that was pretty nice.
I was in Singapore from the 24th January to the 15th of February. Mainly celebrating Chinese New Year, visiting some friends and being a tour guide to another friend from Germany. From the 17th I was in Germany until the 19th. On the 18th they had a carnival in Bonn! I was here in December as well over Xmas.
Carnival in Bonn, Germany, Feb 18th 2017.
But first back to Singapore. It is always truly amazing to see how far Singapore has come. Even though going back always makes me sneeze, the food is always good and life is pretty good compared to more developed countries. Did you know that the average salary after taxes in Singapore is 30% higher than in Sweden? Neither did I. That's a pretty large chunk of change, The last time I was there (just in September last year) Visa PayWave wasn't even a common occurrence, but fast forward to today it's almost everywhere, that's really fast deployment compared to most of the world. From my experience so far, Sweden doesn't attract the best in the world to this country. From my former work mates who were mostly here only in anticipation of getting a Swedish passport in order to escape their "wonderful" home countries, to attracting refugees, to bank imposing negative interest rates, it just doesn't seem like the future is very bright for Sweden, at least presently. Sweden also boasts the highest marginal tax bracket in the world at 60%. Which is just insane because the salaries here are even lower, much lower, than Norway which is also one of the highest taxed countries in the world. Before I even step foot outside of my door the government's already taken more than half of my daily bread. And rent is comparative if not more expensive than Norway.
Anyway I'm not going to bash Sweden further because I live here for now, but in my mind I can't help comparing since I've lived in four countries now!
So I was in Düsseldorf and Bonn a couple of days ago, and they are celebrating their carnival festival now which is pretty interesting to say the least. I am unaware of the origins, but it's definitely fun to participate. Apparently it happens along towns that are part of Rhineland, where the river flows. Parades of people and performers walk down streets throwing (literally) candies and other goodies (sanitary pads (yes really), chopsticks, bratwurst, t-shirts, are some of the things that were thrown!). Of course I had an orc gave me a 2 euro chocolate coin, some young girls giving me an Indian music CD, and a man giving me 2 pairs of chopsticks. My friend even got a carrot. If you shout "Camela", they give you more! Needless to say I was shouting a bit.
Yes, free candy thrown everywhere!
Parades of people.
The orc who handed me a 2 euro chocolate coin.
I was given a bratwurst too!
After an hour or so the parade ended, and we had about 3 bagfuls of candy. More than enough to give you diabetes within a day if you are crazy enough to finish it all.
The day before I was in Düsseldorf. The weather wasn't so great, but we walked around downtown and that was pretty nice.
Düsseldorf, Rhine river in the foreground.
On the plane coming back I sat next to a very strange African woman who kept saying "air turbulence" when we landed, she even clapped when we landed. She said she was never going to fly in small planes again (as if that would stop air turbulence, but obviously I wasn't sitting next to Einstein...) and asked me how to say "Amen" in Chinese. Weird! Most of the time I was sleeping on the plane but this mad woman somehow felt it was okay to wake me up to ask me how to turn off the cabin light. Then when we landed the "air turbulence" infinite loop started and she also said how she ordered a lot of liquor because she thought the plane was going to crash and that she can't die because "she is still young and beautiful" (I respectfully disagree). She basically kept talking to me even though I just wanted to get off the plane. She was also wearing sunglasses all the time even though this was at night. If there ever was a crazy woman this would be it.
No comments:
Post a Comment