AnnA - kitchenware of Scandinavia

I have been mad about certain cutlery for more than couple of years, I searched to find a very particular type of Scandinavian cutlery brand AnnA. The dinner fork which I used for more than years made me to get deep into the make of the product and brand type. This fork is different from that of regular steak fork or any other fork for that matter. It's unique and elegant design is it's identity to stand different from all other forks. In nordic language, they refer fork to "gaffel".

As I am familiar the product is from Denmark. I tried searching all the online stores of Scandinavia, but I ended up in a web store named harald nyborg in Denmark, where they provide cheapest range of this kind. F & H, the leading brand in Scandinavia also has the rare collection of AnnA products.

The logo is quite unsual to find in any online website, I managed to find the logo used up in few of the websites, so it's quite rare to find. They don't seems to have a website on their own. STEL KOMPAGNIET offers the collective cutley set of AnnA. I managed to pull out most of the products of AnnA for the outsiders, to know let them know about all of their products.

 

Nature as a part of home

Usually people wanted to have the same environment, every time when they visit the same place every time. Because they don't want to loose their memories in the place, where they lived earlier. I hope the same follows with the most parts of scandinavia, as the places remain same after years to come. I would like to compare with two of the places, where I live in Scandinavia. The residence in Esbjerg, Denmark is so cool, it's very close to the highway. Similarly, the residence in Halmstad is very close to highway. Both the places have one thing in common, trees. They are surrounded by an enormous amount of tree, sometimes it makes me to forget that I live close by a highway. The place also sounds quiet, when it comes as if we are living in the amidst of the forest area.

Study and work in Scandinavia

Q: Education and  work in sweden:

In my opinion on the Scandinavian life. I would definitely encourage the people to have their studies in Sweden. Education over here is simply superb. I have learnt to love for my thesis. This infrastructure and the environment made to stay focus on my study.
Before you come to Sweden for studies, make sure what stream or whats your field of interest with futuristic goals. Cos, I knew learning something "new" would end up in the consuming lot of time. My better advice is to choose the right course in right university.
Search for top 10 universities in Sweden and apply for it. The chances of getting up is likely more higher than selecting your course in some random universities. Moreover the universities rank level, will fetch you extra credits for your danish green card points.

For Jobs:
Try to come here, after having at-least 2-3 years of job experience in your field. The job skills which they look here is more professional. You have to really mastered in what you study. Hope you know the ECTS system, they would expect minimum 5 ECTS for selecting your documents for job application.

I feel, language and contacts play a major role in getting job here. I also wanted to say you swedes are reserved in their characters.

You can start applying jobs from here, with a good CV and Best Personal Letter.
http://www.thelocal.se/jobs/#.UXFTY7WnqLM

I must have sent at least 1000 applications in these Nordic countries and got a response, less than 10 times.. That hard for a international fresher to get a job here..

anyways, try your level best. I wanted you to carry hope in all forms..
Jobs in Sweden - The Local
www.thelocal.se
Jobs in Sweden in English - hundreds of employment opportunities at international and Swedish companies for foreign professionals living and working in Sweden

Q: But I am into looking at Danish green card..just want to know if its worth going through it and landing in Denmark. Not sure about the job prospects and markets over there..

I understand, the situation about your work. Since you got a European degree, it should be positive for you to get danish green card.
http://www.nyidanmark.dk/en-us/
http://www.nyidanmark.dk/en-us/coming_to_dk/work/greencard-scheme/greencard-scheme.htm
These links should give you the points requirements and other stuffs, if you planned to apply.. And also when you have proper bank statement, it's a cake walk for you get the green card.

whats after getting the green card will be the main question..
It's more like sweden, only differs by language and little bit of political stuffs. cph people can understand the southern sweden accent, in that way, I dnt have any problem in understanding them.
I still advice you to learn danish, if you really looking for quick good professorial job. It's tougher than Swedish. I have 5 months experience of danish language and you know what, I felt very hard to pronounce and listen to those words.. anyways' little interest and determination to learn the language, definitely pave way for it.. For sure, It would take more than a year to speak it. minimum 5-6 months, if they are good in language

What I have seen in denmark is, people coming from india, staying in cph, trying to apply for professional job, eventually they end up in part time jobs (hard) to capitalize their finance. They start these hard jobs as a part time and it becomes a full time due to their time..
ONLY 10 in 1 are ending up in professional job, as far as I have seen. But if you could stay there for long time and trying to make contacts, you could end up in good job maybe after 1 or 2 or even in the worst case 3 years, by the time your visa have been ended.

I knew a guy who was teaching students in maldives, coming here and working in a shop(black job).
other guy who have the green card, working in hotel for staff keeping, for no surprise it's a white job and he sticked to it, later he called one of this other friend to the same work. Interestingly this guy did his master's(Embedded) in sweden.

So this is how it works, people work in paper distribution(white and black), Restaurants( white and black), fruit shop(w n b), kebab shop(w n b). These jobs are easy for the people who can't speak danish. So you understand their situation for language.

It all depends upon payment, the software guys get the same pay as the one who works in commune paper distribution, so people tries to stick to it, just by getting satisfied with the pays.. There is no future with their 18 years education..

at least in our countries ppl end up in some software companies with their engineering background, but here it's completely different.

I dnt know how's the case in UK and other european countries, but here in nordic countries, this is the case.. My advice will be, whatever or however it may be, if you are going for it.. just do things in a professional way to get job, without loosing any hope.. learn the language, master your skills with programming or whatever job prerequisite, One day or the other you will definitely end in the highest tax paying countries.

One more thing, which keeps haunting in my mind these days is, do we really need to come abroad to do hard jobs are some other random jobs, while we got ample of opportunities in our home country.. If that's the case, that year of education’s meaningless... May be it takes 1 or 2 years to get settled with a job, but it won't be a big issue, if we have little patience. I do believe about luck, because it has favored me in many occasions, but upon that, our hard work, belief and our basic human character, determines what we are and where we stand. Trying to live in western countries may be the list in our comfort zone, but on the other hand, it's really hard if we imagine our parents and loved ones living 10,000 kmph away. That’s something we will miss for sure. As an example, think of the son/daughter, who leaves home for few years/permanently, definitely, its goanna be tough for their parents, they don’t want to miss them, and even they were given ransom, that's the case.
Initially it took one year for me to understand the life of Swedes and 6 more months for the student’s life and one year for the language with immigrant’s life w/wo Swedes, upon that one year time for learning professional and hard jobs. In-between relationship with females, trust with friends, travel around places, examining food, culture, fashion took 4 years of my life in Scandinavia to meet the Swedes standards and still counting on it.
Any way’s these were something, I wanted to make a point. You are a master graduate, with your age as an experience; you have your own ways of judging things and taking actions. As long as you willing to work hard, without losing hopes, you will succeed.


 

Esbjerg vs Copenhagen

Denmark is one of beautiful and peaceful country which I have ever seen. When I say about the city Esbjerg, it’s very calm with limited population. Being the fifth largest city in Denmark, it sounds to very small to me with its geographical area. People over here are very calm and polite. The culture is more like old European fashion. If you are a guy who drinks beer and visit pub regularly, you can enjoy the night life. The main problem what a foreigner faces is the language, if one knows the Danish language it’s a cake walk for him/her to do any kinda stuffs here. Climate is much cold here when compared with Copenhagen. The future for people like us depends upon the language to survive for sure. From summer part time to full time they need us to speak their language. I have noticed that in Denmark, they have made the rules tough rules to foreigners particularly immigrants. The Danish govt sucks to an extent. They keep changing the rules very often. But apart from these stuffs, it’s one of the good places to live with free health insurance, studies and other beneficial stuffs.

For me Copenhagen is a heaven, one can find everything what they need. From luxury to ripped off level. Somehow I believe it’s the world's center place and I personally like it very much, even from pronouncing its name. My friends have done part time jobs over there. But it’s tough to get one, since the jobs are in restaurants it’s little hard to get. I knew getting a full time job will be very tough again because language plays a main factor. Though one can succeed when they have the real talent with the particular field. The cost of living in Esbjerg is quite high when compared to Sweden. As a student its costs me 2500 dkk per month for food and rent alone. It doesn't include internet bill or other expense you make outside. But over there in cph its quite high and at least one need 3,500 to survive. Much expensive than any other Danish cities. People told me that without jobs they can't imagine life over there.

Copenhagen Calling

Life is a taxi, as my friend explained to me earlier. People who are interested in life or interested with taxi will get into the car. It’s you, the driver who drives it till the end. Random passengers in train who sits with you and if either one of them in interested in talking, they start with the conversation. I'm writing this post in a travelling train traversing from Copenhagen to Esbjerg. It's a nice experience to travel in winter season, though your body experience pain due to the cold. The freezing snowflakes blowing outside and hitting the window, while I sit in the window seat and start typing on my keypad. That’s a nice feeling to work on, when you see the white land outside and still concentrating on your computer without your body being stable. The journey started on fine evening, though I was very early to the railway station, considering my Danish class in advance of my travel schedule. I have fixed that I should miss my girl who comes to the Danish class. The day I have seen palm history in her hands and trying to explain my feelings about her was at least interesting for me, since I have never tried to this to any female for expressing my love. I have done this kinda technique to Elsa for getting her attention in other way, inspite understand her. But this will be a definitely a challenging case for me. I have to park my bicycle in the Esbjerg railway station and start my journey alone. Its 1:05 at midnight, I called karthik who was waiting in the station with his friend looking for me. There are few surprises like seeing different ethics people at midnight and meeting my old Bangladesh friend from halmstad. That was the first day in my life I took the two zone ticket in bus at danmark. It costed me 23 dkk, but still it's a nice experience to know in buying tickets in a foreign country. The denominations where kept separately in a jar as the driver press the corresponding button the customer receives the change and he is the one who has to collect it by pressing the handle top wards, funny but this is how the system works. The important thing which has to noted down is the credit or debit cards are not accepted in buying the tickets. Anyways we reached their typical Danish apartment by 2 and ate. That was sambhar with mango mix and pickle to add its taste. Wow, what a wonderful combination. The night went by karthik friend passing jokes comment on his wander about friend. The I have to get up in the morning 9 am; thinking it was too early to wakeup. Then I took the help from karthik to travel to the Swedish embassy in CPH. The day started with snow when we took the initial bus, Again I had new experience in travelling with the local metro train. The interesting part of this system is it doesn't have any driver to control the train. I felt the metro experience was similar to the one which I notice in Italy, except this is unmanned. The infrastructure and the paintings inside proved made me this feeling. When we reached the desired point, it was sunny and still freezing. We managed to find the embassy and finished the job by filing the visa. I was little curious about the place which landed us to see the coat or arms changing their shift by 12 at Danish palace. That was again nice experience, because I have seen these activities in the movies that were real with royalty. Then we couldn't manage to stay longer so we opted out to our room. The interesting thing which I learned is the camera lost its capability to switch on and showed less battery inspite having two points which I noticed at some points later, even while coming back in the train now. We reached room by direct local train and felt so hungry, I wanted to taste prawn food, since I felt it’s been long  sometime in Sweden, I have tasted it that raw shrimp. So we decided to hang out to nearby netto and managed to get chicken instead of prawn. The weather now turned to be little gloomy, when we returned to our place. I have to wait for the food to get cooked, meanwhile I meddled with facebook and felt little happy after seeing the likings of henrik and Mona about copen-heaven wall post. Later we had our lunch by 6 and headed to babu’s place, where I have to catch two buses, this time I used karthik friends buss pass to travel.  It’s an advantage that Indian faces look more or less similar to the foreigners, as we felt when seeing them. So I have to spend some time with babu and his friends and returned to home with the bag which I gave to babu few months earlier. The surprises continued for me, the people who resided at babu’s place, holds green card still doing some random part time jobs. That’s the job situation to the people from foreign country. Late evening, I had to have the remaining food which we cooked for lunch and went to bed. I woke up so early before my alarm strikes and say bye to karthik and magesh who came last night. Then I headed out with the dilemma of getting bus ticket, and then as told my karthik, we can use the dsb ticket for getting into the bus. The bus took like 40 minutes to the station which I didn’t expect at that time and still I had some time to look around the places around københavn central railway station. I love this station very much, because this is the place where I initially landed when I come to Scandinavia and this is the place where I halted when I travelled with my friends from halmstad to Esbjerg few months ago, not to mention my msg which I wrote to my friend at these situations. With the two breads in my stomach, I had to travel 300 kilometres in 3 hrs. I have to spend 368 dkk (79, 230, 23, 23, and 23) totally for my travel, but it’s still worth learning some of these experiences and remembering those beautiful memories.

finger to foot

It all started with great expectations of skating on an ice board. After a disappointment of not getting the lady in the group room. I head to mine and slept over there for an hour. Then I went to library and checked the mails, mean time I found an invitation for skating at Esbjerg Centrum square. With no hesitation and in a plan of collecting the coat at post office before 7:30, I headed to the square with great hope. I urged with my bicycle with great confidence. I was thinking about my dad and the days he taught me to drive the bicycle. It was pleasant memories to get during that ride. Then I reached the square in hope of meeting some people. There I could able to none from university. I waited in the square for nearly half an hour. The cold started creeping in my body. thought I could violate the time through window shopping, so I started walking by foot and did get into any of the shops because most of them were about to close by that moment. I could not bare the cold; I started feeling my hands getting numb. I found Esbjerg railway station would be the place to abide in. I waited for 1 hour to see the clock ticks seven. Mean while I was seeing many Danish people, how they dressed up and the way of behavior in public. Previously I was disappointed by the post as it closed down by 5 pm in the evening. In hope of meeting some friends in huset, I headed there and had a leak. To my surprise I found nothing expect the normal bar in the ground stairs and the lady who came there showed me some paintings which don’t make my mood good. I didn't wait for long, spoke to an Irish guy and pushed away from the place. It was real cold. I felt the pain both in my toes and fingers. Then in a dilemma, I came to fakta to buy some milk which was messaged by my roommate earlier.

longing for pants

I was studying about shirt previously but now the search went for its matching pants. I 'm not good at matching still. I want to say what kind of pants which I preferred initially and what I like to have. Initially the craze went to bell bottom pants, because those pants took by attention, I can say they are the old fashion particularly in my fathers age. Then started liking about cargo, because it added volume to the things and legs basically. The fashion was all around Chennai for sometime. Then after landing in Scandinavia, I started liking those saggy pants which was not my taste initially. Particularly It started when I started wearing those lee pants at 247 with sports shoe. Yea, I love the way it hang up in my hips.especially with the model in LEE COOPER taille 71300/32. The bottom width is 22.5 cm. Then after coming to Denmark, It started liking harem pants, wow they look childish but later I found its a fashion among Danes. There may be a shape difference between European and American pants which I haven't noticed for years. Now I started to classifying each and every stuff.

My Levis pant which I used here.. I love it..

The Search is on

Denmark is a place I could able to express most of my thinking's. This is the place where I started to live alone. I tried many things new,  I was asking myself, why I haven't tried this in my early ages. In fact, I was not given a freedom to do so. Now I find a chance to accomplish all my ideas and give life to the thoughts. It all started with food which helped me started to learn about the danish language, later it kept increasing when I started searching about food. I searched a lot and read about more things. For a moment I thought that Google algorithm has been imposed on me. You don't believe I started studying from the basics. I studied about everything I see, for example I googled and found different kinds of apples and peaches, which am eating all over my life time. I studied about its history, cultivation, types, varieties starting from a to z. I did this kinda study for all items which I find my daily life. In this way I started learn about some of the danish language through Google translator. It also helped me in learning about Scandinavian food. My danish friends helped me out to know things, which again adds fuel to my search and study. The relaxed life gave me the feeling that I am working in Google, which I enjoyed a lot. The cycle I used, The dress I adored, The food I ate,The search I did and The friends around me gave me confident to my life. I believe I will grow stronger one day or other. Hussien's Idea of focused mind on a particular subject gave me some boost for my wandering mind. But implementing this thought would be a tough task for me especially for the mind like me.
The chocolates by rupa, Pleasant atmosphere in Egelunden will be one moments which I will be missing soon. Not to mention about Henrik who taught me the behavior of Danes and injecting the idea of Denmark as a flat land.

Halmstad to Esbjerg

It was very hard for me to get separated with guys from halmstad. But it has been done because my program is designed in such a way. It’s been a surprising evening to everyone, cos our plan to Copenhagen was scheduled by sept 1^st has been pre-poned by 31^st night cos of certain reasons regarding our accommodation. That evening was our last party. I have to mob my room and clean the house to save some one’s head. Surprisingly Bau Bau came around 3 in the afternoon, she holds to the word inspite of heavy drinking in the previous party. Sarika helped us in cleaning stuffs and cooking. The evening became big when yaale and alina came with Emilia. Some people cooked, some cleaned and some chatted as it’s their last day in the country. My Chinese friend came and gave me his Chinese coins, while my Nigerian guy exchanged all of his pictures, inspite of showing Nigerian traditional ring. Some people parted away saying adieu, some stayed until the dinner. It’ almost 6 in the evening we had our last dinner in Sweden and continued with some photo session with black and white pullover combination. My heart pounded very faster as the time neared 7:30. We got to start by 7.45 to the train st. It was the land lord who helped us carrying me and friend with some luggages, while the Chinese did his part with the help of his friend. Not to mention about Swedish, they came along with us to the st. It was a great send off, which everyone would haven’t expected in any case. Few photos were made at train st and some were sentimental to me. It was like almost 10 minutes left for the train to come. I almost hugged the people who helped me to live in halmstad. I could not control things for a moment became so emotional. Felt it would be so nice if my wife would have been there at that moment.  My heart pounded very faster when I was standing inside the train and people standing outside the train and waving hands to us. Damn what a moment. It was 2 and half hours journey to halmstad and during our journey we met a lady in the lady who could able to describe things in such a way that’s it very hard to grab her language. It was so concept oriented and language skills added. We exchanged our cultural belonging to her. Its 11 pm we got out of the train searching for the place to sleep. The moment which I felt when I was standing outside the station, that I was lucky to born in this beautiful world. Later we ended up in carrying our little mountains to st and got settled at one place inside the st. Later we were served food by our mates, who got the expensive food in the cph. It was almost 1.45; the person who was responsible for cleaning had to come over to us and told to vacate the place as the st closes by 2. And again we have to get down to the platform for sleep. That night gonna be a very chill night inspite of me wearing 2 pullover s and s shirt. My Indian friend who started the conversation in the train still continued his talks to the people inside the railway st. It’s almost 5 am again we went inside the st and parked our luggages. I slept for few minutes and went and looked for WC. I don’t know whether it s paid one or not. I just left the place after my morning duties. It’s almost 6:30, I went around the st and looked in and around places in st. Almost by 7: 30 I and other two people stared to embassy to get our visa stamped.  We were lucky in travelling with our train tickets but unlucky with the time factor we reached the embassy by 8:15 and were late by 15 minutes, but the embassy people opened the gates by 9. Our plan to 8:30 train to Esbjerg had already failed but later changed our plans in catching 10:30 train and reach Esbjerg as soon as possible. Fate played a major role here, my friend who came along with us for stamping the passport had a wrong picture, so he has to go out and get new photo, while me and other guy submitted the passport and let the other guy to go and get his picture in nearby shop. Our job finished by 9:25 while the other guy went didn’t come for a while. So I had to rush up to the place in search of him to the place he went. I hardly received a message after losing hope of catching the nest train. He was in embassy by the time when I checked the inbox. He was lucky to use his Norwegian sim. We finished our work by 9.50 and hurried up to the nearby bus stand. I was in a very tense mood. We missed the first bus and thought why we were so unlucky. Not more than few seconds we got into the next bus to norra port and then the train to st again within few seconds- It was like 10.10 when we ran into the station and asked my friends to move our luggage’s to platform 6. I had to buy tickets to everyone in the last minute taking the whole burden. It s almost 10:20 we ran to the platform and one crazy guy went lost in buying some food for us. I was very much tensed again; the funny thing was the new guy who went searching for the old guy was lost, while the new guy arrived with some food. It was good decision to get some food but it was a risky act. I started loading things on the train by 10:27 and I told my friend to forget about the other guy. Luckily he stepped in by 10:29 while the train started exactly by half pat 10 with our luggage’s kept in the entrance of the compartment- We have to adjust our mountains so that people can move around the whole compartment. Later we got settled with our seats, everyone was so tired and they stated sleeping after a small food. I was the one who stayed on admiring the nature and had few tensions in my mind whether we could able to sign our contract today or have to stay in st for one more night. I clicked many shots during our journey and I even used my lappy to get some videos. It was unbelievable for us when we reached Esbjerg. The lady next to me finalised the location to us. It looked like short time period while the journey was about 3 hours. I wanted to snap some pictures at the st, cos that‘s gonna be a long time memory once we visit the place for the first time. We had to park our luggages in the st; while 4 of us went to nearest bank to withdraw money. It was like 2 pm when we reached nordea and got confusion in withdrawing money with Swedish card.  Later I had to withdraw a surplus amount of 12,000 dkk taking the burden again. I contributed almost half the rent, while others manage to pay their amounts. The worst thing is to maintain the table to one who owe me. Later me and my friend went to bus station and took a wrong bus to the accommodation office, we had to get down at certain point and started running a quiet distance. Luckily we reached the office by 2.50 while it was suppose to close by 3.  I was very relaxed as our decision to travel by previous night didn’t go wasted. After signing the agreement and after paying huge amount of money. Then was a sudden deadline give to us, which very shocking to both us. The thing was we were supposed to get the house key from the care taker within 15 minutes from the mentioned address given the agreement. Since we are new to place we were surprised for a moment. The condition imposed on us was the guy will be in office for another few minutes, but not later than 3.15- we hurried up in looking for the bus and the address. We ran to st again which was hardly a kilometre from the office and came to the bus stop and asking for the address of the care taker to many people- it‘s already 3.10. We were very sure we cannot able to reach the place at the given time. Suddenly a guy helped us in taking to the particular place. We were supposed to take two buses as per the plan given by the previous guy but the new kid took us in another bus; we used the same train ticket to travel in a bus. It was almost 3.30 we reached d the destination, I felt relaxed a bit because the kid took us to the right place. The care taker was not at his place when he knocked down his door. We doesn’t know what to do, we thought we gonna sleep in the st for the second day. The guy took us to his place in hope of getting some help from the care taker. The interesting thing is the guy could not understand English or the local language, so we have to communicate in such a way; he gets our body language completely. Then he took to his place and I could hear her sister speaking few words in the local language, I was happy by that moment as someone can able to understand stuffs. We were introduced to their family who came from Malaysia and settled down here for a long time. They helped us in providing food and calling the care taker.  His sister took us to the office after having a conversation with the care taker and we all went to the office, but the acre taker didn’t turn out by the time he mentioned, my mind was so tired after many shocks and discoveries. I hoped everything to be positive and also thought about the people who sat in the railway st. The guy’s sister doesn’t have balance in her mob to call the care taker, so she has to look into her friends phone to call him. By 5 pm we got the key to the apartment and the lady and the kid took us to our apartment. I was very relaxed after coming inside the apartment and halted for a while and thought Damn we did it. The lady and the guy were very helpful to us in giving some food with cooker in the later part f the day.  I sent my friend to pick a taxi and they can also move the stuffs to our apartment. It costs us a bit saved us again in sleeping in the station. Later the kid helped us to take to the nearby supermarket. We bought our groceries and came to home after a long walk. Later we cooked the food, while the kid’s brother came to us to have a look at us. He was also very kind and could able to understand both local and English language. That night, I had a tight sleep in all those days in a week. There was something which I felt is missing my Swedish wife and could get relaxed by thinking of the date when I stepped into halmstad on sept 3, 2009.