need some tips

Medlem
need some tips

Hi,
At last my efforts for coming to Sweden concluded and the school/visa procedures finished. I am coming to Sweden (15 August probably).

I will be glad to hear some tips before my arrival there.

For example;
- I want to buy a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. Should I buy it here (Turkey) or in there (Sweden)? Can I use Barnes&Noble MyNook and Amazon Kindle ebook services there with this tablet? In Turkey, you need some complicated steps like using VPN, showing yourself in US, etc. Does Swedish people have some struggles as well?
- I have a new Samsung Galaxy SII. Can I use this phone in Sweden? Above the box there is a tag showing that Sweden is one of the countries the device is compatible. Can I go to any mobile service provider and buy a new mobile line, or do I have to perform some procedures before?
- One of the biggest computer part shop in Turkey is Vatan. It is like Newegg of Turkey. You can find most of the parts (except extreme overclocking) in here. They also can combine your computer parts and ship the products in their site to your home. What is the best place in Sweden? Komplett?
- In Turkey, there are many companies for mobile phoneline, home phoneline, internet and tv services. For example, Vodafone (mobile phoneline), Türksat (cable TV, cable internet), Turkcell (mobile phoneline), Digiturk (digital sattellite TV), Turk Telekom/TTNet (home phoneline, dial-up, ADSL, fiber internet), Superonline (merged with Turkcell, ADSL, fiber internet, home phoneline).
What is the corresponding service providers? Is Telia the best in Sweden? I see it has mobile telephone, home telephone, TV, Broadband internet services. Do you suggest me to buy 100/100 mbit fiber internet from Telia?
- Turkey has increasing amount of cencorship. TV channels are controlling by RTÜK, movie scenes are being cut, tv series are being blurred. Internet and telephones are being listened frequently, many people are arrested due to their phrases on internet blogs or telephone dialogs. Increasing number of internet sites are blocked. You can access them by changing your DNS, so even the most unskilled computer users know changing DNS. After 22 August, a new regulation coming to life for internet cencorship. Some gossips (unfortunately the new regulation is not clear yet) tell changing DNS or using VPN will be crime, the new site blocking system will be inpassable by changing DNS, and will be a barrier between outside of Turkey and inside of Turkey. However, internet software pirating and filesharing have very loose control.
So, according to these, what is the internet condition in Sweden? What should I pay attention to, or avoid?
- What are the local cuisine in Sweden, what are the best foods or drinks? I was looking at BTH wiki ( http://bth.wikispaces.com/shopping ) there are some useful tips for shopping. I see Turkish Yogurt can be found in Netto. I also see it says some of the alcohol are only sold in Systembolaget stores. It sounded like Tekel stores (Tekel word can be translated as Monopoly, and it's a state-run shop). The difference is, Tekel stores are specialized in selling alcohol/tabacco, especially Tekel-branded products, but markets and supermarkets are not restricted in selling alcohol. Every shop can sell alcohol freely. I also see Systembolaget web site sells Turkish beverages like Yeni Rakı, Efes Pilsen, Kavaklıdere Selection. I think that's a good thing, I will have access to familiar tastes. Netto catalog shows it has Melon, awesome, we can do Rakı+Melon in Sweden too. (Smiley was here...)
- I had gone England twice, for summer school (15 years ago). But still I want to ask about the culture of Swedish people. How can I adapt or survive in Sweden? England life and people was easy. I guess Sweden is very similar to England, and will be as easy as there?
Let me give you one example from Turkey. Shopkeepers (especially small shop owners, monger, street vendors, peddlers) will try to rip off you if you are a tourist or a foreigner. They will pretend the price tag is in Euro instead of Turkish Lira (1 Euro is 2.4 TRY, calculate any price you want). Or will say more amount than the price tag. Therefore Turkey is known as expensive or outrageous price country amongst the Tourists. Are there such peculiar things in Sweden, too?

I think, my questions are these, for today.
You can write on other things, as well.

By the way, if I didn't tell it earlier,
I am starting to BTH, Karlskrona, for masters program in Design, Interaction and Game Technologies.
http://edu.bth.se/utbildning/utb_program.asp?PtKod=DVAIS11h1&...

Testpilot
Skrivet av Bonecrusher:

Hi,
At last my efforts for coming to Sweden concluded and the school/visa procedures finished. I am coming to Sweden (15 August probably).

I will be glad to hear some tips before my arrival there.

1: No idea
2: Yes , your phone should work just switching operator unless its locked to your current operator, but should pose no big problem to unlock it.
3: Lots of stores do similar stuff , my own favorites are: Komplett , Dustinhome.se , Inet.se

4: Telia , Comhem , Tele2 , Tre , Bahnhof , Bredbandsbolaget etc etc .. lots of companies offer similar services with diffrent speeds depending on where you live in sweden , since you have privacy concerns i recommend Bahnhof since they make a strong stand for their users privacy.

5: See above about Bahnhof , There is a increased debate about censorship in sweden , laws like FRA & IPRED have been implemented , to protect your privacy I recommend also using some VPN provider on top of any good operator who stands up for your rights.

6: Food , I'm not that good explaining differences in food but if you stay and try out the food- offerings during Midsummer and Christmas you'll probably see the more "exotic" swedish foodstuff , "Surströmming" is a love/hate one for example , swedish meatballs is a more gentle introduction to swedish food.

7: English and swedish culture have lots in common , mostly the humor .
Should be no problem for you to adapt , swedes are generally friendly but takes a while to get to know , we don't generally say hi on the bus so we can appear as cold and not caring.
All swedes know english so you should have no problem using english as language.

8: Shopkeepers will not rip you off , the price on the tag is the price you pay , no haggling with prices except with car dealers , no tip to waiters or other service personel except at the more fancy resturants and that is only if the service is excellent.

Good luck in sweden !

Medlem
Skrivet av Harakiri:

no tip to waiters or other service personel except at the more fancy resturants and that is only if the service is excellent.

wtf? You don't tip? >:-(


signatur

Att spela elektroniska spel är inte en mänsklig rättighet.

Testpilot
Skrivet av Tybalt:
Skrivet av Harakiri:

no tip to waiters or other service personel except at the more fancy resturants and that is only if the service is excellent.

wtf? You don't tip? >:-(

Excellent service always deserves a tip but its not like US or other countries where its assumed you tip and tip even a bit more if service is excellent.

Medlem

I always tip waiters.


signatur

Att spela elektroniska spel är inte en mänsklig rättighet.

Medlem

My first weeks in Sweden:

- Train system was very good. You go to ticket machine, assign the departure and arrival time&places, and it automatically gives the best routes. I travelled from Stockholm to Karlskrona in 5 hours, and there were forests, ponds and farms alongside train ways. It resembles England, but wetter and greener.

- I couldn't find any house from blocket.se. They put their rent announces in the site, but most of them not even cares to reply from e-mail. Three people were replied to me, one of the reply was "NO!", one of them "i put the house to X company, so you need to apply there", and the other was "there is a lot queue for this house". So i had to come sweden to find a place. Karlskronahem wasn't helpful, you need to get a ticket first to talk with someone in the office, when your queue comes they tell that you need to register from the website and come again. After registering, you see they have only one house in their hands, you apply to that house from the web site and go back. Again in the office, you get another ticket, but this time they say there is a queue for the house, and they can't say if you can get the house or not.
Then i went to PBA to try my luck. They were more involved to their customers. They also told thad they have only one house, so i didn't want to force my luck and hired it. It is somewhat disgusting place, it is a "student apartment" apartment after all, what can you expect... But I wish there were a weekly cleaning lady for the house. In cyprus, both student dormitories and the student apartments were giving such a service, so it was easening the jobs of students.

- One of the weirdest thing I saw here is the opening and closing times of the shops/offices. In Turkey, places like doctor offices, building business offices, banks, pharmacies, government bureaus etc opens in 8-9 and closes in 16-18, places like burger king, starbucks, opens in 6-7 and closes in 23-24, big shopping centres open between 10-22. Many restaurants can be open after night. So you don't have to worry about opening hours that much. But in Karlskrona, every place opens in 10. Closing hours are depends to the store. Most of them closed at 16, but a few stores can be opened until 20-22. Weekends, especially sundays, are the "going outside" days for Turkey, so stores, shopping centers and restaurants widen their opening hours in weekends for appealing customers. Bureaus and offices usually closed during weekends, people spends their times in stores, parks and restaurants. In karlskrona, it is the opposites, some stores narrows their opening hours to 12-15, and most of them are (yes even stores) are closed in sundays. You can tell this is because karlskrona is a "holliday village", but in Malmö I saw very similar opening hours schedules.

- Most of the people in Karlskrona have dogs. How amazing thing. The dogs are also very well behaved. In Turkey, most of the dogs are not such well trained. Even so, if the owner is very confident in his dog, he always release his dog and doesn't care if the dog aggrevates other dogs. However, in here, dogs are very well behaved and the owners always put them on the leash. A similar "holiday village" in Turkey is Bodrum. In Bodrum streets there are a lot of homeless pureblood dogs. Because people that goes to Bodrum want to buy puppy for show (may be for his girlfriend, for his wife, for his children, etc..) but when the puppy gets bigger, they release them to the streets and buy anothe puppy. Dog owners in Sweden seems like more careful and attentive to their dogs. I really respected them.

- I ordered some computer parts from Komplett in 28th, but they didn't come yet. 29, 30, 31, 1, 2, 3, 4... but the web site still shows the order as confirmed (bekräftad). I asked them first if they build a pc from parts and ship it as a whole, they gave negative reply. Ok i can handle that, I hate connecting case-motherboard-cpu-fan, but whatever, if they are not doing such service, i am capable to do. Then I ask if they accept non-swedish credit cards, they also gave negative reply. That is also not important, I had some cash in my hand and also converted euros to sek. But the waiting procedure, it is really painful. I don't know whats happened to the parts, or when they come. Komplett site shows home shipment arrives in 1-3 days. Its kind of joke really. I have to translate every word in swedish websites from google translate (normally chrome was doing this automatically, google translate site offers similar service but it doesnt work on https sites). It is also hard to write in tablet screen...
There are a lot of electronics shops like elgiganten, expert (i am not sure the exact name), onoff, tekniska magazinet, knell... But they mostly sell computer peripherals, not the main parts. I wonder how the gamers buy pc here, just goes and buys any configurated pc and prays it is a good one?

- coin machines in the stores are very funny. You dont give the coins directly to the cashier, you put from the top. And when cashier has to give you coin, it comes from the bottom. I don't know if it has advantage to the normal cash machines that the cashiers use to put cash/coins inside, but this coin machines are really funny.
Taxis have credit cards, thats really a good thing, however they are very expensive. Opening fee was 100sek if i didn't see it wrong. And for a short route, I gave more than 150sek. Buses have monthly cards that cost 400sek. If you think it, taxis are really expansive.
The life in sweden is expansive. Actually it is not that expansive. Many prices are %25 more than Turkish prices, and probably you are earning monthly wage according to these prices. However, seeing a 100sek tag really scares you. It is crudely equivalant of 25 turkish lira. But when you see the number 100 here, you don't think 25 lira, you think 100 dollars, 100 euros. Therefore prices seem even expensive than their real amounts.

- I think there are a lot of Eastern European people (mostly kosova, serbia, bosna). I have many people in malmö and karlskrona. You don't see such people in Turkey, even they tell that they preferred Sweden because here is more free country.

- There is a game.se store in karlskrona, awesome. But they generally sell xbox games but very few pc games. There are even old ps2 games. I think gamers in here are mostly xbox gamers. So I think I will buy a xbox and a tv in the future...

Medlem

I buy all my computer parts from www.INET.se , its alot better then komplett.

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