In the US Tonia first worked as a translator and she then obtained a managerial position at the McDonalds headquarters in Chicago. Her position was that of International Project Manager and she worked with everything involved with languages, including  interpreters and translations. Tonia did this for 3 years. She enjoyed life in Chicago but by this time she was single again and out and about in the city, looking for new interests.  She had a great job in a great city but found that it was just not easy to meet interesting people. She felt there was no forum for this. There was of the course the “meat markets" but she was not prepared to subject herself to these awful places.  She worked a lot and met people this way but felt she couldn´t socialise with people whom she managed.

There was no coffee culture in the US at this time. Tonia remembers hearing about a new coffee place called Starbucks and a friend suggested they both buy shares in this venture. She didn´t but has lived to regret this. There were some small, European-type, cafes but people did not seem to know about them and they were not terribly popular. She remembers discussing this with a friend. Her train of thought was “you go to a café and you see a cute guy but you need an excuse to speak to him". If you were there to speak different languages then that would give you the excuse you needed.

The idea of running a language café actually occurred to her at this time. It could be a place where you socialised and drank coffee and spoke a variety of languages.  The idea was there but at this time Tonia had a good job and there was no way she was going to leave for the uncertainty of starting her own business. A tiny seed, was however planted, and it continued to grow.

Around this time Tonia met her husband, a Swede. He was in Washington attending  a convention. To cut a long story short this led to Tonia moving to Sweden. I asked Tonia about her first impressions of Sweden. In the beginning she and her husband lived near Gamla Stan (the old town) in Stockholm. She loved it. They had a lovely, charming apartment and to Tonia Stockholm seemed to have everything Chicago lacked. She saw Stockholm as a small town with quaint cafes and shops and she was able to walk everywhere. She fell in love with the place. It was winter and it snowed and it looked like a pretty postcard. She did not worry about work at this stage as she knew it was essential to learn Swedish before she could join the employment market. This “honeymoon period" lasted for about 6 months.

Tonia had already moved from her home country to a foreign country and she had made a success of her life in the US. She did not have any reason to think that the move to Sweden would be a problem. She assumed that it would follow the same pattern, once she learned Swedish. She had a wealth of experience, she spoke 5 languages. Surely it would not be a problem getting a job in Sweden? Unfortunately, this was not the case. Workwise, Sweden was a disaster. She did some secretarial type work through Manpower but that was about all. Looking back she finds it easier to understand why she was not swept off her feet with job offers. She was 32 and employers expecting her to have children in the not too distant future, was probably one of reasons. There is no comparison in theUSas the rules governing maternity leave are not as generous as in Sweden. . She became very disillusioned with Sweden around about this time.

Tonia is not one to rest on her laurels. She started her own translation company but found that this was not really her thing. She is an extremely sociable person and she did not like being at home alone day in day out.  Tonia remembers this as a negative period when she was often anxious about what she was going to do with her life. Tonia then moved to Göteborg. She could speak Swedish quite well at this stage, she was pregnant and she could not understand why no one was willing to employ her. She applied for jobs but did not even get an interview. She was only offered uninspiring and unqualified jobs. The fact is that now Tonia is an employer she understands much of this. She said she would not be willing to employ anyone who was obviously pregnant.

She had her two children and by the time she turned 40 Tonia realised that no one was going to offer her a job that met her expectations and she started thinking about creating her own job. She went on a “Start your own business" course for 3 weeks and this helped turn her dream into a reality. Looking back she is very aware that she knew nothing about starting a business of her own. It was a good course and she recommends such a course, if you have never run your own business. She learned about things such as measuring profitability, return on investment, accounting, marketing and such.  Tonia applied for a loan from the bank. She had a detailed business plan and a number of recommendations and the bank granted her a loan, using her house as collateral.
 
Tonia went looking for somewhere to start her café. She looked through the window at the place where the café is today and fell in love with it. She realised it would be expensive but she called the owners, anyway, to say she was interested. They asked her what address she meant and she looked up and saw the name of the place where the building was — it was Esperanto Square. This was a sign, in more ways than one. It was obvious that Tonia was meant to open a language café right on this very spot. At this time the tunnel under the road in the city was being built and it was a complete mess, a building site, outside the building. Because of this Tonia was charged a reasonable rent. She was told the rent would increase in 2 years time and it did but the actual work on the tunnel and the mess outside took 5 years. The rent seemed to increase in proportion to the income of the café. It was a plus minus situation for many years. A year ago a bridge over the canal was opened and Esperanto square was cleaned up and this has made a huge difference to Tonia´s business.

Business has improved. People now walk passed the café and pop in for a coffee or lunch.  
I asked Tonia about her first impression of Swedes and she said she felt they were reserved, polite and well educated. She loved the way they dressed and she found the people she met cultured. Tonia quite often felt lonely. Swedes tend to laugh at Americans for being superficial with their “have a good day" and such. She said that she just would have appreciated the fact that anyone spoke to her in Sweden, even if was just to say something superficial. Here she feels you have to go through months and months of closed doors. Once the door opens it may open for life but in the US she made friends from the beginning.

Tonia moved to Askim in Göteborg and got to know the local mothers once she had her children. Her social life revolved around her children. At this stage she felt her husband´s career was in the ascendant and hers was definitely descending. She found this difficult to accept. She felt she had not succeeded with her life as her work determined who she was. This was why it was so important for her to do something about it.

I asked about any culture shocks and Tonia said that she finds that people are jut not easy to get to know. After spending 8 years in the US she was used to openness.

Tonia´s café did not make a profit for the first year. In the second year she broke even and in the third year she was able to take out a small salary. These 3 years were difficult ones. She worked from 6 in the morning until 11 at night. She did all the shopping for the café herself and she did not see much of her children. Tonia feels guilty about this missed time with her children and she is making an effort to make up for it now. During this time her husband took on both a father and a mother role. Tonia´s son Hugo is now 10 and her daughter Hanna is 8. She feels she barely saw them for the first two years after she opened her café.

This summer Tonia took 3 week´s holiday and went to Spain to see her family. She left notes and instructions for everyone at the café and all went well. On the day she arrived back in Sweden her brother called to say that their father had died. She had to go to Spain without any preparation at all. This taught her a lesson — she soon realised that the café could run without her and it did not collapse or go into bankruptcy just because she wasn´t there or hadn´t given implicate instructions before she left.

When Tonia arrived back the people on benefits left and she employed two people who had just arrived in Sweden and kept on two other trained staff. A new world has opened up for  Tonia. She has now started training taekwando.  (A Korean martial art and Chinese combat sport. Taekwondo is the national sport of South Korea. It is the world's most popular martial art in terms of number of practitioners.) Tonia realised she had a tendency become angry easily. She felt this was associated with the stress she was under. Now she goes to Taekwondo class and “kicks ass" and releases her tension and stress. This feels great. She does this with her son and it is a good way of relating to him.

One mistake Tonia feels she has made in the past is that she has not looked after herself.  The café came first and then came her family and she did not have time to think about herself. Someone at work said to Tonia the other day “it has been a month since you got angry" so the Taekkwondo is obviously working wonders!

I asked if Tonia had any tips for adapting to life in Sweden. She suggested coming to work at her café. She does a type of reverse discrimination — she mainly employs foreigners. She wants the café to have an international flavour as this is what differentiates it from other cafés. The people she employs have so much enthusiasm. They are so pleased to get a job and they want to meet people. If she cannot give them a paid job in the café she often suggests that they work in her café as language coordinators. (There are groups who speak different languages at the café every evening) All they need to do is to speak to people. This is a positive situation as you represent your language. These people do not get paid but they get free “fika" (coffee). Another tip that Tonia had was not to let yourself to get frustrated and to learn Swedish as soon as you possible can.

I asked what Tonia found difficult in Sweden and I received the expected answer — the weather. In theUSit was cold and windy (Chicago is known as the windy city) but there you don´t walk, you drive, so you don´t notice the weather as much. Tonia mentioned the “no such thing as bad weather just bad clothes" saying. She likes this. She has learned to dress for the weather in Sweden. She also suggests to expats that they get involved in intellectual and physical activities. This is a way to get contacts. You need contacts if you want to have a good social life or to get a job. It is not what you know but who you know. It is also essential to learn Swedish as soon as you possibly can.

Language courses are a good place to meet people and in fact training of any type is always a good idea. If you meet Swedish people and they give you their phone number, do not wait for them to call you. Call them. They will often be surprised but pleasantly so.
Tonia feels it is not as difficult to get to know Swedes now. She knows the codes and she knows how to handle Swedes. She once told a friend that she was embarrassed by how Spanish she, herself, still is. The friend told her that this is what she liked about her and made her promise not to change.

She feels Swedes do not generally expend much energy to meet new friends. They are often quite happy with their lives as they are and the friends they already have. You need to make the effort if you want to make friends with Swedes. You will make friends if you are prepared to do this.

Tonia is now very happy in Sweden. In fact she feels her life is now almost too good to be true. She appreciates what she has. Sometimes she feels she is becoming Swedish and she doesn´t call people. She is quite happy to sit by the fire at home and enjoy reading a good book and being with her family. She does not socialise a lot any longer. She does not have the time. She meets lot of people through her job and she really likes the people she works with. They give her energy.

Tonia is now taking care of her family so that her husband can advance in his career. Her husband used to feel that her café was a lot of work but no income and now she has an income he feels it is time for her to be happy. Tonia has had offers to purchase the café but she is not keen to sell at present. She feels it is time, after all the hard work she has put in, to reap the benefits. The taekwando has filled a gap in Tonia´s life. She loves using her energy in this way. She is not able to think about work or anything else while she is training. It feels great. She likes the idea of the whole class aspiring to get better together.  

I asked Tonia if she could think of any particular culture shocks she had experienced in Sweden. She said that when she first arrived in Stockholm she invited some friends around for dinner and she put the food on the table and everyone just sat there talking and no one took any food. She thought that they didn´t want to eat her disgusting food. She felt like crying. Her husband then told her she has to say “var så god". Once she had done this her polite Swedish friends starting eating.

Tonia speaks Spanish, Catalan, Swedish, French, English and some Hebrew. She speaks Spanish with her children and Swedish with her husband.
Tonia concluded by saying that she thinks Sweden is a very safe and secure country to live in. Her 10 year old son goes home by himself after school and he is there for about one and a half hours by himself.  Her 8 year old daughter will sometimes go home with him. Tonia´s brother in Barcelona thinks she is bananas letting her children stay home by themselves. You would not do this inBarcelonaor in the US. The freedom to be able to play outside and visit the neighbour´s kids is wonderful. This is the best gift she can give her children.

On the other hand the security and insurance and social benefits can create a negative atmosphere in the workplace. In the first instance it is difficult to get a job. It costs employers a lot to employ someone and the market place is therefore inflexible. It is hard to get rid of someone who is not pulling their weight. There are risks associated with employing people. Tonia feels Sweden would benefit by being a less structured and secure society in many ways. This would mean that more people would have the opportunity to work.
I must say that I came out of Tonia´s wonderful Language Café feeling inspired and full of energy after spending time with this positive, innovative and interesting woman.
I suggest you go there for a cup of coffee. Say hi to Tonia while you are there!

 
See my introduction to this month´s column for more information about the Language Café.