Born in the vibrant city of Singapore with a unique Eurasian blend of Portuguese and Chinese heritage, my journey has taken me from the bustling streets of Singapore to the serene and open landscapes of Sweden. My educational pursuits in Singapore culminated at tertiary level with two separate Master degrees, after which I embarked on a new adventure in 2002, moving to Sweden. In Sweden, I pursued with deep interest, the knowledge field of applied linguistics, particularly corpus linguistics research methods, earning a doctoral degree from one of northern Europe’s largest universities, the University of Gothenburg. I currently work as Project Manager, focusing on EU and international projects, at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, at the Division of Bioeconomy and Health, Department of Agriculture and Food. My office is located in Mölndal municipality. Mölndal, known also as the Valley of Mills, is located about ten minutes by bus ride from the city center of Gothenburg to the south. If you’re ever traveling south from Gothenburg to Malmö, whether by train or car, you will likely come by Mölndal municipality. In these pages at cmariec.com, you’ll find my lifestyle musings on culinary and travel adventures from Singapore to Sweden, and from when I lived and worked the Arctic City of Tromsø (2018 to mid-2022). SINGAPORE | SWEDEN | NORTHERN NORWAY Life in Singapore Pursued all academic interests in Singapore, of which the post-graduate years were founded in two separate disciplines. In 2000, graduated with two separate Masters Degrees: (i) Master of Science in Information Studies at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore (ii) Master of Arts in the English Language at the National University of Singapore (NUS). In 1999, represented the Republic of Singapore at the Miss Universe Pageant in Trinidad and Tobago. With this came a variety of film, educational TV, media, and ambassadorial work for the Singapore Tourism Board. Life in Sweden In 2002, moved from Singapore to Sweden in order to pursue a PhD in Gothenburg, where a number of international corporate head offices were located that all had a substantial business presence in Singapore and also Asia in general. In 2009, graduated with a PhD in applied critical linguistics from the faculty of humanities at the University of Gothenburg, with a cross-disciplinary thesis entitled, Swedish management in Singapore: a discourse analysis study, looking particularly into the concepts of assimilation, integration and hierarchy, at top management levels of Swedish-Asian corporations in Singapore. 2013, as research fellow at the Centre for International Business Studies (CIBS), School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, researching the future implications of increasing Asian-Swedish cooperation within the field of international business. The project is entitled Gothenburg in Asia, Asia in Gothenburg, funded by the Anna Ahrenberg Foundation. The project is aligned with the 400 years anniversary of the city of Gothenburg in 2021, and falls under the broad category of Kunskap Göteborg 2021 initiated by city representatives of Gothenburg, Göteborg & Co, University of Gothenburg and Chalmers University of Technology. 2015, was granted the Flexit post-doctoral scholarship by Bank of Sweden Tercentennary Foundation (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, RJ) for a three year project together with the Swedish-Swiss multinational enterprise ABB. From 2015-17, the research will take place at ABB Corporate Research Sweden HQ in Västerås, and at CIBS during 2017-18. The research focus of the project is how new technologies are perceived and accepted by users and customers, using linguistic methods of data analysis. More information can be found at RJ’s website, at Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ) Felxit 2015. Life in Northern Norway (2018-2022) 2018, late summer. I acquired new work as Market Scientist at Nofima. Having moved to the county of Troms in August, I’m currently enjoying myself, exploring the island city of Tromsø. From the 1900s, this city became known as Paris of the North due to how the people of Tromsø were exceptionally stylish and sophisticated in contrast to the fishing village preconception that many might have of a city located in the Arctic Circle. In my years in Sweden, I have known Sweden to be called the land of the midnight sun. During the long summer mights, it was beautiful to sit and watch the sun’s languid pendulation between east and west, touching the horizon out at sea before going up again. Northern Norway takes this languid pendulation of the sun to the extreme. It is not only known as the land of the midnight sun, but it is also the land of polar nights and the northern lights. This is my new adventure. And in these lifestyle blog pages, you’ll find my personal thoughts, insights and musings. Cheryl Marie Cordeiro | PhD MSc MA ACADEMIC REFLECTIONS | CV LIFESTYLE BLOG

“Una xocolata calenta si us plau”

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Cheryl Marie Cordeiro at the Museu de la Xocolata, Barcelona, Spain.

At the Chocolate Museum, just outside the kitchen where the museum holds classes on chocolate confection.
JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro Nilsson © 2011

Although Spain’s connection with Mexico in the 1500s means that cacao beans and chocolate would be as native to Spain as coconuts and pineapples are to Singapore, I must say that it still took some doing exploring the numerous cafés in Barcelona, before I settled for a favourite place of mine that served my cup of hot chocolate with an added shot of espresso in it!

If you’re a chocolate lover like me, then perhaps nobody can stop you from immediately hitting any café in sight as soon as you get off the plane in Barcelona for a cup of Spanish hot chocolate. At least, that’s what happened to me.

But with that done I brusquely encountered a cultural difference of what a cup of hot chocolate laced with espresso is in Spain.
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Miró, Miró on the wall …

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From Castell de Montjuic silent large-calibre guns overlooks the sea and port as well as the metropolis of Barcelona itself. On the west side, stands an ornate memorial to General Francisco Franco. An unintentional but vivid commentary on the history of Spain and Barcelona as good as any history book would offer.
JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro Nilsson © 2011

The headline pun is, of course a play on the words from the English translation by D. L. Ashliman of the definitive edition of the Grimm’s Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Berlin 1857), tale ‘Snow White’, in which the Queen asks her magical mirror “Mirror, mirror on the wall / Who in the land is fairest of all?” The tale takes a dramatic turn when the mirror tells her an unwanted truth.

In a similar manner, the period around the early 1900’s was extraordinarily volatile when it came to artists and architects communication with the public. Many of the art movements that enriched the early 1900’s in Europe were protests against those in power that for their winnings sake drew the world into war. Various kinds of repression caused new ways of commenting on society to appear.
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Mies van der Rohe Pavilion, in Barcelona, more or less

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Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain.

The Mies van der Rohe Pavilion is but a short walk downhill from the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, or the MNAC. It’s situated at the foot of the Montjuïc hill. The outdoor café outside the Museu Nacional offers a much needed refreshment.
JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro Nilsson © 2011

Just below the Museu National on Montjuïc, towards the Placa d’Espanya and on its original site lies the newly rebuilt Mies van der Rohe Pavilion, originally the German Pavilion, built for the 1929 world exhibition held here in Barcelona.

The Pavilion is to me, a fundamental architectural monument from a time when the hope towards a unified and better Europe prevailed. Even beyond the field of arts history and architecture, the German architect and designer of the early 20th century, Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe (1886-1969) was known for his works being some of the most influential of the time. He was one of the founders of modern architecture and a proponent of simplicity of style.

He coined the phrase “less is more” in referring to clarity of shapes and thoughts. So influential were his ideas from the early 1900s that today, these clean lines are visibly noted in the design of just about every current shopping mall or airport in the world. It could even be argued that the very typography of this blog, looking as it does, could be traced back to him.

Because of this, it is a little mind boggling that I found myself in the very building that in architectural form, presented this new ideology to the world, considering too that this was the fruitful result of a flow of ideas between the Russian constructivists, the Bauhaus design school in Berlin and the De Stijl group in the Netherlands, who no doubt also fetched energy and ideas from the modernists here in Barcelona.
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Sunset at Montjuïc El Xalet, Barcelona summer of 2011

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Dr. Cheryl Marie Cordeiro Nilsson with Irene (Kenya) and Mame (Senegal), IFP 2011 dinner.

IFP 2011 Graduation Dinner, Montjuïc El Xalet.
The IFP 2011, IESE Business School, University of Navarra saw 41 participants from 26 different countries gather in Barcelona for three weeks of intense studies for executive management faculty.
Photo: JE Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson © 2011

The last day of the the International Faculty Program (IFP) at the IESE Business School in Barcelona saw the Class of IFP 2011 gathered for a farewell dinner at Montjuïc El Xalet, a restaurant with a picturesque view of the city of Barcelona!

For three weeks I enjoyed the company of some of the world’s most interesting academics and professionals, from more than 26 countries across the globe.

The Class of IFP 2011 had a broad variety of backgrounds even if the syllabus of the program was specifically designed for faculty members of business schools. The course had a distinct focus of IESE’s brand of case studies as a method of teaching and learning in higher education, in particular with MBAs and EMBAs. The lectures and sessions with various cases proved highly motivating and made for numerous memorable learning experiences.
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Culinary Paradiso at Los Caracoles, Barcelona

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Los Caracoles, the restaurant

The outdoor dining culture of Barcelona is vibrant and not easily outdone. The competition between food outlets is fierce and the variety of food offered in this city is staggering. People are spoiled for choice when it comes to eating out, and it would take more than a lifetimes’s living here to fully discover all interesting restaurants, tapas bars and cafés.

One interesting restaurant sits on Carrer Dels Escudellers, just off Barcelona’s most famous boulevard – La Rambla – in the Barri Gothic quarters of the city. Founded in the early 19th century by the Bofarull family, this interesting restaurant is serving authentic Catalonian cuisine.

Cheryl Marie Cordeiro Nilsson, Los Caracoles, Barcelona.

At Table 2, Los Caracoles. The restaurant has split level floors for seating for more than a hundred persons, discovered only after you walk past the short and narrow bar at the front of the restaurant. The walls of the restaurant are lined with photographs of previous patrons of fame.
Photo: JE Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson © 2011

There were many curiosities about this restaurant that caught our attention on our visit. Their signature dish of Snails, prepared quite differently from the French escargot, got the restaurant so locally renowned in the early 1900s that the owners threw out their own last names in favour of the name of the dish calling the restaurant eventually, Los Caracoles or “The Snails”.

Many regular patrons will also tell of how you can’t possibly mistake finding the place because they fry their chickens rotisserie style outdoors on the actual road crossing. The combined visual effect of dancing vermilion flames on the street corner licking at chicken that is gradually turning golden brown, and the enticing aroma of the gently spiced meat that greet you along this narrow street is in itself an overwhelming experience to those who pass by.

But the entire visit, from beginning to end made us raise our eyebrows, first in curiosity and then with awe, mounting up to an extraordinary dining experience!
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Marmalade from the Garden of Eden

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Dulce de Membrillo is a traditional Catalan marmalade made from quince, and a perfect addition to the cheese tray. The fruit has a long history. It is divinely fragrant and because of this, the ancient Greeks are said to have offered it to the Goddess Aphrodite, as well as used it themselves in wedding ceremonies amongst mere mortals, where the bride would perfume her kiss with a nibble of quince prior to entering the bridal chamber.
Photo: JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro Nilsson © 2011

There are more ways to discover your heritage than reading about the country, its national dress, traditions and beliefs. In my case, Quince, an ancient fruit imagined by some to be the forbidden fruit of Eden, referenced in the Song of Songs and written about by the ancient Greeks, turned out to be one of the more interesting discoveries on my visit to Barcelona.

Of course I had met with dulce de membrillo before. However, it took some doing before I recognized this certain red marmalade, being a staple on the breakfast table here and constantly meeting with it in just about every wet market or food store I visited. I eventually got curious enough to enquire after it, and thus re-discovered this long lost acquaintance.
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Creps at la Boqueria, Mercat de Sant Josep in Barcelona 2011

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Mercat Boqueria, Barcelona, La Rambla.

The entrance to La Boqueria is about midway along the famous Catalonian Boulevard La Rambla in Barcelona. The Boqueria wet market opens up at a side road called Mercat de Sant Josep. This market, that has a history from the early 13th century, is today frequented as much by locals as by tourists alike.
Photo: JE Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson © 2011

A lot of things in Barcelona are labelled “touristy” and as a result, sneered at even by the locals just because they are popular with the tourists. But Mercat de Sant Josep de la Boqueria tells a different tale.

La Boqueria, as it has been known since the early 13th century when it was established here in the Old City district, began as a convenient network market located near the old city gate where traders from the nearby towns such as Les Corts and Sarrià (now only a 25 minute bus ride from La Boqueria itself) gathered to trade and sell their produce. The market remained here through the centuries, got a firmer structure in the early 19th century and in 1915, an iron roof with its inset stained, colored glass was added, giving the modernismo touch of the time to the place.
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Dining with Picasso

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Els Quatre Gats, street.

Els Quatre Gats or 4Gats bar, brewery and restaurant. The beautiful façade displays stained glass, ornate lamps, painted numbers on doors, intricately carved wooden door frames and then looking upwards, balconies draped in light swinging vines, filled with potted flowers in bloom.
Photo: JE Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson © 2011

It was just about at the right time of the day that we found ourselves outside of Els Quatre Gats restaurant in the labyrinth of winding small roads in Barre Góthic, the late Roman part of Barcelona. From a balcony just above the ‘Four Cats’ restaurant entrance, a friendly dog looked down on us, just as if to confirm the many idiosyncrasies this city is so full of.

For anyone interested in Picasso, this restaurant is a must. Indeed, it is one of those living examples of what the industrialization period about the turn of the century one hundred years ago was all about.

The Modernisme had started earlier, in France as Art Noveau and in Germany and Austria as Jugend, but after the First World War, it was impossible to turn back time again to the dusty and suffocating drapes of romanticism. The time had changed and in all this, Barcelona played an important part.
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The new Barcelona

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Cheryl Marie Cordeiro Nilsson, Hotel Arts, hammock, Barcelona.

At Hotel Arts, Barcelona, the sundeck with rocking hammocks on the lawn.
Photo: JE Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson © 2011

Barcelona proceeded to unveil its many faces as we continued to explore the New Barcelona, that in many respects was created thanks to the 1990s olympic sailing event. Barcelona had previously much of its focus directed towards harbour works and shipping, but is today opened up towards the sea and its possibilities as a conference, business hub and tourist resort. Here now, you’ll find a sprawling, fashionably back to back establishment of beautifully designed hotels, restaurants and bars that line the city’s beach and hot spots.

Futher up along the beach, when you hit La Rambla, political protests continues at the Catalunya Square. I was right at the square when a helicopter circled overhead and policemen surrounded the area, cutting off all traffic in an attempt to clear the square before the European World Cup that begins in Barcelona today.
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¡Hola, from Barcelona!

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Sangria, in Barcelona

Sangria along La Rambla… there can’t be a warmer hello than this, in Barcelona!
Photo: JE Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson © 2011

It’s extremely warm in Barcelona, almost tropical though minus the high humidity.

Below, some pictures taken from La Rambla. Amidst running into the Swedish soccer team who are here in Barcelona for the weekend games, witnessing the protest in the main square and meeting people speaking languages from all corners of the world, you can settle down to a very large glass of Sangria and that favourite gelato, absorbing the central vibe of the city of Barcelona.
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