Honey! I'm home!

I just got back from my work trip to Sweden, and what a whirlwind it was! I am very happy with what we achieved businesswise and I had a chance to catch up with my brother John and a few work colleagues and friends.

I flew out on Tuesday evening, and arrived at my brother’s new apartment in Hammarby Sjöstad in Stockholm city just before 1am on Wednesday morning. What a very nice apartment, by the way! Very bright, modern, and Scandinavian-IKEA-esque. John had prepared a real Swedish snack, as per request. The snack was made up of a few key ingredients:

1. 'Norrlands Guld' beer
2. 'Polarkaka' bread
3. 'Bregott' butter
4. 'Kalles Kaviar' (Swedish smoked fish rye – and yes, it is good stuff, not gross at all!)

On Wednesday morning I headed over to CareerBuilder’s Sweden-office (which in my opinion is one of the nicer ones in Europe, by the way) where a packed agenda awaited. I teamed up with Ulrika, who is one of our sales reps in Sweden and someone I have worked closely with ever since I started with CareerBuilder, and we had scheduled meetings and workshops with a few key clients. It was great to get an opportunity to finally meet these clients that I have been working with for so long and only communicated via email and phone.

On another note; Ulrika is also on a crusade to get us to move to Sweden so I can work with her in the Sweden office, and she has even offered to phone Shaena and ’sell’ Stockholm to her. Shaena on the other hand has previously expressed her concern over the fact that Sweden does not have Starbucks Coffee, so imagine Ulrika’s reaction when it was announced this week that Sweden is finally getting its first few Starbucks shops!

On Wednesday evening, John and I took to the streets and we had my favorite Swedish junk food, MAX hamburgers (they are awesome!) and then drinks at Kelly’s, a Swedish rock bar with very very cheap alcohol, sticky tables, and good music. Who can ask for more?

On Thursday moring, our new team member Linus arrived to the office for some face time and meeting and greeting, and I think he handled it very well. We also had a couple of more meetings, internal and external, and in the evening some of the guys from the office took us out for a nice dinner at a Belgian restaurant - and my old buddy Thomas also came by to say hi! It was really nice to see him again!

On Friday morning we went for the mother lode, the main event, the big tamale. We had organized a workshop for one of Sweden’s largest recruitment companies, obviously a bit nervous, but great fun as well! We think it went really well, and our participants were really appreciative and seemed attentive and interested in the topic we delivered on. They even took us out for lunch afterwards as a token of appreciation. How ‘bout that?

I have to say, Wednesday thru Friday’s activities are a bit of a blur, we just did so much, met so many people, and had a great time. As always though; there is no place like home!

Oh, and John: Sorry I pinched your toothpaste! It was just sooo good!