The Harrison-Helins: Euro trip 2010

…and we are back! We are back in the Burgh after a great whistle-stop weekend in Stockholm. Late Thursday morning we boarded our flight bound for Stockholm with 2 other CareerBuilder peeps and their better halves and after a quick stop at the Stockholm-office, we checked in to our snazzy hotel in Hammarby Sjöstad. Only the best is good enough… when you are not paying for it yourself! ;)

We didn’t know this when we planned this trip but our good friends over here in Edinburgh “Maeghan and Regan” had planned a trip of their own to Stockholm and it worked out so well that our paths intersected on Thursday night and we were able to meet up and go out for dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant. What a small world, eh! Eh! Kindhearted people as we are, we also allowed our backpacking friends to crash on our hotel room floor for the night and as payment for this, they offered to babysit for a few hours so we could head down to the hotel bar for a G&T and a few rounds of ‘Liar Dice’, which supposedly is a pirate game, which Antonia in our company kindly taught us.

Friday was the opening day of ‘Career Days 2010’, a massive career fair that our company has organized in the ‘Stockholm Globe Arena’, so lots of nerves all around! We showed up to the fair early in the morning to help out with getting everything ready for the exhibiting companies before the fair opened for the public. The fair itself was completely sold out, the response from the visitors was overwhelmingly positive and the feedback from the companies was fantastic which of course was a great relief, as this was the first time a career fair this big was organized by our company, and in Sweden for that matter.

Shaena and Ethan on the other hand spent the day doing Stockholm on a hop-on hop-off sightseeing bus with Sara and Andrew, significant others of Linus and Antonia in my team and Ethan also got his first harmonica when the guys went shopping at NK. Oh joy! ;)

On Friday night we were invited over for dinner to our old friend Olle, who Shaena and I both know from the Dublin years, his girlfriend Linda and baby Jack. Ethan is a little bit older than Jack but the two got along great with exception for the occasional face slapping…as you do. Olle and Linda had prepared a fabulous dinner for us (and we think we also have a crush on their apartment!) It was great catching up with Olle again as we haven’t seen him in a few years and we had a fab time talking about old memoires and how we all have grown up since Dublin!

Saturday was an equally busy day at the fair and in the afternoon, Shaena, Ethan and Erin came by to visit and rake in on all the freebies that were laid out in all the different booths… and did they ever rake in! For a notorious shoplifter like Ethan, this was just too easy! When the fair closed in the afternoon, we got picked up by brother John as he and his girlfriend Mikaela had invited us to dinner in the evening. John and Mikaela treated us to a delicious steak dinner with… well steak… and oven roasted potatoes and béarnaise and Café De Paris sauce! Yum-my! Ethan had an absolute blast at their place as well as Mikaela’s son Elias had a room full of really cool toys to play with! Unfortunately Elias was not at home that evening but all the more reason for them to come visit us in Edinburgh instead!

We've said it before and will say it again: Good times! We had a really good time in Stockholm and it really does help that Ethan is such a good traveller and is not fazed by any if the usual hassle in the airport, or flying for that matter. Now for a few days of working and repacking and then off for the next leg!