In Stockholm Part One

Cab rides and airport terminals. This time, my bags do not follow me like faithful dogs. I arrive in Stockholm with only the contents of my carry-on bag and what i am wearing. A bedraggled pair of pinstripe dress pants over lazy sandals...no underwear, and a t-shirt. I am carrying a tablet and a phone with no chargers for either (those i checked for some reason). I have a pair of sweat pants, a back-up t-shirt, and a pair of socks—no shoes.

I file a report on my missing luggage and give my address in the states as well as my address in Vilnius. It seems more like home now anyway.

Welcome to Stockholm, it's going to be a bumpy ride. 

I am stopped on the way out by a buxom blonde customs agent. Thank you Sweden.

I seem suspicious since i have no luggage. After i explain that my luggage has been delayed she asks me what i am doing in Stockholm. I begin to tell my entire story of the GROW program, Lithuania, and this trip. She stops me. "Enjoy your stay in Stockholm". I guess even in Sweden I'm still white.

Adopted in the airport + the Arlanda Express

There is an express train to take you from the airport into the city. I need to get on tis. There are automated kiosks selling tickets, but they won't take my credit cards. My cards only have a magnetic strip and these machines only read cards with chips.

I look lost standing in front of the machine with my useless card.

A friendly young woman comes up to me. "You know there is a discount ticket for two." "We could split the price and i can give you cash for my half". "My card won't work" i respond dumbly. "Oh well i'll just put it on mine". She runs her card. "I don't have any krona, my money is in dollars or plastic". "That's OK, consider it a welcome to Stockholm gift".

Things are looking up.

The Metro

My adoptive guide takes me onto the train. Sits with me the whole time telling me her life story, and how she once sat on this train with the guitar player of Bad Religion, go figure.

It was definitely not this empty

When we arrive in the city my new friend makes sure i find the right metro line, shows me how to buy a 24 hour pass, gives me a big hug, and is on her way. She paid for my train ride from the airport, kept me company in a strange new place, made sure i knew where i was going and how to get there, andi don't even remember her name.

Oh well. Now i'm in a subway station, and this is familiar. The red and green lines crossing on the subway maps, the shiny ceramic tiles of the floor, and the soft white lights warning you away from certain death at the hands of the third rail. It's like being a teenager back in D.C. again. I pu tin my headphones, press play, and away we go. To Bonnier corporate offices, Bert Menninga, and adventure?

Finding my hotel proves to be slightly more confusing than i thought, but only because i exit the subway facing the away from it and blissfully walk three blocks on the wrong direction bobbing my head like an idiot and just taking in Sweden through the nostrils.

Bert Menninga

My contact here is Bert. He writes for the corporate newsletter and runs something vaguely important sounding. He lived in Chicago for a while. His parents even lived in Boulder briefly, and we connect over the shared disdain for Boulder residents. He moved to Sweden for love and never regretted it. gotta respect that.

Bonnier AB offices + Fika break

The offices are a monument to scandinavian design, and a slightly moldering presence of wealth.

a discussion of politics
weird intern

Kate Goodin

Meet Kate Goodin 

Kate is from New York. She is doing her GROW rotation here in Stockholm. She is a quite young lady, very focused on her job and on making a good impression...on everyone. She offers to show me around the city tonight after work. She doesn't know what she is getting into.

A Google map of places to see in SoFo (Southern Folkungatan, or some such hipster rubbish)

On our walk around the office one of the girls there offers to show me a few places to check out. "Why don't we use google maps" I suggest, since i've got a tablet and this may the only time i get to use it without a charger to keep it going.

In hindsight, this is where things started to get weird.

She marks several places of interest in the area and i head out to get something to eat and wait for Kate to get off work.

Bar Nada

We ander the area known as SoFo and stop at each of the places marked on the map as we pass them. Some are closed, some are just record stores...but one draws us in. Bar Nada. It is a small cafe-like space in a block of brick buildings.   The front door stands wide open and a few small tables dot the sidewalk in front.

We stroll in the front door with the intention of having "just one beer", a beer i was told we would not have by Maria in Warsaw, but have one we would. Kate and I are greeting immediately upon entry, by an exuberant young man behind the counter. We are invited to a beer, and we agree.

To be continued...

In Warsaw

The two days of meetings...

What can i say? Atex is a British company, and the sales team here is straight out of a Family Guy parody of an English pooftah.

Meetings can be productive planning sessions, meetings can be great brainstorming colloquiums, meetings can even be enjoyable time-wasting events. This meeting was none of those things. This was the sales-pitch-black-hole-time-suck-acrimonious mother of all meetings. It was scheduled for two days, and it felt like a lifetime. If meetings were rock concerts this was that one where the rolling stones hired the hell's angels for security and everyone died. If meetings were football this was the Superbowl for the arena football league.

Every rule of a good meeting was broken. The presenters did not have their files ready and projector set up so the first three hours were spent looking for adapters and changing laptops for the right files (as if the files were chained inside each hard drive and never allowed to leave that computer). Everyone in attendance had a laptop out and was typing and doing other things throughout the meeting. People came and went and halfway through the first day it was revealed that most of the people there didn't need to be there until the second day.

I spent most of the time on my Xoom, dicking around, and would occasionally pop my head up to ask some inane technical question that was very unhelpful to the process. As Arunas said best, "let's say you go to buy a car and spend all your your time there, checking the engine, comparing gear ratios, and generally attempting to be an automotive engineer, even though you are, in fact, an accountant. The salesman comes out and you ask him, "what is the oxygen mixing mechanism, and how does the ignition work?" and he says, "are you an automotive engineer?", "no.", "then all you need to do, is sit in the car, and imagine driving it for the next 5 years. If you are comfortable with that, buy the car, if you are not, don't."" Words to live by.

All that being said the product was extremely comprehensive and really offered a lot of support and streamlining of the editorial process for both print and web with communication between the two. 

Near the end of the first day-long-meeting I am introduced to Maria, the GROW participant here in Warsaw. She works for marketing, and is dragged into the meeting room by her boss during one of our infrequent breaks.

Maria at a desk that isn't hers

Maria Urso

Maria works in New York normally, in marketing. We found a spot to chat in the office after the second meeting had finally wrapped up, and compared notes on our experiences in our respective locations. We came to the conclusion that we both felt like we had accomplished very little "work" compared to our usual productivity back in our home offices. However, this made perfect sense since a lot of our time was spent on the social "ambassador" activities of the program, and the staff we were added to was already full so we were, in effect, extra people. The projects I had worked on were supplemental to the daily production int he office, and likewise for maria who had launched a new title for Warsaw.

Drinking at the beach + Arunas has to catch a flight

Maria tells me that her and a few people from the office and around town will be going out to a bar after work for a few drinks, and invites me to come along. I am in. I also go and check on Arunas and Rolandas to see if they are already headed to the airport or not. Rolandas has gone off to meet with the head of the Warsaw stock exchange, but Arunas is still hanging around the office, killing time until his flight. He agrees to come with us.

There is still some time before everyone there gets out of work for the day so Arunas and I head out into the city to find a beer while we wait. After a few unsuccessful attempts we find a place that accepts credit card, we assume...because it has all major credit card logos on it's front door, and sit down for one beer.

After one beer each and an in-depth discussion of social mores in the Baltic region i try and pay with my credit card. The server glances at the bar where there are piles of card scanning machines and says, "no, we can't take credit cards". We are shocked. "Well I guess we will have to go to a cash machine. Whee is the closest one?" I respond. The server looks at the bartender. He grabs a card scanner and takes my card. I guess they did take credit card.

We head back to the office and find Maria and some friends standing outside waiting for us. We decide to walk to the bar called "the beach" that is not that far away and the walk takes us through a park.

We Start Drinking

I dive right in to whiskey but everyone else starts with beer. It is still very hard for me to get drunk at sea level so i am not really trying, just enjoying the conversation. The conversation begins to disintegrate as everyone loosens up. Arunas tells us of his time as the president of the "communist youth" during the soviet era, and his current disillusionment and political apathy.

Eventually the time comes and Arunas catches a cab to the airport, and I am with just the new people i have met today.

The Girl who Loves Snowboarding

I find myself deeply wrapped in  conversation with one of the Warsaw folks. She tells me that she tried snowboarding a few years ago and loved it. We have a discussion of snow and fun, and how she taught some snowboarding lessons there, but on hills that we would not consider worthy of sliding down.

Most importantly she can speak my musical language.

I cannot remember her name, so i will refer to her as "the obscure punk reference chick" or "OPR chick" for short. Like many of the people i have met in this region their image of the U.S. is painted by New York. But for this one, it was painted by the No Use For A Name song "Fairytale of New York". Good choice.

Maria Notices that the End is Near

I hadn't even begun to contemplate how close to the end of my time in Lithuania I was, but that night Maria seemed to be completely open to the knowledge that she would be leaving the people who had been her closest friends for almost 3 months. The tears begin to flow. She has two weeks left and every day is going to be like this for her. The fact that the end is near is still not real for me.

Waking up in Warsaw...again + Maria has a hangover 

The next morning i wake up early, for some reason, and get my grub on at the amazing continental breakfast buffet in the hotel. It is my first day alone here, and until Maria gets off work I have no direction.

So I eat breakfast from 9-11, it was delicious and i will not apologize for it.

What to do in Warsaw...when everyone else has a hangover + A sidewalk zoo + Sad bears

Nothing to do in Warsaw until your friend sobers up and can entertain you again? No problem. Just head on down to your friendly neighborhood depressing-excuse-for-a-zoo, zoo.

I wander the city and try and get lost. But with no success. 






Maria has Recovered + Seeing Old-Town


Maria met me and the beginning of the "royal route" where there are many palaces and historic buildings...however none of them are real since Warsaw was destroyed in WWII and the entire city was rebuilt to match its former self in the 1960's.

It is amazing non-the-less. 

At the end of it all, we say goodbye and she gets me a cab back to my hotel.

On the way to the cab we pass a parade of bicyclist, rollerbladers, and general merry-makers in costumes and on anything that rolls. Just like Boulder-Denver. The more things change the more they stay the same.