Business Trip to Stockholm

Couple of days before the wedding I found out that I was requested to travel to Stockholm the next week on business. I love travelling a lot and any other time would have been very happy about such a fact, but having quite a "eventful week" ahead and friends staying for another week in Prague made me a bit less happy about the upcoming trip. In the end, I had no choice and booked my Monday afternoon flight to Stockholm and Wednesday evening one back.

Maks & Ryabchuks as planned left on Monday morning continuing Eurotrip to Munich, Neuscwanstein, Venice, Vienna and then back to Ukraine. Kesha & Dehtyarova on Sunday night left for Vienna leaving me with a little less negative mood of leaving them in Prague.

After arriving to Arlanda and taking a shuttle bus to the hotel in Solna, suburb of Stockholm close to the DHL office, I immediately left the hotel and went to the city centre by a local train. Luckily, the desire of staying in the hotel didn't take me over (smile).

BTW, night view from my hotel room

I had been to Stockholm in spring 2007 for an amazing Scandinavian Chill-Out Weekend for National Committee member of Scandinavian countries. It was a great time with great people and I really do remember it well. Then I stayed for several more days in Stockholm working on the next Scandinavian Leadership Development Seminar before taking the night boat to Turku in Finland. What a time it was (smile)!

Anyway, I did remember Stockholm as a very nice city, blooming, green, relaxing, so it felt really great to be back.
After having arriving to the main station, I started to walk to the main island, Gamla Stan, with the Royal Castle and the old part of the city. I walked along the narrow street enjoying the nice though a bit chilly evening, passing by all the souvenir shops I remembered from my previous trip with lots of Swedish flags, big and small trolls in windows, lots of moose and t-shirt with 3 crowns.

I walked around the area getting into even more narrow street stopping for some time at the man square and remembering Lars and myself there having a stroll and, I guess, some cheap (for Norwegians) beer (smile).

Then I walked back to the castle which again reminded me that it had "a nothing special" appearance and through the Royal Gardens to familiar KFC and then back into the direction of Main Station.

Next to it I found a great Asian place and enjoyed some sushi and Asian food buffet before heading back to Solna. Was megadelicious!

The next morning I walked 20min next and under the busiest highway towards DHL office. Also passed a very nice lake, so the walk wasn't that bad in the end. I guess, I was still the only person going by foot that distance (smile).

DHL office appeared to be a very nice place and work-wise things were fine. Work is work. But certainly Swedish guys were really great to deal with. I had actually known this already (smile).

After work and hotel I got again on the urban train and got to the railway station where I agreed to meet with Anton, ex-AIESEC Sweden person and colleague of mine. We went to some steak restaurant nearby and enjoyed a good chicken breast with non-alcohol beverages (smile). I knew Anton as a very interesting person and so he stayed. After his work for some renewable energy company in India he moved back to Sweden, settled down in Stockholm, had pretty cool relationship and worked for a company which was selling the renewable wind energy and, actually, wind mills as well.

When Anton ran for his train, I stayed at the Central Station and waited for another person I had agreed to meet with - Roman Nagylyak, aka Zayets', aka Torquemada. We had met, I guess, 10 years ago as part of metal-gothic-rock gatherings in Ternopil. I was not an active participant but started to listen to "Haggard" and "Lacrimosa" that time and write my first "dark" poems. Then I had been meeting him from time to time though he later had moved to Kyiv and had had a great gothic wedding at Zbarazh castle in Ternopil region. If you live in Ternopil and you listen to same style of music, you'll definitely know the person, at least remember some parties together and lots of common friends. That's just how it is Ternopil.

And waiting time was filled out with some photographying of the "near station" objects.

Romko had a very interesting story how he ended in Stockholm. If you're interested, you can ask him some time. That evening we walked around Stockholm talking about lots of things mostly life and our experiences of living it. I actually was even playing a role of a guide a little bit as Zayets' had just arrived 1 week before and hadn't still got to know the city.

We walked to Gamla Stan and then back in a bit cold Scandinavian summer evening. Was really great to meet a fellow country/townsman and great evening it generally was!

I got back to the hotel and couldn't fell asleep for quite some time listening to the noise of road. In the morning I left early for the office, finished all the necessary things and took an afternoon flight back to Prague to catch up with my friends and my beautiful loving wife (smile).