Day 2-4: Holidays and workdays

After our wonderfully free Sunday, the reality of the work part of the trip caught up with me. Monday was a holiday in Sweden – National Day which I equate in my mind as being like the 4th of July. Apparently, people eat strawberries and celebrate being Swedish. In Gothenburg, this involves a visit to Slottsskogen, a large park where the symphony would play and people gathered with their picnics and flags to listen. We joined them for a while before the time had come for the work to begin.

Monday afternoon was filled with meetings for the conference so Frank had to entertain himself. Luckily he is friends with the spouse of another meeting participant, so they got to drink while we enjoyed 3 hours of administration and strategy, mostly involving votes following Robert’s Rules of Order. Then I had more meetings with consulting clients so it was a half and half day. Of course my favorite part was where Frank got to “cook” dinner: GF pasta with jarred sauce and parmesan cheese. It’s always fun seeing how one culture interprets another culture’s food. I know what American Italian food is like and Frank created the Scottish interpretation of the Swedish version of Italian food. And it was delicious!

Tuesday looked to have more free time so we headed out to some of the islands on the Gothenburg archipelago: one of the “must do” things for the area. And of course it started to rain as soon as we got off the ferry. So we spent some time trying to envision how picturesque it would be on a sunny day before heading back the mainland. Next stop: the Volvo museum.

Yes, it’s true. I happened to have a work trip to another country with not one but two manufacturer-based car museums. I learned a great deal about Volvo’s contribution to the motor vehicle industry, especially around safety innovations, and still my favorite part was the full sized car made of Legos. 🙂

But again there was work to be done. I had emails to address and remarks to organize before the opening reception for the conference. Two hours of free drinks and nibbles sounds great but when you are president and expected to make a coherent speech, it just doesn’t feel the same. And of course when it was done, I still had more meetings that resulted in dinner at 10pm. (The good part about having the conference spouse is that not only does he cook while you have meetings, he can find a local Vietnamese restaurant, chat with the owner over a beer, and come home with the most delicious GF take out I’ve had in ages. Even if I got to eat it and then go straight to bed!)

Then the real work began: the alarm actually woke us on Wednesday for the first full conference day. We still managed to have scrambled eggs and avocado toast for breakfast – because Wednesday! – then Frank drove me to “work” before heading out to the Saab museum (dodged that bullet!) I had a full day of meetings – at several of which I had to speak coherently! – before heading back for yet more meetings as well as some lectures with a lovely wine bar dinner in between.

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