Tag Archives: conference

Rejlers in Alicante day 2

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The second day of RejTrip was spent on the beach. And yes, a Swede’s first real day in the sun definitely resulted in sunburns. Even if I had sunscreen on! But it was so great. Laying on the beach. Reading. Going in the water. Talking to coworkers. A full day on the beach was what I needed today. My original plan was to go to Alicante (we’re staying in Albir, 40min northeast of Alicante) and play beach volleyball with the local club. I was so excited, but last night I learned that the taxi would be 100 Euro. One way. No thank you. A small break could be good again.

Breakfast at the hotel was better than the dinner buffet. They had all the usual stuff. Nothing super extraordinary. Many people were hungover and Farid and Andreas didn’t even make it to breakfast because they felt so bad, haha! I’m glad I went to bed early because I’ve been feeling amazing all day. Lisa and Farid used electric scooters and went around the city. Andreas joined a big group of us at the beach at lunch time and people came and went through the day. Stefan and I were the two who stayed the longest, until 6pm.

The weather wasn’t great today though. The day started with amazing weather. Completely blue sky and 23C perhaps? Many people went in the water early on but I wanted to get a little bit warmer first. But I waited too long and when I should have felt ready, the sea smoke rolled in and it got cold. It lasted for so long, that fog usually clears pretty fast, but this didn’t. It was a while after lunch that it cleared and it got super nice again. By that time, Lisa and Farid had joined us and all of us from Project Management (except Annika, our boss), went into the ice cold water. It couldn’t have been more than 16C. It was cold. But I’m proud of myself for calming down and actually staying in for a bit. It didn’t take long after that when the fog rolled in again and it got cold once more. But the sun came out pretty quickly for the third time and the rest of the day was perfect.

 

The fog rolled in over the plateau.

It’s been like a typical Swedish summer day. The wind is kinda chilly, but the sun warms you up. I definitely wouldn’t mind 8C warmer though. I missed Gili T today, haha! 30C both on land and in the water, haha!

Dinner today was better than yesterday and Lisa and I decided to spend the evening in the room instead of going out and doing exactly what they did yesterday. We went for a walk in Albir, looking for a supermarket to buy some chips and snacks. Both of our bodies screamed after salt.

Tomorrow morning we will go for a run and do a workout at the beach before breakfast and at 9 we will start the conference part of this trip. So our alarms will ring at 6:30am, woho!

Rejlers in Alicante day 1

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I have now worked at Rejlers for a little bit more than a year. I can’t believe how fast time has flown. One year at my new workplace is celebrated in Spain with my coworkers on our RejTrip with the Buildings Divisions in Gothenburg (because we made such a great result last year).

The day started with me waking up next to Mikael and him playing Aretha Franklin’s “Freedom” on his phone. He has been excited to have the apartment all to himself for a few days, haha! Then Lisa and Johan came over to my place and mom picking us up to drive us to the airport.

40 or so people in RejTrip shirts at the airport was fun to see!

We checked in. Lisa and I got seats next to each other on the airplane. She slept for the most time and I read a lot in Elantris. Wow! So much happening that it was hard to stop. It’s incredible and I can’t wait until I’m done writing this so I can get back to reading it.

We landed at 14:30 in Alicante, took a shuttle bus to Albir Playa Hotel & Spa, 40 min northeast of Alicante where we will spend the next few days. The hotel is nice. It’s 1km walk to the beach, not too bad. The pool area is really nice.

After we checked in, Lisa, Andreas, Farid and I walked to the beach and hung out at a bar until it was time for dinner at the hotel. The beach was rocky, but beautiful. The water was so blue and there was a really nice beach walk.

The buffet at the hotel was large and I’m sure many things were delicious. But my stomach has been acting really badly lately (I actually was afraid last night that I would have to cancel my trip), so I went up to the room while everyone else went to the beach and some bars. I really don’t mind the alone time. These days will be tough for an introvert like me, social battery-wise.

It’s around 23C and according to weather apps it will be sunny for the duration of our whole trip. So nice!

WSP Management in Budapest day 3

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The first thing I was greeted by when walking through the door at home, was Ramses of course. He always comes running to say hello when the door is opened. The second thing I was greeted by was Cleo sticking his head out the bedroom door hissing at me. I think I might have been gone for too long for Cleo’s liking. Then he got almost aggressive when he smelled me. Weird cat.

It has been another long day. All flight trips with a layover takes so much longer and is so exhausting. On the first flight from Budapest to Munich, I slept all the way through, even through the big turbulens that apparently happened. On the second though, I had a hard time falling asleep, even if I listened to my classical piano music list. Perhaps it was because all the rows in the back were occupied by WSP. I used the last 30 minutes to a little bit of writing. Why didn’t I think of that earlier?

In the morning today we had free time. It was spent shopping. I bought a very nice notebook at a Christmas fair, a refrigerator magnet and a pair of shoes. That was not the plan, but they kind of matched my scarf and I felt like I needed another pair of better quality shoes.

My calves are rock hard and hurt a lot! So many steps, only walking for three days. It will be great with four days of sitting in front of a computer working again, resting my legs a bit. My feet don’t hurt, but my calves.

It has been a great conference and many interesting discussions in the morning at the hotel. Many interesting things to see in Budapest, many fun things happened. But it has been tough. I really need my sleep and when I don’t get it, I quiet. I hope I haven’t seemed too boring because of it. Because I have had a great time and it was fun to get to know my coworkers outside of work.

Pictures are coming, not tonight, but my goal is to get them uploaded tomorrow afternoon/evening. Ägg-i-skägg-i-rää and goodnight!

WSP Management in Budapest day 2

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I can’t remember the last time I was this tired. But being tired on vacation is basically just a receipt that you are doing the vacation right. Max gear all the time!

This morning was similar to yesterday. We discussed work-related things that we will work on and improve next year and there were good points made.

The afternoon was all dedicated to baths. We (or some of us, not everyone wanted to go to the thermal baths) walked to Szechenyi Bath and had lunch before at a restaurant close by. The food was simple and good. Pasta with tomato sauce.

We were 6 girls walking together to the bath when we saw a pretty castle and a market outside, so obviously we had to stop there. I was too full from the lunch so I didn’t get one of those sweet bread tubes, but I tried and it is on my agenda tomorrow to buy one for myself. We all also bought paprika powder. Apparently you should, so we did. I got one sweet bag and one spicy bag.

The bath was a really cool place! It was like a block of a low building, enclosing pools. One of them was really warm and it was perfect with the fall weather of November. There was a pool for laps and also a pool with a strong current. That was fun! But some people were so disrespectful and bumped into people all the time, both unconsciously but also consciously. Not okay!

Inside there were many smaller pools, hot ones and cold ones. Also several saunas. I tried most of the stuff but would have liked to be in the eucalyptus steam sauna a bit more. My dad’s genes are really 110% present at moments like this. I love heat! I love to sit in saunas or hot water. Not everyone is like that, which is good, but a little more sauna would have been nice. Our main playrule for the weekend was “everyone included/leave no one behind” and it worked.

The changing rooms were special. Small boths that you entered from the outside, and pulled down a part of the seat to lock the both doors on the side. When you are done, you open the other door and go to the baths. So strange. It took me a while to figure out how to lock the doors, haha!

We were three girls left at the bath at 5pm and we then took a bus back to the hotel. Less than 30 min later, I was down in the lobby leaving for the restaurant.

It was called Duncorso and we were served a three course dinner with Hungarian specialties. It was good! The company was also good and our table of six decided to toast every five minutes and each of us to speak every time. I used that moment to thank everyone for the warm welcome I have got and that I look forward to working .ore with everyone. I stumbled on words and it was not good at all, but I think the message went out okay.

I am truly happy at working at WSP. It is great. Fun work tasks and great coworkers. It couldn’t have been better!

After dinner we walked to a ruin bar, Szimpla Kert, the most famous one. It was the craziest bar ever! After WWII, there were a lot of abandoned buildings and eventually people put stuff in there and started up bars (or something like that). Everything in there was random and inside the building were several bars with different focus. The coziest room was the old tech junkyard with old screens and lights intertwined. Or the top floor where there was a hole in the floor. It is hard to describe. So I will post pictures when I get home. Probably not tomorrow. But Tuesday?

I talked to Dad today as well. Apparently, he heard from Grandma, who read my blog, that I was here now and gave me tips on a few things. I might look into them tomorrow. What is also pretty sick, is that he was here just last week, Sunday to Wednesday, and lived very close to where we are staying. And on Sunday, he was at the Szimpla Kert bar exactly (probably on the clock) a week before me. Crazy!!

One last day (half day) left in Budapest tomorrow. Only free time. I have to think about what I want to do. Probably shopping. And it would be cool to go on Metro 1, which is considered the oldest (or second oldest depending on how you count) subway in Europe.

Super long day, my calves are so stiff. Maybe I will book a massage here tomorrow instead, haha!

WSP Management in Budapest day 1

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I didn’t think it was a possibility that I would end up being one of those fortunate people who went abroad on a conference trip. But here I am, in Budapest with my coworkers.

We arrived late last night at Continental Hotel Budapest. We were delayed but the flight here were not too bad and went by very fast and we were extremely lucky with the transfer in Frankfurt. I don’t think we waited more than 2 minutes after arriving at the new gate before we could board. I have never been that lucky!

But when we got here, I was surprised to find that I wasn’t staying with Caroline, a girl who I am in a couple of projects with and whom I had very much looked forward to sharing a room with. It feels wrong to say that I was disappointed when I got a whole room all to myself, a full 180 bed instead of a 90, but I was.

After lots of trouble getting in to my room I could finally lay down and sleep at around 1am, so much later than I am used to now with my new routines.

Today was the first real day here and it was a very good one. It started with a decent breakfast followed by three hours of the conference-part of this trip. Some questions we discussed I had input to, but some I was too new for so I just listened. Very interesting stuff though!

For lunch all 37 of us were divided into six groups and we went out into the city to find some place to eat. Everywhere we went it was full, until we found a basement restaurant that was empty. Sceptical, but it was not too bad. It was a nice room and atmosphere.

What’s funny here is the currency. They don’t use Euro but something else. And today’s lunch was 33000 of it. Crazy!

The rest of the afternoon we walked around and met up with everyone else at Mathias Church (which has a crazy and colorful roof, I might have to check if it is supposed to be the original roof. We watched the city from the hill and it was pretty.

On the way back to the hotel after the church (we didn’t go in), I spent a little time in the hotel pool and sauna. As a small preparation for the thermal baths tomorrow.

Dinner was served at a medieval restaurant called Sir Lancelot where we drank out of pottery urns, where food was served on a huge platter in the middle of the long table and a group of performers entertained us. It was a fun experience!

After dinner we went to a salsa club and I had such a great time! For the first time since Caribbean, I have had a piña colada that was really good. We danced and all of us occupied the dance floor with our typical circle dancing and scared away all the real salsa dancers. But it was great, I don’t think that place usually has that many guests. I feel like I need to find their social media or something because they took endless of photos and videos and they might post something about us crazy swedes! Fun place!

More pictures from the evening can be found here on their Facebook page.

Then we wanted to go to Szimpla Kert, a ruin bar and the most famous one in Budapest. The line said as much and we decided to go there tomorrow instead. So the description of what it is comes tomorrow.

I am writing this on my phone and the pictures I took today are on my work phone so I will add them to this post when I have access to a computer.

After 27k steps I am so ready to sleep. Goodnight! A fun day is waiting for us tomorrow again!