Day 30

Decided to give my feet a rest today, stay home and recuperate.  Although it was a little cloudy, the sun was actually shining right in the window of my apartment for most of the day.  Spent a couple of glorious hours just sitting in a chair by the window, listening to Dave Brubeck, Charlie Parker and John Coltrane on my iPod while finishing my book.

The book – ‘Then we came to the end’ by Joshua Ferris – was a great read.  Set in a struggling Chicago advertising agency, it tells the story of office life through the eyes of its employees.  Funny, perceptive and wonderfully well written it was named one of the Best Books of 2007 by The New York Times and was ranked number 2 in Time Magazine’s Top 10 Books of the past decade.  A word of warning - it takes a little while to grab you (and to adjust to his writing style), but hang in there - I highly recommend it. 

Spoke with Jodie and Scott on Skype for a while.  Congratulated Scott on both the sale of his current house and the purchase of his new one in Kensington (which looks beautiful by the way).  He’s had a busy weekend!  Good to hear the girls (mum, Sophie and Jodie) had a successful day at the market yesterday. 

Finished watching the first season of The Wire.  I wouldn’t put it in the same league as some of my favourite shows – the dialogue, acting and storyline all a bit amateurish at times.  It took a while to get going, but by the end of the season I decided it wasn’t too bad.  I have another four seasons to watch so hopefully it only keeps getting better.

Started watching Dexter today which, in comparison to The Wire, only took one episode to get me interested.

Fried eggs on toast for lunch, blue cheese and crackers for afternoon tea followed by tea and biscuits.  Cooking up another batch of Pasta e Fasoi for dinner tonight. 

The snow, which has been ever present since my arrival a month ago, is quickly disappearing.  I actually saw my first patch of green grass the other day.  The street and footpath outside my window is almost completely snow-free, and I can see quite a few grass/dirt patches showing up in the park across the street. 

Bye bye winter...

It’s kind of sad to see the snow fading away – it created a kind of magical feeling and made even normally boring buildings etc look prettier.  During this in-between time, when the snow has melted but spring hasn’t quite arrived, things just seem a little bit grey and dull.

Day 29

So I finally made it to Copenhagen today. 

Got up, had breakfast and was out the door by 10am.  I planned on catching the 10.22 from Landskrona, but had to stop in at the station to get a ticket from Malmo to Copenhagen (my travel card only works in Sweden).  Took a few minutes of standing around before I realised I was supposed to ‘take a number’, then another 5-10 minutes of waiting for my turn.  Luck was on my side and I made the train, barely – had to run.

An hour and a half later and I was at Copenhagen’s Central Station.  It was cold, raining ever so slightly and I was still feeling the effects of my cold so let’s just say I wasn’t in exactly the best sightseeing mood.  Nevertheless I sucked it up, found the tourist information shop and, newly acquired map in hand, headed out the door to ‘see’ the city. 

As soon as I got outside I realised that although I knew exactly where on the map I was, and where I needed to get to, I had no idea what direction to start walking.  Back into the tourist shop to check the big map again.  Luckily I knew what direction the train tracks ran in relation to the shop and could see the station, so guessed I needed to go left. 

Guessed correctly and found the start of Copenhagen’s Strøget, the longest pedestrian only shopping area in Europe.  Basically a really long street with no cars and shops on each side, lots of shops – Jodie would have loved it (although the prices were the same, if not more expensive than Australia).

Crazy Danes lining up in the cold for ice cream!

Walked down to Nyhavn, a waterfront area along one of Copenhagen’s canals.  Canal tours leave usually leave from here, but none seemed to be operating today (I blame the weather).  Made my way to Amalienborg and found Frederik VIII's Palace, soon to be the home of our Princess Mary and Prince Frederik.  The AU$22 million renovation has just been finished and it was being opened to the public for a month before the royal couple move in, starting today.  It was easy to find, what with the massive queue of people standing outside.  Suffice to say I took a photo from the outside and moved on. 

Found the ‘Little Mermaid’ statue which, according to VisitCopenhagen.com, is Copenhagen’s most popular tourist attraction and one of the most photographed statues in the world.  I think perhaps they’re over-selling it a little – it’s nice, but come on…

Lots more walking – about 15kms I calculated later – then home to Landskrona.  Had a banana and strawberry crepe before catching my train.  Made it home by about 7pm, buggered.  Probably my least satisfying sightseeing day ever – a combination of cold weather; poor health; dirty, melting snow; and tired feet.  I could feel that Copenhagen was a lovely city, I just didn’t see it today.

Day 28

Still feeling a bit crook so more cold and flu tablets today.  Had a meeting with Anders Planell, the IT Manager for Entrance Systems EMEA and Niklas’ boss.  He gave me an introduction to the Entrance Systems IT structure and his different roles within the global IT organization.  It was also the first time I’d had some one-on-one time with him.  

A number of company’s fall under the ASSA ABLOY Entrance Systems division, the biggest being Besam.  Like Lockwood in Australia, Besam started as a small company and grew bigger until being bought by ASSA ABLOY.  The company started in Landskrona and this is where the headquarters still is, although most of the manufacturing has been moved to low cost countries like China and the Czech republic.  

It’s amazing to think that all the Besam automatic doors – sliding, revolving etc – that we have in Australia were packaged and shipped from right here in Landskrona, Sweden!  When I went for a walk around the factory we saw boxes packed for shipping to Singapore, South Africa and all over Europe.

I was surprised to find I’d ordered chilli con carne for lunch.  It wasn’t called that on the menu, and it was described to me as a bean stew with mince meat and rice.  I guess that’s kind of what it is… just weird because the last time I had it, it was actually called chilli con carne.

It was Niklas’ birthday yesterday and I was touched when he invited me to his birthday party.  It was at his house in Ekeby, with all his family and close friends – I was the only work colleague there.  Had a great time.  Talked with his brother (a paramedic) and sister (a police woman), his wife’s parents and friends he’d grown up with.  There were about ten children running about the house as well.  They all sang Happy Birthday in English, which I found surprising.  Turns out they did it for my benefit, so I got them to sing it in Swedish as well.

Got home around midnight and went straight to bed.  Hope to make it to Copenhagen tomorrow.

Day 27

Woke up feeling crap this morning – cold got worse overnight.  Good news is the back is feeling much better.  There’s still a twinge every now and then, but not the ache that I had yesterday, and I have to bend further for the pain to kick in.  All in all I think the worst of the back pain is behind me.

It was raining when I looked out the window – first time since I arrived.  I guess that means the weather’s getting a little warmer.  Put on my snow jacket (since it’s the most waterproof one I have) and headed off to work. 

Jen’s has taken pity on me and lent me a pair of his winter boots, so now I don’t have to walk around in the mushy melting snow getting my Nikes all dirty.  The first day I wore them I felt like a little kid does when jumping in puddles in gumboots – I purposely walked through the snow just because I could.  It was good not having to watch where I was putting my feet as I walked.

I actually did some pretty satisfying work yesterday.  Nothing worth going into details about here, but I got some good feedback on it today.  I’m starting to feel part of the team and know that I’m contributing – some things I actually have more knowledge about than the others, so my skills are put to good use (not just shifting work to me that someone else could do).

Meatballs and boiled potatoes for lunch again today.  To be honest, I’m kind of getting sick of them.  The other guys think it’s a bit of a joke that the canteen finds so many different names for what essentially turns out to be meatballs and potatoes.  The reason they get them is that a lot of the time it’s the best pick of a dodgy bunch.  I guess they have a point.

I’ve been invited to a dinner next Thursday with Heidi (my landlord) and another couple that’s staying in the house.  Apparently the girl lived in Australia for 2 years so she’s convinced we’ll have lots to talk about.  I’m never one to pass up a home-cooked dinner (that I haven’t had to cook), so it should be fun.

I’ve found the best ice cream too – it’s only like 11 Swedish krona (about $1.60) and comes in a cardboard box.  The box is exactly the same size as the plastic ‘tupperware’ containers I bought so I transfer it when I get home.  A box lasts about a week.  So far I’ve had the vanilla with chocolate flakes through it and the vanilla and strawberry – which tastes exactly the same as vanilla ice cream and Cottee’s strawberry topping.  In fact, I think I might have some now. 

Day 26

Lumbago…

…otherwise known as ‘acute lower back pain’, turns out to be a pain in the ass as well!  In case you can’t tell my back is performing at about 35%.  When Jens found out it was still giving me trouble he booked me into a local ‘back doctor’ in Landskrona.  I know he did this out of genuine concern for my well being but the fact I injured it at work while lifting servers probably also played a part.
 

Made my way to the doc for an 11am appointment.  The ‘doc’ turns out to be Annika, one of two Naprapaths in Landskrona.  [Did some research when I got back to work and Naprapathy follows many of the same principles as Chiropractics and is practiced primarily in Sweden].  She did some massagy-stretchy-cracky-type stuff and by the end I was actually feeling a bit better.  She diagnosed me as having Ryggskott (which we translated using Google as Lumbago) and suggested I should try to keep active, that is, not lie in bed all day and rest. 

Wikipedia says:

“Low back pain (or lumbago) is a common musculoskeletal disorder affecting 80% of people at some point in their lives. It accounts for more sick leave and disability than any other medical condition.  It can be either acute, subacute or chronic in duration. Most often, the symptoms of low back pain show significant improvement within a few weeks from onset with conservative measures.”

Hopefully this means that it should get better by itself – which is good news so fingers crossed.

To top of my crappy day I’m getting a cold and my Internet provider tells me I’ve used up my allowed download quota for the month so my Internet speed has dropped right down. 

At this point it would be easy to feel sorry for myself but I’m choosing to look on the bright side.  I’ve got three and a half weeks to get back into shape before my snowboarding trip, I’m still having a great time, and I’m in Sweden!

Day 25

Hurt my back lifting servers yesterday.  Started with a slight pain in my lower back after getting home from work and by the time I went to bed I had to take some Nurofen because it hurt when I moved the wrong way.  It’s now 24 hours later and still sore – but better than yesterday. 

Went to Gothenburg today for a couple of meetings with Volvo IT.  The drive was long but the sun was shining for the first time in a few weeks so the scenery was great to watch.  Stopped along the way for some McDonald’s.  I had a McFeast and it was similar to ours in Australia, but the bun (and pattie I suspect) was smaller than ours, and it didn’t come with ketchup, just mayonnaise. 

Highlight of the visit was afternoon tea – more Semlas.  These had recently been voted the best in Gothenburg and they were pretty good – and massive.  Meetings were productive too so the visit turned out to be useful after all.

Didn’t get back to Landskrona until after 6.30pm so decided to eat out.  Got Magnus to drop me at the local Chinese take away – Asian Wok.  Had a great stir-fried beef and vegetables with rice.  Normally I don’t like eating out by myself – it’s lonely – but the restaurant was completely empty except for me.  Was able to read my book while waiting for the food, and it was actually kind of nice, what with the peaceful Chinese soundtrack playing in the background and candles on the table.  Would have been nicer with company though.

Caught the bus home and was surprised to be sharing a ride with a dog!  The driver didn’t look twice when the owner got on with his ‘best friend’ so I guess that’s kosher in Sweden.

Wonder if the dog had to buy a ticket?

Forgot my laptop power supply today so going to have to stop here before my battery runs out.  Hope my back feels better tomorrow...

Day 24

So it's official - I'm going to Tignes!!

Seven whole days snowboarding in the heart of the French Alps.  Home to the Grande Motte glacier it has over 300kms of pistes, 97 lifts (including 2 high speed underground trains) and will be the site of this years Winter X-Games the week before I arrive!  How awesome is that...

I checked with Niklas today and we've done a deal - I can do my trip to France as long as I work the Friday and Monday over Easter.  Given that I can work from the apartment if I can't be bothered going in to the office I figure it's fair (did I mention I get to go BOARDING IN THE FRENCH ALPS?).

I'm going with a French tour company called UCPA that has sites in a number of the top French resorts and offers all-inclusive packages.  I get picked up by bus on Friday 19th March from Helsingborg and driven all the way to the resort (about 20 hours - ouch).  Board for seven days, then jump back on the bus and arrive home the following Sunday, 28th March - all ready to start work again on Monday...

With all this excitement you might wonder how I manage to get any work done.  I actually had a satisfying day at the office today - solved a couple of problems, got some things done.  Lunch was meatloaf with boiled potatoes and some weird brown sauce.  Just okay.

I was in high spirits after work so decided to cook up a decent meal.  Went for pepper steak with smokey chipotle BBQ sauce and a green salad.  Even stopped at the local Systembolaget and picked up a 250ml bottle of Jacob's Creek Shiraz Cab.  It was awesome!

Dinner fit for a king!

Off to Gothenburg tomorrow with Magnus for a couple of meetings with Volvo IT.  It's a two and a half hour drive each way so will be a good chance to see some more of the beautiful Swedish countryside.

Day 23

 Another quiet day in Sweden.

Woke up around 9.30am and turned the TV on.  Watched a few mind numbing episodes of ‘Hogan Knows Best’ on MTV and, before I knew it, it was nearly midday!  Arranged to meet Christian at 3pm to go for a ride on his bike then spent the next couple of hours sorting through photos I’d taken and uploading some to Facebook and Picasa.

Spoke with Nonna and Nonno on Skype for a while – they looked hot.  As much as I miss Australia, I’d rather be here in the cold than home in the stinking heat.

Headed down to Två Sex Ett for some Sunday afternoon tea and scones around 2ish.  It was about minus 5 outside, and felt it too.  Got there and found that Agnes (who’d been there the night before when Johan and Carl were playing) was working so I had someone to chat with every now and then.  She thought it was weird when I asked for whipped cream with my scones – apparently it’s more common in Sweden to have butter, cheese and savoury things on them.  Still, she humoured me and they were great.

Tea and scones, yum

While I was chowing down on my scones it started snowing outside – not exactly the best weather for motorbike riding.  Christian agreed, so we’ll have to wait for another weekend with more suitable conditions.

Pretty boring end to the weekend – got home, watched some more TV, played on the computer.  Defrosted my left over chilli con carne and cooked up some rice to have with it, watched a movie then got ready for bed. 

Three weeks down, seven more to go.

Day 22

Had a lazy morning this morning - slept in until 9.30am, then watched TV until 11am. Had some Kalas Puffas for breakfast then had a shower around 11.30am. Decided it wasn't the best idea to stay inside all day so got kitted up to go for a walk.

Bumped into my landlady, Heidi, on the way out. She was heading down to the 'market' in the town square. Hitched a lift with her and ended up going for a coffee with her. I don't drink coffee so we had tea and blueberry crumble instead. She's one of those people that can talk non-stop for hours so ended up hearing her life story. She's sixty-five so it took a while - not that I'm complaining it was quite interesting.

Headed down to my favourite Kebab/Pizza joint afterwards (about 3pm by then) and had a Kebab Pizza. Was almost too full after that so headed home for some down time.

Went down to one of the local bars - Två Sex Ett (261) - to see Johan and one of his band members play an acoustic set. Can't believe how good they are. They were both playing guitar - even though the other guy, Carl, usually plays drums in their band. They played a mixture of English and Swedish hits and had the whole crowd entertained. Okay, so the crowd consisted of 15 or so of their family and friends but that just made for a great atmosphere.  Plenty of singing along and joking around...

Johan (right) and Carl @ Två Sex Ett

Made friends with one of the guys whose going to take me for a ride on his Ninja motorbike tomorrow. Should be a bit of fun - he's promised not to kill us.

It's 1.52am and I'm a bit drunk so it's time for bed.

Day 21

Today was both my most disappointing and potentially most exciting day in Sweden so far.

Made it in to work by 7am only to find my access card wouldn’t let me into the IT department.  Three calls to different IT team members later and I still wasn’t in, apparently the card should work but it didn’t.  Grabbed a cup of tea from the canteen and waited.  A nice cleaner lady let me in around 7.25am.

The morning was pretty quiet, left the office just before 10.30 and made it to Helsingborg to meet Jens at 11am.  The three of us – Jens, myself, and Elsa (Jens’ super-cute 3 year old daughter) – were in high spirits on the hour long drive to Vallåsen.  The snow was reasonably heavy but we didn’t care, we were going skiing!

Got to the car park around midday and realised we may have made a vital strategic blunder.  Turns out this week was Danish school holidays and the little mountain was p-a-c-k-e-d.  Car park full of cars with Danish number plates, eating area full of Danish people eating but, luckily, the equipment rental area was empty.  This was misleading.

As is common almost everywhere in Sweden that you have to line up, to get rental equipment you needed to ‘take a number’.  Mine was 303.  They were up to 232.  Went into the ‘gathering building’ (full of tables/chairs, shelves to store bags/shoes and, of course, Danes) and got kitted up.  30 minutes later the board was calling number 241.  Took a walk to check out the slopes which were remarkably quiet.  Not empty, but not packed like Buller on a Saturday. 

By 1pm we’d been there an hour and they’d made it to 255.  At this rate we’d be hitting the slopes by about 3.30pm with the sun due to go down shortly after 5pm.  Yes, they had night skiing but the snow was falling pretty heavily and the thought of another few hours sitting around was too much to bear.  We decided to pull the pin and head back to Jens’ house.

Took the scenic route through beautiful forested countryside – everywhere you looked would have made a beautiful photo.  Decided to take a video instead:

Yes, that’s Jason Mraz in the background…

We enjoyed a wonderful afternoon/evening at Jens’ house in Helsingborg with his wife Marta, their 5 month old son Axel.  Marta cooked up a great big pastie thing filled with mince, parsley, sour cream and garlic then for dessert we had Marta’s crumble –filled with mango, raspberries and blackberries topped with ice cream.  Yum…

Shared photos of our trips – they’d also eloped to New York three years ago so we had lots to talk about.  While showing me some fantastic photos of their many ski trips Jens came up with the idea of me going snowboarding in France for my ‘holiday’ week.  He knew this tour company that bussed you from Helsingborg all the way to the resort in France, included all meals, lift passes, equipment hire, accommodation and guide. 

We checked out the website and found some dates that would work.  Not my last week, but a couple of weeks before I leave.  On Jens and Marta’s advice we decided it would be best to go to Tignes (since Val d Isère was fully booked) which happens to be the site of the European Winter X-Games in a few weeks.  Jens called up and confirmed there was a place left on the bus – which there was – and so we booked.  I have a week to pay, during which I need to get the official go ahead from Niklas. 

So it may have started a little disappointingly, but it ended on a high – imagine, snowboarding in the French Alps!!!

Day 20

Stayed up pretty late last night watching the Olympic snowboard half-pipe competition (on my laptop).  Saw the first round (each competitor got two runs) and some of the semi-finals.  Dozed off somewhere after midnight and woke up around 1.30am with the laptop still going.  Was not really ready to wake up when the alarm went off at 6.30am.

Despite a slight lack of sleep I had a productive day at work – no meetings meant I had time to get some things done.  Spent the morning closing off some open requests I’d been working on, created some Blackberry accounts and generally felt like I was being a useful member of the team.

More meatballs and potatoes for lunch today.  I thought I was getting a hamburger with bacon (this is how Louise translated it) but it was just an apple-sized meatball, steamed potatoes and gravy.  Not that I’m complaining - I like the stuff – but a hamburger with bacon would have been gooood.

Spent the rest of the day creating Outlook mailboxes and calendars for the meeting rooms at Head Office in Stockholm.  Took ages and wasn’t having much luck with my testing.  After giving up on my laptop I got Niklas to test and they were working perfectly on his.  Must be something to do with my mailbox being on the Australian email server…

It’s been snowing all day in Landskrona.  Haven’t really had a good amount of snow fall for about a week.  Even though the footpaths and roads all still have snow on each side (and the parks etc are still white), the paths and roads were clear.  I’m happy to say they’re back to a nice dirty-grey colour again.  Got some good pics - stood with the snow at my back and used the flash to get some light coming off the snow flakes.

 

That's my bus, the number 3, about to take me home for the day...

 

...on my way home, looking back at the bus stop

Getting up early again tomorrow – going in to the office at 7am so I can leave around 10.30am.  Jens and I are going to the snow!!  It’s only a little mountain with 2 lifts but it’s the closest to this area – less than an hour from Helsingborg.  Didn’t get up to the snow at all last year so really looking forward to carving it up, Shaun White stylez.

Day 19

Early start this morning, lucky for me all I had to do was go out the front door – Jorgen picked me up in his car (SAAB 95 Aero wagon).  We drove up to Helsingborg and picked Henrik up at the station before driving onto the ferry.  The ferry from Helsingborg to Helsingør is the only one left between Sweden and Denmark – the trip takes a little over 20 minutes.  You used to be able to catch a ferry from Malmo (and even Landskrona way back in the day) but that one stopped when they built the Öresund Bridge in 2000.

Made it to the Ruko offices by about 8.30am.  Ruko is to Denmark what Lockwood is to Australia.  The site we were visiting was their head office and also housed their manufacturing and warehouse.  The Entrance Systems people only took a small part of their office space and used completely separate computer systems/network etc.

Was taken on a quick tour of the factory and warehouse Theis, one of the Ruko IT guys.  It was amazing how similar their operation was to ours in Australia.  They make padlocks, mortice locks and door furniture (handles etc.) the same as we do at Lockwood.  They even make the fancy door handles they had on the toilets at Head Office in Stockholm.

 

They kind of look like mini lightsabers!

Spent an hour with Theis, talking IT mostly, before heading to the canteen for lunch.  On the menu today was a salmon and parsley pastie with rice and hollandaise sauce.  They also had an extensive salad bar, from which I chose potato salad, corn kernels and cold roast lamb with tzatziki.  It was awesome!  Afternoon tea was, believe it or not, Danish pastries.  They call them ‘wienerbrød’, which translates to ‘Viennese bread’, and they’re good.

Over lunch I learnt that Henrik only works a four day week at the moment.  It’s part of his paternity leave, which they get HEAPS of in Sweden.  Here’s how it breaks down:

The couple gets 450 days between them, paid at about 80% of their usual rate.  They each have to take a minimum of 60 days and the rest can be taken by either of them at any time for 6 years after the child’s birth.  On top of this they both get an additional two weeks leave immediately following the birth!

To top it all off Swedes get at least 5 weeks of annual leave – some government workers get 7 weeks – and, if you work for ASSA ABLOY, flexi-time at work.  Meaning you clock in and out each day and can bank up hours of ‘extra’ time to use as leave or get paid back in cash!

Talk about a sweet deal.

Day 18

It was a busy day in the office today – not for me necessarily, but because IT people from all the various Entrance Systems (that’s the ASSA ABLOY company site I’m at) offices were here for a quarterly meeting.  Usually we have a fairly large number of free desks about but today there were none.  Luckily for me they have very little to do with the SSC (my team) so I had a meeting free day.

Managed to start collating all the information I’d been able to get out of Magnus regarding the Single Sign On project.  Made some pretty diagrams and typed up my notes – very disconnected at the moment and not much in the way of structure but it’s good to have it all down in one place not scribbled across pages of notes.

Wasn’t at all sure about my lunch choice today.  Even with the help of my translator friends on reception none of the choices stood out.  Ended going out on a limb and choosing something that seemed to be pork or ham, pineapple, some kind of sauce and rice.  Had two people arrive the same time as me and that’s what they picked so thought it couldn’t be too bad.  Turns out it was – okay not really, but it wasn’t great.  It was ham, three 5mm thick slices about the width of an apple.  Can’t win them all I suppose.

Got talking with Johan at lunch and found out he’d been at the tattoo parlour last Friday getting some more work done on his back.  So far it’s taken 5 sessions (or about 20 hours) for this tattoo, which covers his whole back.  He’s promised to get me a photo.  He did show me some photos of him with long hair from a few years back – quite different from his short haircut now.  Here’s my favourite one…

Johan, taken for a NYE invitation a couple of years ago

Off to Denmark tomorrow with Jorgen.  He’s one of the Entrance Systems IT guys that to the ‘local’ support, similar to what I do back in Australia.  They have a small site in Copenhagen (10 users) that they visit once a month to sort out any issues they have that can’t be handled remotely and have a general catch up.  Should be interesting, but it means a 6.30am start and a return home around 6pm.  Better get some sleep.

Day 17

Meetings, so many meetings - it’s a wonder they get anything done.  Started the day with our weekly team meeting to review the events of the past week.  Then a weekly catch up with the guys at Volvo IT (the company that runs our data centre in EMEA), followed by an hour long kick-off meeting for the EMEA AD/Exchange migration project team.  Phew. 

For those of you that haven’t nodded off already, EMEA stands for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.  It’s one of three global ‘regions’ that ASSA ABLOY’s structure is broken into – the others being the Americas and, of course, Asia Pacific.

Only the first meeting was face to face – the others were via phone conference.  One of the by-products of working with a geographically separated team is that most of your contact is via email or phone.  As an example, the project team in the last meeting consisted of a German, a Norwegian, a Brit, a Dutchman, a Frenchman and a Finn.  It works okay, but is not a perfect substitute for traditional interactions.

Lunch today was a bit of a crap-shoot.  I picked the vegetarian option – baked potato and something something.  Turns out the ‘something something’ was steamed cauliflower and a weird-looking pink sauce.  It was actually pretty tasty, the ‘sauce’ was cold and had small pieces of vegetables in it – I couldn’t quite place the taste but it was good with the potato. 

As I was queuing for lunch today I noticed that Swedes actually are pretty tall.  I was far from the tallest person in the lunch room, and there were quite a few people my height.  Most of the time I’m among the tallest in most rooms so it was a bit of a shock.  Now that I think of it, I was in a lift at the hotel in Stockholm and one guy actually had to duck to get through the doorway!  Now that's tall.

After lunch I spent three hours with Magnus again.  He used to work for the SSC team here in Landskrona (in fact I’m sitting at his old desk) and is now being called in as a contractor when needed.  He’s been giving me a handover on one of the projects I’m working on.  I won’t go into details, but it’s the type of project that management wants done without understanding the complexities.  The project started, got nowhere, stalled and has been sitting there without a project manager since Magnus left.  No one wants to do it so guess what – they’ve given it to me!  Let’s just say it’s the least enjoyable part of my trip so far…

Having no luck with my Olympics streaming tonight, only catching bits and pieces.  I found an official EurovisionSports site that is playing live streams from a bunch of events – good quality and not many drop-outs.  But when they say ‘live feed’ they mean just that – there’s no commentary at all; just the sound of skis on snow, PA announcements and the occasional helicopter.  Bummer.

[Update] Found a decent web stream - http://www.vip--tv.com/londoner.php - watching Men's downhill.  Woohoo!!

Day 16

Weather not too bad today – about minus 3 and overcast.  Was going to go to Copenhagen but decided to head back to Malmo instead.  Caught the bus shortly after 10am and got there before 11am.  Turns out a lot of shops don’t open on Sunday, and those that do are closed until midday so it was a pretty quiet start to my visit. 

Wandered a bit further through the town than we had yesterday, found a couple of fountains that had partially turned to ice.  Watched a little kid walk on to the fountain over some frozen ice hoping he might fall in so I could get a good action shot – he didn’t.

Is it bad that I wanted him to fall in?

Made it home by about 3pm and decided to watch some Winter Olympics.  Found it on SVT1 – a Swedish language channel.  Quickly discovered that trying to watch sport with commentary in a language you don’t understand sucks big-time.  Normally I would have watched the biathlon (ski, shoot, ski, shoot) without complaining – yeah, it’s not the most exciting sport but it IS the Olympics.  But after 10 minutes I was forced to turn it off through sheer boredom.  Without commentary there’s nothing to get you interested in what’s happening.

Watched the first episode of The Wire and wasn’t really that impressed.  It’s been nominated for quite a few awards and was in TIME magazines ‘Top 10 TV Series of the Past Decade’ list, so I brought all five seasons with me.  I’ll give it a few more episodes before making up my mind.  Ended up watching season 1 of ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’.  Not bad, have a few seasons of that as well.

Spent a bit of time on Google trying to find another way to watch the Olympics and discovered something called StreamTorrent.  Uses the bittorrent protocol to stream TV, works pretty well. Right now I’m watching women’s ice hockey – USA vs China.  It’s a US broadcast so the commentary is all in English (with a somewhat American bias).  Looks like I’ll be watching the games on my laptop this year.  Better than nothing…

Day 15

Off to Malmo today.  It’s about -5 degrees and snowing slightly – perfect sightseeing weather!  Getting to Malmo from Landskrona is a piece of cake.  Bus to the train station (same one I catch to work), then 30 minute train ride to Malmo’s central station. 

Most of the trains that run through Landskrona station are either heading further north to Gothenburg (second biggest city in Sweden behind Stockholm) or south to Copenhagen, so they’re a bit nicer than our trains in Melbourne.  They have comfortable chairs with adjustable headrests and the they’re grouped in fours (one pair facing forward, one facing back) with little tables in between.  More like v-line than connex.

Arrived at Malmo around 12pm with Jan there waiting.  Took a walk into the city to have a bit of a look around.  The city has a series of man-made canals or channels running through it, with the biggest circling the oldest part of town.  Stopped and had a quick lunch at a little asian take away called ‘China Box’.  Had rice with fried chicken and vegetarian spring rolls with sweet and sour sauce, quality was about what you would expect from a bain-marie.

Headed back to Jan’s car then drove down to see the ‘Turning Torso’, which was built as part of an architectural exhibition back in 2001.  All the houses around the area were also built for this exhibition and now make up one of the most expensive ocean-front suburbs in Malmo, West Harbour.   Reminded me of Docklands in Melbourne, would be beautiful in summer.

 The Turning Torso, Malmo

Drove down to the ‘bath house’, located at the end of a long pier.  This is where crazy people take short dips in the freezing water before jumping back into the sauna.  Apparently Sharon, the lady who wrote the article about me at work, has done it before but you wouldn’t catch me getting in there!

Saw kids ice skating on a frozen canal, some playing ice hockey.  Looked like fun, but no skates for me so headed off.  One more stop at the ‘castle’ (which is now a museum), a drive by the new IKEA (second largest in the world) before making it to Jan’s house. 

Dinner was great, pork and mushroom casserole with rice (similar to Beef Stroganoff) followed by a delicious apple crumble with vanilla sauce.  I had seconds of both!  I spent the night trying to get his daughters, Nina (16) and Hannah (14) to speak English with me but they were both too shy to give it a shot.  They could understand me, but answered in Swedish and either mum or dad translated.  They were impressed that I could understand Nina’s Spanish homework though.

Left about 9pm and got back to the apartment around 10.45.  Wished Jodie a happy Valentine’s day before heading to bed.  It was good to see the city with a guide that could point out or explain things we saw along the way, but I took a lot less photos than I would normally have.  Might head back tomorrow.

Day 14

Had a good sleep last night.  Coming to the end of my second week here in Sweden and feeling like I’ve acclimatised pretty well.  The temperature hasn’t reached zero yet, but I’ve realised I don’t have to wear gloves every time I go outside, they keep warm enough in my pockets most of the time.  Put on the jacket mum and dad bought for me in Italy – a faux-fur lined, Sneaker Freak coat with a hood (fur-lined as well).  Decided the hood would be enough warmth so left the gloves and beanie at home.

I only have about a 30 metre walk to the bus stop, and it arrived about a minute after I did.  It wasn’t until we got to the station that I noticed the sign showing the temperature outside – minus 11 degrees!  Let’s just say the 1 km walk to the office wasn’t the most fun experiences I’ve had here.  It turns out a faux-fur lined hood is actually a very poor substitute for a good beanie.  Lesson learnt.

Had our monthly meeting with the Anders Planell, the IT Manager at ASSA ABLOY Entrance Systems (the office I’m at in Landskrona).  Went through the monthly report that Niklas had put together showing that the SSC team in EMEA had been up to the past month.  Quite liked the format he uses, much simpler to read than ours.  Have to show that to Chris when I get back. 

Chose the vegetarian lasagne from the daily menu, chose it myself (it was the only option I could read, the menu being in Swedish and all).  When lunch time rolled round I was surprised to find the lasagne looked suspiciously meaty.  It tasted pretty meaty too.  In fact, I think the whole ‘vegetarian’ thing was a hoax.  Luckily, I’m a dedicated omnivore and didn’t mind the change.  It wasn’t too bad - 6.5/10.

Friday afternoon ‘fika’ was good - today’s treats were Swedish sweet buns called Semlas.  The Semla is a wheat-flour bun filled with almond paste and whipped cream, sprinkled with icing sugar that dates back to the 16th century.  Traditionally they're eaten on Fettisdagen (or ‘fat Tuesday’), the last Tuesday before Lent.  These days they’re more like our hot cross buns though, you seen them in the shops from as early as the start of January.  Delicious.

 

Mmmm... Semla

Cooked my third successful dinner tonight - sweet and sour chicken with vegetables and rice.  True, I used a stir through sauce but it was damn tasty.  Good day all round food-wise.

Off to Malmö tomorrow – third largest city in Sweden, about 30 minutes from Landskrona by train.  One of the guys from work, Jan, has offered to show me around (since he lives there) and I’m going round to his place for a meal with his family.  Should be fun, more photos to add to the collection.

Day 13

No breakfast today, decided to sleep in instead.  Well, I suppose 6.45am isn’t really a sleep in but wanted to be awake for a skype with Jodie…

Pretty non-eventful day at work today so I thought I’d write a couple of lists for this post.

2 best things I brought with me:

-    Black puffer jacket I bought in San Fransisco (warmest of all my jackets)
-    Media player (chock full of TV Shows and movies to keep me going)

2 least useful things I brought with me:

-    HDMI cable for media player (10 year old CRT TVs don’t have HDMI ports)
-    Board shorts (what was I thinking, it’s winter!)

2 things I wish I’d brought with me:

-    A pair of jeans (they were too heavy)
-    My business cards (yeah, just forgot those…)

Chose the ‘mince meat and potatoes’ option at work for lunch today.  Yet another version of Swedish meatballs – this one consisted of medium potato-sized meatballs with boiled potatoes, gravy and lingonberry jam.  One thumb up.

Six-episode marathon of ‘Hung’ tonight almost time to move on to another show.  Cooked ham and cheese tortellini and Dolmio sauce for dinner.  Wasn’t bad, wasn’t great. 

Day 12

No problems with power in the hotel room this morning. Quick breakfast of muesli and orange juice (no, not mixed together) then off to the ‘Shared Technologies’ site, also in Stockholm.

Sat through two ‘sprint’ sessions which was a fancy name for progress reports on two of the ABLOY Cliq projects the development teams were working on. Firmware updates on the Cliq hardware and changes to the software etc. Some of the changes were demo’d, such as adding the ability to copy the access rules from one key to another (more interesting than it sounds). Had a couple of short meetings, one an introduction to HiO and the other a run down of the software tools they are using (which are hosted at Volvo IT). Interesting morning.

Toasted salami and cheese (mozzarella and cheddar I think) wrap from 7/11 for lunch.

Spent the first afternoon session with Helene Strom discussing some of the Group Tools – Helpbox, IRIS, Group Directory, OneWeb etc. Really enjoyed that session, hope to meet with Helene again. Final session was with Anders from Insight, who’s really the SNOW software licensing contact. Went through the tool, knew most of it already having worked with it before. Discussion ended up back on the unsolvable issue of how to distribute costs to the various business issues. Glad I’m not too involved in this one!

Jens took Guido and I for another walk around Stockholm city. We went to a snow gear store (Jens is looking for a new jacket) and I found the prices to be much the same as Australia. Checked out some other stores, kind of like Myer and David Jones and a big sports store. No buying, just looking. Caught the train to the airport around 8pm – took 20 mins and got up to 205km/h. Dinner at MAX, the biggest Swedish hamburger chain. Decent burgers, better than Sibylla, that’s for sure. Flight home left at 9.30pm and I walked in the door shortly before 11.30pm. 

Happy to see that Heidi (my landlord) had cleaned my room and done my washing while I was away.  Not bad service!  Pretty tired now and due in the office at 8am tomorrow so definitely time for bed.

Day 11

So, when I woke up this morning the power was off in my hotel room. Bedside light, no good. Entrance light, no good. Bathroom light, no good. TV, no good. Contemplated having a shower by the light of my laptop but decided against it. Just as I was about to call reception all the lights came on. Good timing I suppose. Got down to breakfast and found out Niklas, Jens and Guido had had similar experiences.

Ten minute walk to the office – weather in Stockholm is about the same as Landskrona, perhaps a little colder but not much. Tracked down Serg (a friend from ASSA ABLOY in Melbourne who arrived in Sweden the same day I did) and had a good catch up. He’s taken a permanent job working in the ASSA ABLOY head office in Stockholm so, unlike me, he’s here for good (or at least that’s the plan). I’m hoping to make it back to Stockholm one weekend for a more social visit before I leave. He’s offered to put me up so should be doable.

Meetings all day. Met with Tommy Andersson, the IT Manager here, who gave Guido and I an introduction to the place. Lars Norberg, IT Applications, then gave us a presentation on Portwise (the reverse proxy used for Keypoint authentication) and HFM. Presentation on CiP by Marcus Hvied and Serg followed by one on EPiServer/OneWeb/Keypoint by Helene Jagstedt; then discussed the migration of remaining servers to Volvo IT with Tommy, Jens and Guido after lunch. Phew!

Ost and Skinka roll (that’s ham and cheese by the way) from 7/11 for lunch. Left the office around 4.30pm and headed to the ‘old town’. Getting dark, cold and snowing a little – not really great sightseeing weather but you take what you can get. Once we crossed the bridge into the old part of Stockholm the snow stopped and the buildings blocked most of the cold. It was beautiful. As in most old parts of Europe I was very impressed by the picturesque buildings lining each side of little cobblestone streets. The authenticity was spoilt slightly by the souvenier shops, thai massage parlour and a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream shop.

Stopped at a fancy looking restaurant that had a fixed three-course dinner for SEK 250 (about $35), which was pretty good for the location. Entrée was shrimp in sauce on toast – it was actually better than it sounds. Steak, vegetables and giant potato wedges for main and a beautiful crème brûlée for dessert. Yum.

Twenty minute walk back to the hotel and here I am, in bed getting ready for sleep. Hope the photos I took tonight come out.

Day 10

Woke up at 1am to watch the Superbowl. Watched all of the 2nd quarter, fell asleep at half time but woke up in time to watch the second half of the 3rd and all of the 4th. Great game, glad the Saints won! Back to sleep at around 3.45am the up at 7am for work. Definitely worth it.

[Note: from now on I’m going to use Italics to indicate work related stuff so it’s easier to skip over]

Monday at work started with the usual weekly team meeting. One on-call issue to review –unexpected LAN outage at Volvo IT data centre. Niklas gave a recap on the two Gartner seminars he attended last week. One on cloud computing (eg. our PIP and SEG services from ATT) and the future of Virtualisation (multiple solutions, hardware landscape changing to component per blade; impact is single vendor for all components, SAN, blades etc). Also discussed ITIL processes and SSC EMEA Wiki with Guido (from Netherlands) and Jens (back from leave).

Weekly catch up with AT&T, then spent a few hours with Guido and Magnus going through some more AD and Exchange stuff.

Lunch consisted of omelette with a creamy mushroom sauce. Given that it came out of a pre-prepared box it was actually quite good.

Flew to Stockholm from a little airport north of Helsingborg. Our plane was a twin propeller, the first plane that I’ve had to crouch while walking down the aisle to stop from hitting my head. There was one row of two seats and one row of single seats separated by the aisle. Flight was only 45 minutes and the plane was only half full, so anything bigger would have been a waste I suppose.

Made it to Stockholm safely. Checked in at the hotel then down to a traditional Swedish Irish sports bar for dinner. Had a great cheese burger with chipotle BBQ sauce and fries, washed down with a pint of Kilkenny. From there headed to the Stockholm Ice Bar – yep the bar made completely out of ice (well almost, the roof and floor were not ice). Had the customary Absolut vodka cocktail in an ‘ice glass’ and took some photos – they’ll have to wait until I get back to Landskrona since I forgot to bring the cable for my camera.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped in at the Stockholm casino and played some blackjack. I started off with two 'blackjacks' in a row and should have quit while I was ahead.  Ended up losing SEK 450 (about $70) before heading back to the room. It’s now 11pm and time for bed.

Day 9

Reasonably quiet day today. Got up around 8.30am, chatted on Facebook with mum and Jono. Had my usual breakfast then tried to get the tuner working on my PVR. Looked like it was going to work – seemed to be picking up channels – but then complained that there was ‘no signal’ when I tried to watch something. Crap. Whole reason for this was that the Superbowl is on tonight and I found out yesterday that I actually do get the channel it will be broadcast on, only problem is that it starts at midnight and goes until 4.30am. Oh well…

Went for another walk around Landskrona today. Walked 1.5kms to the nearest (and only) McDonalds where I had lunch. Read a bit of my book (‘Then we came to the end’, Joshua Ferris) after eating while listening to what sounded like exactly the same McDonalds radio we have in Australia.

Stopped in at City Gross while out walking and picked up supplies for dinner – tonight was my first attempt at Pasta e Fasoi. I realised, while walking up and down the same aisles, that I’ve probably spent more time wandering around supermarkets in Sweden than anywhere else (except the office and my apartment). Main reason for this is that what should be simple things to get take way longer because they either don’t have exactly what I’m looking for, or I don’t know what it’s called. Today’s example was flour – you’d think finding plain flour would be a piece of cake right? Wrong, they had like 5 different types of flour, and the 3 people I asked couldn’t tell me which one was plain flour (as opposed to self raising etc). I ended up picking the smallest packet and decided to hope for the best. Polish sausage was replaced with what looked to be smoked bacon (I think?), borlotti beans were from a can, had to use weird shaped pasta because they didn't have tubes and apparently they don’t have celery in Sweden – or they hide it where foreigners can’t find it!

In spite of all these obstacles, I managed to chef up a pretty tasty version of mum’s pasta e fasoi. Take that Sweden!

From Landskrona in Winter

It’s 8.30pm and I’m going to try and get some sleep. Made the decision to wake up at 1.30am and watch the game. Flying to Stockholm tomorrow night so perhaps this is not my smartest decision ever, but come on – it’s the Superbowl!

Day 8

Had a great time last night!  Went to local ‘nightclub’ called Tages and saw three Swedish bands, all from this area.  The first band, Trash Queen, was the best of the night.  They were an 80’s glam rock band, complete with big hair, eye make-up and rockstar attitude.  They were local boys, from a town near Landskrona.  All their songs were covers – all sung in English – of bands like Def Leppard, Poison and Motley Crue.  Even got a photo with the lead guitarist as a souvenir.  A.W.E.S.O.M.E.

Got home around midnight and skyped with Jodie for about an hour before hitting the sack.  Still can’t get the ringing out of my ears.

Caught the train to Helsingborg today.  It was cold, as usual, but the sun was out and made for good sightseeing.  Chatted with a Finnish girl called Suvi on the train – she was a graphic designer of some kind and lived in Sweden when not travelling to Helsinki for work.  She was visiting friends in Helsingborg before heading further north to meet up with her boyfriend.

Got in to Helsingborg just before 12pm.  Another beautiful town, quite a bit bigger than Landskrona.  It’s one of 3 major ports in Sweden and you can catch a ferry across to Denmark from there.  Found the tourist information office near the station, picked up a map and headed out for some sightseeing.  Made my way to Kärnan, a 35 metre tall tower dating back to the mid-12^th century.  Climbed the 146 steps of the spiral stairway to the top and took in a great view of the town.  You could actually see across the water to Denmark.

Note to self – make sure you recharge the camera batteries before going sightseeing!  Camera made it another half an hour after leaving the tower before dying.  Managed to get a few photos in, but not as many as I would have liked.  Just have to come back another time I suppose.  Couldn’t decide what to eat for lunch and by the time it got to 2pm I was starving.  Ended up eating Subway; another cop-out.  Sorry Sweden.

Made my way back to the station only to find I had about 40 minutes before the next train.  Chatted with a group of people who all had maps and big backpacks.  They were part of a Danish ‘Scouts’ troop (you know, dib dib dob dob) and it turns out they were a few hours away from the start of a 20 hour mini Amazing Race.  They had to get to something like 5 checkpoints and stop to do activities/challenges along the way.  Sounded cool.

Left over chilli con carne for dinner, then out to another local bar called Inferno to meet Johan again.  Watched the first Swedish heats for the Eurovision competition (called ‘Schlager’ by the locals because that’s the kind of music it usually is).  Highlight of the night was Dolf Lundgren’s lip-synced rendition of Elvis Presley’s “A Little Less Conversation”.  Complete with dancing girls, Dolph in a tuxedo doing a mimed drum solo it was great.  Can’t say I agreed with the two acts that went through to the next round, but what do I know?

Home now, just finished skyping with Jodie and about to head to bed.  Another whole day to fill tomorrow before work starts again on Monday.  Hope the weather’s nice…

Day 7

Skype with Nonno this morning. Can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying being able to speak with people back home – especially with video! Speaking of Skype, did you know the guy who invented Skype was Swedish? In truth, it was a Swede – Niklas Zennström – and a Dane but that’s not important.

They published the article about me on the company Intranet today. You can find a copy of it here. Not too shabby.

Went through adding a new domain to the AT&T Secure Email Gateway for Italy with Niklas. Getting a better understanding of how the whole email thing works – his ‘MX record’ lesson from the other day came in handy. Showed him our Helpbox setup and the tweaks we’d made (such as adding some ‘ITIL’ request types). Also had a look at our Project Application, the Change Register and our Asset Register. He’s putting together some documentation of the SSC EMEA ITIL processes and was interested to get some insight into how we do things in Oz.

Weekly phone ‘catch up’ with AT&T – Magnus Pierre (account manager) and Håkan Stegrud (service manager). About 12 items on the list including some AVTS activations, ANIRA/EVPN terminations, some sites missing in PIP and progress on some quotes they are waiting on.

Goulash with rice for lunch. I see a pattern developing – had something with rice for the last three lunches. I think I’m picking the least Swedish dishes… have to do better next week. Speaking of food, every Friday afternoon the IT department has what they call ‘Fika’ – coffee and cakes. I looked it up and turns out ‘Fika’ actually means ‘coffee’ so that kind of makes sense. Not too sure where the cakes come from (pastries is probably more accurate), but I think someone has to go out and buy them. I had hot chocolate, no coffee for me.

Got chatting with one of the younger guys, Johan. He’s a Landskrona local and has invited me out tonight and tomorrow. Tonight we’re going to a bar/pub to see some live music. He described it as ‘rock’ – I don’t think they’ll be playing ABBA. Tomorrow night, however, we’re going to another pub and watching the first of the Swedish Eurovision Song Contest heats. Apparently Dolph Lundgren (aka Captain Ivan Drago, the Russian in Rocky IV) is one of the hosts. Should be a laugh.

Tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches for dinner tonight. My excuse for not putting effort into cooking dinner is that we have a hearty lunch at work!

Day 6

Running a bit late. Quick Skype with Jodie this morning then out the door. Made it to the bus stop on time but bus 10 minutes late. Not a big deal though, don’t have to clock in at the office (although on an interesting side-note, everyone else at Entrance Systems does – including IT).

Spent the morning responding to emails. Received a 1st draft of the article about me that’s going on the local Intranet. Reworked it and sent it back, along with a photo for the article. It should be online tomorrow (unless something more newsworthy happens!).

Niklas offsite until after lunch at a Gartner seminar. Spent some time with Jan, who gave me an overview of their Password Manager software. They use a product by ManageEngine – web console with SQL back end. It’s a bit slower than our system, but is much more powerful. Can be very granular with access rights, it logs all activity so you can see who’s accessed what passwords etc.

Beef stroganoff with rice for lunch, another winner. Made plans to go down to Malmo next Saturday (13th) and get shown around by Jan. After lunch I resolved some outstanding issues, sent some emails then home time.

Spent 20 minutes in the supermarket trying to decide what to cook for dinner. Gave up, decided to give the local take aways a go. Took a walk and found what looked to be a poor man’s McDonalds.

The place was called ‘Sibylla’ and kind of felt like I had come straight out of communist Russia. After checking the menu out for about 5 minutes I settled on a ‘Super Meal’ (burger, chips and a drink). Let’s just say it wasn’t the greatest dining experience ever – the meat was pretty gross and the patty was about half an inch bigger than the bun. I will say the combination of tomato sauce, mustard and what looked to be big mac sauce saved the day. I probably would have stopped eating after one bite had the sauce not tasted so good. The chips were cold and the coke, well okay, the coke was fine. The old grumpy lady behind the counter waggled her finger at me when I took a photo – wonder what they were trying to hide?

NOTE: In fairness, I looked up Sibylla when I got home and found that they use a combination of beef and pork in their meat (not that uncommon in Sweden, you can buy this blend in the mince meat section of the supermarket). Might have been why the meat tasted a bit tough, it kind of was a bit like eating sausage…

One more day till the weekend!

Day 5

Skype with Jodie in the morning, Internet in Melbourne cuts out half way through. About 5 text messages later and Jodie gets it working again – that’s my girl! Usual breakfast of Kalas Puffar then off to the bus stop. Bus running late, waited about 15 minutes. Cold walk to the office through moderate wind and light snow. Fresh snow on the ground (apparently we got about 20cms overnight).

Nice girl at reception helped me translate the menu today – picked chilli con carne with rice, talk about coincidences; have to see how it compares to mine.

Phone conference with Romania to discuss upcoming migration to tennet. Slight confusion regarding remote access usage, Jan will travel to Romania to oversee the migration.

Web demo of software to manage folder security – can’t remember the name right now. Software was interesting – allowed you to audit folder access from the directory or user perspective. Easily find out who has access to particular folders, and how they are getting the access. Similarly, lets you find out exactly what folders a user, or group of users, have access to. Ability to log all changes/adds/deletes etc. to any files or folders in the directory structure. Would have been great for our file structure project last year. Not sure how useful it would be on an ongoing basis though.

Lunch was the best so far – chilli con carne was good (although I think mine was better). Ate with Niklas, the rest of the department had finished by the time we arrived. Talked about health care system in Sweden, taxes etc. I learnt that: Sweden has a GST of 25%, most common income tax is about 30%, and companies have to pay 65% of your salary to the government in taxes and pension/super. They also get free health care, but apparently this doesn’t include dentist visits. Parents get a ridiculous amount of leave when a baby comes along.

Closed a few Helpbox requests, started to feel like I was becoming useful. Niklas gave me a lesson on email delivery (MX records, how AT&T’s Secure Email Gateway fits in to the picture). Went through Helpbox and looked over some documentation. Will go through this in more detail with Helene Strom in Stockholm next week.

Went to a shopping center near Helsingborg with Niklas and family after work. McDonalds for dinner – had a Big Tasty burger. It was bit, but not that tasty. Visited my first H&M, which I found out is actually a Swedish company so it’s not surprising there are so many stores in Sweden. Bought some slippers for the apartment to keep my feets warm and a few extra pairs of socks. Also stopped at the local System Bolaget – the Swedish bottle shop. Was surprised to find VB in the beer section and not Fosters! The Osslen’s drove me back to the apartment so I didn’t have to freeze my butt off getting home.

Skype with Danny and the gang back in Melbourne then bed.

Oh yeah – saw my first IKEA next to the shops we went to. Whoever told mum that IKEA wasn’t yellow and blue in Sweden was right – the logo was RED!

Day 4

Slept right through until my alarm today (6.30am); first time since arriving. Skype with Jodie before a quick breakfast, shower and out the door to the bus stop. Only had to wait about 5 minutes for the bus to arrive. 5 minutes to the train station, then about another 5 minutes walk to the office. Picked my lunch from the menu at reception – luckily Jan arrived at the same time so he helped with the translation of the menu. I picked what he described as ‘meat and potatoes’.

Spent the first hour re-doing my profile after joining the AD domain. Phone conference with Pat Dix (IT Manager, South Africa) to discuss a number of items. Two issues for me to follow up regarding their Exchange migration, which is only half finished. They have a need to keep a copy of every email sent and received from all SA mailboxes. Given he won’t have access to the Exchange server once his user accounts are migrated we need to come up with an automated solution. The other issue is that they currently use a linux based mail filtering software called ‘MailScanner’. This software quarantines any incoming mail with ‘suspicious’ attachments (mp3, avi, wav etc). The user is sent an email advising of this and IT can ‘release’ emails if requested. Need to find out if this functionality be replicated by ATT Secure Email Gateway? If so, to what degree?

Phone conference with Volvo IT to go over current open issues. About 15 issues currently outstanding.

Lunch was pretty good – it was indeed meat and potatoes. Boiled potatoes (they really seem to like those) and a fist-sized ‘meatball’ in a kind of gravy. The meat reminded me a bit of meatloaf, without the peas etc. Found out they pay about 5 Euros a day for lunch at the canteen. Not sure if this is good value – might be paying a bit for the convenience. They only get 30 minutes for lunch so not much time to go out and eat…

Spent the afternoon with Magnus Roos. He used to be part of the SSC team in EMEA but left the company about 3 months ago and is now working as a contractor. His area of expertise was AD and Exchange. Went over the structure of AD.global and know understand the security group set up a bit better. Sorted out an issue we’ve had with Exmerge in the new domain. Turns out you need to use an account that is a member of the ‘MailboxRights’ and ‘ViewOnly’ groups and IS NOT a member of the Domain Admins group. Tested with the ‘exmerge’ user account and confirmed that it was working. Discussed ‘single sign on’ for Keypoint. Seems like this is going to be one of my tasks while I’m here. Does not look to be a walk in the park. Aim will be to come up with a workable solution and submit it for approval – not to actually implement it (which is good).

Started snowing before lunch. Started light but got heavier as the afternoon wore on. Wind picked up as well, not looking forward to walking to the station. Luckily Magnus offered to drop me off. Picked up an onion, some face wash and a 1.5 litre bottle of water (for my cordial) before catching the bus home.

Cooked chilli con carne for dinner. Decided to use the rest of the Dolmio sauce in place of tomato puree. Came up pretty good - froze the left over chilli for later.

Day 3

Wake up 5.30am. Attempts to get back to sleep fail. Turn laptop on around 6.30am and have cereal for breakfast. Chat briefly with Jono. Skype with Jodie before getting ready for work. Decide to go with work pants – no thermals – shirt, grey jumper, black puffer jacket, scarf, gloves and Nike Air Max. Work shoes in the backpack – no good for snow.

Picked up by Niklas around 8am then off to work. Stop past reception to fill out the lunch sheet – people pick from a four item daily menu in the morning. This is then ready for them at lunch time. First meeting is weekly SSC catch up. Review any after hours incidents taken by on call person – incidents are logged in spreadsheet including date, helpbox number, time call taken, time spent, description/comments. Niklas tells me he’s investigating potential alternatives to Helpbox. Options being considered (at this early stage) include Remedy, Microsoft’s solution (still in beta) and an online service. Demo of online service looks great – early pricing indication is $100 US per analyst. Fully ITIL compliant, looks great.

Phone conference with Niklas and Chris to discuss Volvo IT proposal/pricing, then lunch in canteen. Don’t know the Swedish names for what I had but it was sliced big sausage (boiled?), a mash of potato, carrot and swede/rutabaga, bread and butter and Pepsi. Not a fan of sausage, mash okay, bread great.

Meeting with Sharon Bowker, Corporate Communications officer for Entrance Systems/Besam. Turns out she’s ‘interviewing’ me for a piece on their Intranet. Nice lady, originally from Indiana. Been living in Sweden for 7 years – misses American football too! Explained her role as the editor of Besam intranet – Insite and upcoming migration to Sharepoint.

Spent afternoon with Jorgen, Entrance Systems infrastructure support technician. Much the same set up we have in Melbourne. Supporting about 250 users on site, using Dameware + NT Utils. Asset register is a spreadsheet, works as well as ours. Using Helpbox as call logging software – the phone only rings once the whole time I’m there. Apparently they have been successful in getting people to log request via email instead of calling. SOE developed by someone in Belgium? One image per model, no Ghost server. Deployed using boot CD. SOE consists primarily of Windows XP – no additional software, no sysprep. They have to run a SID removal tool after the image is loaded and deploy software via group policy. Ask about any issues deploying via GPO and he says they don’t have any. Similar set up to us – DFS share for packages. No PST file policy, can be stored on network or locally. Do not disable Auto Archive as we do. Have ‘synchronisation’ software running on laptops/desktops that copies Desktop/Favorites/My Documents to H: drive on server. Developed in house. Can be used to copy sync’d data back down to new computers. Backup Exec used for backups – to disk then tape similar to us. F-Secure used for Anti Virus.

Stopped at supermarket (not Gross) near work before catching bus home from the station. Picked up ingredients for chilli con carne, get home and realise I forgot to get an onion. Toss up cooking without and decide not too. Spaghetti for dinner again. Ice cream for dessert. Listening to Huesy and Kate on Nova while writing in Journal. Good to hear Australian news. In bed shortly after 10pm.