Hello everybody!! This post is about our day from this past Friday. We started off our Friday morning as usual, by having our favorite European breakfast at the good old hostel, and then made our way to our first company of the day, called Valea. Valea is a business law firm just across the river in Göteborg. This company visit was so interesting for me, because this is a field of study that I am thinking of going into as well! We met with the CEO and founder of Valea, Andrew Hammond, and fellow employee Viktor. Andrew is a European patent attorney who has 36 years of experience in intellectual property and he works primarily with contentious patent-related issues. Valea’s vision is to be recognized as a European market leader in intellectual property consulting and as the partner of choice for clients with a proactive and strategic approach to consulting. They help their clients to strengthen their competitive advantage. In essence, they help their clients to make the most money possible from their inventions by developing patents and trademarks to help preserve their ideas and the overall foundation of what their company is built upon. One aspect of business that they really focus on is timing with all of these new and existing companies. They believe the best way to establish a company to make the most profits is with essential and correct timing, because there is no point in making something that the market isn’t prepared for. And even with the most simplest of products a company can produce, there can be a dozen patents that go along with it. Long story short, how do you stop someone from stealing your ideas and your potential profit? Develop patents! This was such a great, interesting, and informing presentation to listen to, and Andrew is honestly the coolest guy! I sat across from him at lunch and he was so incredibly nice and gave me some great advice to live by, especially in the business world! For example, he told me to make sure to have fun and work with people you love, and to not be afraid to pivot in your career and challenge yourself. Unfortunately, due to privacy policies at the law firm, we had to sign a non-disclosure agreement, and therefore we were not able to take pictures of the offices, but below is a picture of our lunch that we had at the office building’s cafeteria!
After our visit and lunch at Valea, we went to our next company, which was Xylem. Xylem is a company that works on providing solutions to preserving and conserving water. According to recent statistics, the demand for water will increase 5 times by the year 2050, and the water supply on Earth is not changing to meet those needs! Therefore, Xylem’s mission is to efficiently save, protect, and control water every day. They are a leading global water technology provider with nearly $4 billion in revenues. They perform important, high-tech/quality projects around the world. Their slogan “let’s solve water” is a spirit of collaboration and promise of action. Along with the company Flygt, which is how they manufacture a lot of their products, they devote everything to advancing the smarter use of water. We met with Xylem employee Christian Ringström, and he gave a great presentation and even better life advice! He said to no matter what, listen to the customer and supplier. Also, if you make a promise, make sure you keep it and if you cannot keep it, inform the customer right away and don’t try to get around it. Below are some pictures from Xylem:
After we left Xylem, we were let loose to begin our free weekend! My friends and I were starving so we did a quick change of clothes at the hostel, and then went to our favorite Italian restaurant which is literally about 20 steps from the front door of our hostel, called Pasta Haus. This is the same one we went to the very first night we were here which serves authentic food straight from Italy with the Italian waiters that literally do not understand a word we are saying! But, let me tell you, it is the most incredible Italian food I have ever had in my life and I would be content with eating there every single day if I had to. I again ordered the lasagne:
Then, since it was Friday night, my friends and I decided to treat ourselves and we got some orders of creme brûlée for the table! Sam, Ashley, and I split the chocolate one!
We then went back to the hostel and chilled just a little bit and then decided to go to O’Leary’s, which is like a really popular Irish pub here in Gothenburg kind of similar to Dave and Buster’s where they have food, a bar, and lots of fun games you can play, along with a bowling alley! A big group of us went there and had a lot of fun!! We walked back to the hostel from there, as it is so close to us, and along the way we were so happily surprised to find that the street side crepe stand that we have been told the whole trip that we HAD to go to was finally open! The owner just kind of opens it on his own schedule and when he wants to, lol. But so we of course had to try out a crepe and it was definitely worth all the hype and was the perfect midnight snack!
Things I learned today:
- Swedish people honestly speak really good English, but something really funny is that they cannot differentiate an American accent from a British accent, so lots of times they think we are from England until we say something stupid that sounds American!
- Italian food in America is not Italian food and is awful compared to real Italian food
- We finally discovered a Swedish delicacy called Somersby, which is a pear cider, and it is actually a fairly reasonable alcohol and it is so good, especially on tap over ice!
- The chairs in Sweden/Europe are really small and uncomfortable compared to the chairs in the U.S.
- The dogs in Sweden somehow just look a lot different than the ones in the U.S., it is kind of hard to explain, but they are like a lot skinnier and have differently shaped faces and are a lot more well-behaved than American dogs?!
Well, that is all from that day. Looking forward to our long weekend and goodnight from Gothenburg!
Nicole's Adventures in Sweden 