Kaknastornet & Triumph Motorcycles

So I finally had Swedish Meatballs! They were really good; even though my picture of them isn't the best quality. But yeah... I had meatballs on Saturday and then I went to Kaknastornet and took some pictures of the city from up high. It was my favorite touristy thing that I have done since I've been here. Everything looks so nice from up high.

This week I've been working at Triumph Motorcycles AB which is located south of Stockholm near the biggest IKEA in the world. The company here is just a distributor, so they don't manufacture or sell to customers - they sell to dealers. It was very different from working at Skandia and that's mainly due to two things: (1) Triumph is smaller and (2) for Skandia we were doing a Q2 review and for Triumph it's an annual audit.

At Skandia my main job was to make sure the numbers on Skandia's records matched the numbers on the report they were giving to Old Mutual. But here at Triumph, I have had a lot more responsibility (at least it's felt like it). They gave me the accounts I needed to audit and pretty much just told me to go get 'er done. I have the previous years files to help me know what types of things need to be done and the people I work with answer any questions that I have.

I have been working with the client personnel a lot more here than at Skandia. I'll find something that I have a question about and I'll tell Samuel or Katrin and they'll say something like, "That's a good question, you should go ask..." So it's been neat to feel like a real auditor. I audited accruals, prepayments, cash, accounts payable, and fixed assets. And it's been neat because they have been my babies - I did like all the work on them.

It has been good to see both types of work - big client with more robotic work and small client with more project-like work. There are pros and cons to both types of engagements and it has been nice to work on both.

So that's that! I just have a few more days left here in Sweden, so I'll need to finish soaking it up.

More Gamla Stan and "Under the Bridges"

After work on Friday the weather was nice and so I decided I would go on the "Under the Bridges" tour in case the weather gets bad again. I got my ticket and I had about 30 minutes before the boat left, so I walked over to Gamla Stan and had a nice little stroll around the Royal Palace.

I really enjoyed the tour. There was a lot of repeat information from my bus tour and the archipelago tour, but I did get to see some new sites and learn some new things. I took a lot of pictures and those are in my album (about half of what I say is actually in the picture album because I try to give good captions - so if you really want to see what I'm up to, look at the pictures). So yeah... good day in Stockholm and it's now my last weekend here.

2302

I'm finished with Skandia now! I had a good time working there and I enjoyed the people I worked with: Tim, Erik, Winnie, Magnus, Malin, and others. The first couple days of the week were a little slow because the client was a little behind in getting some reports turned in. But Wednesday was pretty crazy because all the reports were turned in and so we had a lot to do. We were busy all day Wednesday and I ended up working until 11:02 that night (I remember the time because Tim left a note for Winnie that had "2302" written on it). So I didn't get back to the apartment until 11:30. Even though it was a long day, it felt really good to be busy and to have my work be appreciated.We went in on Thursday to finish things up and I thought we might be done with Skandia by lunch time, but I ended up working on Skandia all day until about 5:45. But now I'm done and it feels good to have accomplished something.

Friday I was in the office making a spreadsheet and doing some other odd jobs for people. I got a kebab at my favorite kebab place (so I've only been to 3 places, but this place was so good that I had to go again).

This is what a kebab wrap looks like. At most kebab places you can also get falafel or kebab meat with fries. Yummy.

Cool beans

On Monday night I got to go over to Mattias's house with Rob and they had invited two other friends over. It was really fun and we had a good dinner. Hannes - Mattias's son - really likes hip hop and his favorite "artist" is 50 cent.

On Tuesday I went to the National Museum on my way home from work. While walking there, I saw this guy in a kayak:

I had a good time at the museum. I posted some of my favorite pictures in my album. I feel weird saying this, but I found out that I really do enjoy art. So it has been a good few days and I'm glad that I have now been to the National Museum.

Bizzay, Gamla Stan, Archipelago

I was working at Skandia this week and I had a good amount of stuff to do. Thursday was really busy and that was fun: I had things that I had to get done for two different people while at Skandia, then I needed to meet with someone else to get instructions for making another spreadsheet, but I had to drop off some papers in the office on my way to meet him and then I had a mid-point performance review over the phone right after that. It felt good to have such a busy day. But it was nice to get to the weekend so that I could do some tourist stuff.

I did end up going to that one museum by the office on Wednesday. It was a Mediterranean museum that had a bunch of old statues and they even had an Egyptian section with a mummy and a bunch of coffin thingies. So that was cool beans.

But yeah, I went on an archipelago tour on Saturday and it was pretty cool. I was planning on going on the noon boat, but when I got to the ticket place it was sold out, so I bought a ticket for 1:30 and went over to the old town for a little bit. It was neat to walk around Gamla Stan because it is so old and different. The streets are very narrow and most of them are just used by pedestrians. I'm going to have to go back another time when I'll have more free time to explore. The boat tour was nice. It was a beautiful day and the wind was blowing which made it feel even nicer. I saw a bunch of islands and learned all sorts of stuff about the archipelago.

So it was nice being a tourist and I have a lot more touristy things planned for my last two weeks here. I am going to try to be better about posting more often so that I can get some good stuff in about each of my little adventures.

Back at the Client

I sure do love my Chelsey and Hunter! I am so glad that the apartment I'm in has internet and I am so glad that Skype exists! So far, I've spent less than $15 talking to Chelsey and we talk for more than an hour on most days. And she just got Skype herself, so we have free video chats (we were already doing it with Gchat, but Skype has better quality). So that has been a lifesaver! I miss them a lot and it gets lonely living all by myself in a foreign city and a lot of the people I have met are away for vacation. I wish Chel and Hunter could be here with me, but we'll just have to wait until later in our lives to make the trip.

Monday I spent working on another spreadsheet for Nordea and then I had a conference call for the GIP program. I tried going to a statue museum that is near the office, but it was closed, so maybe I'll go on Wednesday. I ate a pizza - they are small and thin, perfect for one person - and then I got some groceries.

On Tuesday, Malin came by my desk in the morning and we walked to Skandia. Skandia is a big insurance company that was born here in Sweden. It was recently bought by Old Mutual. We are doing a Q2 review and I had the job of making sure that the numbers in their accounting system matched up with the numbers in the system used to report their information to Old Mutual. The senior on the job is Tim Yuan. He is from China (came here when he was 6) and he was suprised that I knew where TianJing is. He's a nice guy and I'll be meeting up with him tomorrow morning at Skandia. I also met Heinrich Peterson who is from Ostergotland (which is where I think my ancestors were from). We joked about how we might be relatives, but honestly he does look a little like he belongs to my family. Maybe I can snab a picture to see if anyone agrees... we'll see. So yeah, I'm excited to be working on Skandia and I'll be there until next Thursday.

Today was also the day that I met up with Meltem and Madeline after work to go on a tour bus. There was some interesting stuff, but it felt like it was too long (45 minutes should have been fine, but it was 1.5 hours). But still.... it was good to get some background on the buildings that I see all the time.

Weekend Time

So on Saturday I visited the Nordic Museum and went to see the Vasa. The Nordic Museum was ok, there were some interesting things, but I guess I'm just not the museum type. There were a lot of pieces of furniture and silverware that I just didn't find that interesting, but it was ok.

Then I went to see the Vasa which is a huge ship that sunk in 1628 and was rediscovered and raised up in the 1950s. This was more my type of museum. You can click here to learn more about the Vasa, but I'll give a brief rundown:

The King of Sweden was building up his navy and he wanted a big ship - the Vasa. It was launched and sunk within a few minutes because the bottom of the ship wasn't wide nor deep enough to hold enough "ballast" to keep it from tipping over. Back in the day, some divers got some of the guns from the ship and then everyone forgot about the Vasa until the 1950s. Some dude - Anders - started searching for it and was able to find it. It was preserved because of the "brackish" water - I guess some sort of worm lives in salt water that eats away at wood. So they raised the ship and it has its own museum now. I guess they used to let visitors go on the ship, but it has started to deteriorate, so they don't let you on anymore, but it still a really cool museum.

Then on Saturday night, Anna, from the recruiting side at KPMG, took me out to dinner with her friend. I guess the restaurant is run by the most famous chef in Sweden - he also has other restaurants, but this one is Anna's favorite. I was looking forward to a traditional Swedish meal, but I didn't realize that the "Grilled beef with bearnaise sauce" was really just a steak and it came with a side of fries. I just need to go order Swedish meatballs somewhere I guess. But it was a very good steak and it came from a Swedish cow. So that was fun.

So yeah.... I got to see some sights and have some fun this weekend. This week I'm planning on going to the National Museum on Tuesday and then next weekend I'll either take a tour of the Archipelago or go to the Royal Palace.

The Sun's Back!

When I left work on Friday, the sun was out! The past week has been rainy and gray, but now it is sunny again which is good for walkin' around. So I'm pretty happy about that. The last two days in the office I was able to find some things to do to keep me busy until I'm scheduled on a client again. Rob had me preparing some audit programs and then I was asked to help the Nordea team.

Nordea is one of the 4 major banks in Sweden: Nordea, Handelsbanken, SEB, and Swedbank. So I met with Richard (who went to Pepperdine for a year) and Peter who gave me an assignment to put together an excel file with some client data in it. I had fun designing the spreadsheets because it was a bit of a challenge for me using the grouping functions. But I got a good sheet together and then I had to enter data; not as much fun, but still better than nothing. Peter needed it done quickly, so I skipped lunch to work on it. I ended up working more on Friday than any other day this week even though Friday is supposed to be the short day. But I am really glad that I have things to do. I have another spreadsheet to make for Peter that I'll do on Monday. So yeah.... good times.

I actually remembered to take my camera with me, so after work I took some pictures of the scenery on the way home. And after a good Linner at home, I went to Sodermalm just to explore a little bit. I found some cool things and took a lot of pictures. It really is so nice to have the sun out again because walking around the city is much more pleasant.

Well.... I need to get out there and explore, so I'm gonna end this.

Spaghetti Success!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This time, my spaghetti was great! I got real pasta sauce (apparently last time I just got tomato puree or something), ground beef, mushrooms, and cream cheese. It turned out to be a very good meal, and I have leftovers! So that's cool stuff.

Anyway... things other than food are going well too. Today I worked on a review of JC Decaux's Q2. They are an advertising company and one of the things they do is make bus stops shelters where they rent out ad space. They are a very big company that is based in France. Today was a one-day thing where we just did a quick review to make sure everything looked right. I had a good time!

Last night I went down to the southern island of Stockholm with Flo and Rob. We ate at a Czech restaurant and I had schnitzel for the first time (other than Wienerschnitzel). According to Flo (who's from Germany), it was almost like the German kind. The other guys got a good bit of drinking in, but I was still able to have a good time.

Another cool thing that I did yesterday was get a subway pass. I've gone for a few rides on the subway already and it's pretty nice. I still like walking around the city, but it's nice to be able to go anywhere in town without wearing out my feet too much.

So yep.... things are going well. I need to remember to take my camera around so I can get some scenic pictures.

Workin'

First off.... I've added a couple things.... I put comments on the pictures in my album and I put a link to a document that I'm making about things that I'm learning each day (part of goal setting for the program). So go ahead and check those out if you want.

Things have been going well! I've started work and I really like the people there. I'll probably talk more about stuff tomorrow, because now I'm tired, but I just wanted to post something. So here's a little taste of Swedish work life. This is what a desk looks like when the employee is on vacation (a lot of people are right now):

And this is what their desk looks like when they are working:

And here is another important part of Swedish work culture:

The coffee machine! We also have one in Sacramento, but this one is HUGE! And it's really nice. Mattias (a Senior Manager and my Performance Manager over here) talked about how drinking coffee was a core competency of auditors. But he is ok with me not drinking coffee. I use the machine though, for water and hot cocoa. So yeah... that's a little taste of office life here in Sweden.

Church - July 5th

So this isn't quite what the LDS chapel in Stockholm looks like, maybe next week I'll remember to take my camera and I can post a picture of the real one. But there are a lot of big old churches here! On my way to church the streets were really quiet - it was nice. I thought maybe they just didn't do much on Sundays, but on the way back the streets were busy again. So I guess they just relax on Sunday mornings - so that's neato.

I had some frosties for lunch, and then, because my spaghetti wasn't good, I had more for dinner. Turns out that it was milk! And it's good milk! Even though my cooking didn't have good results, I really enjoyed it and so I think I'll try to make Swedish meatballs next Sunday. After my meal, I went out and took a few pictures.

So it was a good day. I'm excited to start work tomorrow! I'm not quite sure what to expect, but I'll find out soon how the rest of my month will be.

Here's a video showing what my elevator is like.

First Day - July 4th

Well I'm here now! I had a long flight from Atlanta to Stockholm (it was only 9.5 hours, but I wasn't comfortable and didn't sleep much, so it felt longer). I hadn't thought about the route we would take though - we went up north over DC, New York, Halifax, Greenland, and then over Norway. I got to see fireworks in DC from the plane window, that was neato. But yeah, I made it.

Meltem, my mentor, picked me up from the airport and we took a cab downtown. I got into my apartment and found out that I have internet - which is such a relief. I got Skype ready so that I could call Chelsey. And after talking to her I went out!

I walked from my apartment to where the church is, just to make sure I knew how to get there for tomorrow. Then I wanted to explore a little bit and looked for a place to get dinner. I checked out where the office is and then walked around town more before going to the grocery store. That was a different experience - I was really suprised at how little English was in the market (not like Singapore and Malaysia that had a lot of products labeled in English). So I ended up getting cereal, what I think is milk, eggs, bread, and pasta supplies. Maybe I can get some pointers from the missionaries about where to shop and what to eat.

Anyway, it was a good first day. I am excited to get to know the city more. So that's it for today! I'm going to post some videos that show my apartment and tomorrow I'll talk about church in Sweden.

Intro

So I decided I would make a blog about my trip to Sweden. I thought it would be a good way to document what goes down, especially since I am horrible at keeping a journal. So I’ll be posting pictures, videos, and stories here for anyone that is interested.

Right now I’m flying to Atlanta where I will get on my flight to Stockholm. So I don’t have any cool stories about Sweden yet, but I thought I’d have my first post be about how I got here and what has happened so far.

I’m majoring in Accounting at BYU and most of us in the program at BYU end up going into one of the Big 4 accounting firms. So I had to decide which city and firm would be a good fit for me. Since Chelsey and I don’t like the snow, we thought of California. And we decided we would go to Sacramento because it isn’t as expensive as LA or San Francisco and my parents live there. So then I needed to decide which firm I would go with. Last year I visited some firms in Sacramento to get a feel for where I would fit in and one of the major deciding factors for me was that KPMG made a global rotation seem much more plausible than the other firms – KPMG seemed to have more of a global focus. So when I got an offer for a Summer Internship from them, I accepted.

After I accepted my offer, I saw KPMG advertisements for “Global Internships” and I thought that sounded pretty cool, but I also thought that I had missed the boat because I didn’t know about it when I applied and got my offer. I also thought that maybe those types of opportunities weren’t available for a small office like Sacramento. So I didn’t think much of it.

But then on my birthday, February 26^th, I got an email from KPMG inviting all summer interns to apply for the Global Internship Program (GIP). I was so excited about it, but I knew that Chelsey wouldn’t be as happy as me. I told her that I thought this opportunity was my birthday gift from God and that it was something I could not pass up. Although she knew she would miss me, she supported my decision because she knew how much this meant to me. So I applied for the program with my first choice destination being the UK.

A week after applying, I found out that I had been selected for a phone interview. I found out that about 400 of the 1000 interns applied for the GIP and about 60 got phone interviews and that 15-20 would be selected for the program. I felt like the phone interview went well, but the day they were supposed to get back to us I kept checking my email and I wasn’t getting anything. So I figured that I hadn’t been selected and tried to move on. But later that night I checked my email again and I had gotten a reply. It said that I had been selected to participate in the program and that I would be going to Sweden! I was so surprised! And Sweden?? It wasn’t even on the list of participating countries. But I was so excited! So it turns out that the UK wasn’t able to participate this year, but Sweden came in late and said that they could, so I get to go there! And it’s perfect because I am a quarter Swedish, so it will be cool to go to the land of my ancestors.

So I started my internship in Sacramento, went to a week of training in Orlando, went back to Sactown to work on the audits of Sunsweet and Blue Diamond, and now I’m here – on my way to Stockholm. I just think that KPMG is so cool for providing this opportunity. I’m not even a full time employee, but they’re investing a bunch of money in me for me to go to Sweden for a month. And especially during these tough economic times, it is really cool that they kept this expensive program going because of their commitment to being a global firm with global employees. So thanks KPMG!

So that’s my introduction! I hope that I didn’t bore anyone, but I promise that my future posts will have pictures and stories to keep your interest. Thanks for following my trip to Sweden! If you have any questions, feel free to post them and I’ll respond.