Group Bonding

I'm at the Bonnier Media University Publishing Program today through Wednesday, and so far it's been an incredibly interesting and strange experience. Today's objective was simply to get to know the other members of the program. There are 19 of us from all over the world, and everyone is very bright, professionally accomplished and employed in the Web media field, which makes for narcissistic but really engaging interactions. ("Ooooh, you're just like me! Fascinating!) I'm forbidden from talking in too much detail about what we discussed in the classroom, because that would ruin the surprise for future program participants and also break the circle of trust or whatever, but I will say that the day's activities required us to dig into relationships with our colleagues on an intellectual and emotional level right off the bat. (Now you're REALLY wondering what's up with the photo above, but I'll let you wait another paragraph and a half to find out.) After just one day, I feel like I know about half of the 19 people quite well. We'll meet for this program five times between now and May, and the idea is that we'll improve our leadership skills and learn new techniques and ways of thinking about Internet business.

This session is being held at a country resort about 40 minutes outside Stockholm called Thoresta Herrgård. It's a simple but very cozy bed and breakfast (lots of candles and fireplaces everywhere), but the food is off the hook. I had no idea I'd be enjoying a fine culinary experience when I signed up for this course. I wish I could recite tonight's menu, but it was in Swedish, so I have to just try to remember what we ate. There was an amuse-bouche of some sort of seafood bisque with a ravioli, a first course composed of several pretty little sashimi (arctic char, salmon and scallop) with dollops of horseradish cream, white chocolate-cauliflower puree (much tastier than it sounds) and parsley jelly (also delicious, despite seeming strange). The meat course consisted of a slice of braised pork belly (Oh. My. God.) a gamey little sausage round and some fixins' (pickled onions, minced apples, mustard cream). Then there was a dainty cheese course with little cubes of brie, some sort of sharp Swedish cheese and a bit of blue cheese, followed by dessert: pear-yogurt ice cream, a dollop of chocolate mousse, and a sliver of apple cake. Seriously, I vote for the chef at Thoresta Herrgård to cook the next Nobel dinner. Throw my paltry little fantasy menu out the window—this was hands-down the best meal I've had in Sweden.

The night was capped off with an activity I mercifully managed to bail out of: a group session in the sauna. (By the way, I have no idea who those people in the photo are. It's a stock image.)

To Swedes, it's apparently perfectly normal to hang out nude in a 110-degree room ass-cheek-to-cheek with the people you work with. Call me crazy, but I don't want to be across the meeting table from some colleague a week from now and have to think to myself, "I've seen this guy naked." And we're not even going to talk about the Finnish people who beat each other in the sauna with birch branches. I'll leave you with that thought.