Stockholm with Data Scientists

Post date: Mar 15, 2020 11:22:32 AM

When I joined Klarna, I assumed I would occasionally need to go to the HQ in Stockholm Sweden. I have actually had to be there almost every other week since I joined. Which means I’ve stopped looking at Stockholm as a tourist destination and started thinking of it as home.

But I’m usually alone in my travels. Until we had a data science hackathon. Then me and all my fellow data scientists flew to Stockholm for a two day event and a few of us decided to stay for the weekend.

And because we were staying for the weekend, we needed to find alternative arrangements for a place to stay, because Klarna only covered the hotel for nights we were actually working. So I jumped on airbnb and found a yacht. Yes, you heard that correctly. It was a 4 bedroom, 4 bathroom yacht with a hot tub. It was the full Stockholm experience.

Kelley, my work wife from N26, decided to join us. Let it be known, she thought she was joining me because sometimes I’m bad at communicating details. I’d like to chalk it up to being used to traveling alone, but really it’s probably because I’m selfish.

Oh yeah and we did some touristy things. Peli was one of the scientists who stayed behind. She is one of my favorite people because she has an insatiable curiosity and is not at all inhibited about asking questions. Plus, she’s got a great smile and I enjoy spending time with her.

When in Stockholm, the most touristy destination is the old town, Gamla Stan. It looks like you would imagine Stockholm looked forever ago. The real joke is that most of Stockholm still looks like this. One of the things I marvel at whenever I visit Nordic countries is the scale of time. It’s even more extreme than when I visit Italy. There were civilizations here while the Native Americans were just starting to settle in the US. That’s some pretty intensely routed culture.

Kelley wanted a photo of herself, because she’s an independent badass woman.

I wanted a photo cuddling with Kelley because 1) I’m a cuddler and 2) she’s hot and by proximity I look hotter. Plus I included this photo to show how we were full tourists and basically stood in the street taking photos of each other for 20 min or so. Proper influencers in the wild style.

Ok, time for indulgent side tangent. I used to be a proper scientist. And I once had dreams of fancy, like I would work at an R1 university or go on to win a Nobel prize. To be clear, there is no Nobel prize for biology, only one for medicine. But still… it was a dream and dreams are allowed to be silly.

When I transitioned to industry I had to give up that dream. I’m no longer doing primary research, and I’m working in a field that differs substantially from the one I trained in. In Stockholm, there is the Nobel Prize museum. I love this photo because I’m with two of my favorite colleagues: Anil and Peli. But it also always smarts a little. I don’t regret the decision I made, I love my life and my work. But getting to where I am involved giving up a long held dream.

Fun fact: there are ferries that are part of public transportation in Stockholm. So we took a boat to our next destination: the Vasa Museum. In Stockholm a bunch of museums are located on an island (islands are kind of the thing in Stockholm. It’s an archipelago after all): Djurgården. We took the ferry from one island: Gamla Stan to the other island, Djurgården and our faces looked like this the whole way. This is the most excited Anil gets. Peli can get considerably more excited.

On the walk from the ferry terminal to the Vasa museum (more details about what that is in a minute, patience!), we passed the Viking museum. With this awesome photo opportunity out front. Peli and I staged a 15 minute photo shoot of me being excited about being a viking. I have almost no scandinavian blood in me, so this is the closest I’m going to get.

Now, the Vasa museum. It is unquestionably the biggest tourist destination in all of Stockholm, possibly all of Sweden. When I first heard about it, I dismissed it out of hand. What it is: a large old ship that sank and was then resurrected and put into a museum. I have lived in London, and claim to be from Boston. I have seen my fair share of sunken ships that have been pulled out of the water.

But then I walked in and I have to admit: this is pretty fucking impressive.

It is the only almost fully intact 17th century ship that has ever been salvaged.

The story behind the ship is also kind of funny. The ship was built between 1626 and 1628. On her maiden voyage she set sail into the water in Stockholm. About 1000m into her maiden voyage she tilted to the port side, and started filling with water. Sank on the spot. In front of a (then) massive crowd in Stockholm. But that’s a big fucking ship and the water there is not that deep. Additionally, they were only 120m from the shore. So the Vasa sank in full view of the crowd, with those aboard struggling visibly. It was a huge scandal at the time.

But the earth beneath that bit of water in Stockholm is very loose mud. The Vasa sank into the mud and settled pretty readily. Because mud provided an anaerobic environment, almost no deterioration took place. 300 years later, in 1960s they spent the time and effort to haul the almost entirely intact boat out of the water (the story of the divers who did this is SUPER impressive).

Sunday morning we bummed around the yacht (because I’m never going to be able to say those words again, I’m going to let them linger on their own).

Including a full on photo shoot so Kelley could update her tinder profile with photos of herself on our ridiculous yacht.

And stopped and get pastries on our way to the airport.

Finally, when I went back to look for photos for this post I found this one of Peli on the yacht. It is the closest to perfect I have ever seen any photo ever.