Saturday, September 6, 2008

A surprise visit to Finland


One week ago, while on the way to a job interview in Brussels (the world is going global;-)) my interview partner mentioned that he would be going to Finland to see the "Arrival of the Penguins".

Probably you frown your forehead as I did and ask, "What do you mean? Penguins in Finland around that time of the year? What are you talking about?".

Pretty soon it became clear what he meant: "Penguins" are the new students at Team Academy who were due to arrive in Jyväskylä on Monday, 25th of August 2008.

A phone being held to me with a peeping sound - the number of a Team Academy guy had been dialed already- made it all too clear: I was invited to come up north joining in the Team Academy Experience.

What to do? No ticket, no stuff for the cold north, no idea what was coming.......questions over questions.

The only thing that was clear was: THAT IS A CHANCE OF A LIFE TIME!

Sitting in a small restaurant south of Brussels with my interview partner, Charles van der Haegen, I decided: Check it out, Amsterdam Schiphol Airport is not too far away and on my way to Amsterdam.

...and so it became true: landing on Finish soil on Sunday night around 11pm, arriving at the hotel downtown (where already some other folks heading to the same destination had taken their rooms earlier that night), and getting up the next morning around 5:30am in order to meet the others and catch a train up to Jyväskylä at 6:30am.

A mere three hours later the felt dream became reality: welcome to TEAM ACADEMY!

....and it has been taken on new hights, connections, friendships, learning, reflecting ever since:-))

3 comments:

RalfLippold said...

...the dream from 2008 has almost become a Xmas present:

THE LockOffice (homebase for the further exploration of the right place for the LockSchuppen)

http://mindbroker.de/wiki/LockSchuppen

RalfLippold said...

...the meanwhile we have moved to CoOrpheum, an old unused ballroom in the middle of the most vivid suburb of Dresden: http://flickr.com/CoOrpheum

A housing is fine and in a way necessary, however there is bigger idea and dream behind it:-)

RalfLippold said...

... now the circle is closing in again - Charles and Ville arriving in Dresden on Tuesday afternoon.

http://twitter.com/ChvdHaegen/status/857614053285889