My 1st Business Trip

My first week in London was very eventful! My second week in London… was actually nonexistent. In fact, the first day in my new office, I had to schedule a business trip for the next week to Bratislava, Slovakia to host a workshop and attend a team offsite.

I flew into Vienna on Monday morning because flights directly into Slovakia are not convenient. I didn’t realize how close the Slovakian border is to Vienna. With a speedy taxi driver, we were in Bratislava within an hour of landing. We headed straight to the office and started working on our presentation for the workshop. Unfortunately the week was so packed with work activities, I didn't have any time to explore the castle atop the city or any other sites. Bratislava is really a hidden gem that a lot of people don't even know exists. They prefer to go to bigger cities nearby like Budapest or Vienna. So many large companies have started moving into Bratislava, i.e. Dell, E&Y, etc., that the city has completed transformed into a major business center with a charming, historical aspect to it as well.

We did spend a lot of time walking around the Old Town in the evenings after work. The Old Town is typical of a small European city: cobblestone streets, beautiful churches, and stone fountains centered in town squares. On Wednesday night we had a team dinner at Primi, a delicious pizza restaurant in the Galleria shopping center. The weather was beautiful, so we sat outside along the banks of the Danube River.

Bratislava Castle overlooking the Danube River

I had been having connection problems at work since I moved from America to Europe. My domain changed, which changed my computer settings. So in the evenings, I was a bit bored. I couldn’t work. I couldn’t watch TV because none of the stations in the hotel were in English, except for the news, which replays the same stories and can be depressing. I finished my book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, on the plane and didn’t think to pick up the second novel in the series before I left England. I found a couple of bookstores in Brat, but none of them carried books in English. I tried watching some TV shows through Hulu.com or ABC.com but apparently those sites are US-based and do not have licensing rights to stream overseas. (I am going to miss Wipeout this summer!) Next time, I will bring my tennis shoes so I can work out, and an extra book!

On our last evening in the city, we walked through the Old Town past the gorgeous Opera House to an Argentinean steakhouse for dinner.

Bratislava Opera House

While window-shopping in the area after dinner, I noticed Mozart candies!

I first had Mozart candies when I visited Salzburg, Austria with my family 10 years ago. We all fell in love with the chocolate covered nougat and pistachio marzipan center. My grandma found the candies in an international food store in Minnesota about 6 months ago and sent me some. But I haven’t had any since. I soon figured out that since Brat is so close to Austria, the candies are everywhere! I just hadn’t been looking for them! People told me to pick them up in the airport because there’s a hundred stores selling them, but I figured that would be more expensive and decided to purchase them in the Old Town. Little did I know that there are two types of Mozart candies! And I had just purchased the knock-off!!

I bought 3 boxes – one for David and me, one for Karen to thank her for helping us get settled, and one for my parents to thank them for taking care of Kirby. After dinner and shopping, some coworkers and I headed to an Irish pub. After a couple of drinks, we broke open a box of candy so they could try the chocolates I’d been raving about all week. They were sadly disappointed, but I was the most disappointed when I tasted the knock-offs. Right away, I tasted a difference, so I examined the box more closely. Then I noticed the background in Mozart’s picture was brown, not green (for the pistachio, I assume). The knock-off chocolates did not have pistachio in them. It was more chocolate inside (which goes with the brown background, I guess).

Real Mozart Candies - Notice the Green Background

We left early the next morning for the Vienna airport. When I walked inside, the first thing I saw was a huge store displaying hundreds of real Mozart candy boxes. I refused to buy a whole box of the real thing, since I had 3 boxes of the other candies in my suitcase already. So I found some individually wrapped real Mozart candies and purchased a few. When I got home, I did a taste test with David and he actually preferred the knock-offs to the real thing. And I have to say, they are growing on me. They taste kind of like chocolate-covered cherries. So I still gave them away as gifts! Needless to say, if you ever go to Austria, notice the real Mozart candies are called Salzburg Mozarts with a green background and the knock-offs are called Austria Mozarts and have a brown background.