First Time Abroad

Hej! My name is Audrey Bay and I am the Traffic Coordinator for the Consumer Marketing department at Bonnier Corporation in Winter Park, FL. I have been working for Bonnier since the fall of 2007 and have watched the company and department grow by leaps and bounds in a short time. My job as Traffic Coordinator is to assist the Production team by managing and tracking the approval of materials for all direct mail programs. Any piece of direct mail sent out by the Consumer Marketing department has to see its way through me at least once before it makes its way into the hands of the consumer.

Here at Bonnierförlagen, I will be working with the Production team on special research projects. Although I am moving from direct mail to books, the basic production processes are the same and I am pleasantly surprised at how familiar I’ve been with the material here at Bonnierförlagen.

My first week was definitely overwhelming, but in a good way. Everyone here has been so nice and has made sure that my temporary move to Stockholm was nothing short of smooth. Being in a city where “Bonnier” is a household name is such an interesting experience. They’ve actually been running a documentary on the Bonnier family over the course of a few episodes on one of the TV stations since I’ve been here.  Unfortunately, it is obviously all in Swedish and I haven’t been able to understand. I’ve been here almost two weeks, but I haven’t quite mastered the Swedish language just yet!

So far, I’ve visited Gamla Stan (Stockholm’s old town) and various other parts of central Stockholm. I’m lucky to have visited in the warmer months, but being a native Floridian, 54◦ F isn’t necessarily what I would call “warm”. I’m expecting it to warm up a lot more in the coming weeks and this will make for much nicer “exploration” weather. I dedicated almost the entire first week to getting over my jet lag and now that I’m feeling much better, I plan to start building my Stockholm itinerary.

Because it is my first time abroad (and out of the United States for that matter), everything seems to be different. I’m fascinated by almost everything I come into contact with, much like a small child.  Stockholm is such an amazingly clean city and everyone is so nice and helpful. Everything you see is much more “environment-friendly” and it makes you wonder why every city isn’t more like that. Being the foreigner will take some getting used to, but it’s hard not to feel at home when everyone is so accommodating to that fact.

I have many exciting trips planned in the coming weeks and I can’t wait to really dig in!

Slide show: Audrey's first time abroad