I wanted to add that we had two amazing people to help us during Nobel Week. Dad had two people to help him during the week: Lena, for driving him around, and Eva, to help organize everything.
We found out some interesting professional info about Dad's driver for the Nobel Week, Lena, when we had the opportunity to socialize a bit with her and Eva when we had dinner with Minister Lee, on the evening before the Big Day.
The restaurant the Minister's people had picked was, of course, a chinese restaurant. It wasn't too far, but more on the outskirts of the city. We drove in the limo, with the others in taxis that had been arranged to pick everyone up from the Nordic Museum after the reception there (all thanks to Lena's organization).
Because it was outside of town, mum felt like we shouldn't make Lena and Eva hang around and wait for us, so she invited them. Minister Lee was quite happy to have them included, and in fact, his driver sat at our table too, sitting next to Lena.
We found out that Lena had worked for the limo company for 19 years, and had driven notables such as Gorbachev, the Emperor of Japan, Madonna, and other famous people. And now, also, my dad!
At the Nobel banquet, one of the laureates gave a shout out to her driver, saying that without him (I think it was a him), she would have been lost in Stockholm. Eva said later that this was the first time ever that anyone had acknowledged their driver in an official Nobel speech. Considering the speeches are transcribed and put on the Nobel.org website, it'll remain in history.
For Lena, we didn't get a chance to say anything publicly, but we enjoyed being driven around, her friendly nature, and of course, her excellent driving.
The Nobel organization calls Eva's job "assistant", aka "attache". Eva has an important position at the Swedish Foreign Ministry, and was chosen from what I'm sure were a lot of candidates for this position. She was back based in Sweden after a long career spent in foreign postings. She helped us with logistics, planning, timing, minding, organizing, and, from a personal perspective, was a friendly, calming presence every day. During the course of the week, we each got to know each other better, and by the end of the week, it was with regret that we had to say goodbye, but we hope to be able to keep in touch and return one day (in the summer) to Stockholm to meet again.
We found out some interesting professional info about Dad's driver for the Nobel Week, Lena, when we had the opportunity to socialize a bit with her and Eva when we had dinner with Minister Lee, on the evening before the Big Day.
The restaurant the Minister's people had picked was, of course, a chinese restaurant. It wasn't too far, but more on the outskirts of the city. We drove in the limo, with the others in taxis that had been arranged to pick everyone up from the Nordic Museum after the reception there (all thanks to Lena's organization).
Because it was outside of town, mum felt like we shouldn't make Lena and Eva hang around and wait for us, so she invited them. Minister Lee was quite happy to have them included, and in fact, his driver sat at our table too, sitting next to Lena.
We found out that Lena had worked for the limo company for 19 years, and had driven notables such as Gorbachev, the Emperor of Japan, Madonna, and other famous people. And now, also, my dad!
At the Nobel banquet, one of the laureates gave a shout out to her driver, saying that without him (I think it was a him), she would have been lost in Stockholm. Eva said later that this was the first time ever that anyone had acknowledged their driver in an official Nobel speech. Considering the speeches are transcribed and put on the Nobel.org website, it'll remain in history.
For Lena, we didn't get a chance to say anything publicly, but we enjoyed being driven around, her friendly nature, and of course, her excellent driving.
The Nobel organization calls Eva's job "assistant", aka "attache". Eva has an important position at the Swedish Foreign Ministry, and was chosen from what I'm sure were a lot of candidates for this position. She was back based in Sweden after a long career spent in foreign postings. She helped us with logistics, planning, timing, minding, organizing, and, from a personal perspective, was a friendly, calming presence every day. During the course of the week, we each got to know each other better, and by the end of the week, it was with regret that we had to say goodbye, but we hope to be able to keep in touch and return one day (in the summer) to Stockholm to meet again.
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