A Trip to the City of Spas: Our 7th Team Retreat in Budapest

By David Brunnschweiler | November 8, 2018 (updated December 7, 2019) | Wortspiel

Posted by David Brunnschweiler

Actually I didn’t want to go to Budapest at all. I was there a few years ago to celebrate my graduation. The city had left no lasting impression on me. But this time everything was different.

Since we don’t have a shared office, our team meets every six months in different cities as a compensatory measure. The choice of locations is made jointly. Budapest won ahead of Reykjavík, Paris, Vienna and Ticino.

My expectations of the city were therefore restrained. All the more I was looking forward to seeing my team again.

We checked in at the Hotel Gellért, a vintage hotel that has the best days behind it. But there is Viennese Art Nouveau, a 100-year-old bath and a beautiful view of the Danube.

We all met for dinner in the city centre. The cuisine in Budapest is excellent. Also on this evening in Kazimir. We had a lot to tell each other and made our experiences with Pálinka, the high-proof Hungarian national drink.

Friday morning our flown in house photographer Boris motivated us to sporty top performances in front of the Chain Bridge.

The following walk on the nearby hill of the Fishermen’s Bastion with a magnificent view of the city was a bit more leisurely.

Afterwards we visited the Fricska. The menu was for gourmands, which left me a bit hungry.

We are free. This also applies to the organisation of the supporting programme. With some colleagues we wanted a challenge. In “Escape the Room” we had one hour to escape the eternal prison. Which we managed – three minutes before time ran out. My thanks go to Toni for the courage to lie in the coffin and to Jenny for her quick comprehension.

One of the highlights was again the dinner, this time in the “Getto Gulyas”. Laughter was caused by some adventurous dishes on the menu. We left out the rooster testicles.

Our last evening together we let “palink out” at the hotel bar. The result was a new key visual for our homepage, which actually went online for a short time:

The next day there was already an atmosphere of departure. Toni left us first. His Advent calendars called. Some of us let a guide show us the city.

I preferred to stay in the hotel to process some mails and relax.

In the early afternoon we met in a well-known ruin bar. Also during the day it is worth seeing. Very colorful and unusual. At least for Erik an ideal place to work.

Right next door we visited the street food market. It had something for everyone. Here I also ate one of my best burgers ever (and Stefan two of them).

For me it was time to say goodbye. Some others ended their day with a boat trip on the Danube.

It was very nice! To a new adventure in the next town.

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David Brunnschweiler is a Senior Consultant at Wortspiel. With a degree in business administration, he gained many years of marketing experience at Swisscom and SBB. Before that he worked as a consultant for a renowned Swiss advertising agency. David is passionate about scaling new products and services.