Spending the weekend in Göteborg

A little while ago (the weekend of 2 February actually, so I'm richly late in publishing this blog, as usual) I went on a weekend to Göteborg. Some might not know this but it is actually the second largest city in Sweden. I knew someone who lived there (and just to beat smart comments to the punch, yes it is through a computer game, drunken gaming can be cool!) who invited me over and who am I to turn him down!

So off I went (after spending f**king five minutes figuring Swedish train ticket machines out, now I know what an apex ticket is) on a three hour train ride during which I finished a lot of reading and got to see some of the Swedish landscape between Lund and Göteborg, which, unfortunately wasn't all that special. The trains are on time though so I was in Göteborg somewhere around 6, just in time for Sonny to pick me up in his brand new (one day old!) Volvo V-50. I have never seen a man so proud of his new car, though I must admit, it had seat-warmers, which we named 'ass-warmers'. Trust me, don't turn them on for too long, it might leave a big nasty mark ;).

That's gotta hurt!

After showing me his (very nice) apartment and my bed (also very nice!) we took the tram downtown (and after getting a ridiculous amount of money, I'll get to that). On the way there a friend of his joined us. The three of us were heading for delerium, both literally and figuratively speaking. It was a bar that had a pink elephant, but even better than the pink elephant, it had an assortment of 2400 different kinds of beer! Yes... twenty-four-hundred. I can tell you, it doesn't matter which country you're from, that's gonna hurt! So we ate some Elk-Goulash (you could say I saw my first Elk here, chopped up into pieces in my goulash), had a couple of beers, had a couple of jägermeisters. During this manly ritual of combining all sorts of beer with shots of jägermeister I taught Sonny how to pronounce one of his favourite beers 'Hoegaarden'. I think he still doesn't get it ;). Somehow we made it home safely after a warning that Sonny always falls asleep in the tram, but he didn't! There we proceeded to drink his favourite drink limoncello and watch some stand up comedy, which woke up Anki, the girl Sonny lives with. Sorry!

A Swedish day...

Next day was Swedish as hell. We drove around... *drumroll* THE VOLVO FACTORIES! Even though it might sound stupid I can tell you, they're quite impressive. It really is a village all in itself (Sonny referred to it as volvo town) with its own stores, bank, fire-station, etc. Also some very advanced testing grounds (apparently, I gotta trust sonny on that one) and a 3 KM long corridor, suitable for jogging...

After not getting on the Ferry (oooooh, so that's where all this traffic was heading, how do we get out of this line??) to god-knows-where, we ate some pizza and visited the largest marina in northern Europe. I can tell you it was pretty large, but it looked sort of funny, because all the boats were on land. I think the Swedish are still guessing as to what the use of a boat might be ;) (yes I know it is probably a lot colder up in Göteborg).

After this we visited a park in Göteborg. I thought it was great since there were seals swimming around there. They are predators and bite, or so the sign said. So watch out when you're swimming in Sweden, it is not very safe. Even though you won't get hit by boats, there are nasty seals out there! Also saw my very first Elk (alive this time) walking around between some fences. He wasn't as interested in me as I was in him but hey, I'll live.

... and a Göteborg night

At night we had dinner in a really good Pasta Place that Sonny knew (and they knew him as well! He wasn't even bluffing :)). The pasta was really really good (people who know me know I'm not the sort of guy to get so wild about pasta but it was!) and the cocktail he ordered us (which apparently wasn't on the menu, ooeeeee!) was really, really great as desert. So, beer, pasta and cocktails, that can mean only one thing! Rock Bar! He took me to a rock bar where some friends (that he also only met through IRC, can you believe it) of him were. This rock bar was awesome. It had a soft and a hard rock section (and a very FILTHY smoking section but hey, that's a disadvantage of non smoking bars I guess) and not even such terrible prices. The clientèle was, to put it mildly, very diverse, and that is a huge understatement. So fun fun fun! Nothing like that where I'm from. Some people who heard I was from the Netherlands practically begged me for some weed until they finally understood that we do not export our main tourist attraction.
As it turned out, one of the girls we met actually played on the same realm as we used to play, I guess coincidence hasn't left the world completely. Sonny's friend from yesterday also turned up even though he needed some more convincing, but I'm good at that ;). We had more of a good time until finally, somewhere around 4 we called it a night. A Göteborg night.

Sunday = resting day

Sunday wasn't that special. I got to see Hitman the movie at home, a hamburger place right near (good burger though :)), and the train station. Mostly we just rested. Also started my book again in the train to kill the time, should have brought two really.

All in all it was a great weekend. I got invited to come back over the summer which is something I will most definitely do!

And now the next stop really is Copenhagen :)

---

---