Day 3 - A Rainy Start, But We Made It To Sweden!

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After yesterday’s rainy afternoon in Copenhagen, the forecast for today was windy in the morning with temperatures rising during the day and a bright sunny afternoon in Gothenburg, Sweden as we headed northeast. Unfortunately, the weatherman could not have been more wrong. As we left a slightly breezy Copenhagen in the morning, the rain began and the temperature began to drop. By the time we got to Gothenburg, it was cold, rainy, and we were in shorts and t-shirts. But the bus ride was nice, and the scenery began to change as we crossed into Sweden and headed northeast.

Maja went over some of the differences between Denmark and Sweden that we may not have noticed. There are not nearly as many bicycles in Sweden as Denmark, as all of Denmark is almost completely flat while Sweden is much more hilly. Bicycles work best on flat land, but with the hills of Sweden it’s more difficult to ride a bike. I have noticed a bunch of electric scooters in Sweden that were not in Denmark.

The other really weird thing about Denmark is that over the last 100 years, it has been almost completely deforested by its residents. Consequently, there is almost no wildlife remaining in Denmark. The government is only now trying to replant forests, but it will be a long time until the environment is back to where it should be.

By the time we got to Gothenburg, the rain was beginning to subside, but the weather was cold. We got to the hotel about noon, but the hotel had been fully booked the night before as there were about 65,000 people in town last night for a Bruce Springsteen concert, and the rooms were not yet ready. No big deal, we were getting hungry for lunch, and luckily our suitcases were in the lobby so we could grab our raincoats as the rain was beginning to pick up again.

We learned a Swedish word today: fika. Fika basically means having a coffee or tea with a snack and the Swedes are very serious about having a fika often. Luckily there were several coffee and pastry shops near the hotel, so we picked Eva’s Paley across the street and had some delicious coffee and a pastry while sitting in a very eclectic coffee shop with some interesting comfy couches.

By the time we finished our fika, the rain was barely a drizzle when we met up with our local tour guide Kristina. So, with raincoats or umbrellas, we took off for the city tour. The bus took us to the center of the old city, and within a few minutes of the bus dropping us off, the rain began to fall in earnest. Kristina took us into a local church to escape the rain and continue with at least the oral part of the tour.

Gothenburg is the second largest city in Sweden and was founded in 1621 and currently has a population of over 600,000. The population has been growing lately by about 10,000 per year. It is also a university town as home to about 65,000 students. With a long history as Sweden’s largest shipping port, it was one a home to industry and manufacturing, but with the offshoring of manufacturing back in the 70’s and 80’s, the city began to decline in population. But with recent embracing of the tech industry, Gothenburg is back growing again with evidence all around of multiple construction projects.

We ended up just boarding the bus and Kristina continued her narration as we drove past several of the city sites. I’m sure the tour would have been much better if the weather had been a little more forgiving. We made it back to the hotel about 3:00PM and found that our rooms were ready. We had signed up for the optional Volvo Museum tour as Gothenburg is the home of Volvo from its inception in 1927. We had just enough time to head to our rooms, change into long pants and grab a jacket before getting back on the bus to head to Volvo. Fortunately, the entire Volvo Museum tour is indoors, so it would be fine, regardless of the weather outside.

There were about 15 of us who signed up for the tour, mostly the men with a few wives tagging along. Our tour guide was Soren, a long term retired employee of Volvo who gave tours of the museum to keep busy in retirement. The tour lasted about 1-1/2 hours with Soren, who loved to talk, talking almost the entire time. We followed all the cars from the prototype in 1927 to some of the various concept cars over the years to the modern Volvo cars and trucks with even some of the wartime cars, trucks, and even some jet engines.

Now, for me this tour was even more than I expected, and I was having a great time. There were a few car guys in our group that were also enjoying it as much as I was. But there we several others who obviously couldn’t wait to get out of there. They tended to sit in couches at the sides of the room and glare at their husbands in hope the torture would soon be over. To make matters worse, there were 2 guys that were just visitors to the museum who were not part of our group who somehow hijacked our tour and asked a bunch of questions making it last even longer. It was great for me, I enjoyed all of Soren’s stories, but by the end, most everyone else was ready to go. It was 5:30 and the museum had already closed at 5:00. The look on everyone’s face at the end when Soren suggested that there was a 20 minute film we could stay and watch in their theatre was priceless!

I won’t bore everyone with the details of the evolution of Volvo except to say they were the innovators in many of the safety features in modern automobiles including holding the patent on the 3-point seatbelt. They built a series of practical, no-frills, quality, reliable cars at a time when planned obsolescence was driving design everywhere else.

By the time we got back to the hotel, it was about 6:00 and we were ready to find some dinner. After last night’s small portion, organic, gourmet meal, we were looking for something a little more substantial and comfort food. There were plenty of restaurants up and down the streets within a short walking distance from the hotel, so we got a couple of recommendations from Maja, and headed out to explore. A lot of restaurants post their menu’s on the outside so you can see what they sell along with their prices, but some didn’t, and others only had their menu descriptions in Swedish, which in many cases have no relationship to the English word.

In the end we found a place called Joe Farelli’s that specialized in American food. It was crowded and we thought we would see what Swedes thought American food should be like. I had their Amazing Joe Burger which was a typical American cheeseburger with lettuce, horseradish mayo, jalapenos, and grilled onions. Not a combination I had ever seen at home, but it sounded great! It came with waffle fries with the same horseradish mayo. Now, I like mayo on fries, but that’s not typical American – it should be ketchup. Jody had teriyaki salmon and a Caesar salad. All of it was very good, the burger was a little dry, but no worse than I’ve had in the US. And Jody got to have her fill of sparkling water.

On the way to the restaurant, we had also spied a place called the Gelateria and we knew where to stop for dessert. One thing about Europe that we love is the ubiquity of gelato, and its deliciousness. Jody had a scoop of chocolate and I had a scoop of caramel and a scoop of licorice. I had never seen licorice gelato before, so of course I had to try it. It did not disappoint, and we will stay on the lookout for gelato for the rest of our trip!

Tomorrow, we are off to Stockholm. We are there for 2 days and we have a city tour, a maritime experience including seeing the Vasa, a 17^th century ship raised from the ocean floor, and a cruise with an authentic Swedish dinner afterwards. We also get a bunch of free time to explore. We can hardly wait!

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