Full day in Gothenburg

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Yesterday’s bus ride, although unplanned haha, was quite lovely to Goteborg =)

First thing I noticed as we drove in to the city was the giant mall, Nordstan - omg, it is huge. I definitely made a note to myself that I was coming back there haha.

I have to say once again how much I love that dogs are everywhere - there seems to be two breeds of preference here: Chihuahua and Staffordshire/Pitbull Terriers. It’s odd haha, but still cute. I miss my pets =(

I found my hostel without much trouble - I’m staying about 15min from the core, and it’s on 3 tram lines… absolutely perfect! I got a 72-hour tram pass - I’m good to go. I FINALLY found a hostel with a working dryer, so I got laundry my done and planned my attack for the next few days.

This morning I got up relatively early. While getting ready, one of my dorm-mates started speaking to me in Swedish. Ah, the Norwegian trait has followed me in Sweden, jei. We switched to English where she quickly noted I must be Canadian… yes, yes I am. (I always love when they guess that rather than American.)

Turns out she was born in the States, but moved to Sweden 40 years ago because it was more liberal here - she had gender-reassignment surgery way back when. (Ah, the things people tell you when you first meet, when they know they’ll never see you again haha.) So, this turned into a lovely political rant about politics and policies and how much she loves Canada… I’m like… yes… we are awesome, I won’t lie haha.

Anyway! On that note, I started my day haha. I went up to Hemkop - grocery store to get some goodies, made my little bag up in the fridge back at the hostel, and then off I went to explore the city! It’s an interesting lay out - I certainly wouldn’t want to drive here, I’d have no idea where cars are allowed compared to the trams haha. Sometimes they share lanes, but most of the time they don’t. This took getting used to while trying to cross streets, for you see if it’s only a tram line they don’t both with the whole “cross-walk” thing.

I love all the little alley-ways and the great statues littered throughout the city - very charming. I walked down the main street, full of cute little cafes, tiny shops and of course… tourist shops. I wandered a bit, and then headed off to the Universeum - like the Ontario Science Centre and/or Museum of Science and Tech back home. It was really cool!

There was a section on the polar regions (seems to be very popular topic in Scandinavia). There was 4-level recreation of life on a mountain which was really neat - at the top was a wind chamber, “how to build an igloo” haha and some Sami (Aboriginal) stuff. As you walked down the “floors” there were lakes, rivers, streams, etc. There are actual fish in the water too, and birds flying around - it was really sharp! I love hearing birds chirp and sing.

At one point I was looking at the fish when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something furry dash down the pole. Sure enough a little wood mouse was scurrying around - they’re quick little buggers! I don’t think anyone else saw it… there were no shrieks haha.

Their “ocean zone” was unreal - it was better than many aquariums I’ve been to!! They had tank, after tank, of fishies - you name it, they had it in a display somewhere. (They had coral reefs, they had the Baltic Sea, etc.) They even had a “touch tank” where you could touch some sea things, including a sting-ray. I think my fav though was one of the oceans where you could walk underneath the fish/sharks. Narwhals look REALLY funny from below - they have two little slits (eyes..? I don’t know) and a mouth - I swear it always looks like they’re smiling!!

And yes, I saw a Nemo =)

They also had a bunch of reptiles, and a kajillion different snakes. It’s fun to watch people react to the snakes. They also had a multi-level rainforest - very cool. They had monkeys jumping around, and birds everywhere. Very fun.

I wrapped things up with a walk through the experiments/hands-on area. It’s fun to watch kids try things haha. They had all sorts of great exhibits though - I would’ve loved it here as a kid. I think my fav to watch was the drive test centre haha - it has like “how to drive a truck” (like 18-wheeler) and other driving simulations.

Afterwards I decided to take a long tram ride out to Saltholmen - the end of the line going south. It ends at the harbour, where you can take a ferry out to the surrounding islands and such. It was getting pretty late at this point, so I decided to skip that - although I’m sure it would’ve been lovely, I didn’t want to risk getting stuck out there haha. Now that would’ve been a story!

I did some window-shopping downtown (I have no room to carry anything… I’m going shopping in Oslo right before I fly home, that way at least if it doesn’t fit in my backpack, I won’t have to carry it far in my purse haha.) The jewelry here is quite nice, albeit expensive enough. We’ll see if I decide to get anything tomorrow.

At this point it was around 8pm (everything closes… bah). I didn’t feel like going back to the hostel, so I decided to head out to a movie. There weren’t that many choices - I guess it’s not really a movie-going city..? Or maybe it’s normal here to only have about 5-6 film choices. Regardless, Iron Man 2 (in English, of course) was playing, so I went to see that. Not as good as the first one, but I still enjoyed it - and gotta say, still lovin’ Robert Downy Jr.

The previews were in English, but the commercials, of course, were Swedish. They have some weird stuff going on down here haha. My personal fav. was the one for a cell-phone company where this nerdy guy has a jet pack on, is hovering around a store (breaking everything in the process) and singing in Swedish before rocketing up into the clouds. Loved it.

So, that was that. Tomorrow I have a full day in town again - my bus to Stockholm’s only at 11:15pm.

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Photos

Frogs
Can you see all four?

Snok.
I love the name.

"Love"
Aw.

Comments

[anonymous]

i love it!