Taste of the sea

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We started the day off in a chilly 2 degrees, we made our way to the offices where we met Magnus, who gave us a presentation on the North Sea commission. The North Sea commission is an organisation that was started to give the coast a voice in European affairs. There is 31 members in 8 different countries and the North Sea is known to be the ‘hottest’ sea in terms of trade. Most of us didn’t even realise it existed, or that Southend-on-Sea is the only English member! Magnus was very excited to know if County Durham would be interested (we said we would find out.) especially as we can be members when we are outside the EU, which could be very beneficial.

We asked Magnus more about Sweden and learned that the forests have bears, wolves and moose’s. (We decided not to go wandering in the woods.)

Later in the day we met Marie, who gave us a presentation on public health. She explained that Gothenburg has problems with school drop outs and low grades, which is often linked to poor health. She has devised a strategy that could help decrease school drop outs, this included making sure that there was more communication between organisations, make sure school was interesting and minimise risk in families. Marie was interested to find out that the UK offer Traineeships, for people more interested in the hands on experience of education. We then used laptops to find out more about our own public health within Durham.

We had a group wander around Gothenburg, we came across a building call ‘feskekorka’ we discovered that this is the fish church, the building was full of every fish imaginable. The prawns looked amazing. We then came across the old part of town called ‘Haga’, which was filled with quirky little shops, from antiques to Japanese Kawaii.

We stumbled upon a little bakery, the window was filled with head sized cinnamon buns, and both Paige and Lucy bought one (only 5 pounds). The rest of us treated ourselves to brownies, chocolate cake, lasagne and caramel shortcake.



We finished the day shopping in ‘Willy’s’ which was like an ikea supermarket. Helen bought carrots ready to feed some mooses .

That's all for today!

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