Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go...

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We got a little bit lost on the way to our offices in the morning, but we made it just before 9! We began by meeting Irma who is going to be our help in getting around and guiding us through our days with information and advice, we sat from 9 till 10:20 talking about what we were going to be doing throughout our stay in this beautiful city.



Irma also covered some interesting facts about the city and a little about herself personally and what she does (External Relations). But some interesting facts we were given is that they get an annual budget of 50 billion SEK to fund their council, which is much more than what we have at DCC, but then again they do have a population much greater than Durham! After Irma spoke about herself and gave us small facts about the city, she then began asking about the group - what we do and what team we're part of and exactly what part of the program will benefit our team and how.



After we met with Irma and discussed those points, we then were introduced to Lars and Tula who are part of the Environment and Sustainability team and this team promotes health and contributed to sustainable development. They discussed 4 challenges and 7 prioritized environmental areas, their presentation was a lot to do with how they are cutting back on fossil fuels and using biochemicals and other sustainable ways to maintain their transport and maintain their city and how they are trying to cut back on different less sustainable ways to use energy. They also touched on the fact that they have a youth group that gives them ideas and feedback on what they could be doing right and what could improve.



After we took a lunch break, we made our way up to the office where we met Glenn, we were able to see a replica of the city which was on a huge table - it gave you a sense of how big the city actually is! He was able to tell us about how Gothenburg was formed and how the city has developed over the last few centuries and again gave us some interesting facts like how the city was actually built for defense he also spoke about future projects and discussed 'failures'.. well mistakes that they have tried to rectify and make better for future projects. After we were finished with Glenn he sat and spoke with us and gave us a look around the building (big shed as he referred to it) and showed us the wall that has the future desires of what they want the city to be all the way to 2030. It was so refreshing for me to see how enthusiastic everyone is about their job, especially Glenn! So excited to have more days as this one.





Hope everyone is doing well at home!

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