Dec 112010
 

Our plan was to take the 8:23 train from Copenhagen, but after wandering around the wacky wonderland of Christiania until nearly 2am, neither of us could bear to get up – so we hit the snooze button and caught the 10:23 instead.

It was fast, clean, and comfy – but neither of us slept, thanks to a less-than-considerate mother who didn’t seem to mind letting her 3 kids behave like they were in some sort of playground :roll:

When we arrived in Sweden – officially my 43rd country – Peder led us straight to a hostel he already knew.

Being half Swedish, his mother just happened to be from Gothenburg – so in addition to offering me some interesting tourism, the stop would double as a trip down memory lane for Peder. He knew about our hostel because it was located in the very same building where his family used to live.

The lodgings were truly top notch – with a huge lounge, billiards room, sauna, and even a sun room. We ended up in a 4-bed corner dorm with wall-to-wall windows and sweeping views in both directions.

Unsurprisingly, it was also expensive – quite a bit more even than my similar room in Paris πŸ™

After a quick freshen-up we headed out for a walk-through of the family’s apartment complex. Within seconds, guess who passed by.

His uncle. Talk about a coincidence.

The two of them caught up for a bit, mostly in Swedish, before we excused ourselves to begin the day’s tour.

Although Gothenburg is known as one of Sweden’s nicest cities, it’s actually quite small. It was easy to cover its few major sights in a day.

…Especially because Peder knew exactly where to go. Back when my dad and I were romping around the undeveloped canyons of LA, Peder was hiking up old defensive towers in Gothenburg, Sweden. Kinda cool…at least to an American πŸ™‚

We made our way through the downtown area, up to its two most famous towers, along its canals and through its parks.

We couldn’t have asked for better weather, and the unmistakable ocean breeze blowing in from the harbor made it that much more pleasant.

Our initial intention was to cover the primary sights before wrapping up our day at a popular amusement park – but instead, a very unexpected opportunity presented itself.

Of Gothenburg’s two defense towers, the one shown above was pleasant and pretty. The other was located in an industrial part of town with trains and smokestacks all around. Still, we decided to give it a look.

It was this industrial wasteland that provided the backdrop for our most unexpected encounter. I’ll give you a hint: it involved a high-powered air rifle.

  9 Responses to “Gothenburg”

  1. Wow u were actually in Sweden! I live in LinkΓΆping so u could have stop by.
    Gothenburg looks beautiful however I’ve never been there….

  2. Haha yeah! Maybe next time πŸ™‚ I really wanted to make it to Stockholm too, just not enough time :/

  3. Yep, a really nice fast-paced day. I’d never been up close to several of the sights though. Most of my previous visits I had just tagged behind my mom on a shopping spree. So I really enjoyed it.

    As for the train ride, you seem to have forgotten the REAL reason we didn’t get any rest. At stop #2 about 48.905.983.908.390.834.089.340.983.459.083.409.345 school kids on the way to/from a sports tournament boarded the train and made the train totally unbearable. We seriously haven’t had much luck with trains and rest on this trip… πŸ˜›

  4. Lol, I remember πŸ™‚ But that was already most of the way there I think, and somewhat less irritating as you’ll never get 45749875203948 kids to be quiet…but just three children should easily be controlled by their mother had she cared to do so πŸ˜›

  5. They came on the stop before MalmΓΆ, and from then on it was unbearable. I personally felt like smothering them. We even made a video of the cacophony, which resembled being in a zoo inside a superbowl arena inside a kindergarden where all the kids had ADHD and had access to unlimited sugar and free coffee.

    As for control, remember Kiev-Lvov? That was *one* kid in the middle of the night with *two* parents, and the little fiend just refused to shut up…

  6. Kids can be really annoying sometimes, and nothing can be done

  7. Haha yeah – I wrote about that Kiev-Lvov thin in the past. That was definitely the worst because it was the crack of dawn, when there’s NO excuse to be yelling at the top of your lungs πŸ˜›

  8. Andy: You can do something about kids. Just don’t have them. πŸ˜€

  9. @Herb: Where’s the “like” button on this page? πŸ˜€

Leave a Reply to haabaato Cancel reply

(required)

(required)


(required)

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.

Contact | Terms & Privacy
©2004-2024 Justin Klein
whos online
Feedburner
HTML5 Valid
03-29-2024 06:21:35UTC 0.28s 70q 31.61MB