We have a spare weekend next weekend, what shall we do? Lets find cheap flights and go ANYWHERE, we are in London we are close to everything.... Is how the conversation went that saw us end up in Gothenburg this weekend. Not sure I had even heard of the city even though it is the 2nd largest in Sweden and is home to the largest amusement park in Scandinavia (not that that is any good to a chicken like me who is afraid of looking down from the Sky Tower), before we booked the flights. The images I had in my head of the place were dark and ominous, full of vilans that Batmam and Robin would soon bring to justice... Imagination runs away on me sometimes..
Anyway we booked cheap as chips flights via Easy Jet which we discovered are much better to fly with than Ryanair. First flight was on time, second one landed early and we didn't have to line up for any long passport check lines - Shot Easyjet.
Our Saturday morning started bright and early... So early we were at the bus stop with all the drunkards still out and about enjoying their Friday night.
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Not too happy to be up and about at 3am...
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The bus ride from the airport to Gothenburg city gave us a feel for Sweden, lots of pine trees, lakes and rocks, reminded me of what I imagine parts of the US would look like... We were waiting for Yogi bear to jump out of the bushes. One thing we weren't expecting was the cold... Kelly, always the optimist read a high of 16 degrees, shame that it was only 10 degrees. We did not arrive prepared.
After checking into our hotel we went on the food hunt... Gothenburg is not a touristy town which was great because there weren't thousands of people everywhere and felt like we were right amongst a different country, not so good that they don't accommodate for English speaking people as much. We couldn't read the menus so we ended up at an American restaurant that reminded us of the Hard Rock Cafe (situated next door).
We decided to get a feel for the city we would take a boat tour around the moat. There was a tour guide up the front of the boat giving the commentary spoke in three different languages, thankfully one English. The guy at the back driving the boat looked just like Craig Wilson!
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| An old lock |
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| Getting low for the Cheese cutter bridge. OSH would of had a heart attack. |
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| London Eye copycat |
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| The Lipstick... Eugh |
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| Cranes in the port |
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| Low bridges again |
After a very cold boat trip we explored and amazing food market, an anti pasto lovers haven, then jumped on a tram and went for a ticky tour. You can buy a 24 hour transport ticket that gets you on the trains and buses… It was a waste of our money as no one was checking tickets and we didn’t validate our cards or swipe them once.
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| Swanky food market |
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| Delicious meats! |
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| The old Cons were a popular mode of transport |
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| People protesting... Hospitals want more money, same shiz different country. |
We decided we would get a couple of bottles of wine to drink back at our Hotel before we went out… Went into a 7 Eleven to ask for the closest liquor store. I thought the lady was taking the piss when she told me that you actually can’t buy any. WHAT? *outrage* apparently in Sweden the only people that sell alcohol are a company owned by the government, which closes at 3pm on a Saturday and don’t open on a Sunday… Some monopoly carry on. Luckily the 7 Eleven had a few sneaky (expensive) cans of Carlsberg in their fridge that we had to make do with before heading out. Dinner was delicious Italian (you can tell we really got amongst the Swedish food) followed by a drink at a local pub that looked a lot like an English one.
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| Haha sorry Scott I had to put this picture in... |
The next day we got the tram to the end of the line out by the ocean, again it was cold but very quiet and quite beautiful. Tried to get Scott to go for a swim but he wasn't keen, only because he had no towel he reckons! Sure sure. 
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| Brave girl |
All in all a great weekend out of London. Though there is a lot of not so awesome things about London in comparison to NZ there sure are a lot of awesome things too, one being that you can get on a plane and in under two hours be amongst a different culture in a different country. It feels great to be doing what I came here to do. If only I had the cash to do it every weekend....
Next stop, Brussels? Amsterdam? Paris? Watch this space.....
(More photos on Facebook)
xx
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