Quick trip to Göteborg

Our first two trips to Gothenburg were for taking care of business: getting Swedish residence cards and trying to buy a car. Of course, we managed to sneak in some fun time. This weekend, we took a trip into the city, just for fun.

We started at the city park, slottsskogen, and convinced the children to bypass the epic play area. Hiking through the park's trails, we visited a petting zoo, saw ponies and water birds, and found the penguin exhibit.

We held our own "bridging" ceremony.
Both girls bridge to the next level of Girl Scouts this year.

Magellanic penguin. It's so cold here, they live outside!

In the afternoon, Jeremy snuck off to take a dance class at his favorite Swedish dance studio. The girls and I spent some more time exploring the city.

We found a luck dragon to ride.

Chelsea!

On Sunday, we took a boat tour of the city. Gothenburg has canals running through it, and the harbor is the largest port in Scandinavia. We were lucky for the relatively warm weather, sunny and clear. Gothenburg is apparently known for it's "sideways rain".

We rode in a flat bottomed boat, which was open on top. On the tour, we passed under many low bridges. One bridge, called "the cheese slicer" had a large sculpture of a Swedish cheese slicer mounted underneath the bridge. Another bridge was so low, some people on the boat had to duck their heads to pass under it! The bridge's nickname? The hair dresser.

We learned a lot of interesting things about the city. It was founded in 1621 (just after the Pilgrims arrived in North America). Several statues nod to an early love of Greek mythology. The harbor used to be a major player in the ship building industry, but now the large cranes are designated as cultural heritage sites and may be used for bungee jumping! Best of all, we finally learned how to pronounce Göteborg in Swedish: yeh-teh-BOR-ee. I literally never would have guessed.

After lunch, we decided to split up. Savannah and Jeremy were eager to climb Gothenburg's highest mountain (which is not very high, at about 90m). Chelsea wanted to tag along with me to explore a different part of town.

Chelsea and I walked to Haga, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Gothenburg. It has charming, narrow pedestrian streets, full of cafes and shops. The local delicacy is a giant version of Sweden's ubiquitous kanelbulle (cinnamon roll), so we had to try one of those! I was pretty proud of myself that I managed to find a new part of town without a map, GPS, or internet access. (We did stop to ask one helpful older woman, but we found our way back to the hotel just by our sense of direction! Miraculous!)

Hooray for Haga!

Now that's what I call a Fika!

Meanwhile, at the top of the mountain...

Some interesting art.

Savannah surveys the scene.

And the panoramic shot to capture the incredible view.

There are still a whole list of things we haven't seen in Gothenburg yet: seals, a sensory trail, and international cottages (just within the slottsskogen), an amusement park, many museums. And we want to go back to many of the places we've already been. Since Jeremy enjoys dancing there so much, I'm sure this won't be our last opportunity to explore the city.