Sweden - Göteborg

"Why Sweden, Kris?" - WELL... I mean. How do I answer that? Why does anyone travel anywhere? I've been interested in Sweden for a long time and now that I've got the time and sheer proximity it seemed like a good time.

(The birthplace of my name. Not really. *ahem* The shop only sells woman's clothing.)

It's summer holidays in London right now so I have no work with which to worry myself so I booked a cheap(ish) flight and everything seemed good. Then the next day my house mates said they were moving back to their countries meaning I had to find a new place, then I found out that I miss out on a fun festival in Brighton, I miss out on a friend coming to visit London, my Swedish friends are busy or out of the country, and to top it off I kiiiind of met someone a few days before the flight.

Poorly timed to say the least.

Still I got on that RyanAir flight and flew the two hours to Gothenburg city which - for those in the dark - is the second largest city in Sweden. 10 points for naming the capital - I'll get to that later. I didn't buy a return ticket as I wasn't actually sure how long I want to spend in Sweden. Immigration didn't bat an eyelid at that though. Good on them.

(Swede-tastic)

In true Kris fashion I arrived without any knowledge of the city or the language. Fortunately for me the latter was not so much of an issue because Swedish people are mind-bogglingly good at English. Better than people in England. ha. I only say that because of the dreadful English accent that wafts around at some of the schools I've been working at. Confusingly enough though a common greeting in Swedish is 'hey' (hej) exactly as we say it so instead I have to say 'hello' juuuust so they know that I'm an English-speaking moron.

(I'll have the meatballs .... of course I will)

Gothenburg as a city has a lot of parks and nice restaurants but I didn't really feel like there was a whole lot to do, you know? There's an amusement park and a science museum but a lot of the fun just comes from sitting around and not doing a whole lot. Which is what I did! Everyone there was quite nice though and it was quite easy to meet new people - always a pleasure!

 (Game of Thrones - Gothenburg)

  I was staying with a friend, Gustav, from CouchSurfing. He's an ex-chemical engineer who is currently studying to be a doctor. Brains coming out the wazoo that one. Very nice guy though and was very kind to let me stay. We went out the first night and met some nice Swedish ladies and went around drinking. Ordinarily a fun thing to do but due to the damned amazing Swedish economy everything is expensive. Gustav had some Swedish beer he had bought cheaply from a trip to Germany (because Europeans can DO THAT) so we made do

.(Gustav and his boat; somewhat different cider flavours! Heavens!)

So what did I do exactly? I went up to an old Fortress but didn't go in as the people working there were on a lunch break. Wouldn't have gone in anyway. I went to Haga which is like a gentrified industrial area full of cafes and restaurants, I went to a rich-ish area to a bar that only appears in summer by the canals, I hung around Gustav's place and I also went for a ferry trip around the Gothenburg archipelago which was really nice...

(Look at dem ROCKS)

... Actually on that last one, Sweden has a really nice coastline with lots of small islands scattered throughout. The ferry system runs on their regular public transport system (yet another system better than Myki) so it was cheap and fairly frequent, too. I went to the island Branno where I had a strange sandwich from a strange couple in a strange cafe. I walked around the outskirts to a nice lookout point where, in the absense of anyone else around me, I took some selfies. Finally I strolled down back to the ferry to go back.

(What a beautiful ... view)

Turns out I completely the missed the centre of the island where their one restaurant is. How do I know this? I met Leopold who, despite living quite close to Gustav on the mainland, works on the island. He showed me some really cool bars around town and it was nice to see some cool places I might not have ordinarily seen. There's other stuff to mention about Swedish culture but I'll probably be spacing out Sweden over three blogs. I'll reserve some stuff for later - like how Sweden is actually full of beautiful people and ... food or whatever. I'll think of something.