Hej!
Today was our last full day in Sweden. It was very bittersweet because I’ve had such an amazing time here, but it’s been quite exhausting so I’m ready to go home and relax a bit before I start my last semester.
Lauren and I woke up early so that we could eat breakfast at our new favorite café down the street. I had a baguette with cheese and tomato, another mango, banana, and passion fruit smoothie, and split an apple pie with ice cream. All of it was vegan!
After breakfast, the whole group went to the Gothenburg Curling Club to attempt this obscure sport. There was a steep learning curve at first, but it turns out I’m not half bad at curling. Apparently, my bocce ball skills came in handy today. It was very entertaining to watch everyone wipe out on the ice. This was the last team activity.
My group then made our way to the Räddningtjänsten Storgöteborg fire station for a second attempt at getting some merch. It wasn’t looking too good when the receptionist said they didn’t sell anything, but things turned out alright in the end. The soon-to-be commander in chief gave us a tour of the station. It was way bigger than I had anticipated, with 17 bays, 2 large workout rooms, a full basketball court, and even a pool for training. It was very nie of him to give us a personal tour of the facilities. There are 11 stations in Gothenburg, but this is the one everyone wants to work at, which I can completely understand. It was interesting to learn that all firefighters have to be able to do all tasks, unlike in the U.S. where they typically specialize in one area. He also found some swag to give us.
Next, we stopped at Nordstan for another McDonald’s lunch because we were all starving and wanted something quick to eat. Our next stop was to the candy store near the German Church to buy some goodies. We’ve tried other times, but the shop has been closed, but third time’s the charm because they were open today. There was a huge variety of chocolates, taffies, fruit gummies, and many other candy options. The woman working was a great seller because she let us all sample one candy and we bought the shop out of it. Between this store and the vegan grocery store, I’ve spent about $50 on candy, but it’s well worth it.
I wish we had one last bright sunny day in Gothenburg, but it was just as grey and rainy as usual. I wouldn’t mind, but I found out pretty early just how not waterproof my tennis shoes are. With our bags full of sweets in tow, we headed to what we thought was another shop to find souvenirs but turned out to be a kitchen and home décor store. Since that was a bust, we headed back to Haga for some last-minute gift shopping. As it was getting late, we took a brisk walk back to the hostel to do a quick change and head out for the final team dinner at Heaven 23.
Lauren and I made a pit stop at the café again to split a tofu sald sandwich just in case there wasn’t a great meal option for dinner. The man working there has been very nice the past few days and even gave us a free apple pie because it was our last day in Gothenburg. It’s such a homey place with great food and drinks, affordable prices, and 50% of the menu is vegan.
Heaven 23 is an upscale restaurant on the 23rd floor of one of the Gothia Towers. We had to dress up, but once again, you could clearly tell we were ugly Americans; and this time we were out of our tax bracket too. The atmosphere and views were very nice, but the vegetarian main dish left something to be desired. It was a mushroom potato dish, but it just was not great. We went to this restaurant because they serve the King Sandwich: a fancy shrimp dish with mayonnaise, cumbers, pickled red cabbage, caviar, and toat on the bottom, hard boiled eggs, lemon, and spinach. Apparently, most people didn’t think it lived up to all the hype.
We rounded out the day with a late-night fika at Tin-Tin’s. Then it was time to pack, clean the room, and blog.
Daily Reflections:
- Curling stones come from Scotland.
- There’s usually only 1 shooting in Gothenburg a day and it’s only ever gang related.
- I like Swedish coffee, so those caffeine withdrawals will be tough.
- Swedes consume 37 lbs of candy per person per year.
- I’ll never forget the amazing time with my friends in Gothenburg.
Adventures in Sweden 