Early rise this morning. 3:45am, to be exact. I always find it funny how a two hour flight can take nine hours travel, but I suppose that’s budget airlines for you.

We’ve been looking forward to coming to Gothenburg (aka Göteborg, and pronounced yer-te-borh) because we haven’t had much of a chance to get off the beaten track in our travels yet. Places like Vegas and Paris are amazing to visit, but they do lack that element of the unknown, that thrill when you feel like you’ve stumbled across a completely foreign gem.

Our hopes may have been high, but so far Sweden has not diappointed. Our first impression was the green farms and brilliant blue sky as we took the almost-dirt road from the airport into Sweden’s second largest city. Our second impression was the genuine kindness of strangers, who have all learned English and seem over the moon that you’ve provided them with an opportunity to use it.

Just near our hostel.

Our arrival was wonderfully non-eventful. No life lessons about missed trains or getting lost this time. After checking into our awesome clean hostel, we took the tram to Haga, a little cobbled café street where the Swedish custom is to spend an hour in the afternoon sun over a great coffee and a cinnamon bun. No prizes for guessing what we did there. The coffee and the bun were expensive, but obscenely delicious.

We had planned to head from there to the Art Gallery, but after comparing closing times, realised it would be better to leave that for tomorrow, and instead head to Liseberg (pronounced lisa-bere), the largest theme park in Scandanavia. 

It was fantastic! Their latest attraction (Atmosfear) opened last week and is a giant drop half the height of the skytower! It also features Balder, an old school wooden rollercoaster voted the worlds best several times. I really valued the greenery around the park – it’s by far the greenest theme park I’ve ever been to. In fact, it was refreshingly non-American overall.

There are trees and fragrant flowers everywhere.

Back at the hostel now, it’s 10:30pm and I’m and looking forward to getting a decent sleep! That won’t be too hard in a 16 bed dorm, right?

AA