Europe Trip 2014, Part 2

Sweden

We caught a very early flight to Gothenburg. This is the fist time I've been to Sweden. This is the second largest city in Sweden and is on the west side of the country. It is a major shipping and fishing city. We were able to drop off all the equipment for the conference first thing and then we dropped off our bags at the B&B where we would be staying. Dennis and I spent the day getting acquainted with the city by touring it using the Hop-on-hop-off bus and boat. It was an unusually hot day and we certainly enjoyed stopping at the little kiosks for ice cream. 

I spent the next day at the Museum of Fine Arts and then exploring the city on foot. There are a lot of little sidewalk cafes and parks everywhere and it seems that the people are really enjoying being able to be outside, which is very understandable if you've just gone through a winter of 6 hours of daylight each day and ice and snow. Sitting at a sidewalk caffe table is a great place to be able to people watch from. While there are plenty of blond haired, blue eyed people around, there is quite a variety of races and subcultures here as in most big cities. I wish I had been able to take pictures of all the different interesting people I saw.
It is the end of the school year for the kids and so everywhere we've been there have been large groups of kids out on their final outings of the year, whether that is a trip to a museum, a beach or an amusement park. For those that are graduating, they ride around in a "party truck." It is like a big flatbed with sides and a canopy. All the kids pile in and they ride around the town making as much noise as they can and drinking 'lite' beer. I have it from a colleague of Dennis' that by drinking lite beer they may come home smelling just as bad but they aren't quite as drunk. I guess there have been problems in the past with beer bottles being thrown and other unattractive behavior so the party truck now has a police escort as it goes through town.
Gothenburg has it's own kind of charm and personality. At first I wasn't very impressed but it has grown on me. Most everyone I needed to converse with could speak English so that was really nice.

I spent a day taking the ferries out to the Southern Archipelago. It was very windy and cool out there so I didn't stay very long on any one island but they were sure interesting to see.

The next thing I went to see was the botanical garden. Since the early '50s the garden here has been working with a garden in Japan, sharing seeds, plants, etc. This year they are doing a special highlight of how the plants are doing that they have brought in and adding a lot of annuals that would be found in a Japanese landscape. Of course it included a zen garden but as it wasn't as amazing as some I've seen, I didn't take a picture of it.

 This was interesting use of rock, wood and cement to form an unique planter box and bench.

 In some areas there were so many things tagged, mostly all Japanese little starts. It would be fun to go back in the fall and see how the area had grown and filled in.

 The gardens had their own sets of beehives spread in several places throughout the park. I don't remember seeing that in other gardens I've been in but it's a great idea.

 I'm hoping that someday my south side garden will look somewhat like this. It's hard to identify all the plants from this photo but I recognized most of them as being able to grow in our area.

My photo didn't do this little kitchen garden justice at all. It was so sweet and the little 4 year old boy walking up the path was just the perfect touch.

As soon as I get showered and packed up, we will be leaving here and heading to Norway. So, farewell to Gothenburg and my 15,000 step days and hello to long days of driving and few steps.