I arrived at Gothenburg rather late, though you wouldn't have known it by looking at the sky. I think that's one thing I'll never get use to, how late it stays light this far north. I was staying at the same hostel as Kristi and it wasn't long after unpacking my bags that I ran into her. She was just coming back from a large park near the hostel and lead me back to it. We spent a good half hour or more playing in the playground there. It was a pretty awesome one with a really long slide going down the side of a hill. They day I get too old to play on a playground that awesome will be a sad day. Some of it was pretty damn dangerous though. I'm coming to this theory that European's like their kids to grow up on dangerous stuff, it's like survival of the fittest.

At the hostel we met a few people who we hung out with for the next couple of days. A Norwegian guy called Jonas, Milda, a Lithuanian girl now living in Sweden and a Canadian girl, Gina. Together we spent almost an entire day at the Universeum. The Universeum is a science museum which is 5 stories high with a climate controlled rainforest going right up the middle. The rain forest has monkeys and birds lose running and flying around as well as lizards, turtles and fish in enclosures.

First we went and got breakfast. We had discovered a place called Milk and Eggs which was an American style diner. They did great breakfast such as omelettes and pancakes. I had breakfast there all three mornings I was in Gothenburg and had the pancakes each time (though with different toppings). Then with a good breakfast behind us we went to the Universeum.

On the floors surrounding the forest were other exhibits. On the top floor that had animatronic dinosaurs. The one below that was a space exhibit and below that an exhibit about the human body and mind. Both the space one and the human body one were interactive. They had games and puzzles to solve and we spent a long time in both. Some highlights were a velcro suit and velcro wall (put on the suit and jump onto the wall). A reflex game where 8 tubes would fall in a random order around you and you had to try and catch them (I got 7, no one else got more than 3). There were some puzzles like making a pyramid out of random shaped blocks (we solved the pyramid, but there was another one which we couldn't solve), and some testing memory (which I sucked at). One interesting one was trying to demonstrate that listening to something can reduce pain (make your mind concentrate on something else). It did this by having you put on some headphones and then grab hold of a freezing cold tube. The idea was that whatever the guy was talking about in the headphones would distract you from the cold. The Canadian and Scandinavians were good at this. I couldn't even hold the tube long enough for the test to begin.

After exhausting the Universeum we went back to the park with the playground and got something to eat. We had Swedish Meatballs which we we came to calling s*** balls because the word in Swedish kinda sounds like that. Or at least it did the first time we heard it with our untrained ears. We just had to make sure that when we ordered them we actually said meatballs and not s*** balls (I'm not sure how that would've had gone down otherwise).

Now this park was huge. Far more than just the playground. And inside of the park was a kinda zoo, but a free one. They had sheep, goats, deer, moose and even seals. I'd never seen a moose before so that was the main attraction. Unfortunately it wasn't a very big moose (as Gina was sure to point out). Basically about the size of a horse (apparently they get far larger). But still, it was a moose.

The next day we went to the City Museum. Kristi unfortunately had already booked her transport and accommodation for Oslo, so she left. She really didn't miss all that much though because it was only mildly interesting, but we got in for free so that was ok. After this we went and got Fika. Fika is a very swedish thing which basically means going to get coffee and having a snack of some sort with it. However, Fika is both a noun and an adjective. You can have Fika, but the act of having Fika is also to Fika. Basically we went and got cake and coffee.

This night was also the night of the World Cup final. We left the hostel an hour before the game started which as it turned out was no where near early enough to easily find a place to watch it. Every pub was packed and most tables had reservations. We wandered around for nearly an hour and had literally given up and were heading back to the hostel when we found an English pub with room and the game on. Unfortunately the atmosphere in this place may not have been great as in some of the other places, but it was still fun and was a great game. The pub served good food and good beer too.

The next day I was off to Oslo.