Gøteborg, Sweden

I went to Gøteborg today, but I had to get up at 6 this morning and be on the train by 7:45, which just about killed me. I made it to the train station with 10 minutes to spare and got all settled in for my 3 hour train ride. After an hour, the customs agent came through and asked me if I had anything I needed to declare before entering Sweden, to which I said no. Then she asked me if I was planning on buying anything when I was there, which I also said no to. By this time she seemed a little skeptical of me and asked if I was alone and had any baggage, when I said no to both questions she asked me what I even planned on doing in Sweden. I told her I was just going for a day trip to do some sightseeing, which she seemed to be fine with and told me to have a good day and moved on to the next person. When I got to Gøteborg, it was starting to rain (which seems to happen every time I go somewhere no matter what the weather says), but I just started walking around. I eventually found the Gøteborg City Museum and decided to start there (pretty much just so I could get out of the drizzling rain). It actually turned out to be kinda neat, they have it set up so you start at the Viking Age and work your way up through the building all the way to Present Day. I snuck pictures in the Viking exhibit, but I couldn't in the rest because there were other people walking around. After I finished at the museum, I walked around and found Kronhuset, which is one of the oldest buildings in Gøteborg, it was built in the mid 1600s to store military uniforms. I couldn't go inside, but I took pictures of the outside. After I found that I walked around some more and found the Christinae Kyrka, which is a church in the city center from 1748. Then, I walked around Gustaf Adolf's Torg, which is the central square, it has a statue of the city's founder Gustav II Adolf and is surrounded by political buildings; such as, old and new City Halls, the City Council, and the Commodity Exchange. After that it was really starting to rain so I decided to go to the mall that was right across the street from the square. I walked around the mall for a couple of hours and since the rain hadn't let up, I decided to just head back home because I think the city would be much prettier and funner if it was nice out. When I got to Central Station, a train for Oslo had left 5 minutes before I got there, which meant I had to wait around for 3 hours. While I was walking around the station, I was constantly being asked for money and I seriously mean constantly. I was even asked by the same people multiple times! I was so happy to be on the train heading back home by 5:55. On the way home, when the customs agent asked me if I had anything to declare and if I was traveling alone, she wasn't even skeptical like the first one; however, she did ask to see my residence card, but I think that is just because I was entering Norway again and I was speaking English. When she moved on to the next person, I heard her say, "Just a minute I have to go run this through the system first." Then before I knew it there were two Somalian guys sitting in my train car with the two customs agents sitting across from them! When the train stopped in Rygge the agents escorted the two off the train! It was pretty awesome. When I was finally home again, Natalie and I sat up and talked about random stuff for about 2 hours before we decided it was probably time to go to bed. Overall, Sweden was pretty cool and now I can say I've been to two of the four countries where my ancestors were from. Personally though, I still like Norway better.

This is Kronhuset.

This is the Gøteborg City Museum.

This is the church, this was the best picture I could get of it.

This is Gustaf Adolf's Torg.

This is the view of the canal from the street.