Saturday, June 27, 2015

Gothenburg - Part 1

Hej!

So it's been over a year since I first landed in Sweden and I'm finally getting around to writing my last two blogposts - I know, I procrastinated. I planned on getting to these posts earlier, but junior year of engineering at UCSB required my full attention. But never fear, it is summer now, and these blogposts will be complete!

So Gothenburg is an amazing city which is why I need two blogposts (full of lots of pictures) to dedicate to it. This post will focus on different parts of the city that I explored and the next post will focus more on the people I met and other random parts of the city.

Boat Tour
One of the classic tourist "must-do's" in Gothenburg is the cheese-grater boat tour. In this tour, you climb onto a little boat and weave under the little bridges in the city. Below is a picture of one of these bridges and our boat going underneath it!

I learned a lot of history about the city (sadly I have forgotten a lot of it, but I do remember some cool facts!)

This first picture is a statue of Prometheus with a triangle around his head, symbolizing him becoming enlightened. He is also holding the fire he stole from the gods. The second is a nice view of the city and the third picture is the Fish Market which is located in an old church building (mentioned in Swedish Food - Post 2).













As you move out of the city towards the River of the Geats, you will start to notice much more manufacturing equipment.













I believe the first picture below is a retired ship. The second picture is the opera house which was designed to look like a ship and fit along the coastline. The third picture has a ship that was built too tall so it has remained in Gothenburg since its completion. Behind it is a tall office building nicknamed "lipstick".













Below is a view of downtown Gothenburg from the water. The next two pictures are a view of the other side of the river. The third picture is Chalmer's second campus (not where I worked). The fourth picture is remnants of the old stone wall that used to surround the city.













Universeum
Alex (my fellow intern) and I decided to explore Universeum, an interactive science museum in Gothenburg. Every floor of the museum had a different theme and the top floor had mechanical dinosaurs that growled as you walked past. It also featured a great view of the city!




Another floor had an aquarium while the floor above was an indoor rainforest!













One of my favorite floors focused on the solar system and space exploration!





















There was another interactive room where you could play different "brain games" and blow these huge bubbles!
While I enjoyed Universeum a lot, it was definitely geared towards younger children. I would recommend checking it out!

Gothenburg Archipelago 
Gothenburg has both a northern and a southern archipelago (string of small islands). If you have a monthly tram pass for the city of Gothenburg, you can also use them for ferries to get to the islands! One weekend I decided to check out Brännö Värdshus, an island on the southern archipelago. I walked around the island which had both a beach and a forest. 















It was really cool to see how there was so much variation in plant life on such a small island!

I also found this cute little cafe with an old school theater next door.


On the island there were some homes (both permanent and vacation homes) and I do not remember seeing any cars on the island. In the Gothenburg archipelago you can find a variety of islands - some uninhabited and others that are connected to other islands by bridges. I wish I had had more time to explore more of the islands! 

Liseberg
Liseberg is an amusement park right in the heart of Gothenburg. I passed it on my way to work everyday and I was so excited that my lab group at Chalmers planned a trip to go together! 
Most of us bought unlimited ride passes and took advantage of the short lines on a weekday afternoon. One of the first rides we went on was "AtmosFear" which featured the classic drop from a tower.


The newest ride on the park, Helix, had an app you could download and play when you were in line. Here are some other rides we went on: 





Saba and I decided to take an ice cream break and split this delicious sundae on a waffle from Ben and Jerry's.









Once the sun had set, we decided to go on the ferris wheel for a great view of the city!













I remember saying bye to everyone and staying in the park late with Saba riding on the same rides over and over again! Liseberg is also used to host events like concerts so many people in Gothenburg buy an annual pass to enter the park even if they don't go on the rides.

Looking back at these pictures I really miss Gothenburg. It is such a cool city with so much to see and a relaxed atmosphere to enjoy it all in. Hopefully I'll have the second part to this blog post up soon!

Bye for now!
Dilpreet