Day 1 and 2: St Louis to Gothenburg

Hi everybody! We are BACK from our epic trip to Sweden and Finland. We were gone for about 2 1/2 weeks and it was amazing. I spent yesterday, the first day home, just sort of doing stuff like unpacking, laundry and going to the grocery store (which was an adventure with my groggy tiredness and jet lag). I was impressed by Louie and I unpacking first thing, but we decided it wasn’t ever going to get any easier so we might as well just go with it. Most clothes were going straight to the laundry anyway! He went to work yesterday, but I get two days off: yesterday I did some emailing and catchup, but today I’ll be doing a bit more getting ready for the semester (setting up my billing) and I suppose I should do some practicing to see if I still know how to play the violin!

We may have gone a bit overboard with the chocolate purchasing, but some of those things are gifts, one of them is potato chips, and some are this stuff called salty licorice that I don’t care for but Louie loves.

Please note this excellent scene on the potato chip bag.

Anyway! Let’s begin. I don’t know if I will stick with one day at a time here, or what, but that’s what I wanted to start with to make the pictures feel more manageable. I called this title Day 1 and 2 because we left on a Saturday but arrived on a Sunday.

Let’s set the scene: or that is, some background. Did I tell you why we decided to visit Sweden and Finland? The idea sort of snowballed from a variety of things, but basically, we both loved Norway so much but felt it was too soon to revisit Norway so we would see another Scandinavia country (Sweden) which Louie had visited more than 20 years ago. But also, he had never been to Finland, so I wanted to add that on, and then we also ended up doing a short jaunt to Estonia as well, just a quick overnight via ferry. We started with a 2 week plan but things expanded with travel times…and so here we are. There and back, and it was terrific.

We had an afternoon flight to Chicago, which was delayed, but not a problem since I chose a connection that gave room for some delays. We had tortas at the Frontera Grill in O’Hare (and got to ride a little bus from one terminal to another without having to leave the secure area), and waited for our “big” flight to board. We had upgraded our seats on the way out to the “slightly more leg room” seats in the hopes we would be more comfortable and sleep better.

The seats were as comfortable as economy class seats can be, and I also used a new neck pillow from Wander which worked well. The flight went by quickly enough: not quickly enough to get a good nights sleep, but quickly enough to get to Helsinki.

We had a layover in Helsinki as well and got some coffees and juice and waited for our last connection to board. Helsinki to Gothenburg was next, and it was a short flight.

We landed in Gothenburg and I had to wait on a bag. We hadn’t intended to check anything on our flights over, but I was bullied by a gate agent into checking my suitcase, which normally wouldn’t matter too much but then we waited about 45 minutes or more for the bags! It was ridiculous and I was mad at myself and the agent.

We got bus tickets on the Flygbussarna, a bus from the airport to the center of Gothenburg, and off we went. I sometimes remember the first time I was in Europe and was fascinated by the different sorts of road signs…it doesn’t pop out as much now, but it’s still fun to notice the different signs and all of the little details that are different from one country to the next. We had a little confusion over which stop to get off because evidently the stop is different on the weekends versus the weekday, but we got off the bus and then used google maps to navigate the 10 or so minute walk to our hotel, the Elite Plaza Hotel Gothenburg, our home for the next 3 nights.

The typical Scandinavian bed set-up: two separate duvet covers. The headboard here was ridiculous and not typical. The room was very nice and in a great location.

The hotel, from across the street. We got cleaned up and headed out in search of an actual meal. Lucky for us it was already about 7 or 8 pm by this point, so we could eat and go straight to bed rather than having to force ourselves to stay awake longer. We had burgers at a nearby restaurant called 2112 and was a rock and roll themed bar. It was jarring to be in a different country, but exhilarating! Sweden uses the Swedish Kronor which you basically divide by 10 in order to think of the dollar amount, but it’s not exactly that. And nobody uses cash, it’s all cards.

After dinner we walked around near the hotel and the water as the sun started to set. I did not get to see if it set all the way down because I was too exhausted.