Wow, I'm so tired, but I have so much to blog about. I just got home from my trip to Gothenburg, and I just had my birthday. Sadly, I didn't get to visit Nasnas-chan, but I had a nice trip anyway. If you follow the remote link in the menu to the right that reads 'Bilddagboken', I've created a picture diary on a Swedish website. You can find some of the pictures from my trip to Sweden there - just click any link from August 1 - 4, which was when I was in Gothenburg. =3

I arrived there at 5:30 pm on August 1. My parents and I were going to stay at Elite Plaza Hotel, so we caught a taxi right after arriving. Or... I had to do it, since my parents have serious Swedish-speaking problems. Upon arriving, I found the two people behind the reception desk to be conceited and stuck-up, and they never smiled. Not even once. Scary. I couldn't get the elevator to work, and it turned out the keycard had to be in the slot for exactly 2.5 seconds, then we had to remove it before pressing the button. They could at least have informed us about the 2.5 seconds. Or maybe they did, in some weird language I don't speak. x3 We didn't do much that day, because we were all pretty tired. Except for some window-shopping, and map-memorizing.

The rest of the days we visited Liseberg (Scandinavia's largest amusement park), the Universeum (public science center), took the Paddan (boat sightseeing thing), visited Göteborgs Universitet and went shopping. A lot. I somehow ended up with lots of Swedish dictionaries and grammar books. And I am not a nerd.

I guess the first thing we did after shopping a bit was visiting the university. I was looking for some brochures on the medicine program there, so I took the tram to Medicinaregatan, loosely translated into English as 'The Doctor Street'. Unfortunately, the place was closed, so no one was there. Except for some random professors passing by, giving us weird looks. I took a couple of pictures there (once again, follow the link called Bilddagboken to the right for the pictures), and left for the main building, which was about ten minutes away. We hopped the tram at the stop to get there, since it was a bit too far to walk. Or we were just lazy. We had acquired a Göteborg Pass earlier, though, so it was free. That place was closed as well, but I went in anyway, and after looking around for a bit, I found a door that was open. Inside were five people wearing headphones in front of computers. I wanted my brochures! =P They were all staring at me, so I had to explain that I had come all the way from Norway to find out a bit more about their medicine program. And guess what - they sent me to another place, which was a few minutes away. I got my brochures and the information I wanted, though! xP

The Universeum was an interesting place, where you could learn a lot about biology, chemistry, physics, nanotechnology, and astronomy. There were a lot of rare, exotic animals, but taking pictures of them was nearly impossible. The place with the rainforest-ish animals had a climate control system, and the climate they wanted to keep inside there was damp, and camera-destroying, mildly put. As for the fish, they moved too fast. Hey, I tried! =o The place was so crowded, though, I'm glad I went home before the European Athletics Championships held in Gothenburg this year. Or it would've been worse. And yet I wish I were there for the free concerts.

Liseberg wasn't really that fun at all. Why? The evil weather. You take two steps, it rains. You seek shelter from the rain, it stops. You walk back outside, it rains again. The weather hated me when I was there, so I'm so going back whenever I have the opportunity to.

I also went to some old medical museum and art museums. Some of the things were boring, since I hate museums in general, but a lot of the things there were really interesting. Combine that with boat and bus sightseeing tours, and you could say I learned a lot there. Especially since the guide just had to say everything in Swedish, English and German. Hearing how they would mess up at times made the whole thing more interesting. Like whenever they would refer to the "European Championships" as "European Masterships", because "Championship" is "Mästerskap" in Swedish, and "Meisterschaft" in German. Silly people. x3!

All in all, I've learned a lot about the city, got to brush up on my Swedish, and I've memorized the city map. I've learned that taking the tram is a good idea no matter where you want to go. The trams don't just have numbers, they're even color coded, which makes things easier, unless you're my mom. She actually went "What color is the blue one?" I think she was going to ask for its number... Another scary thing was when I was aboard the ship (M.S. Princess of Scandinavia). The captain was Danish, and went "(...) There will be hardly no rain." "Hardly no rain"? Okay. As long as he knows what he's doing. xP

My birthday, August 4, was a day full of shopping and shopping. I bought a new wireless router there, at 'PC Kungen', which means 'The PC King'. I found the store after asking around for the biggest computer store around. And that store was not big. It should be called 'The Mini Local PC Shoppe'. Yes, 'shoppe'. The router I bought was pretty much the only router they had... XD But yay, I'm finally 18! ^^

And since it's 04:52 am right now, I need some sleep, and I won't proofread. Not that I ever do that. Ahem. Good night! ^-^

~Roy