Today started with a little operation at the dentist office, Akuttandvården, on Odinsgatan just a 5 minute walk from the apartment.

The infection was a bit more difficult than they first thought and had to do a root filling. It took about 1.5 hours. There’s a lot of detail I’d rather not write about, but afterwards when the painkiller wore off it felt great. No more hot/cold sensitivity. The dentist who did the work was amazing and so far has done a great job fixing my tooth. (I might have been able to prevent all this if I’d listened to Rhonda back in December.) I have 1 more appointment in May to get it capped.

Later that day, after dinner, we walked to the Götaälvbron bridge about 20 minutes away to see if we could take a few pictures. It was a confusing walk going through the maze of roads to get onto the bridge. After a try to two, we finally made it onto the correct side of the bridge and started our walk to the center.

It turned out to be cooler than we first anticipated. The wind was a steady breeze which became cooler as sunset approached. Anyways, we took a few good ones and these will give you a little idea of what we were up to.

This is a 100 year old Danish ship that sailed around the world trading. It is now used as a hotel and restaurant.

Here’s one of the “Lipstick” building and the same ship.

While on the bridge many buses and cars were speeding by shaking the structure as we were taking pictures. Here you can see the blur of one passing by us.

Finally, I just like this one of the road and walking path returning home. There is a very cool breeze, the sun has set, there’s bridge steel shaking as a bus goes by, some of the city background shows and finally you can see a few signs along the way.  Chad

Saturday, we decided to take a walking tour in the middle of Gothenburg. We first had some lasagna for lunch at Café Opera. Café Opera is located on a street called Linnégatan which is popular for restaurants and bars. We wanted to hit a place called Texas Longhorn (sound familiar), but it and most of the restaurants were not open until 1PM. I was surprised that very few restaurants were not open at noon for lunch! They work crazy hours here…much worse than the shops in northwest Arkansas.

Along our walk, the only thing worth mentioning is a place called Annedal. Annedal is an old working-class district that was built in the 1870s. It was considered a highly elite area for Gothenburg’s working class people. It is basically one main street that still has a row of two story red brick houses from the elite neighborhood. You could definitely tell the unique area based on the other buildings near by. Also, there is a small museum located on the property, but it was only open on Sunday afternoons.

We went to a soccer game Saturday evening! The Ullevi stadium where all the soccer games are held is only minutes from our apartment. Did I mention before that our apartment is in a perfect location? A match between IFK Göteborg (which is my favorite team here in Sweden!) and IFK Norrköping was held at 4PM. I have actually seen IFK Göteborg play many times during previous trips to Gothenburg and Chad has seen them play once before as well. So, we have grown quite fond of this team. The games are quite exciting. There is usually an entire section in the stadium fenced off for the “ultimate” fans that stand and yell for their team the entire game. The cheers are to common tunes, but of course the cheers are in Swedish! There was even one cheer where everyone held up one of their shoes! It was almost more exciting to watch the fans than the game. The game was great though, Göteborg won 4-0!

Sunday, we headed up to Lake Hornborga about an hour north near a small town called Skara. Lake Hornborga is known for the tens thousand or more cranes that visit yearly during March and April. It is a wetland made up mainly marshy/swampy areas which is why all the birds are attracted to the lake. I have never seen so many cranes. Approximately 8000 cranes were there during our visit, but just over a week ago, there were more than 15,000. You can check out the crane statistics here. The cranes normally start appearing at the beginning of March, and by the end of March (or beginning of April) the large flocks arrive. All of the cranes were returning after a winter in Spain! Toward the end of April, the cranes continue to migrate north. It was very nice to just hang out and watch all of the birds. I also learned later that there were 31 different species of birds seen that day.

Overall, a very relaxing weekend in Gothenburg!

Rhonda

Check out all of Chad’s photos from the weekend below.

[Show as slideshow]

On Saturday morning at 7AM, Chad and I drove down to Copenhagen for the weekend. We were told beforehand, that the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art north of Copenhagen was worth a visit. To get to the museum, we had to drive to Helsingborg and take a 30 minute ferry over to Denmark. I will just say, thank goodness for the GPS that was loaned to us by one of my co-workers. It took us straight there. It worked so well, that I think Chad might be buying one when we return to Greensboro.

The ferry ride took us from Helsingborg, Sweden to Helsingør, Denmark. Yes, two communities are named the same, but of course spelled slightly different in Danish. The distance between them is a only 4000 meters and is the shortest distance between the two countries. These 2 communities were built to control the shipping along the narrow strait. I think a long time ago, it was “one” city.

Everything is more expensive in Denmark than in Sweden except for alcohol. Most Suedes take the ferry just to buy cheap beer. Chad and I didn’t have that on our to-do list, so we forgot to take advantage of this. We only thought of it as we were driving off of the boat.

When we arrived at the Louisiana Museum, we found out that their spring exhibition was dedicated to Cézanne & Giacometti. To my surprise, Chad had studied Cézanne in school.  Here I was taking time to read the biographies of both amazing artists and Chad already knew them and started wandering off to view their work.  The exhibition consisted of 60 works by Cézanne and 110 works by Giacometti.   They were truly incredible and a great opportunity for us to experience.

After viewing the collections, we decided to have lunch. Lunch was so expensive, that I decided to just go for dessert and hot chocolate. We then walked the gardens surrounding the museum which were very nice. One thing that was quite funny was when we ran across a couple of sculptures that were labeled “Eyes”. They were definitely not eyes in my opinion; they should have been labeled “Big Boobies”.  They were so funny, I made Chad take a picture!

Once in Copenhagen, we used the indispensable GPS to locate our Hotel. It was quite confusing to maneuver around town, it seemed worse than Gothenburg. Our hotel was called “Phoenix Copenhagen”. It was a very nice hotel centrally located to virtually everything we wanted to see.

After checking in, we headed off to see some of the sites. We first saw Frederik’s Church, known as the Marble Church. The Church has the largest dome in Scandinavia with a span of 31 meters. They say the inspiration probably came from the Pantheon in Rome. The top of the dome contained pictures of all twelve disciples. It was beautiful.

The next stop was the Amalienborg Palace which is the winter home to the Danish royal family. It consists of 4 identical buildings originally built for 4 noble families. There were 3 royal guards constantly pacing the exterior guarding the place.

We then walked to the edge of the canal to view the new Opera house. The Opera house was built in 2005 and is among the most modern opera houses in the world.

Our walk continues down the edge of the water toward the Gefion fountain. The fountain is of a woman holding a whip over four bulls. A quote taken from Rough Guide to Scandinavia states: “The fountain’s sculpted figure is by Anders Bundgaard and shows the goddess Gefion with her four sons, whom she’s turned into oxen having been promised, in return, as much land as she can plough in a single night. The legend goes that she ploughed a chunk of Sweden, then picked up the piece of land (creating Lake Vanern) and tossed it into the sea – where it became Zealand.” Adjacent to the fountain stood the only Anglican Church in
Denmark built in 1895.

Our evening walking tour ended at the Little Mermaid. This famous statue was actually smaller than I expected. This small statue is one of Copenhagen icons and attracts many visitors.

For dinner, we had a craving for Italian food. Just by coincidence, there was a little Italian place 2 blocks from our hotel. It was called “Al Mercante”. The food and wine were excellent.

I was told by a co-worker that we absolutely must have a beer in Nyhavn during our visit to Copenhagen. Nyhavn is part of the original harbor dating all the way back to when Copenhagen was founded in the 12th century. Today, it is the Dane’s recreational center of town with lots of restaurants and bars. Also, old sailing boats and the harbor canal tour boats can be seen there. So, after dinner, we had to go buy a beer in Nyhavn!

Sunday morning after a big breakfast at our hotel, we went to see the Citadel of Copenhagen which is one of the best preserved fortresses in Europe from the 17th century. It was built to secure the northern entrance of the harbor. Today it is still used as military location. On site was a nineteenth century Dutch style windmill, which still works today. They run it once per year. Check out Chad’s great picture of the windmill below.

For lunch,we went back to Nyhavn to have lunch next to the canal. We found a place that servedhamburgers, so that sounded good to us. While there, we noticed a commotion right next to us. There was a drunken guy only wearing his underwear sitting on the edge of the water! People started gathering around him. We could just sit there and watch the whole thing. All of a sudden, the guy jumped into the freezing cold water!! We could not believe it. I saw someone use their cell phone, so I assumed they were calling the police! There were several people trying to help him. He was able to swim to a ladder near by and climbed back up to put his cloths on. It turns out that there was a bar next door that is open 24 hours every day, and some people like him were there all night. Our waitress told us that there were people trying to talk him into jumping and some trying to talk him out of it!!

Following that little excitement, we made our way to our last place to visit which was the Rosenborg Castle. The castle was quite a place. It was built to be used as a summer home in 1606 for King Christian IV. The King designed the castle himself and it took more than 20 years to build. Today, the castle is a museum and also contains Denmark’s crown jewels.

It was a great trip!

Rhonda

First thing, my tooth is doing much better. It is starting to heal and I should be able to crown it by the 15th or so.

Today, lunch time brought us the opportunity to visit the Volvo Museum. We started the tour by watching a short movie describing how the business was started and grew up over the years. After that we spent about an hour walking the grounds.

A lot of it was dedicated to the first cars Volvo developed. Everyone one of the cars was in perfect condition and shined bright. Other sections of the museum showed the jet engines Volvo builds and the aircraft they were used in. If fact they had 3 delta wing jet fighters in that building in various cut out stages. There were also sections on concept cars, trucks, big equipment, and marine engines.

It was a lot of territory to cover in just 1 hour. For anyone coming to Göteborg I would highly recommend it if you have a free afternoon.

Chad

It all started back in December 2007. I had a little cavity below the gum line. My dentist said he could fix it easily. After 2 straight hours of working on it he was able to finish it. It should have healed in about 3 to 5 days, but it took almost 4 weeks in my case and I did not push the issue, because it always seemed to be getting better. (Rhonda kept on telling me to go in just to check it out. Not me I can take a little pain and it did seem to heal.) Over the next four months I took it easy on the tooth, because if you bit down to hard on it is hurt, just a bit.

Now it’s about 4 months later. While walking through the Aeroseum yesterday I was chewing on some food that made my tooth feel like it was on fire. Not good. I washed the food away and everything was ok. Hmm…I don’t like where this is going.

So this morning I decide to make sure my teeth are clean and brush them like normal. However, when the brush ran across the tooth where the complicated cavity was filled, a large chunk of the tooth broke away. This is just plain painful. Ouch.

After spending some time getting the bleeding to stop, the cavity went below the gum line and thus the gums bled some when the chunk broke away, I immediately emailed Rhonda to have her ask around the office for any great dentists. I had three offers, but with the first two I could not get in until tomorrow. I did think I could make it until then. Then one of Rhonda’s co-worker suggested the Swedish public dental services. She got me an appointment with them while I was on the phone with the others.

At 15:00 today I went to my appointment only 3 block away from the apartment. Insurance does not work here so I had to use my credit card to make a generic payment just for stepping in. No problem. At that point they could have charged me a thousand dollars and that would have been great if they could get the pain to subside. I’ll do anything. Please help.

Ok, so I get into the office and I really wish I could speak and understand Swedish now more than ever.  However, my dentist knew a little English and that proved to be enough. She first thought that it was just going to be a temporary filling to be installed. Upon testing the area I almost exploded out of my chair when she hit the exposed area with the tools. She then said my gum might be a little bit infected. Ok. So she injected me with a bit of topical pain killer. That worked ok until she sprayed something like an antiseptic on it. That was extremely painful and I could not take that anymore. I think she suspected something was very wrong. She immediately injected me about 10 times all around the side of my mouth with pain killer. Finally, I could concentrated again. They then took an x-ray and when they came back several people were discussing the results. She then asked me if I knew any Swedish and I said no. She ended up telling me my root was very infected and my gum tissue under the tooth was very infected. She immediately proceeded to do a root canal to release the pressure inside the tooth and also used some sort of antiseptic/cleaner around the tooth to start the gum to heal.

After 2 hours I was finished and scheduled my permanent crown for April 15th.

I just now need to take care of the tooth and gum and hope the gum heals well.

Looking back I should have went back to my dentist in December and complained about the little pain and slow healing. I think he would have seen the filling failed. He could have fixed it then instead of me letting it get the cracks filled by food over the last several months.

Exposed gums and broken edges of teeth are extremely painful and it gets worse when you aggravate it with an infected root and gum below the tooth. For as much as I don’t like going to the dentist I’m extremely thankful they are good at what they do. The Swedish doctor was excellent and at this time things look good for everything to heal.

Chad

We decided to do something close to home this weekend considering we traveled over 2000 miles last weekend. We started it off by going to a fishing village called Smögen. It’s about an hour and a half north of Göteborg and is a very popular hangout in the summertime. As noted on Wikipedia “Smögen is well known today for its long, wooden pier (around 600 meters), filled with shops in old fishing huts, which are frequented by a multitude of tourists during the summer. Smögen is one of the most popular tourist destinations on the Swedish West Coast, well known for it’s fish, prawns and other sea-food, and one of Sweden’s few fish markets is located here.”

Before getting there, we had to cross Uddevalla bridge along the way. Rhonda remembered it from a year ago and we decided to find our way to the bottom after getting off of the freeway. It’s a very modern looking bridge and is unlike most bridges in Sweden. We made several wrong turns getting there, but with the help of a GPS Rhonda borrowed from a co-worker, we found our way. Below are some pictures of the bridge.

You can click on the next picture to get a large panoramic view. We made this one black and white for a different effect and because of the lack of color during this early spring.

After looking at two locations around the bridge, we made our way to Smögen. It was lunch time when we arrived so we decided to grab some lunch at the local pizzeria. Even though we wanted pepperoni, it is not the local favorite. This is our second pizza place we have been to in Sweden and ham, called skinka, seems to be the most common type of pizza.

We finished with lunch and found a place to park near the sea. It was a very windy, cold and rainy day. During some of the gusts, you could lean sideways into the breeze.

We took a nice walk by the water. There are many tiny buildings that open as new shops during the summer season. They are different every year. Below are some of the pictures from our walk.

Below is a view of the village houses when you enter the city.

Here is another view of some of the houses on the shoreline as a boat passes by.

Smögen is a great place to visit and is probably even better in the summer season. We may have to go here again in May.

On Sunday afternoon we decided to try to hit a few museums. The first was called the Aeroseum. It was opened up 2 years ago for public viewing. It was constructed during the cold war for the purpose of storing Swedish military aircraft. It is completely underground and is about the size of 3 football fields. We thought it would only take 2 hours to take the guided tour, but we ended up spending 4 hours because our guide did the tour in 2 languages, Swedish and English. Since the tour took much longer than expected, we decided to forgo the Volvo museum tour this weekend. Below are some pictures from the tour.

Rhonda always wanted to be a fighter pilot. Here she finally got her picture taken inside of one.

It was interesting to learn this bunker was built 50 years ago. However, the people of Göteborg only learned it existed 5 years ago. At one time they were going to fill it in with dirt and sand, but some “important person” got it approved to turn it into a museum. There are plans to build an amusement park on top of it, but it may be a while before that happens. It was a great tour.

Chad

Not much happening lately so I thought I would show you our great morning after yesterday’s snow.

Chad

Wow, what a long exciting journey! Chad and I are on our luxury train ride back home to Gothenburg (compared to other train rides). We have about 3 hours left on the train, so we thought we would give you an update of our trip!

On Thursday evening (03-20) at 6PM, we headed off to the Gothenburg central train station which is just down the road from our apartment. We had to get ourselves prepared for a long trip. Waiting for us was an 11 hour train ride in a cabin with 4 other Suedes, then a 12 hour bus ride, then finally another 1 and half hour bus ride ending in Kiruna. Sweden is a very long country, so this trip was like traveling from Greensboro, NC to Dallas, TX. We took a limited amount of luggage, but still wish we could have consolidated a bit more. We had to take a backpack full of food; we had 6 diet cokes, 5 sandwiches, plus a few other junk food items. We hoped that it would be enough to get us there without having to buy expensive food on the train and during the bus stops.

During the trip up, we mainly spent our time sleeping, reading books and looking at the country side. Most of the homes typically in Sweden are red wooden small homes, however some are yellow. The further north we went, the more snow we saw on the ground. One of the 4 suedes on the train was very social and actually offered both of us a beer.

On Friday night, we arrived at our destination in Kiruna at 8:30PM. To our surprise, we only had to walk 5 minutes to the Scandic hotel where we were staying. The hotel itself was very nice and I think it was the largest hotel in town. See a picture of the hotel below. It offered a free full breakfast and the restaurant/bar was the local’s favorite, so it was quite busy. After checking in, I was able to talk Chad into going to the bar for a drink before bedtime. The bar was small with live music and overall the perfect “bar” atmosphere. I can understand why it is so popular.

We had a pretty relaxed Saturday morning. Our bus ride to the Ice Hotel wasn’t until 10AM, so we slept in and then had a big breakfast! I don’t think I have eaten so much food for breakfast before. They had everything you could ever want (except biscuits and gravy): scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, cereal, waffles, oat meal, your typical cold sandwiches for the Europeans, and the list goes on… It turns out the bus ride to the Ice Hotel was free! I guess the driver was being generous on Easter weekend. So, the money we would have spent on the bus ride was now going to be spent on at the Ice Hotel! 🙂

I was told by many people, that if you ever got the chance to make the long trip to the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjarvi which is 200 km north of the Arctic Circle, it would be well worth it. During the 30 minute bus ride there from Kiruna, I hoped that I (we) would not be disappointed.

Well, the other folks were right! It was truly amazing. Every year in November, the artists and workers start building the Ice Hotel. Most of the rooms are complete at the end of December. Each year the hotel gets bigger and bigger. This year is the 18th season and it contained 60 rooms.

There were about 20-30 artistic rooms, where different artists from all over the world applied for the chance to design an Ice Room. Many apply for the opportunity, but only a few get their design approved. It is a shame that these amazing pieces of work will melt in mid-April. Every year, the Ice Hotel is rebuilt in a different form. In the beginning, people thought that this was a crazy tradition, but you know what, they have a totally different opinion now. There is a lot of money being made now and there is nothing else like it in the world!!! What an incredible place to see…

After viewing a few of the rooms, we took a guided tour where we learned a lot about how the hotel is made each year. Below you will see some excellent pictures by Chad. The last one is my favorite of the room with all the ice circles!

The hotel also has an Ice Church which is mainly used for weddings and baptisms. There are approximately 150 weddings each year from couples all of over the world who want to get married in a unique place. The baptisms are mainly performed for the local families in the area. It’s kind of funny because we went from visiting the Ice Church to the Ice Bar.

The Bar is the main hangout for those visiting. Drinks are served in a real ice glass! They make a million ice glasses per year! In order for liquids not to freeze in the ice glass, mixed drinks with vodka are only served. Of course we wanted to buy a drink to take in the whole experience! There are actually 4 other Ice Bars in Europe, one in Stockholm, Copenhagen, London, and Tokyo. All the ice for each bar though comes from the original Ice Hotel here in Jukkasjarvi!

Our bus back to Kiruna was at 2:40PM, so we had some time to waste before our dog sled evening adventure which Chad will describe next…

Rhonda  (PS: Check out Chad below at the bus stop looking not too excited… 🙂

That afternoon we had an early dinner at the restaurant/bar downstairs. I had sautéed Reindeer which is fairly common. Overall good, but it needs more spice/flavor.

At 6 pm, our guide Dyson (I’m not sure how to spell his name) showed up at the motel to pick us up. He was wearing a coat made from reindeer. He had very long gray hair and a beard. To Rhonda, he looked like an Arkansas mountain man. We cruised around town and picked up 5 more people and headed to Jukkasjärvi to get geared up with very warm clothes.

Upon arrival at the sled dog area we were given some warm boots, hat, mittens, and a suit to wear. Lots of layers worked great. I decided to take my tripod and camera and it turned out I could not use them due to the extreme cold and the fact it was so dark. Anyway, myself, Rhonda and another person got on one sled and the rest on another. Each sled held up to 6 people. The first thing I noticed was the dogs were very small. After asking, I learned the smaller dogs with good coats and not to much hound blood, do the best. Large dogs use more energy trying to stay warm. We had 12 dogs pulling us.

We went for about 6 kilometers and met up with the other sled at a cabin in the woods for tea, coffee, and sandwiches. We sat around a table bundled up for about a half hour and enjoyed all they had to offer. They talked about sled dog racing and the business they had built up over the years. Dyson informed us it was about -25C and it was going to get colder. He made sure the front of the sled people were covering their face properly otherwise they would suffer frostbite with the breeze.

Along the way I did manage a few snapshots. However, the camera started freezing up. Another passenger, Lou, had his camera completely ice over trying to photograph while riding. This kind of activity is not good for camera equipment.

On the way back a full moon started to rise. It looked orange and hung large over the horizon. All you could hear were the dogs, a few commands from the musher, and the sled riding over the snow. It was a great time.

(One note here. For some reason my left toes froze on the sled ride back. I was riding fine one minute and the next minute I couldn’t feel my toes. I believe I stopped the circulation in my leg for a short while. My toes quickly cooled with no blood circulating. Once I realized my toes were froze, I quickly made some adjustments. It took me a while to get them thawed out!)

The next day we went largest wooden building in Sweden, the Church in Kiruna. It was an amazing building and was very large. You can see the bell tower on the right hand side. Everyone walks to Church as only about 20 cars can park anywhere near it.

Later that day we started on our way back home after getting lunch.

We went to the Kiruna train station to meet our train at 2:10 pm. Just before 2:10 there was a Swedish announcement that a train derailed and it would be 1 hour before our train arrived. Rhonda scrambled to get the announcement translated. Within the next 2 hours they had the train running and picking us up. We also learned they held up all other connecting trains along the way. This was excellent since we originally had only 16 minutes to catch our connecting train. Below is a picture of the Kiruna train station.

We made it to our connecting train and road it for the next 20 hours. The ride was good, but very long. You can see Rhonda below in our room. The second bed is right above her head.

Overall the trip was excellent. I need to learn how to speak and read Swedish. Life is definitely more interesting when you can not understand what the announcements are saying. We relied on very friendly Swedish people translating everything for us.

Chad

This weekend we are taking the train up to the “Ice Hotel” located in Jukkasjärvi Sweden near Kiruna. After visiting the Ice Hotel we are going on a dog sled ride for several hours. Finally, after that we are staying out late hoping to see and photograph the Northern Lights. Kiruna is about 200 km North of the Arctic Circle. (Still about 1300 miles from the North Pole.) The train ride is 24 hours long going North and a little East of Göteborg. So you probably won’t see any posting from us until Tuesday of next week.

This brings me to another question people have been asking. How far North is Göteborg in relation to the States? Göteborg is located at a latitude of 57 42′30.00″N On a map of North America that is about 620 miles North of the Canadian border or about 150 miles South of the Northwest Territories.

Kiruna is near where the Ice Hotel is located. Kiruna’s, latitude is about 1350 miles North of the Canadian Border. That is equivalent to about 3/4 of the way to the top of Alaska.

I hope that gives you an idea of where we are going.

Chad

We had a great St. Patrick’s Day. After work a good friend of ours, Martin, showed us around town a bit. We started out by moving our parked car to another parking spot. Rhonda thought she got a great parking spot because she was able to park so close. After we walked out of the apartment, Martin told us that on certain days of the week they do street cleaning. Our street is cleaned every Tuesday morning from 2am to 7am.  You will get a ticket if you are in the way.

After moving the car we had an excellent dinner at a restaurant called the La Vacca. We had pizzas and Carlsberg beer. Very good overall. Along the way we learned if you “take away” (never use the words “to-go” in Sweden, it confuses the translation.) the food, it costs about 50% less for this place. However, the atomsphere was great and it was worth it to be there. Also, the place is about 10 meters outside our apartment door!

After dinner we went to a great bar. Martin has spent some time there. It’s called the Dubliner. The place was full and amazingly enough almost everyone was speaking English. I had a few pints of Guinness and Rhonda was drinking Carlsberg. We hung out for a few hours and talked with some of Martin’s friends who he plays football (soccer) with. In fact one of them may be going for a jump at the local DZ in June. We hope to be there when he goes.

Before leaving Rhonda worked hard to get a popular hat from the bartenders. After going through three of them she was able to get one. Here a picture of her wearing it at home.

Chad