International Food Market

In August Gothenburg held a culture festival which included art expeditions, international food markets, music shows and street parades just to name a few. I smelled and tasted myself around Gustav Adolfs Square in Gothenburg. An exotic cultural food mix awaited me:


Fudge factory




Pick your favorite kind of cheese



Deli meat from Germany

Coffee

Pancakes from Netherland



Gustav Adolfs Torg



Thai food

Coffee



Aussie Burgers

 

Why try a Aussie burger?

Sweet delicatessens from France

Marstrand

Marstrand is 30 minutes drive from Gothenburg.  A car-free island with unique wooden houses dating back from the 1800s.  Cobble stoned streets crawls around the island in a spiraling maze.  Nowadays Marstrand is a West Coast mecca for sailors.  The Carlsten´s fortress overlooks the island from a hilltop and has a magnificent view from the top.  The fortress itself has an interesting history.  Colourful shops and houses with proud Swedish flags waving in the wind, awaits visitors from the mainland - a 5 minute ferry ride away.  The restaurants and cafe´s serve local delicacies which can be enjoyed outside while overlooking the water and sailboats.  The Southern Bohuslän, which includes Marstrand and Tjörn, are worth exploring - a great getaway from the city.

Bicycle parade

Walking down the Avenue in Gothenburg on Saturday a group of extreme and interesting bicycles, with their owners, cycled by.  I managed to only get one picture. It was a fleeting moment of unexpected strangeness - some with big radios attached to their seats, some with big colourful designs and some just old Penny Farthing style.

  

Irish Luck

Last weekend Australia played Ireland in a Rugby World Cup match. We watched the game in an Irish Pub, Dubliners. I drank a Bulmers, an Irish drink (while Stephan had his Guinness). And with some Irish luck Ireland took the Aussies down under! 

A pink cloud

A pink (reddish) cloud floating by on Friday twilight.   A strange, but beautiful sight.

Punta Del Este, Uruguay

Punta del Este is a city and big tourist resort on the Atlantic Coast of southeastern Uruguay.
There are many beaches along the coastline.  We stayed in a nice location, 20 minutes from the noisy and crowded centre of Punta del Este,  in the middle of a green villa neighbourhood. The hostel was 400 metres from "Bikini Beach", the most famous surfing beach of Punta del Este and a 25 peso bus ticket outside of the Punta del Este city centre. "Bikini Beach" is a white sandy beach with strong waves, a surfers paradise.  This part of Punta del Este reminded me of South Africa´s Jeffrey's Bay. There are a couple of good and interesting restaurants from where you can view the sea and enjoy the beautiful sunsets of the Uruguayan coast. This wasn´t my most favorite stop-over in our trip, but had one of the better beaches I had seen so far in Uruguay.  A bit touristy for me, but overall a good place to visit.

Tip:  Rent a car and take a scenic coastal drive.









My first Swedish lesson

The first sentence I said to someone in Swedish (my first “conversation” if you will) was with an old lady in an elevator in the library in Gothenburg.  She said something (I have no idea what, as I was just starting out with the language).  And the first Swedish words that popped into my head were:  “Jag skulle vilja vill gå till toalett.” (Translated:  I would like to go to the toilet).  She looked at me with one eye only (the other one on the red number counting down the floors), murmured something under her breath and stopped the elevator at the first available floor.  The she “ran” out (well walked as fast as she could).  My eagerness to have a conversation in Swedish or just to let my voice be heard, to let the Swedish population know that I am here and I want to say something, taught me a valuable lesson that day:  Don´t speak (Swedish) to strangers.



Gotlib (Gothenburg library) on the right