Fisk & Bananer (Sweden)

Last week, we finally hit what we both consider to be international territory – so we thought maybe it was time for a post! We’ll backfill the details of our various UK adventures soon, since we were having far too much fun to find the time to write anything down.

Our first stop outside the UK was Sweden, the home of consensus, efficiency and entirely unpronounceable names – and, of course, Ikea. It goes without saying that we both had an absolute blast there. The scenery was amazing, the food was great, and the weather was surprisingly good. Above all, we met some fantastically helpful, interesting, and entertaining people who went out of their way to make sure we had a good time.

Amazing scenery: Exhibit A

We only spent about a week in the country, but we visited two very different places which gave us a pretty good taste of Swedish culture: first Gothenburg, and then Bohus-Malmon.

Gothenburg is a major port city and all-around center of commerce for Sweden which remains home to some major companies, including Volvo (there’s even a Volvo museum!). However, this is not at all apparent to visitors based on its compact city center and seemingly sleepy atmosphere. As we discovered, it’s easy to spend a sunny afternoon puttering along in a canal boat (ducking the impractically low bridges) or reading a book on the surrounding grassy banks, oblivious to the industry underway in further-flung parts of the city.

Gothenburg’s bustling city center

Admiring statues

Contemplating the canal

Sailing the canal – with suitably blonde and peppy tour guide 

We did discover some interesting diversions, including a museum of ships with an early post-WW2 destroyer and a submarine from the same era. The destroyer (Småland) was built during that awkward era when weapons were shifting from guns to missiles (negative, Ghostrider, you’ve got it all wrong). Thus it bristled with armaments of all sorts for every eventuality – big and little guns; depth charge projectors; early antiship missiles; torpedoes; and even some sea mines. Oddly enough for a ship operating in the North Sea, the bridge was uncovered, which tells you a lot about the hardiness of the Swedish navy, or at least their yearning for the Viking longship days of yore.

Ethan pontificating about naval weapons

The submarine (Nordkaparen) was also quite a sight. It’s amazing how cramped old subs are; even getting through the doors was a struggle and only the captain had his own cabin. This one contained a few clever innovations such as rotary storage for torpedoes (to make reloading faster) and was one of the first subs to use one large propeller rather than two small ones, which allowed for slower rotation at a given speed, and thus made the sub harder to detect. Plumbing was also apparently a big thing since getting a toilet to work while 100 meters under the surface is no mean feat.

 

Submarine commander Jess, hellion of the Skagerrak

Food in Gothenburg, as in Sweden generally, involved a considerable amount of meatballs, fish, milk / cheese / cream and potatoes. Such is Gothenburg’s dedication to fish that they literally built a Fish Church in which to worship (mostly by purchasing and consuming large amounts of smoked salmon and shrimp – with potatoes on the side, of course). The cheese aisle in the local supermarket was also really something to behold, with row-upon-row of intimidatingly large slabs. While we were somewhat prepared for this, there were a few things we learned:

• Pickled herring is excellent, but only if consumed in modest quantities
• Italian food is everywhere and typically the most reasonably priced option
• There is also a highly budget-friendly, only slightly dodgy, pan-Asian buffet available near the waterfront for those times when you’ve had enough of fish and potatoes and/or pasta
• Swedish people really, really love bananas, and also love to talk about how much they love bananas

Four flavors of herrings

Fish church

Ethan finding his inner fish

Having discovered that we enjoyed Swedish food quite a bit more than expected, we did spend some time trying to work it back off again. We discovered a brilliant outdoor gym in the local park (right next to the best kids’ playground either of us has ever seen, which triggered significant jealousy, but we had to make do with our adult-sized climbing frames). Thereafter commenced plenty of tire flipping, rock hoisting and rope climbing – plus some valiant attempts at muscle ups. And later we even went kayaking (we have the large blisters to prove it). The Swedes, whilst decisively outdoing us in all of these areas, also took to speeding past on their snowless-cross-country skis.

Roller skiing

Bohus-Malmon is a vacation island replete with sailing, hiking, cliff-diving, and saunas. It was formerly a big exporter of red granite (for European palaces and statues), and now hosts numerous summer homes for Swedes fighting a valiant fight against invading Norwegian vacationers (older and richer) and Pokemon Go enthusiasts (younger and scrappier). The island is stunningly beautiful, in a rocky (granite!), barren sort of way.

The harbor

We were fortunate enough to be enjoying our time on the island with Jess’ godmother and her family, who have spent every spare moment there since childhood. It was great to have the chance to see a part of Sweden which the Swedes like to visit, rather than the Americans / British / Germans. Bohus-Malmon retains much of its original charm (in our eyes at least) and operates at a slow pace, with unlocked doors, free-roaming children and the only rickshaws we’ve seen in Europe.

Novel transportation

Very friendly dog

By far the most popular pursuit on the island is sailing, with sailing fashion as the second – Vineyard Vines has not tapped this market yet but would undoubtedly make a killing. We got to try both motor boating and “proper” sailing (the only respectable seaborne conveyance, according to local sources). Ethan manned a tiller for the first time and didn’t capsize, and we enjoyed a few hours speeding around the local fjord in a boat manned by a young master mariner who only told us afterwards that he wasn’t wearing his contact lenses.

A typical view from the coast

But the highlight of our time was the most authentically Swedish activity of all – the sauna. And this sauna was especially awesome, because it was floating in the harbor. The only thing more exhilarating than repeated shifts between a 70C oven room and a nicely chilled Swedish harbor is doing it in one’s birthday suit, in full view of several dozen boats. We were looking for true authenticity on this trip, and we found it. And best of all, it included beer.

The warming phase

The cooling phase

Although usually held in August, our hosts felt compelled to throw a traditional crayfish party for us. We made hats! It was amazing!! We had aquavit!!! And had to sing Swedish toasts before drinking it!!!!

Thematic consistency

Hats

Psyching up (with Pimms)

Crayfish

Jess third wheeling