Weekend Excursion to Göteborg, Sweden

Going into the weekend we had no plans to go anywhere. We were going to spend a weekend at our apartment and just hang around in Växjö. However, mom talked me into going and doing something. So, late Friday we decided we would go to Göteborg for the weekend. I am so glad I listened to mom; we had a blast! A little information on Göteborg. Göteborg is the second largest city in Sweden with a population of 467,000 people.. It is also the biggest port in Scandinavia with 12,000 ships and 4 million ferry passengers arriving each year! Göteborg is considered a green city. It has 175 square meters of green space per city resident and is home to the enormous National Science Discovery Center. The NSDC is over 10,000 square meters; we will have to visit this next trip! However, the primary reason for our trip was Liseberg. Liseberg is the biggest amusement park in Scandinavia with over 3 million visitors a year (mainly in early summer and during the Christmas season).

We traveled by train from Växjö to Göteborg and then back again. It was a nice train ride and a straight shot with no train changing. The train is called Kust to Kust (coast to coast). The one way trip takes about 3.5 hours. Central station in Göteborg is really pretty. It doesn’t look like any other train station that I have seen. It’s about the same side as the Jacksonville mall. It has 16 platforms and there is a train in all of them most of the time. Mariah slept almost the entire way back. We stayed at the Scandic hotel. This is the same hotel chain as we stayed in our first night in Sweden. This chain caters to children and is run by the Hilton. They have children’s playrooms in all their hotels, children stay free in the parents room, teenagers can get adjoining rooms of their own for discount prices, there is always a nice indoor pool (that we never seem to have time for). They even have a children’s mascot…Siggy the hedgehog. They also provide a smorgasbord breakfast! All this for less than 70:- (kronors) (about 10 dollars) more than a single room in a youth hostel.

Across form the train station is Nordstan. Nordstan is the biggest shopping mall in Scandinavia with over 150 shops not including restaurants all under one roof. I took pictures, it’s not a really special looking building but I was trying to really show how big it is. It took three pictures just to get the front of the building. There is even a hotel attached to the mall. We spent several hours here before our train left to return home. However we only purchased a few items, including a Christmas present. Mariah got a baby doll. She has been missing hers and it was on sale! I actually picked out some girly jewelry for me! The main part of our trip was at Liseberg. We arrived at the park about 2.30 pm and didn’t get back to the hotel until after 10 pm. Mariah had so much fun. It was a sheer delight to see the big smile that was plastered to her face. She is finally tall enough to ride the most of the rides. There were only about 7 rides she was to short for and of course those were the ones she wanted to ride on. Mariah’s favorite ride was the small rollercoaster. She rode it and rode it and rode it! She also rode some other rides that I thought might have been a little rough after we got started on them. We went on the Ferris wheel too. We were able to take some really cool pictures from there. The one ride I really wanted to go on was the wooden rollercoaster, but Mariah was 20 cm to small. Oh well. They also had a storybook ride that was really neat. You sat in boats that were on a suspended track and moved through the storybook castle. The stories in the castle were the Emperor’s New Cloths, Alice in Wonderland, Aladdin, Cinderella, and some others we didn’t know. The mascot for the park is a neon green bunny rabbit that can be found all around the park. Next month they close the amusement park and change things around for the Christmas festival that starts in November. We are planning on going back to Göteborg at least one more time before we leave Sweden. There is so much to do we could easily spend a week there! Hope everyone at home is doing well. We love and miss you all. Thank you for your prayers and your support. There is only 95 days left in our amazing adventure!