After our long flights and the nine-hour time change, we both slept fitfully on Tuesday night and struggled to be awake and energetic in the morning. After a lovely hotel breakfast (a buffet with a multitude of choices), the Volvo driver picked us up and took us out to the customer service center. We did some paperwork, then took a one-hour tour on a little train through the amazing (and gigantic) factory. There wasn't much going on in the factory as the workers were just arriving back from their planned summer-shutdown holiday. The degree of automation and the huge robots themselves were truly stunning. It was Transformers come to larger-than-life!
After the tour, they brought our car around and gave us a guided tour of all the controls. Not fully successful, though, because we have spent hours since then paging through the woeful owner's manual, which describes mostly things that we didn't really need to know, and omits such basics as how to make the clock realize we are not in Chicago. We eventually went to the FAQs on the Volvo Web site to figure things out. The car is wonderful, but some of the features are a bit intimidating. For example, it will take a while to get used to having it shut the engine off at red lights.
We managed to pilot the new vehicle to our charming little hotel a couple of miles outside downtown Goteborg. It was an old building with a round tower in one corner located in a neighborhood of apartment blocks. Our small room had a tiny balcony just big enough for two small chairs at a table, and a sweet little flower box hanging off of it (picture).After getting gear into our room, we trekked a couple of miles on foot into the city to find dinner at a cool tapas bar on a boat on the canal. What does it say about Swedish food that our two dinners in Goteborg were at an Italian pasta place and a Spanish tapas restaurant? Of course, we don't eat meatballs, so maybe it's our fault.
Now, about the hotel room ... I will tell you that the bed was very comfortable and good for ten hours of very sound sleep. Suzanne will tell you that the bed was equivalent to an uncomfortable futon and that the rowdies leaving the hotel bar outside the window kept her awake half the night. (There is much to be said for sleeping with a pillow over one's head!) I woke up rested and ready for the day's drive; Suzanne? Well, I'd better not say anything I'll regret ...
We left Goteborg around 9:30 this morning and drove down the west coast of Sweden to Malmö, turning west around noon to cross the Øresund Bridge, a 20+ mile combination of bridge, artificial island, and tunnel coming out near Copenhagen, Denmark. Western Sweden looks a lot like Oregon, except with more lakes---maybe a cross between Oregon and Minnesota. Denmark looks a lot like Nebraska: flat fields wherever you look. A tsunami would not have to be very high to sweep across the entire country. After crossing another bridge (we worked hard to avoid ferries today) we turned south and crossed into Germany, arriving at tonight's destination of Neumünster.
Tonight's hotel is not really quaint, looking more like an Oregon Best Western than a European hotel. But, oh my, the room decor is amazing:
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| View from the door looking in |
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| The door to adjoining room: signed pictures of German World Cup Champions (of two different years), in field positions! |
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| German Women's team pictures, above the bed ... |
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| ... which, of course, has a soccer pitch coverlet |
We only hope that the bed will prove more conducive to Suzanne sleeping and that the decor does not lead to me kicking her all night!
Another treat tonight is the opportunity to watch (via the amazing Internet) the Twins play a day game: noon in Minnesota = 7pm in Germany. Needless to say, I've missed the night games that started at 2am that last two days. I take for granted my summer evening routine in Portland of switching on the Twins' broadcast around 5pm and checking up on them periodically through the evening. They play day games today and Sunday, so two opportunities to see parts of games if we're not out and about.
Tomorrow it's off briefly to the Netherlands, then on to France for almost two weeks starting Friday. I'll post more as we continue on our travels. Until then, Guten Nacht!
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