Big city life

In order to get the whole picture of Sweden I decided to travel around a bit. Two weeks ago I travelled to the beautiful city of Gothenburg, which is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Only a two hour bus ride, to the left from Jönköping. My sister came for a visit. So we decided that this place would be a great day trip. While visiting the town, I immediately noticed how much bigger it is compared to the place I study now. However it was manageable to discover the city center without using public transportation. It is a beautiful place and the people are very kind.

Some history, told by my uncle: "Gothenburg was build during the 1600s by the Dutch, as they were considered the best at building on marshland. This has given Gothenburg's city centre its famous channels that are distinctly dutch-inspired!” (see picture)

After seeing all lovely buildings and the beautiful harbour. We met up with a Swedish friend of my sister and decided to have “Fika” at a cafe known for its very big Kanelbulle. Cafe Husaren is a cozy cafe in the artsy area called Haga. So, the Hagabulle, a huge version of the kanelbulle, is the speciality here. It was delicious and it is fun to share this with your friends, cause it is so huge.

Next stop was Stockholm. Last weekend some friends and I travelled by bus to the capital of Sweden. Also called the capital of Scandinavia because of its great history and modernity. Stockholm is over 650 years old and the city is build on 14 little islands. We took a free guided tour, visited the Royal palace, had a Fika in Gamla stan (old town). We also did a pub crawl, where we had the possibly to meet Swedish people and other young tourist who came to Stockholm for the weekend. It was a fun experience. The last they we decided to visit the famous Vasa museum. TripAdvisor named it the 9th best museum of the world. This museum presented us with the history of the famous warship that sank on its maiden voyage and was salvaged 333 years later. It was really interesting to learn more about the Swedish history and the process of salvaging a warship.

I also learned more about the famous “Stockholm Syndrom”. During the free guided tour I learned about the story and the origin of the name. In the 70s, one of the buildings used to be a bank, called “kreditbanken”. On the 23rd of august 1973 a man walked into the building, armed with a gun, and decided to rob the bank. In the process of this robbery he took four of the hostages. Over the time that they were in the bank together, they started to build this relationship with one another and they started to become friends. They formed this very unusual bond and even stayed friends after the event. And this is now called the Stockholm syndrome.

After visiting the two largest cities of Sweden, I am even more appreciating the Swedish culture with its unique customs and traditions. The history of Sweden can be discovered by visiting the cities and exploring all the museums and buildings around town. However I am happy that I decided to study in Jönköping. It is not to big and not to small :)