a visitor

Who's a lucky boy? Ja ha... That'd be me. I recently had a visitor drop in for a couple of weeks. My girlfriend, Belle, visited me in Göteborg.

It was time to share my knowledge of Swedish customs (lunch at 11:30am), language (tjena! hur är läget?), and food (inlagd sill). Of course it was a lot of fun showing off the city I'd been living in for the past four months, so far away from her and Melbourne.

First of all I had to serve some traditional Swedish foods. I served a mid-summer's style meal of inlagd sill, otherwise known as picked herring in English. Remember it's sill, and definitely not seal! Also served up with some fresh potatoes, boiled. Some of the herring was excellent, some of it not so.

Typically during the day we'd meet each other for lunch, as I was still working during the day. Something different in Göteborg compared to Melbourne is the ferry across the river, so typically we'd be catching that to meet in either Lindholmen or Järntorget. During the first week the weather looked pretty threatening, but usually it kept from raining too much.

It didn't stop us from checking out the sights around town, including walks along the canal, visiting the animals in Slottskogen (a large park) and going for after work drinks along über-trendy Avenyn.

Although the weather isn't always this cooperative in summer, in Sweden, luckily for us the weather did improve. The second week of Belle's stay was sunny and, would you believe it, hot!? Now it was time to get out an enjoy the best Göteborg has to offer. Personally I think the best activities are the outdoors ones too:

• cruising in the archipelago
• a picnic next at Delsjön
• outdoor dining in Haga
• drinks in the sunshine along Avenyn

We went on a cruise in the archipelago. It combined the lovely views of Göteborg's southern islands at sunset, and a wonderful summer meal: salmon, mussels, and as much shrimp as you could fit in (or be bothered shelling!). Highly recommended when in Göteborg (in summer... with good weather).

walkabout in london

As Wimbledon drew to a close for another year, I decided it was time to visit London. Touching down late on Friday night, I got the grand tour from Stansted in the North East to where Carmen lives, Wimbledon, in the South West. Similar to going from Melbourne Airport to Frankston, this took about an hour and a half.

After a justified sleep in on Saturday it was time to take "the tube" to see one of London's most famous sites: the Tower of London.

The Tower is not a single tower, rather it is a fortress (with 4 towers), surrounded by two defensive walls. The walls have many more towers.

The complex has plenty of strange, interesting and bloody-thirsty history to offer. Not only that, it also stores some impressive collections of historic weaponry: from suits of armour to bayoneted rifles.

A funny tradition at the tower, is that a minimum of six ravens need to roost in the grounds, otherwise legend has it that the tower will crumble and the monarchy will fall. Of course this is the first time I'd heard of ravens being crucial to the structural integrity of a building and the general well being of a family, but you never know I guess. Just to make sure the legend is never tested, they keep eight or nine ravens there. Not superstitious at all; just cautious. :-)

Of course to complete any self-respecting royal fortress, you require royal guards. The British have pretty distinctive royal guards too:

These lads were on their way to guard the crown jewels. And do the British royals have a lot of crown jewels? Yes.

That night it was time to change the scene a bit. From down town royal castles, to inner city Camden Town. We caught a Mexican wrestling (Lucha libre) show at the Roundhouse. Former railway shed, and then more famously, live music venue. These days it's been revamped into a theatre. The wrestling was a ridiculous, well choreographed show with oiled up men wearing masks. After the show we went back to the centre of London for a night on the turps.

We were supposed to have brunch on Sunday morning, but we scrapped that plan in favour of sleeping in again. Today was the main event: Wimbledon men's final. No, unfortunately I didn't have tickets, but being in London meant I could at least watch the final in daylight hours! True to form, it was raining by 1pm, and still raining at 2pm when the final was due to start. We headed into a sports bar, and settled for watching a very wet British Grand Prix.

Finally the weather cleared, and Federer and Nadal took the court for what was about to be an epic 5 set final. This being London on men's final Sunday, meant it wasn't going to be fine weather forever. Of course the match got interrupted again. When the weather forecaster said the delay would be at least an hour, we decided to head to Cynthia's, and watch the remainder of the final at her house. (We weren't even sure if it was going to be continued that day!)

The rest is history. The rain cleared, play continued, and Nadal broke Federer's five Wimbledon winning streak. We watched it in comfort at Cyn's place, eating some excellent sushi.

aussie rules karlstad

After the fun of a very Swedish midsummer's long weekend, the next weekend it was time to spice things up with a bit of a road trip in celebration of Australian culture. I hit the road with the Berserkers: the Göteborg Australian Rules Football Club to take on the Dragons from Karlstad.

Aussie rules has to be modified a bit to be played here. For example, we play on a rugby pitch, with nine players per side on the field. Since the pitch is fairly short, there was a one bounce limit before you had to pass.

Göteborg was boosted by a few ring-in's from Oslo: three Aussies! So the final make up of the Berserkers was 5 Aussies and 6 Swedes. It was a sunny day, with a moderate wind down the ground. We lost the toss and kicked into the wind in the first quarter. While slightly down at quarter time, a heated 2nd quarter made sure we were in front at half time by a goal. Unfortunately our ruck man was knocked out after a heavy tackle.

With the loss of the ruck man our mid-field was significantly weakened and Karlstad took full advantage kicking 6 or 7 goals in the first 10 minutes of the third quarter. It's not called the premiership quarter for nothing. From here we never recovered.

Karlstad def. Göteborg: 18.19.127 to 9.14.68.

Postscript: Mattias, the ruck who was knocked out, was at training the following Monday, suffering only a "slight" headache. Suffice to say, he opted out of the scratch match at the end.