Wander & Nest

My dad and his girlfriend, Susan, made the long trip from Southern California to visit us in Sweden! As seems to be the typical experience now, their first flight was delayed so they missed their connection and arrived in Gothenburg at 3am as opposed to the originally scheduled 7pm. Luckily they made it to their hotel and managed to get some sleep even though it was basically light out by the time they arrived.

Wylie’s friend, Mo, was also in town for a couple of days. She’s a professor at RIT in New York and was in Stockholm for a conference so she took the train down to hang out for a few days.

I met my dad and Susan at their hotel the next morning then we took the tram to pick up Mara early from school. We had a low-key afternoon and evening at our place with an apero dinner. Of course we stopped at a nearby cheese shop and my dad made friends with the owner. Both my dad and Susan are small business owners in California – my dad with Coastal Products selling cheese to restaurants and wineries and hosting cheese tastings, and Susan has Rosie Lee Imports, a specialty British tea and gift shop in downtown Ventura. They were both very impressed by the selection of products and friendliness of staff at the small businesses here in Gothenburg.

The next day we went (again) to the world culture museum, we’re really regulars here. Mara showed grandpa all of her favorite attractions in the Together exhibit and of course the big amphitheater stairs.

We took a much needed rest after the activity of the museum and then headed back out (in the rain!) for dinner. We went to the Barn for burgers, it came highly recommended by multiple people to both us and my dad, and it did not disappoint. After basically giving up on burgers in New Zealand because they were so terrible (think ground beef with egg binder and breadcrumbs), we forgot how good a good burger is! We got really lucky that the staff found a way to get our big group a table without a booking on a Saturday night! We’ll definitely try to go back again before we leave Gothenburg.

The next day was another grey and rainy day, unfortunately, so we all had a pretty slow morning and got together in the afternoon. My dad brought Mara “The Cat in the Hat” and that has quickly become her favorite bedtime read. Wylie made dinner and we hung out at our place.

For their last full day in Gothenburg, I took my dad and Susanne around central Gothenburg a bit in the morning while Mara was at school. We went to the trendy food hall, Salluhallen, and my dad and Susan loved pursuing the various stands of cheeses, meats, breads, etc. We had lunch at a seafood restaurant in the hall. Susan and I were very happy with our meals, but to absolutely no one’s surprise my dad thought his shrimp sandwich was both too sweet and too salty and too much mayo but also it was great and exactly what he wanted and very fresh and he didn’t really like it. Typical Fritz haha. We walked around some shops then stopped for Fika before I went to pick up Mara.

They met us back at our place in the evening and we went to a Swedish restaurant in Haga. Again we were lucky to get a table without a booking! The weather was still a bit rainy otherwise there wouldn’t have been plenty of space outside. It’s a bummer the weather didn’t cooperate while they were visiting Gothenburg, but that’s how it goes. Goodbye this time was much easier because we’ll see them again in 6 weeks when we’re back in California!

My dad and Susan continued their Nordic adventure with the train to Copenhagen then to Stockholm, then they crossed the Baltic Sea by ferry and headed for Tallinn, Estonia. They really enjoyed Estonia and said the weather was great. I’m glad they got some sunshine on this trip!