Mama Mia!

I will forever think of my host Mia as Mama Mia.

She is so kind and warm hearted, and wants to do as much as she can to make you comfortable. When she and Luis came back in the morning, she offered to do my laundry while I got ready. Then, we had a wonderful breakfast with Luis in the apartment. Luis was very nice as well, but had just started learning English. Another opportunity to practice my lack of Spanish...

They were curious to know what sort of differences I noticed in Sweden compared to America. I mentioned the idea of the personal bubble. In the U.S., your personal bubble is quite large. Bubbles have different sizes in any culture depending on how familiar you are with the other person. The friend bubble in the U.S. is the size of the stranger bubble in Europe. I've found this bubble is even smaller in the Romantic countries. It took me a long time to get used to how close people would stand next to me in the supermarket line. Often I would put my hand on my hip and thrust my elbow out behind me, just so I could breathe. Other than that, there was a certain lack of "excuse me's" and "pardon me's" that I'm used to hearing in Ohio that I have almost never heard abroad.

The only other thing I could think of, was the accuracy at which a European male could be singled out in a group of Americans. It mostly has to do with scarves, pointy shoes, and floppy hair.

While I was getting ready to go, Mia had not only folded my bedding, she had also folded my laundry. I couldn't possibly have said thank you enough. I showed her the destinations I had picked out on my travel application and off we went.

It was a GORGEOUS day in Gothenburg. She said it was going to be 17 degrees. Huh? We wouldn't need our coats. Ah, okay, that I can understand. The sun shined all day as we walked to a museum and several churches. We also walked up many many steps to the top of a hill that overlooked Gothenburg. Mia said these steps would give us those "Hollywood asses" that women often worked for.She was hillarious and really fun to be around.

We wandered into a shop where everything was either made from olives, or could be mixed with olive oil to create dressings,dips, etc. There was a buffet of bread chunks and dips, and we pretty much made into our lunch.

Most of the day we spent walking around the old district of the city. I was captivated by the trees, never mind the buildings. They had club like appendages and joints in the branches that gave them the appearance of mangled hands. Like a medusa of of fingers sprouting out of a single trunk. I know I have seen giant thousand dollar sculptures that looked like these trees, and they are all lawn flamingos in comparison.

Before we left the city center, we got sushi to take home. The night was mostly uneventful.  I had a mini freak out when my Copenhagen host hadn't messaged me back yet confirming our meeting.  Mia said not to worry, and that I could stay with her one more night if I needed time to get another host in Copenhagen.  I said I would check again in the morning, and then we could decide which course of action to take.

Kinda freaking out in Gothenburg
Tegs