Not Made In Sweden, MADE BY SWEDEN!

Today started out just like every other day so far.  I could not get myself out of bed.  When I finally did I was able to clean up, get dressed, do my hair, and run over to the other building for a quick breakfast.  I even had some time to talk to the guy at the desk and find out how I was going to navigate the group from Skapa to Goteborg University.

Business:

Brandt had to direct us to Skapa.  I was actually excited about Skapa.  Skapa is a marketing firm here in Goteborg.  Skapa actually translates to Creating.  The CEO is Erik Ekholm.  He started the business in 1996.  From that time to today he has had multiple different logos.  The first chosen logo only lasted about two years before being changed.  It seemed that their main point was to drive sales with social media.  Erik saw a new area for marketing through social media.  Some companies to no agree with this and try to come up with as many excuses as they can.  One for sure that they use is that no one in their industry does that.  Which is exactly the point.  Businesses need to be competitive and get a leg up on ideas before others.  There is such a wide audience and social media reaches almost every single person.  It is funny to learn that Erik went to school to be a Naval Architect.

Erik also talked a lot about "smart online communication".  He likes to focus mainly on communication and marketing.  In my opinion, these two always go together.  It was not until 2006 to 2008 that Erik adapted from the traditional forms of marketing to the modern forms.  Unfortunately, there are some companies that are still holding on to those traditional forms of marketing.  One customer that Erik has, Aber Nein, actually said, "We are not that kind of company." when Erik mentioned Facebook to him.  I suppose in some industries this might work, but with how much things are changing it is hard to stay there.  Skapa deals more with B2B than with B2C.  When taking into account this point it does make since of why some businesses do not want to start social media.  I can agree that the social media aspect would be more for the

distributors to the end users than the manufacturer to the distributor.  As he mentioned in his presentation, some distributors will complain to the manufacturer about the social media because that can possibly take the end users away from the distributor and have them go straight through the manufacturer.

The ideal customer for Skapa is a B2B company that is Swedish owned and deals internationally.  Most of the companies that he deals with now are industrial.  Which explains the B2B side of things.  I would always think it would be so hard to work with a B2B company.  Only because of how they are so stuck in their ways and how businesses do not seem to actually market.  I think they market by just simply being a supplier.  There really is not a market process, but just making sure that the deliveries are delivered on time and that the order is correct.  It is more of the business strategy.

There was a very interesting video that was played for us.  It was created by Erik Qualman.  In this video he talked a lot about all these different statistics that relate back to the idea of social media marketing.  It starts off with talking about that there is no choice in social media, it is all about well you do social media.  He even mentions about how every two seconds there is another person that creates a LinkedIn account.  LinkedIn is now allowing people as young as thirteen create a page.  I am sorry, but at thirteen I was not thinking about careers.  Erik Qualman also talks about the four P's of marketing and how there are not four P's of marketing anymore, but four C's of marketing.  The

four C's consists of creating, curating, connecting, and culture.  It was definitely a very interesting video with so many statistics I had to re-watch it to try and remember everything.  The video even touched base on how many couples meet online or social media.  This video truly showed me how involved we are as humans in technology.  A funny statement made was that most millennials would rather lose their sense of smell than their technology.   I am not sure how true this statement is, but it was pretty funny.

Going back to the presentation, Erik showed us the conversation prism.  It looked very complicated to me.  There were so many pieces branching out that I could not keep up.  We did talk about the important four of social media, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.  There are apparently 1.2 million active users on Facebook.  I truly believe that this number is very low.  Facebook is all over the world how could there only be 1.2 million users?  Considering Twitter though, 90% of the users are in the US.  For some reason other countries do not use it and do not see the point in it.  I do not have a Twitter account; could never figure out how it worked so I stuck with Facebook.  I do have a LinkedIn account though and I am happy that I have that.

People on average reach for their phones 150 times a day.  That equates to every six minutes while you are awake.  That is beyond crazy!  We are so dependent on technology that we do not even notice it.  After this presentation is almost made me not want to use my phone, but the entire purpose of the presentation is to show why social media is so important and how it is easy marketing because of the fact that we are always on technology.

After learning about why there should be more social media marketing we learned about some interesting, but weird, new product technologies.  The first one was the Alert Shirt.  This shirt is worn by fans of sports.  The players and the fans have this bluetooth connection where the fans feels everything that the player feels.  If the player is nervous before a kick the fan is feeling that.  If a player gets tackled the fan is feeling that.  Pretty much anything that the player is doing is felt by the fan.  I do not know how much I would like that.  I mean if the player gets tackled and ends up breaking a bone or something does the fan feel that?  I would not want to go through that if that is true.

The next one was the Ring, Short Cut Everything.  This is simply a ring that goes on your pointer finger.  It syncs up to absolutely everything sort of technology.  With simply pointing your finger with the ring on and draw a light bulb the rings syncs to the light switch and allows you to turn on and off the light and even dim the lights of there is that type of switch.  Also the ring can sync to your phone so that while you are driving, or too busy, by just drawing with your finger in the air you are able to type anything or call anyone.  In my opinion, I would have one strong finger if I ever had that ring.  I would rather just type out what I need to do or get up and turn the lights on or off.  I can almost see this adding to the obesity numbers in the US.

Erik then went on to talk to us about some Apps that are out.  The BroApp was one that I have never heard of before.  To be honest, I never heard of any of the Apps before that he talked about.  BroApp would allow guys to do what ever they wanted and when their girl friend would text him the App

would send what ever text message the guy had reselected in the App.  Talk about a way to be unfaithful and the world never to find out.

Then we talked about this Chinese Taxi App.  Not sure what it is actually called since the entire App was in Chinese.  The gist of the App was that people could bet on taxi rides.  The highest bidder of course got the taxi.  I guess I would spend too much time on the betting when I most likely have a taxi right in front of me.  All depends on where in the world you are.  Fun fact is that Google does not work in China.  They have their own search engine to use. 

Navigating to Goteborg University was definitely not difficult.  We had to walk back to the Central Station and get on the Number Two tram heading toward Hogsbotrop and get off at Handelshogskolan.  I do not even want to try and figure out how to pronounce these words.  We started calling Hogsbotrop Hogwarts.  Goteborg University of Business and Economics is really interesting.  The entire school takes up one small city block and is little one giant square.  We can walk around the entire building and end up back where we started.  The first thing that we did was have lunch.  J.J. was trying to prepare us that it was only cafeteria food.  Cafeteria food that was serving salmon!  I had some salmon with some potatoes and a piece of bread.  For dessert of course I had the cinnamon bun.  To no surprise we all started talking about how we were going to go back to Carthage and tell the cafeteria people that we wanted salmon.  Something that is never going to happen.

At the university we met Professor Claes G. Alvstam.  He spoke to us a lot on the economics of Sweden, especially compared to the surrounding  countries.  Claes really surprised me with actually giving us all a handout with his presentation on it so that we could concentrate more on his actual presentation than taking notes.  Sweden is a member of the European Union since 1995.  They were very late in becoming a member compared to the other 27 countries that joined.  Due to Sweden being apart of the EU, they are not part of NATO.  NATO is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.  Apparently, majority of the European countries are part of NATO, but Sweden is not the only outsider to this, Finland is also not a part of NATO.

On a map Claes should us this line.  The line was fairly close to the bottom of the map of Sweden.l  I would say it was about a quarter of Sweden up.  From what we were told, nine out of ten Swedes live below this line.  It completely makes since that there would be more people living below the line since the two major cities are located below it.  Nine out of ten just seems so steep.  It does make since when taking into account how there truly is not much going on beyond that line.  Almost as if it is the middle of no where when we compare it to cities within our country that are not surrounded by anything.

One dollar has converted to as low as 5.18 krona.  Since this point in 1967, things have definitely changed.  There has been a lot of fluctuation since then.  At one point around the very early 2000's a single dollar was converted to nearly 10.5 krona.

Goteborg will actually be celebrating 400 years only a few years away.  Claes said that there is going to be a very special celebration for that.  Stockholm will be celebrating 800 years as well.  In the 19th century, Sweden was considered one of the poorest due to its late industrialization.  Sweden did bounce back when becoming one of the richest in the 21st century.  Clearly a ton of economic growth during the 20th century.

When it comes to economics I really do not know what is going on.  In these terms above I can get an idea of what is going on during these times, but some of the other slides in his presentation I have no clue what it was and I could not even try to talk about it now.  I can talk about how there were a list of companies that are of Swedish origin.  Out of this list only two are still Swedish, H&M and Ericsson.  Companies like ABB and SKF are no longer Swedish, but remember it originally was Swedish.

The amount of information that Claes gave us is crazy.  I really wish I could put it all in here, but I feel like I would bore people.  I will add in just a few more interesting facts from Claes and then talk about the other professor.  In 2000, a bridge was finally built from Sweden to Denmark.  There has never been a bridge to connect these two countries ever before.  There is no tuition fee for EU students going for their Bachelors degree.  Volvo Truck is compared to Mack in the US.

Before we finished the presentation two students came in to talk to us, Eva and Anton.  These two are actually going to be apart of Ask a Swede, Ask an American tomorrow and just wanted to come in and meet us first.  They both are very nice and speak really good English.  Eva actually lived in the

States at one point, but I cannot remember which state.  It was a shock when we found out Eva was 30 years old.  She looks like she is 21 or 22.  We talked with them for awhile and then continued out presentation.

At the end we all asked some questions to get a clearer idea of things.  Sweden, being the largest of the Scandanavian countries, as 0% inflation.  They actually have deflation.  The Scandanavian countries consist of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland.  They all have friendly competition.  As J.J. says he will hear jokes in Sweden about Denmark and then go to Denmark to hear the exact same joke, but about Sweden.  It reminds me of the competition between WI and IL.  It is all in fun and war.

Martin Oberg was our next professor.  He is in the marketing department and has some pretty interesting connections.  The first thing he did was play us a video.  This video was very strange.  The song was completely in Swedish and the video was dark.  Dark in the way that it confused you, made you sad, made you feel cold and alone, but mainly confused.  This entire video showed people and their struggles, but the entire video was about the new Volvo SUV.  Fun fact is that we got to view this video before the rest of the world.  We all seemed to agree that the four minute commercial did not seem to really market the vehicle.  This just shows how the Swedish and American cultures differ.  At the end of the video it showed the Volvo SUV and said Made By Sweden.  None of us pointed this out until the professor mentioned it.  It said By not In.  Most things say In what ever country, but this was different.  I think that added so much to the importance of Volvo to the Swedes.  The song that was playing, in some sort of way, translated to "as we are as people."

Something that I really enjoyed about Martin is that he said, "I like other people's failures."  It makes me laugh because it makes me think about when someone falls we all laugh and then ask if they are alright.  I kind of looked at his enjoying people's failures as the same thing.  As he defended his idea, he talked about how there are so many studies against the things that people fail at.  With those studies there should not be failures.  He connected this to a concept of de-malling.  De-malling translates to empty mall.  Looking at this as malls that have no one in them or are completely shut down.  Martin then goes on to talk about the refurnish lifecycle of department stores change and need to change.  I am not sure if I heard this right, but 1% of women walk through every single store when shopping for clothing at a mall.  Because of this clusters start to form.  Where there is one woman's

clothing store there are plenty more.  They want the stores right next to each other so that their sales will go up.  It only makes sense.  People get tired of walking far to find the next clothing store for them.  This idea also works with guys.  Just throwing that out there.

Another fun fact is that major events are never held in the capitals of countries in Europe.  In 1982, The Rolling Stones held the first outside concert in Goteborg.  At this time the record was around 58 thousand fans in the audience.  That record as now changed to around 69 thousand.  There is this idea that places form around downtown in Europe.  In the 1930's a guy drew and idea of a city.  This was very cartoonish, but it did represent the point.  There is the downtown area and a surrounding circle is the shopping areas.  Downtown is more of an attraction of fun.  Shopping is not simply about shopping anymore, but about the experience.  An example would be the mall yesterday where they had pole jumpers and dancing classes.  Even looking at Mall of America.  It is set up the same way.  The center of the mall is all the attractions and fun, surrounding this area are all the shops. 

Leisure:

We really did not have a lot of leisure time today.  Once we got back to the hostel I was so tired I just wanted to go to sleep.  I did end up falling asleep twice while trying to get things done.  Then Sam realized that he left his notebook at Goteborg University, so we went to see if we could find it which was a fail due to the door being locked and no one being around to open the door.  On our way back we were a little bit hungry so we just stopped at Subway to grab a sandwich and head back to the hostel.  I feel bad getting Subway, but it was there and quick.  After our first day visiting businesses I was pretty okay with that.

Daily Reflections:

• I need to start forcing myself to go to bed earlier.
• I can now navigate on the trams and not get lost.
• There really is a difference between people of Goteborg and people of Stockholm.
• Social Media is scary crazy.

Adventure for the Exit!

Last night I officially tried a piece of every single different type of candy that I bought.  I was shocked when I realized there were only two or three pieces that I did not like.  My favorite was the piece of chocolate that kind of looks like a log with sprinkles on it that is actually a marshmallow inside.  

Jet leg is hitting hard.  Once again, I set my alarm to go off multiple times and once again I did not wake up until Katrina woke me up.  Neither of us wanted to get up.  We both forced ourselves to go to breakfast and that was the best decision of the day.  Eating breakfast really woke me up to start my day.  Katrina, Sam, Brandt, and I all met up to do some exploring today.  The guys did not want to be moving at all this morning either.  We waited until about 11am to start doing anything.  The first thing we did was walk around town some just to see what was down different streets that we have not been down before.  When it became time we went down the a tram stop to get a ride to the Universium.  The Universium was amazing.  I did not quite like the Rainforest part because my hair frizzed and started curling like crazy.  I ended up just throwing it up in a bun so that it some what hid the frizziness and curls. 

There was definitely plenty to look at while there.  I believe we walked about half way through the entire place when we realized that we did not start at the beginning, but somewhere in the middle.  As we all laughed and turned around we followed through from the correct to starting point.  The Ocean part was pretty interesting.  I enjoyed looking at the sharks, but I was hoping that they were going to have bigger sharks in the tanks.  I did enjoy looking at the star fish.  There are so many types of star fish that I never knew about.  In all reality, I only thought a star fish could be in the form of a star, boy was I wrong!  I loved going into the Space part of the Universium.  There were so many cool games and tutorials.  They had a toilet replica from space.  If you leaned back in the seat when you sat down the toilet would make this beyond weird noise and then vibrate.  I could not handle that.  I jumped out of it right when it started making noise.  Then we saw these scales and in front of the scales were these images of planets.  As you stepped on the scale the screen would show you exactly how much you would weight on that specific planet.  Some of the planets I could figure out what they were, it was difficult with everything being in Swedish.  I was able to understand the kilograms part though!  At the end of the Space portion there was a mat on the ground in the shape of the moon.  The first thing I thought of is that I want to stand on the moon.  The moment I did I stepped right back off.  I was expecting the moon to be hard, but it was soft and squishy.  Katrina found some awesome almost like game.  There was a controller, like an XBox controller, and it controlled the images on the projector.  We were able to zoom out so far that I believe we went through three or four galaxies.  We were able to zoom in to the point that we could see the markers for major cities in the countries.

On our way back out we saw this cave.  We saw the cave when we initially went through the Rainforest, but there were so many people and kids that we did not want to go in.  This time there was no one around.  Me being the smallest decided to go inside.  The others followed and we saw images of wolves.  Realizing that the cave was to represent the living conditions of the wolves.  On the right hand side was a very small hole in the wall.  Small enough for a four year old to walk

through.  I was curious and crawled through the hole to see where it would take us.  There was a room on the other side of the wall; if we would have kept on doing straight we would have found the door way to the same room.  I wanted to feel like a kid for just a little while.  Watching the others trying to crawl through that hole was pretty interesting.  I swear they had to have gotten stuck at least twice.  We walked back through the Ocean part and found this giant mouth that little kids were climbing in.  The four of us decided to go inside the mouth and have a picture taken.  Brandt claims he was the only one to survive since he only had a leg in the mouth and the rest of us were completely engulfed in his giant mouth. 

We were just about to walk out when we all realized that we never go to see the mammoths.  The mammoths were on the very top floor and we actually had to go outside to see them.  They had blankets right outside the door for people to use when they went outside.  Something that I thought was very kind of them and something that we would never see in the States, because we do not trust people.  It is amazing how much the Swedes trust.  To get on the trams and buses there is a little computer on the bus that you take your pass to and it swipes it.  Almost like a key fob.  The tram and bus take off whether or not you actually scan your pass.  The first thing you see when you walk in is these tents that have the military logos on them.  I am not sure why that is, but inside them there are these skeletons and stories about different animals and humans during this time period of the mammoths.  There was even a preserved dead baby mammoth in one of the tents in a sealed container.  Then you walk further in and there is this giant mammoth that actually moves.  It was so cool.  We saw some dark cave to the left and decided to go in and see what was being shown inside.  One family was just starting to walk out when we walked in.  We saw a black bear in this glass in area.  Of course, the bear was not real.  I took a quick picture of it and continued to walk through.  The group of us were all next to each other when the bear all of a sudden start moving and growling and the lights turned out and almost blinded us.  Some of us might not want to admit it, but we all got freaked out and hurried out of the cave.  The family that had just exited before us were laughing so hard at us.  It was pretty great.

Every single animal in the show was mechanical and moving.  It kind of became creepy after awhile.  One part that I thought was really cool was the tp in the corner.  Sam, Brandt, and I went inside to see what it all looked like.  There were three benches that were draped with animal fur and a small electric fire.  The fur was surprisingly warm.  Now I understand how cavemen survived so long in the freezing weather.

Trying to find our way out of the Universium was a struggle.  We could not go out the way we initially came in and we did not know exactly where the exit was.  On our adventure for the exit, we found the snake area.  There was a tour going on when we walked in and right when I heard the rattle from the rattle snake I walked right back out.  We even looked at the poisons spiders and I was not dealing with that either.  Katrina and I became a little brave when searching through the Rainforest.  The guys saw this box that said to push the red button.  Well the red button was literally on the inside of the box on the other wall of the box.  Katrina and I counted to three and then tried to hit the buttons as quick as we could.  While in the process of doing that the guys jumped behind us and yelled boo!  Which scared so us much we both missed the red buttons and both hit our hands on the edge of the holes of the plexiglass.  After yelling at the boys we tried again.  This time were successful on number three and were able to press the red buttons.  Once we did the lights turned on inside the box and there were these nasty bugs.  They looked like some forms of roaches.  Not sure I am going to put my hand in another box without knowing what is inside the box.

Finally, after finding the exit we decided to walk across the street to the Gothia Towers and roam

around in there.  On the 23rd floor there is a pool that hangs over the side of the building.  So while you are swimming you can see the street directly below you.  Unfortunately, you needed a room key to get the elevators to move.  

Since we were only a group of four we thought it would be a good idea to meet up with the rest of the group.  While walking in the direction of them we all felt very hungry.  On our way it started raining and I was the only one to have an umbrella, a single person umbrella.  We quick ducked into a small restaurant and decided that we were going to eat lunch there and then go find the group afterwards.  I tried this chicken salad.  It looked really good in the glass.  I took the first bite of it and I was not impressed.  The group pretty much started scavenging off of my plate while still eating their sandwiches.  I went back up to the counter to order something else that I will hopefully like.  I ordered a pastry.  It looked like those chili bowls made of the bread with cream inside.  There was not only cream inside, but also some lemon stuff.  I was not too excited about the lemon part, but the rest was delicious.

The rain stopped and we headed back out to find the Poseidon statue.  We knew if we could find the Poseidon statue then we could find The Avenue and find the other group.  The Avenue is a street filled with shops, stores, and restaurants.  The Swedes call it The Avenue and I do not know why or what the street name really is.  Off of The Avenue is also King Street and if you walk a block or two to the left there is the mall.  We saw NK, which is Gunilla's favorite place to shop, and decided to check it out.  It was a very expensive department store.  It seemed like a step above Macy's.

Nordstan was not far away.  We all became very excited when we realized we found the mall only a block down the road from NK.  Inside the mall was huge.  There were shops everywhere and people everywhere.  We all noticed that there were dogs in the mall.  Apparently, that is allowed and surprisingly the dogs were not acting up.  The dogs did not bark at anyone and did not try to play with or jump on anyone.  The dogs are so well behaved here and so are the children.  For the short time that I have been here so far I have only seen two children act up and trust me there are a lot of children here.  Even when some would start acting up they were never loud.  I do not understand what parents do differently here then back in the States.

In the center of the mall their was a team doing pole jumping.  They were going to high I seriously

thought that they were going to go through the ceiling.  They were amazing though and some seemed to be very young and were not all that tall!  On the other side of the stair case in the middle was a dancing group.  They were all dancing around and showing off the different dances that they do so they can hopefully intrigue more people to come to their dancing classes.  Goteborg is definitely different than Milwaukee.

Out of our group only Katrina bought something.  Everything was so expensive and nothing really jumped out at me.  The guys were even talking about how expensive the stores are here.  Hopefully we find a couple of places to shop at before the end of the trip so that I can pick up some souvenirs. 

Looking at the time we knew we needed to make it back to the hostel in time for dinner.  We exited the mall and went straight to the tram map.  Sam said that we all needed to get on the number 6 tram. After about six or seven stops he realized we got on the wrong tram.  We were heading way out of the city and the hostel was the other direction.  We got off of the tram and got on another one that headed back into the city.  The stop we got off at was the one we actually got on at near the mall.  Once again we went to the map and realized that we needed to get on the number two tram.  Amazingly, we made it back to the hostel in time to even clean up a little before heading to dinner.  What we found out is that number six was right if we could have gotten on the number six on the other side of the street.  These trams are seriously confusing.

For dinner we went to this cute little restaurant that I guess used to be a house.  In Goteborg though what restaurants were not houses at some point.  J.J. asked the waiter to tell the history of the house.  The house was built in the late 1900's by the king during that time.  Also the king's castle, or mansion, was right across the street from this house.  The king owned this house for his own "personal" uses.  The appropriate name for the house was the Happy House.  I guess there were people that were trying to tear down the building and build a more modern version of it, but the government was not going to allow that.  They looked at this house as being a land mark full of history.  Full of history is right!

Dinner ended up becoming a five course meal.  First they gave us these very little plates, that I looked at them as tiles.  On them was seriously only a very small piece of beats, a very small piece of cucumber jelly, a fried piece of tomato, and some onion sauce.  I only ate the piece of beat and cucumber jelly.  I am not a fan of either.  Then we got this bowl of a fish stew they called it.  It had crayfish, shrimp, and lobster in it with some sauce, a piece of bread and muscle.  I immediately started eating the sea food.  Then found out I actually had a big piece of cod in my bowl as well as

everything else.  I was not sure what was spread on the bread, but I ate it and it was not all that bad.  Now for the muscle, that is a completely different story.  I felt like I had to try it just to say that I did and have my parents not believe me.  They know how picky of an eater I am.  I had J.J. take a picture of me before and after the muscle as proof for my parents.  Oh boy does my face look pretty!  It was so gross and I am never having it again.  I tried it and I am happy I tried it, it is just never happening again.

The next plate we ate was a steak, with potato cake, ox tail, and some carrot stuff.  I was not going to try the carrot stuff.  I knew I was not going to like it and that was just going to be.  I ate the steak and of course asked it to be medium rare.  The potato cake seemed to have more flavor than the steak.  It makes me miss the A1 sauce at home.  Once I finished the things that I knew I was going to eat I tried a piece of the ox tail.  Without even blinking J.J. pulled out his camera and prepared to take the before and after pictures of the ox tail.  It ox tail was not good, but at least this time my face was not so scrunched up.

The desserts were the best part.  We only planned on having one dessert, but the restaurant gave us a free one right after the one J.J. bought for us.  The first dessert was creme brulee.  I have never had it before and was pretty nervous trying it for the first time.  Yet, it was amazing!  I seriously thought that the entire top was sugar until I found out that they took a torch to it.  The second dessert was on a very small tile plate again.  It was a piece of chocolate with some sort of cream on the top.  The chocolate was like a fudge and was amazing and the cream was some sort of orange tasting cream that set off the chocolate.  I do not believe I have ever tasted something so great ever! 

Tomorrow we have to start visiting the businesses.  I have to navigate tomorrow as well.  Brandt gets us from the hostel to Skapa and I take us from Skapa to the Goteborg University.  I am not ready to be completely dressed professionally.  I like my jeans and nice shirt.  Still debating on what to where tomorrow.

Daily Reflections:

• Trying new foods is scary.
• I feel better after I have at least tried something new.
• The social culture here is so different.
• Jet leg is the worst thing ever.
• I do not understand how my dad can eat muscles.

Volvo is Goteborg, and Goteborg is Volvo!

Waking up this morning was fairly difficult.  I had set my alarm to wake me up around 8am, but I ended up waking up around 8:40am.  I believe this was because of how quiet the city really is. I am so used to Milwaukee where there is always some sort of noise, but not in Goteborg.  Plenty of time to get a shower in and head over to the main building for breakfast though.  I was surprised that there was not a lot to eat for breakfast.  I only had a piece of toast with jelly and about three cups of orange juice.  I think that I will try the cereal tomorrow.  J.J. really wants me to get a hard boiled egg and put some caviar on it.  Caviar is just that one thing that I am not sure that I can really eat.  I keep thinking about Finding Nemo and how I would be eating his family from the movie. While eating breakfast it was obvious on how much the Swedish enjoy reading their newspaper.  Every person except us was reading the newspaper and those newspapers are not small. 

Katrina and I went back to the room to finish getting ready.  Still needed to do our make up for the day.  It was only 10am when we finished and neither of us wanted to stay coped up in the room until we had to go on our tour at 11am.  So we decided to do some site seeing.  About a block or two away from the hostel there is this giant hill which was surprisingly hard to walk up.  I can now tell why the Swedish are in such good shape.  While walking over to the hill there was this door that we both thought was so cute, because it was literally as tall as I am and I am the shortest one on the trip.    While walking up the hill I finally was able to find out why the cars driving by sounded so funny.  Most of the vehicles here have on snow tires, but majority of them have the snow tires with these type of nails in them.  I found out on our tour that it is actually a law to have those design tires on the vehicles from December 1st to April 1st.  If there were to be a vehicle that did not have these tires on and an accident were to occur the insurance would not cover anything. 

Meeting Gunilla was amazing!  Gunilla was our tour guide and she knew all the stories of Goteborg.  Not only is she a tour guide but she is also a teacher.  She teaches the Swedish language to many business people.  Gunilla is also amazing in the way that she speaks many languages consisting of English, Swedish, Spanish, German, and many more.  It was tough saying goodbye to her.  After only spending around three hours with her we all felt that we were saying goodbye to an aunt.  We all took a selfie with her and had a group hug.  It sure seemed that she was going to miss us as much as we were going to miss her. 

The first stop on the tour was Masthuggskyrkan Church.  This church was built in 1914 and is nearly 65 meters above sea level.  The view from the church is absolutely breathtaking.  I know people say that all the time, but in reality one could definitely hear our breathes being taken away when we walked outside the bus.  There was so much to look at.  There is the main bridge to the Hisingen Island that is the exact replica of the Golden Gate Bridge and the statue of the Sailor's Wife.  These are only a couple of sites, but they stuck out to me the most.  The statue was beautiful and the story behind it was just as beautiful.  The story is about how she was waiting for her husband to come back to Goteborg.  Her husband was a sailor who was out to sea.  Unfortunately, he did not come back and as Gunilla said, "She is still waiting."

Gunilla joked around about how she had already booked this church for her wedding, but she was missing one thing for the wedding.  She was missing Mr. Right!  Yet, we were all invited to the wedding.

While on the tour Gunilla told us a lot about the different things that the city is doing to improve.  The city is working a lot on bicycle lanes for the the bicyclists.  Sweden tries to be very environmentally friendly.  Not only do they have the bicycle lanes but they also have plenty of electric trams.  We also learned how to say street in Swedish, which is gota.  Traveling down the gota's we noticed many shops and cafe's, it was amazing.  Apparently, Sweden is #2 in the world for drinking coffee.  Gunilla drinks around five cups of coffee a day and our tour bus driver drinks eight cups of coffee a day.  The #1 country is Finland, but as Gunilla says, "She is doing her best to make Sweden #1!"  Sweden is #1 in the world for eating candy.  Swedes eat 10 kilos of candy per year.   Which converts to nearly 22 lbs.  One can easily assume that means that Swedes are on the hefty side, but yet they are all of normal size.  Gunilla says that she does not know a single person who does not work out.  Swedes live a very active life.  Since they do live such an active life they live off of a calender.  They go by calenders so much that once April 1st comes they are sitting outside drinking their coffee no matter what the weather is.  Some restaurants even have blankets to hand out to the customers.

Our second stop on the tour was the Fish Church.  The church was built in the 19th century.  The surprising thing is that the building had never been a church.  It has always been a fish market.  It is referred to as a church because it looks so much like a church.  It is absolutely beautiful!! The smell is not as bad as I thought it was going to be.  In all reality, the only fish I could smell is salmon, but I am bias since salmon is my favorite fish.  Even with the smell of the fish there are people who demand to be married in the Fish Church.  Gunilla says it is because Swedes will do anything to make the headline of the newspaper.

Next to the Fish Church there is a section of the City Wall.  The city wall was used for 200 years to keep out the Danish.  The kind of that time did not approve of the Danish and they were at war with each other for many years.  The wall would reach seven meters tall in some areas and nine meters in other areas.  The wall was built in 1621.  It was only taken down after the war was over and when the city of Goteborg was in desperate need of expansion.  Along with the history side of the city there is a building that is now apart of the University of Goteborg that was once a hospital back in the 1800's.  The building is still the same and has never changed.  The only slight change that they did to the building was add on another part that is all glass.  Also there is a yellow building that almost looks like as if it is unoccupied.  The building is actually a first class hotel which was once a post office back in 1925.  Goteborg also has the largest hotel in Europe.  Gothia Towers consists of three buildings, which on was just opened this year, and has at least 29 floors. Goteborg also has the largest indoor arena, Scandinavium.  Goteborg has a lot to be proud of and the Swedes know it.

For the entire month of August the Swedes have a Crayfish Festival.  The festival gets pretty crazy with funny hats, beer, singing, etc.  I would compare it to Mardi Gras.  Some songs they do not even know what it means, but they sing it loud and proud.  Four weeks is a long time to be celebrating crayfish.  Swedes are just very proud of their culture and take every opportunity to express that. 

Goteborg is definitely known for shopping.  The Nordstan is the largest shopping mall in Europe and consists of around 200 different departments stores, bars, and restaurants.  There are a total of six different entrances to Nordstan.  In Goteborg there is also King Street which is the longest pedestrian street in Goteborg and is lined with many shops.

Enough with the shopping details.  Filmstaden is a movie theater that is actually half under ground.  Found that out when we all mentioned how small it looked from the street.  We all became curious if the movies were all in Swedish.  To our surprise all movies that play here are in the original language, where that is English, Swedish, French, etc.  There is also the Universeum which is a museum.  Here there is a rainforest we can walk through and a dinosaur exhibition.

Our almost last stop was at the end of the Avenue.  There is a huge statue of of Poseidon.  This statue is right in front of the art museum.  The Swedes have this statue as a symbol of the city since Poseidon is the God of Sea.  It only makes sense since Goteborg is right on the ocean and is very popular for their fresh fish.  As well as Poseidon there is a statue of Victor Hasselblad who created the first camera. It is interesting to find out that on the plague for the statue there is a saying, "I am the camera."  Victor started saying this because everyone always asked him if he was the actual Hasselblad with the camera.  Also along with the statue is a foot print right at Victor's feet.  The foot print is to represent the moon since it was his cameras that went to the moon and took the pictures of the first man on the moon.  A fun fact is that those cameras are still on the moon.  They took the film out and just left the cameras.  I am not sure why, but it is still interesting to know that we left something so important and life changing on the moon.

Passing by one of the canals to the city we saw one of these amazing ships.  It was so pretty and big that we were told that it is too tall to actual leave the canal, it will not make it under the bridges that were built.  The ship was initially used for teaching sailors.  Today, the ship is actually a hotel, restaurant, and bar.  This ship is located next to the Opera House, The Goteborg Opera.  Many of us were talking about seeing if we could sit down and have a meal on the ship.  Not sure if we can, I am pretty sure that it is only for the guests of the hotel.

We stopped at this little almost like a water fountain area.  Here we saw a map of what Goteborg use to look like.  The map was not colorful or even that detailed.  The red stone pieces represented the canals and the white concrete pieces represented buildings.  Gunilla had us try and figure out where exactly we were on the map.  We surprisingly were not far off, had to take about two steps to the left.  Before we got back on the bus we headed to this little closed in corner about two blocks away from the map.  Here we discovered this amazing little candy shop for the best chocolate around.  There was also the famous licorice here.  Some of us were brave enough to try the Screaming Witch licorice

and J.J. was able to snap a couple photos of what our faces looked like when we ate it.  The Swedes really do like their salt.  I swear it felt like it was burning my tongue.  In this little closed in area was also the oldest building in Goteborg.  This building held a lot of ammunition and guns during the wars.  I do not know what the building is now, but I do know that it is not open to the public.

We all thought that the tour was over at this point.  We were very wrong.  The tour bus dropped us off right in Haga.  Haga is the oldest neighborhood in Goteborg.  It was also the very first suburb of Goteborg.  In Haga there is this cute little cafe called Cafe Hausen.  What we discovered here is the largest cinnamon bun.  One cinnamon bun can feed four to eight people.  It was absolutely huge!  We all enjoyed eating it though.  Haga was a beautiful little neighborhood and I cannot wait to go back and explore that neighborhood more.

Now that the tour was over we headed back to the hostel.  On our way Gunilla told us about Jante Law.  Jante Law is a law that Sweden put into place to protect the Swedes.  They view it as the way they are as people and as a community.  Jante Law is basically saying that no individual success is better than the success of a team.  We all know how judgmental we humans are.  Gunilla used the example of a new car.  If someone were to get a new car, their neighbors would be trying to figure out why they got a new car.  Did they get a raise?  Did they change careers?  So many questions that can really start to tear people apart.  Obviously, that type of situation has no outs.  In other ways there is the story of the most famous pop star in Sweden.  He does not have someone else pick up his groceries and does not go shopping with body guards.  He does not flaunt his success to those that do not have that.  It almost seems that this law is just a form of respect to others.  Hakan Hellstrom holds the record of 69,000 people at one concert at Ullevi.  Ullevi is the outdoor arena here in Goteborg.

After saying our goodbyes to Gunilla and the tour bus driver we all kind of split off.  Some went to work on the blogs and others went more exploring.  Katrina and I started working on the blogs since as we can all tell there is a lot to remember.  forgetting details is something that I do not want to do.  This trip has been amazing so far and I want to remember everything.  Typing up everything from each day is a great idea.

Katrina, Sam, and I decided that we still wanted to see more.  This afternoon was a free time to see attractions.  The first thing that we all thought of was the Natural History Museum.  The museum is only a couple blocks away so we knew that we were going to have enough time to work on our blogs and still be able to make it to the museum before it closed.  The museum had many interesting animals and fish and other creatures.  It was very interesting to see how the animals differ from the states to Sweden.  In this museum is a huge whale.  A giant blue whale washed up the shores during the 1800's.  They took the whale and used it in the museum as an attraction.  Gunilla talked about how the whale was stuffed and it sure is not stuffed.  The whale seems to have been torn apart and then had sheets of
metal attacked to the skin so help hold up the structure of the whale.  The mouth of the whale is wide open and we can see the entire inside.  Not only is there the blue whale, but also an African Elephant.  It still is not clear why there is an African Elephant in a Sweden museum.  Of course there were plenty of other creatures to look at, but let's be real those two were the best!  

By the time that we were done looking around the museum we were all starving.  We got half the group together and went looking for a place to have some dinner.  Due to the fact that we are in Sweden we did not want to stop at a restaurant that we knew.  We wanted to see the more Swedish side to the food.  Karlson's Garage was out first stop.  Some were unsure of the menu and decided to keep walking.  Then we stopped at Hello Monkey.  Hello Monkey was a little on the expensive side, but they did have a sharing menu so we could pair up in twos to eat and split the bill.  Once again, people were unsure of this restaurant.  Lastly, we stopped at The Temple.  When we went inside The Temple said that they did not have a table big enough for eight people.  We told them that we could split up into two groups of four, but they then said that they were completely booked up and could not fit us in for over an hour.  Completely confused, we walked back to the other two places which now had a line of customers waiting to get in.  So out of three choices none of them worked out.  Still starving we took a turn further done the street we originally came off of.  A block or two down the road we found Corner Kitchen.  They had plenty of tables and they were reasonably priced.  We did have to wait for a few minutes for the tables to be cleaned off.  While we waited we talked to this guy that was waiting at the bar.  He was really cool to talk with.  He let us know that this restaurant had a new menu and told us about a few dishes he recommended.  We also asked him about his favorite attraction.  As I believe a true Swede would answer, he could not pick just one.  He started listing many that were all great.

Some of the dishes on the menu were completely in Swedish and we could not translate anything.  Some of it we ended up asking the waitress what it was and what it all came from.  Three of us got the steak that was all on a stick with garlic bread.  Two of us got the chicken parmesan.  Another got the pork chops, another got muscles, and the last one got steak and lobster.  I was not expecting the garlic bread to look the way it did.  Garlic bread back home is thick.  Garlic bread here looks like a tortilla.  I can admit that I do like this style garlic bread way better!

There was no way that we were going to go back to the hostel without getting some dessert.  We stopped at 4-Gott and filled up.  Everything looked and smelled so good I definitely spent more than I should have.  Some of it is amazing and some of it I just could not eat another one.  I did put my foot down and at least finish the piece that I initially tried.  The rest is most likely going to go to someone that I know will eat it. There was even a giant Swedish Fish.  First thought in my mind was, "OMG!" The second thought in my mind was that my mother would love this. 

Daily Reflections:

• Coffee is major in Goteborg.
• The city really is not as big as it seems.
• The trams are confusing.
• They play American music in the restaurants and bars.
• The Swedes are very proud of their history.

The Flights and Frist Hours in Sweden!

Seems like today was the longest day ever.  We arrived at the airport about 6:30pm for our flight that did not leave until after 10pm.  Checking the luggage was surprisingly a very quick process; no one's bags were over 50 lbs.

Going through security was pretty interesting since the lines were fairly long and no one was moving very quickly to get through the security checks.  Sabrina ended up pretty much working for TSA by separating the containers.  One line would run out and the other would have plenty and then the opposite would happen.  It was all very interesting.

After making it to the gate we all hung around and broke off into groups to go and get some dinner to eat.  Of course before we boarded the plane we all took a group photo in front of the destination sign to Copenhagen.  We were all pretty nervous about the flight being so long and flying over seas. 
Especially, for some of us that have never flown over seas.  On the flight I went straight to sleep.  The day had already been so long and I knew that once we landed it was only going to get longer.

The Copenhagen airport was amazing.  As most of us kept repeating, "Is this an airport or a mall?"  In this mall I found H&M and Victoria Secrets along with many other small shops.  It did feel good to land in Denmark with the sun still being up.  Helped me to wake up and get ready for the next flight.  I was really surprised on how warm it was.  I really did not need my jacket when we had to go outside to get on the plane.  The flight from Copenhagen to Goteborg was only about 35 minutes.  Which I did fall asleep on as well.  Waking up in Goteborg was difficult.  I was so tired and just wanted to go back to sleep.

I was nervous to go through customs since I have never gone through that process before.  When we arrived at customs it was not really customs.  The walk way was pretty much guarded by an officer and it's K9.  As we all wanted to pet the dog we did not think that was the best idea.  The dog looked so happy sniffing all of the bags.  One dog that was very proud of it's job.  We started joking around that if the dog could talk he would be saying, "You may go through."

Getting our luggage was not a difficult process.  The airport was very good at getting the luggage to us.  We did not wait long.  We arrived at the carousel at the same time as the first bag started peaking through the wall.  Once we got all our luggage is where all the complications started happening.

While many of us were exchanging our USD's to SEK's J.J. was buying our unlimited transportation passes. In the process of buying the passes we found out that J.J.'s credit card was not going through.  The total for the passes was 7800 SEK.  Which converts to nearly 1000 USD.  USD is the code for American Dollars and SEK is the code for Swedish Krona.  At the same time that J.J. was figuring out his credit card problem the taxi gentleman showed up and were trying to figure out why we were not outside yet.  Unfortunately, because we took so long to get outside the total for the taxi's went up.  On top of that, the taxi drivers had to paid right away before they could take us anywhere.  So when J.J. finally could get a hold of his credit card company and get the passes paid for he had to come outside and pay the taxi drivers.  Much too long of a process.  J.J. had even called the credit card company a week ahead of time to let them know that he was going to be out of the country.  They mentioned that they saw that in their records, but that they are so worried about fraud that they did not allow the international payments until he called back.  I truly hope that my credit card company did not do this to me as well.

Coming to the youth hostel was amazing.  The place is so fun and is so relaxing.  The only problem that I kind of ran into is how small the rooms are for two people.  I thought that the dorms on campus were small, but now I am living in a room that is nearly half the size.  In the hostel though we have kitchens, common rooms, a pool table, TV's, computers, and even a sauna. This place is amazing and the colors are great.  I like having fun colors rather than the plain colors that I feel most hotels and motels have.

First thing that we all did was start to unpack and take showers.  There is a very small area to hang up clothing so my roommate and I ended up putting multiple outfits on each hanger to make it work.  The only things that I hung up were my business clothes and the rest I left in my suitcase to make sure we still had some room to move around.

At 6:30pm we all met in the lobby to leave and have dinner.  We went to this cute little restaurant called Pasta Haus.   For dinner majority at my table ordered the same dish, Tagliatelle Salmon.  It was delicious.  We were all worried about eating it too fast and savoring the flavor since we were all so hungry.  The dish was Tagliatelle with salmon, shrimp, white wine, spinach, garlic, cream, and tomato sauce.  As well as loving the meal we all agreed on the fact that none of us found any shrimp in the dish.  Either way the meal was amazing and completely filled us up.  We all were pretty much done with eating and could not find any room for more food.  Yet, J.J. took us all for a little walk around the city and took us to a dessert place.

While walking around we saw so many shops and restaurants that we all want to go see on our free days.  There was one place called the PinkBar that looks really good.  The cross walks are very confusing.  The one that we went across had the green light that was apparently not for our side to walk for, but the other.  yet, it was facing straight toward us.  Then while we were walking across to go to a dessert place there was this older Volvo at the stop light that kept reeving up the engine.  We all started laughing at the driver.  There was a wedding dress shop that we saw and started joking around about going in and trying some on.  Then it turned into having Kiley try on some dresses and getting her another dress for her wedding in June. 

TinTin was great!  The desserts that were in the displays were so tempting to order every single one. 
A lot of us settled for the Kladdkaka.  The Kladdkaka sort of tasted just like a brownie, but was so much sweeter.  We ordered it with some whipped cream on the side and the whipped cream was sprinkled with some cinnamon.  I was not too thrilled with having the whipped cream with the Kladdkaka.  It tasted so much better with out the whipped cream and I could taste the Kladdkaka so much better.  It seemed as if the whipped cream masked the savory taste of the Kladdkaka.






Daily Reflections:

• I do not like the red eye flights.  
• Sweden makes me feel like home.
• It still has not sunk in that I am in another country.
• The food is amazing.
• Michael was right, I do not think there is one bad looking person. 

First Business Visit - Bruno!

Business:

Sweden is only a couple of days away!

 

Before leaving for Sweden we all went to visit Bruno Independent Living Aids, Inc.  Bruno is partnered with AutoAdapt that is located in Gothenburg, Sweden.  Once in Sweden we will be visiting AutoAdapt as well and discover how their business is run in comparison to Bruno.

The gentleman that showed us around the company was Bill Belson.  He was very informative and made the experience very exciting.  There was always something that we could all relate to in understanding everything that was happening and how it was happening.

When entering the lobby of the first building there was a stair case that had a demonstration of the Curve Rail Unit.  The Curve Rail Unit is simply a a seat that rides along a track up the stair case that does not go straight up but bends with the wall.  Their most common unit to sell is the Straight Rail Unit.  When thinking about it most house do have a straight stair case.

One thing that was really interesting and smart about the units is that majority of them are battery powered.  They did this to ensure that if there was a fire in the house the person can still get down the stairs and get out of the house before any injury can occur.  This is very smart since usually the first thing to go out when there is a fire is the power to the house.  Even in storms this is very helpful.  Power can go out for any reason at all and to ease the mind knowing that one can still get out of the house if need be is great.  Bruno uses sealed lead gel batteries due to the fact that these batteries seem to work better in the cold weather.  Bruno seems to have truly thought of everything when it comes to the safety and accessibility of their customers.  

The way the units are mounted are always to the stair case themselves.  The strength of the stair case is more than that of the wall.  So for the safety of the people using the unit it is necessary to build the unit on the strongest structure.  These specific units can hold up to 400 lbs.  Bruno also builds vertical lifts that can be compared to elevators.  The vertical lifts are capable of carrying up to 750 lbs.  Due to manufacturing codes the lift cannot exceed 750 lbs.

There is a lot that goes into creating the stair lifts.  Each lift is custom to the customer and the stair case itself.  Bruno used to have to go to the customers house and take nearly 75 to 150 photos of the stair case.  The pictures were
used to enter into the computer and figure out the specific dimensions needed to build the unit.  Bruno has now adapted a new program called Photogrammetry.  This program allows for there to be far less pictures to take and to also show the customer in 3D exactly how their lift will look and work.  This new program also calls for no measurements to be taken.  Everything can be done through the pictures and through mathematics.

Bruno is very dedicated to the customization part of the process.  To assist with this customization process Bruno supplies their units with six different colors and four different fabrics.  The actual rails themselves are made with aluminum and steel. There is no way around that but the seats are able to change due to the needs of the customer. 

Over all, Bruno designs and manufactures around 41 different products.  These products create about $100,000,000 a year.  This company is also privately held.  With this being said, inventory is very important in making sure everything is done correctly and that deliveries are done on time.  In their facilities Bruno has these vending machines that have small things such as, cutting wheels, drill bits, etc.  This allows for Bruno to count every single piece of inventory that is used.  With items such as these the amount used is a lot more than many might believe.  Every time a drill bit breaks or a cutting wheel is worn down or breaks is more money that needs to be spent.  So to guarantee that Bruno does not have to spend more than needed they created these vending machines so that there is always a count of how many are being taken and having the quantity subtracted from inventory at the moment.  These leaves very little room for error on inventory.

A great quote that I loved was said by Bill Belson while on the tour.  Bill said, "We are not selling a product, but what the product does."  I believe this to be very important.  Bruno is not completely focused adding up the dollar signs.  They are focused on how they can help improve the living situations of those who have difficulty moving around.  Majority of their customers have knee or ankle problems that keep them from being mobile around their home.

Leisure:

After the tour I ended up having to leave early and miss the lunch.  I had to run off to work.  Unfortunately, I did have to stop at my dads work and drop off my car and take his truck.  My car did not seem right and I did not have time to look at it.

Daily Reflections: 

• It is amazing that someone thought of this.  
• This allows the elderly stay in their homes longer.
• I am so thankful for those who have thought of helping others in situations that keep them stationary.