Day 6 - Sept. 7th

Therry and I weren't sure what we wanted to do, but we had another day of the rental car, so figured we'd make use of it somehow.  We mulled around and had coffee.

The essence of energy

I didn't have anything in particular I wanted to see, but I did kind of have an itch to play some more disc golf.  I floated the idea by Therry, and she didn't need much prodding.  We decided to check out the other course that was nearby, Slottsskogen.  The course was in a city park of the same name, which was huge, about 340 acres and the disc golf course was but a small portion of it.  And like other big city parks, like Central, Stanley, Golden Gate, etc., it was definitely a popular place to be on a Sunday.

We got to the park easily with the SatNav, but the one parking lot we tried was chaotic--like a shopping mall on Christmas Eve.  We got out of there as quickly as we could and drove around the perimeter of the park and eventually found street parking.  We couldn't really understand what the parking rules were, they seemed to differ from block to block, and saw that someone in front of us had been ticketed.  We just fed the meter for 3 hours and hoped for the best.

We had a bit of a walk to get to the course, probably the better part of a mile.  Of course, when we got there, I saw that there was a huge parking lot a couple hundred meters from where the course was.  Oh well.  This course, like Järva was pay to play, but unlike Järva, it was busy and the pro shop (or booth, in this case) was occupied, It was 35 SEK, which is $5 more or less. Usually, if a course is pay to play, I expect it to be a pretty special experience.  This was a special experience for us, of course, but objectively speaking, the course wasn't all that and a bag of potato chips.

It was fun, and had good natural terrain to work with, but the holes were all pretty short, close together, and it was crowded. And naturally, it had a pretty worn in feel to it. But, it was still indeed fun.

The basket is up over that hill somewhere.

More or less in that direction

Why not?

Being that it was the first crowded course we'd experienced, it was fitting that we got to see our first Swedish disc golf douchery.  Our first encounter was a guy unloading his bag on one of the few open holes.  He was about halfway through his bag when we approached the tee, he looked over at us, and continued to throw disc after disc at the basket.  To his credit, he did wave us through when he was walking around trying to find all his discs.  I felt a little smug as I parked the hole with my first (and only!) shot.

Then a few holes later, we encountered what I could only surmise as the "local pros."  Unlike most Swedish disc golfers I'd seen, these guys had full on backpack bags with 20+ discs, and they walked around like they owned the place.  They were obviously playing some sort of safari (made up) layout, and took their time playing through the middle of a couple other fairways.  One of the dudes just stood in the middle of the fairway and carried on a conversation while people on multiple holes just waited on him.  He was either oblivious or just didn't give a shit.  I'm betting on the latter. We ended up playing behind them for much of the round, and had to wait on them taking multiple shots more than a few times.  Douches.  But, we've certainly got them in the states too.

Should've taken more pictures, but at least I remembered on the 18th hole.

We finished the round, and could have played more, but the skies were looking progressively ominous, and we were concerned about the parking situation.  Before we left though, we had to check out this big hill next to the course.  It looked like there was a ski jump there.

Is that...?

Sure looks like it...

Yup, I do believe they've got a ski jump in this here park

It was indeed a ski jump.  A little research uncovered that it's over 100 years old, and no longer used for ski jumping (obviously).  People do apparently still sled down it though.  Props to them, is all I can say.

A better sense of proportion

I feel I look exceptionally Nordic here

We made our way back to the car following some of the inner trails of the park, and were relieved to see that there was no ticket waiting for us.  We got in the car and headed towards downtown Gothenburg to explore.  There was an area that was supposed to be the kind of grungy-bohemian part of town, where I guess the hipsters and artists hang out.  We drove through there, but didn't see the galleries and sex shops like we had read about.  It seemed to be popular no doubt, and kind of trendy, but it didn't strike me as all that remarkable.

 As we were driving around, we were sampling the big bag of candy we'd bought the night before.  The Ika had a huge bulk candy section, and we'd taken samples of the European candy we weren't familiar with, and what looked good.  There was a good amount of licorice in there, and that was pretty good, as well as the Haribo of course.  But one thing that we got--I don't know what it was supposed to be--but it tasted like cat litter.  Used cat litter.  It was extremely tart and had an ammonia overtone to it.  It was nassssssssty.  But, what can you expect from a culture that eats fermented fish?

This is known as the lipstick building.  Can't figure that one out.

As you can see in the pictures, the weather wasn't great this day.   It was the first day of our trip that wasn't filled with sunshine, and soon enough it started raining.  One of the sights Therry read about in her guidebook was a water tower that you could go up in and have a great view of the city.  Granted it wasn't the best day for scenery, but it was actually something in Sweden that was free.  That in itself was worth a gander.

We took a winding road to the top of a hill and found the tower awaiting us.  In a kind of surreal experience, you could just drive around underneath the tower and park wherever you deemed it proper.

Apparently, water towers are a part of civic pride in Gothenburg, and they have a bunch of them, each uniquely designed.

Ours is on the upper right

  There's a cafe at the top of the tower as well, and it seemed to be doing a good amount of business.  We were just there for the view though, so stepped outside into the elements.

With a better camera and better conditions, you could see the other water towers

And Gothenburg for that matter

We decided to take the elevator back down for shits and giggles.  Little did we know that the elevator was a concept model for the Coffin of Doom®.

I wasn't claustrophobic beforehand. 

We headed back to the house from there, and mostly had a lazy night in, eating ad hoc meatballs, and watching Swedish TV (mostly American TV with subtitles).  We got our train tickets to Copenhagen and finished off our ice cream cake.