Patrick's Diary - 7/8/2015

It is already 10:50pm on 7/9, but I haven't started my diary for 7/8, oh, which was my 49th birthday. I didn't feel anything different, it was just another day in my life.

We hadn't got out of the hotel room in Oslo until 20 minutes left to the checkout time. The only charge I hadn't paid was for the dinner at Enzo. The receptionist quickly completed the process for me and made the comment that I must like Oslo after listening to my response to his initial asking. He apologized for the weather though because it was raining. I said it's ok and the temperature made me feel comfortable but Norwegians might desire the sunshines during the summer. He asked me where we came from, I laughed and told him Seattle where we have a lot of rains.

Walking out of the hotel, I took a photo for my son in front of the entrance and a video clip of the street in front of the hotel including the authentic Spanish restaurant we had a wonderful dinner last night.

It wasn't far for us to drive onto E18/E6 to head out the city, however, when I saw a Shell gas station by the side of the freeway, I decided to stop pumping gas though it wasn't necessary at that moment, I did want to spend Norwegian Krone I still had. After parking my car by the pump, I couldn't recognize the one for Dessel, so had to ask a couple at another pump. The guy told me it was the black one for which I would notice the description way up to the top of the pumping machine. Before pumping, I had checked if I could pre-pay cash to use as much local currency as I could but several customers were in the line and another driver was waiting for me to move behind my car. I knew my credit card wouldn't work but hadn't tried debit card. Fortunately, it did, though the instruction on the panel was Norwegian, I could tell the transaction went through after I punched Pin#. As long as the card with a Pin, it might not matter if it has a chip in it or not. Parked the car aside, I went into the store to buy two bottles of water and two sandwiches because first, I did want to spend the cash, secondly, we wouldn't need to stop to have lunch on the way to Goteborg. The salesman recommended the different sandwiches for me, he seemed very happy to see a foreigner, especially an Asian being interested in their local foods.

Driving on the road, I listened to my son's comment that the surroundings were pretty similar to those in Seattle. I just noticed his perception making sense. Especially, on the left hand side, many houses were built on the hill, just like those by the east side of I-5 closing to downtown Seattle. Of course, my son's reference was mainly related to the rains. 

Switching onto E6 to pass a tunnel, I was sure that it didn't exist 20 years ago and the surface of the road was relatively new. I assume several renovations had been done since then. After half an hour driving, the rain stopped, it might never rain in that area. 

After another half an hour, we were running into heavy traffic, actually the freeway became a parking a lot. I was wondering if there was an accident in front but figured out why when seeing a sign of toll. Several different toll booths were set up and one was for coins and cards. I did have 20 krone change I got at Shell gas station, so dropped it into the bowl and passed through. However, an funny accident incurred right after the toll booths: A big truck hit the left rear side of a sedan, which blocked almost all lanes. I was lucky to make an educational guess to bypass the spot quickly. 

Back to Sweden, we didn't see rains but the sky switched from sunny to cloudy time to time. After seeing a Volvo dealership, which is so common, I sought an Ikea superstore by the other side of the freeway. Yep, in the first 2 days of this trip when we drove in Sweden, we had seen 3 or 4 Ikea stores by the road, it is a powerful franchise with no doubt. This reminded me to think about the one in Renton, which is only 3 or 4 miles away from our office building. At that moment of time, only 82 kilometers were left to Goteborg.

Approaching Goteborg, I couldn't describe my emotions. However, the heavy traffic distracted me a lot and I probably shouldn't have followed GPS exactly because I might miss one exit where could lead us to a shortcut to the hotel.

Anyway, it didn't cause me much longer time to arrive at our hotel, which is located across the street of Central Station. I did notice its location when I booked the room online but didn't connect it to Central Station, otherwise, I wouldn't have needed to follow GPS step by step after driving into city limit earlier.

The lady at front desk recommended me to upgrade our room to Business with only 50 bucks more for two nights and I did it. She quickly checked us in. The hotel parkings were full but the young man at hotel services suggested me to park in a nearby public parking lot. 

The room is spacious with everything we need. Standing in front of the window, I could see Central Station only 100 meters away across the tram stations and square. It triggered me to recall a lot of memories. As I had shared before, the very last time I was in the station was to change the time of my ticket with the help by a 60ish gentleman. In that trip in 1996, I took the train from Malmo to Goteborg. Since I was very confident in my familiarities of the city, I didn't call the taxi but took the bus to the hotel I booked far away from the city center. Dragging a big baggage to wait for the bus coming was a wonderful scene in my mind. I was able to secure my position on the bus very well with that big baggage on the floor. A young woman with her girl stood facing to me, I even helped her stabilize by holding her arm when the bus driver suddenly stepped the break. I still remember the woman's appreciation and her little girl's admiration through their words and eyes as if I had saved the mom's life. When arriving at the stop nearby the hotel, the bus driver even helped me carry the baggage down to the ground and made sure that I was heading to the right direction before driving the bus away. 

Taking a brief rest, we headed downstairs to have dinner. The bar was open and my son ordered steak and I ordered the salmon. After we sat at our table, a family of four, parents and two daughters, were sitting next to us very close. My son mentioned to me later that those two teens were very beautiful, I guess no one would disagree with him. The dishes were very tasty and we wrapped them up pretty quickly. Reading the check, I was wondering why two additional charges were added, one was 25%, which I had seen in other restaurants as taxes; another one was 12% of which I suspected it service charges. After asking the waitress who patiently explained to me with smile, I understood it another tax code, probably for big metro such as Goteborg, I guess. I wrote additional tips after the question was answered. Maybe I wasn't a finance professional back in 20 years ago, though I had been always interested in finance, I can't remember any tax codes imposed then in Sweden. In addition, after so many years, the codes must be changed a lot anyway. 

My son had fell into sleep when I thought about to pull clean underwear and T-shirts from our car. I went back to the parking lot, which was 300 meters away. Walking on the quiet street at midnight, I felt very comfortable. Goteborg is a safe city as far as I know and I am confidence in my judgement because I am familiar with it, oh I may have to say that I was. 

After pulling the clothes to come back to hotel, I did hear sounds of Cop's sirens breaking through the dark sky. In a big city, crimes can't be avoided anyway but this city is still a paradise.