Hakan Tours Present:

A Day in Goteborg On June 23rd, at precisely 1300 hours, Hakan Tours departed from Brunnsparken on a quest to dive deep into the heart of one of Sweden's largest and most historical of cities. Three goals lay before the tour. (1) To fill the ignorant noggin of That American Guy with interesting facts about the city (2) Create some memories with our fearless leader, Hakan, and (3) Fix That American Guy's twisted sleep schedule by starting "early" and walking everywhere. I'm proud to announce number three was an outright success (as is evidenced by the mornings addition to the blog of which you now read).

Hakan Tours started the day with a leap back in time, offering a genuine sighting of the founder of Goteborg. Well, the statue at least.I should clarify... No, the nice lady in pink, near the matching flowers, did not find the city of Goteborg. I'm sure if she were around during its inception, she would have done her part to make a beautiful, everlasting, European nation thrive from the ground up, but... she didn't, cause she wasn't there. At least I don't think so. I suppose I should've asked. Now I may be feeding my readers false information. What if she's an immortal like Duncan McLeod of the clan McLeod? Maybe my blogger chops aren't choppy enough after all! I'm nervous now! Maybe I should just stop this whole thing...

Okay, I've rested, listened to the theme from Back To The Future, and deliberated with myself, reaching the conclusion that I may have overreacted a bit back there. Back to the founder of Goteborg: one Mr. Gustav II Adolf.Proudly, his statue stands, even though he had a seagull on his head two photos ago. The copper statue which you see is actually the second made in honor of Goteborg's founder. The first was ordered from Italy, but sank in rough waters as it headed towards Goteborg. The second remains however, traditionally overlooking the city of which he declared, "Shall be there."

On from Gustav Adolf square, Hakan led The American Tourist (see how I did that? I'm unpredictable... a man of many names. Okay, sorry) to Goteborg's oldest building.

Once a building that housed Artillery units, it now serves as a headquarters to Goteborg's Wind Orchestra. The square in which it stands, held a small Fire Station, as well as a Carriage house.Today, Goldsmiths, Silversmiths and Glass Blowers occupy the yellow building on the right. Glashyttan, which translates to "Glass Hut" in English, ironically looks a lot like "Glass is hot 'n stuff." Minus the stuff. But it is hot and quite the mind blowing technique (that groaner of a joke was for you, Dad).

Moving on from the square, we caught a glimpse of the German, Christina Church.

The Church was built from 1634-1783 with the intention of serving German and Dutch Catholic immigrants. Freakishly and quite accidentally, this photo I took looks strikingly similar to the one on this page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10396209@N07/1463221777/. I got the sun though, so as far as I'm concerned, I win this unintentional battle.

Which brings me to a painstaking confession... Yes, I have been getting some of my nitty gritty details from various sites on the web. I forgot to bring a pen and notepad to Hakan Tours and my noggin, though very well informed yesterday, is slightly less informed today. My apologies, readers of all shapes and sizes who look especially lovely today.

Moving on, exploring and discussing random places along the way, Hakan proceeded to tell me a humorous story which I shall now pass on to you... The somewhat hidden face above, is the face of a brick layer. He, one morning after drinking (that's right, morning) himself to a gleeful, carefree demeanor, prepared himself for a days work. Due to his reportedly friendly, but still public intoxication, an officer of the law with an enlarged medulla oblongata (a rather angry fellow), arrested the brick layer, thus evoking the brick layer's obvious disatisfaction. Following the incident and the brick layer's release, he proceeded to immortalize his favorite adversary across from himself.

So basically, everyone can now point and at this face and say, "So that's the douchebag!"

And now for some random, city photos, for your viewing pleasure...

Is it just me or does it look like Spider-Man has been swinging all over this street?Who knew Ecco The Dolphin had his own store in Sweden?Just because some of this architecture reminds me of Sesame Street does not make it bad. Quite the opposite actually. Sesame Street knew what was up.

I feel obligated to inform you that despite popular belief, the Goteborg Sightseeing Tours do not condone and/or require that you spray Poseidon with hoses from an ironically fire truckish looking vehicle.Ladies, take a gander at Poseidon's pe... rrrfectly chiseled... chest. You'd think for a god it would be bigger. And no, that last sentence is not about his chest.

I take back that crack on Poseidon. He's a good guy. He erects rainbows for the kids.

One final, expansive view of Goteborg to close out the day's tour.

Tack sa mycket, Hakan! I really had a great time!

This re-creation of the Hakan Tours experience has been brought to you by:

That American Guy (unsuccessfully trying to look cool)