New shiny bikes
After a Swedish breakfast of tiny strips of bacon and eggs (seems very English doesn’t it), Keyvan’s ever kindly friends drove us to our new flat. We’re going be staying here for a month and so far it seems very nice. It’s in a residential area not far from Slottsskogen (the huge park in Gothenburg) and the flat is lovely and very spacious. We dumped our very cool suitcases on wheels (the fascination hasn’t gone yet!) and went out to buy some bikes, so we can save on public transport costs and get healthy and fit. Though public transport is very good in the city in terms of being on time and there are both buses and trams to chose from. They’re not as new and clean as you might expect but they do their job of transporting people. Last night we bused it into the city because there were big celebrations. 30th April is a big celebration for the start of spring. We saw the carnival like procession – all the first year students from Charmers University make floats where they do their take on issues in society. Needless to say there were lots of men dressed as women and babies (any excuse). There was a good smattering of politics and several floats had gone for the theme of Guantanamo Bay, terrorism, corruption and suppressed protest.
Today is also special of course because it’s the 1st of May and a big workers celebration and we saw lines of demonstrators holding single red roses as trammed it into town. The leader of the Social Democrats was in town so I guess it was a big occasion. As it was a bank holiday shops closed early/didn’t open at all, so we didn’t have time to join the demonstration as we had to rush to the out of town bike shop which K had located as a cheap source of the efficient transport machine. We bought our bikes flat packed as there was a 2 week waiting list for assembly and K felt confident about his knowledge gained from his bike course. He is remarkably useful when it comes to bikes or computers. In fact he’s busy putting the bikes together so I’d better go and make him a cup of tea in a supportive like role. There are of course no kettles so we’re using a saucepan.