Sweden and Denmark and hockey, oh my! - Gothenburg check in

It has been 26 hours since we left our house to fly out of Pearson airport in Toronto. All in all, things went to plan. We flew on a KLM flight out of Toronto to Amsterdam, and then onto Gothenburg. All our flights were on time, and actually a little faster than was expected. Flying is not our usual mode of transportation, and our ram truck is much more spacious lol.
We are traveling with a travel, agency tour group called Destiny Tours. Our trip is still just beginning but so far the level of detail in the planning has been outstanding.

We got into Gothenburg around 10 o’clock and we’re transferred to our hotel via coach bus chartered by destiny tours. Even at that early hour our rooms were ready for us to occupy. We have a corner hotel room that overlooks the city and the Scandinavium arena where the World Junior hockey tournament is to be played. Hotel room is efficient and clean, but no more interesting than most hotel rooms.

After a short hour of relaxation, we set out to get some fresh air and to get our bearings in the neighborhood. The temperature was 0 °C and it was misty. Since Christmas Eve is generally a time when no businesses are open, we had a look at some restaurant menus from the outside as we walked by and grabbed some snacks at the 7-Eleven across the street.

The hotel, which is Gothia Towers, has beautiful reception areas with decorations for the season.

and there was even a Lego miniature of the towers in one of the lobbies.

And an art gallery!

Many places for people to meet and share a drink. The number of Canadians that are staying here will no doubt overrun the hotel. Everywhere you go we see a sea of red.

We had reservations at the seasons restaurant for dinner since most other restaurants in the area are closed for Christmas. The buffet was excellent. We had sticky chicken, Beef Bulgogi and a blue cheese and pear salad which was particularly excellent.

We ended the evening at the 24–7 Café in the front reception area having hot chocolate and watching people come and go. We took the glass elevator back up to our room around 830. And we’ll wait until 11 o’clock or so for sleep so that we reset our internal clocks to Swedish time. In the meantime, we can watch our streaming services from home on the TV here to pass the time. Tomorrow, being Christmas day there won’t be anything open to visit but we’re hoping if it’s nice enough that we can walk around the city a little. Our Christmas reception from Destiny tours will be at dinner tomorrow where we will receive our jackets and IDs to get around the events here in Gothenburg.

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