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Volvo, Mark Knopfler, and East German adventures… part four

Thanks to having missed our early morning taxi appointment that we were never informed we had, our Monday morning got off on the wrong foot.  When we got to Volvo’s visitor’s center, we could see a sign that welcomed us as one of a group of people there to get new cars.  According to the sign, everyone was from the USA, although I saw one name that had an umlaut and looked German or Swedish, one that was obviously Italian, and at least two others that were Hispanic/Latino.  Strange that a country so clearly full of immigrants is having so many of these recent problems with immigration.

Welcome to new car payments!  Yea!

Anyway, after we dropped off our bags and Bill handed over paperwork and German license plates for the new car, we had lunch in the visitor’s center.  Bill had salmon, and I had Swedish meatballs with lingonberries.

Volvo style salmon.

 

Just like at IKEA.

I had a chance to check out the small Volvo gift shop, too.  You can buy everything from jackets with logos on them to models of your favorite Volvos.  Alas, they only had XC 90 models; there weren’t any XC 40s or XC 60s.

If you’re really a Volvo fan, you can buy a model for your desk.

They even had a toy car for your kids… but  it had no seatbelts!  We heard on the tour that every car has a little Volvo in it, since Nils Bohlin, an engineer at Volvo, invented three point seatbelts.  The company gave away the patent for free for the good of everyone.

Old Volvo.  According to Wen, the Chinese tour guide, Volvo means “I roll” in Swedish.

Ha ha ha… Volvo style “Members Only” jacket…  

Just like the factory.

Later, were met by a tiny Chinese woman who was tasked with handling our factory tour.  The woman, whose name was “Wen” (or at least that’s what it sounded like her name was), spoke heavily accented, but otherwise excellent, English.  She took everyone’s cameras and cell phones, as photos are not allowed on the factory tour.  I happened to have an iPhone, iPad, and digital camera on me, which got locked in a drawer with everyone else’s electronics.

We were loaded up in a “train” like vehicle that had plastic curtains that could be dropped down for protection against wind or sparks.  Then, after we donned plastic safety glasses, the vehicle drove us through parts of Volvo’s vast factory, which Wen told us is larger than Vatican City and Monaco.  I’m not sure if she meant the factory was larger separately, or together.  It was impressively huge, though.

On our tour, we learned that Volvo cars are mostly made by robots.  I’m sure that’s how most cars are made today.  It was impressive to see the robots work, as well as the cleanliness and relative quiet of the factory.  I was also glad to see that the employees appeared to be reasonably happy.  Some of them waved and had real smiles on their faces.

I didn’t know this before Monday, but Volvo is actually owned by a Chinese company.  I knew it was once owned by Ford, but Ford sold it when it took a loss.  So, since 2010, a quintessentially Swedish company has been owned by a company that is decidedly not Swedish.  As we were picking up our new SUV, we were told that prior to the 2020 models, our car’s make was produced in China.  However, the Gothenburg plant now makes XC 60s.  We saw more than a few of them being made in the factory.  Our car was made there maybe a couple of weeks ago.

This was what I was there to see…  our new car.  And no, the one in this photo isn’t it.

The tour was interesting, although I was very ready to see our new wheels.  After we picked up our electronics, Bill and I were met by a charming, handsome, and very personable Swedish guy who showed us all of the cool stuff featured on our new car.  It took about an hour for him to demonstrate the many different ways the seats can be adjusted, opening the trunk by waving a foot under the car, and programming the iPad like control panel on the dashboard.  He even helped me pair my iPhone with the car’s infotainment system.

Learning new tricks.  This car doesn’t even have a paper based owner’s manual, nor do you put a key in any ignition.  You simply have the key on you and it starts up with the push of a button.

There s/he is!  Since it’s Bill’s car, I’ll let him decide the gender.  He says it’s a male.  Whatever it is, it’s a pleasure to ride in the 2020 XC 60.  Bill loves driving it, too.

Once we were checked out on the new car, Bill and I set off for our next destination, Copenhagen.  It took about four hours to get there and involved a 20 minute ferry ride from Sweden to Denmark.

One last look at Gothia Towers as we made our way south.

 

This was our first time driving in Sweden.  It was mostly a nice drive, although I couldn’t help but notice our industrial it looked.  I was expecting prettier views as we made our way southward. The new car has a place for a SIM card to go, so pretty soon I’ll have a hot spot in the car.  However, for the time being, I used Gig Sky again and amused myself reading the news, Facebook, and playing games.  I can’t believe how much “smarter” the new car is compared to our 2006 Toyota.  I remember thinking the Toyota was “smart” back in 2006.  Makes me wonder what I’ll think of our next vehicle… in the 2030s?

Our first ferry ride.  It cost 55 euros.

Approaching Helginsborg, Denmark…

Where you wait… they have restaurants and duty free shops on the ferries.  We only had time for a drink and a pee.

 

Welcome to Denmark!

From the ferry, it was maybe another hour or so to get to Copenhagen.  I had wanted to stay downtown, so it would be easy to walk around, but I was also concerned about adequate parking facilities.  I rented a room at the Adina Apartment Hotel in Copenhagen, an Australian chain that has sprung up in Europe and offers pretty good facilities for families.  We stayed in one in Berlin, when Bill’s mom visited us in December 2017.  Since it was just the two of us, and only for a night, I got us a studio apartment.  It was small, but basically comfortable.  Here are a few photos.

There is parking right outside this hotel, but it’s off limits to Adina guests.  Instead, you can book the huge parking garage just around the corner.  This hotel is close to the train, which will get you into Copenhagen proper.  We decided we were too tired to mess with that and stayed in.  Maybe if we’d made the earlier group, we would have walked around Copenhagen.  We have been there before, anyway, even if it was ten years ago.

 

They do have room service, but you can also use the microwave and fridge.  There is a restaurant on site.

 

Decent shower.  Nice head.

 

Sofa and bland art on the walls… but there’s also a little balcony for smokers and/or fresh air.

 

The restaurant has a full bar and beers on tap.

Mmm…  “The Chubby” was interestingly named.

I had a steak with Bernaise sauce.  It was okay.

Bill had fish and chips.  We ate a lot of fish and chips on this trip.

Time for bed.

 

The Adina Hotel worked fine for a night.  If I were going to be there longer than a night, I think I’d go for the one bedroom apartment.  The studio was a bit cramped, even for just two people.  I wish we’d gotten in earlier, so we could have walked around Copenhagen.  Unfortunately, we just don’t have the same stamina we used to have.

But I did get to enjoy some danishes in Denmark.

 

We checked out after breakfast and were soon on our way to our next stop, Rostock, Germany.

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Volvo, Mark Knopfler, and East German adventures… part three

Sunday morning, I woke up at about 3:00am.  I couldn’t help but notice the sun was already rising.  Sweden is a bit weird for the uninitiated, especially in the winter and summer, when days are either really short, or really long.  A few hours later, we got up for real, enjoyed the awesome rainfall shower, got dressed, and headed to the 25th floor for breakfast.  At Upper House, breakfast is always included in the rate.  You get a very nice buffet, as well as “small plates”, which are prepared by the chef.  Most people get two or three of the small plates, as well as whatever they want from the buffet. Below are a few photos of items we enjoyed over the course of our two night stay.

The menu.

Awesome scrambled eggs with chives and bacon.

 

Roast beef…

 

Chocolate filled cream puff.

Delicious strawberry crumble with cream.  I think this one was my favorite.

 

A beautifully set table.

 

A view of the city.

On day two, Bill had the royal and the shakshuka, a dish of eggs poached in a sauce of tomatoes, peppers, and garlic.

 

At 11:30am, we headed to the spa for our massages.  One thing I want to mention about the spa in Sweden.  It seems that when it comes to nudity, the Swedes are more like the Brits and us Americans.  We were advised to come dressed in our bathing suits.  Even in the locker room, there really weren’t any places to change in privacy.  So, if you’re reading this in Germany and you want to visit the Upper House spa, be advised that it’s NOT textile free, even in the sauna.  In fact, we even had our massages while wearing bathing suits, although they were rolled down.  We were fully covered the whole time.

Our aromatherapy massages went on concurrently– Bill and I were in the same room with two female therapists.  We spent 80 very peaceful minutes getting the knots knocked out of our tired muscles, although the bed at the Upper House was the very best of all four hotels we stayed in this week.  Then, we checked out the amazing spa area with its views of Liseberg.

Heated lounges overlooking the amusement park.

The view.

Bill in his snazzy robe.  I brought mine from home.

 

This pool is 18 floors up and has a glass bottom… Yes, it’s very secure, and yes, you can see to the street when the water isn’t bubbling.  

 

A saltwater pool…  It had jets.

A peek at the pool from the ground floor of the towers.


After a few pleasant hours in the spa, we were hungry.  We got dressed and went looking for food.  Unfortunately, just as it is in Germany, a lot of Swedish restaurants also take a “pause”.  Consequently, we ended up at Ristoria, an Italian eatery in the towers.  They had a Sunday brunch, which didn’t really please me much.  The food wasn’t bad, but it looked like it had been sitting for awhile.  Also, the chairs were uncomfortable.  But it satisfied my hunger well enough…

From the buffet at Ristoria.  It should be mentioned that cash isn’t accepted anywhere in the hotel or restaurants, so bring your credit cards.

 

Not too impressed.

One drawback to Gothia Towers’ location is that it’s not close to downtown, nor is it in a particularly walkable location.  Moreover, while we were in the spa, I overhead a guy telling the staff that he was robbed.  So after we finished lunch, we went back to the room.  I proposed a visit to Liseberg to Bill, but he wasn’t interested.  He doesn’t like rides, particularly ones that are extremely high or just plain extreme.  I will admit, while I wouldn’t have hesitated to ride most of the rides at Liseberg when I was younger, they did seem a bit extreme, even to me.  And I don’t like crowds or being part of a captive audience… so we decided to hang out and talk.

At about 5:00pm, we went to the Upper House’s bar and proceeded to spend the evening drinking… and talking to a British woman named Janet who lives in Doha, Qatar and works in the airline industry.  Bill struck up a conversation with her when she said she wanted to sit out on the balcony.  The wind up on the 25th floor was extreme, but Janet said she had been dealing with 50 degree weather for weeks and she wanted some fresh air.  Dopey me… I thought she meant 50 degrees Fahrenheit.  Nope… 50 degrees Celsius.  That is some HOT weather!  No thanks!

Janet was a total stranger prior to last Sunday, but she turned out to be a lot of fun to talk to.  She also reminded me a lot of my sister, Becky.  She said she was going to have to get up very early on Monday morning to fly to Stockholm for business purposes.  Then, I guess, she was going back to Doha…  We had a lot to talk about, though, since it turned out we liked the same kind of music and had lots of travel stories to share.  We found ourselves talking about everything from 9/11, Princess Diana and where we were when she died (I was in a sleeper care with a Chinese family on a train from Vienna to Venice) to her trip to Vietnam and, of course, religion and politics.  She even kissed us goodbye!

This was dinner… two small plates.  Pork belly and some kind of sea scallop soup.  I was partial to the pork, but that probably surprises no one.

The next morning was the day we picked up our new car.  Things got off on the wrong foot, when the elevators wouldn’t work.  We had to climb a tight spiral staircase to get to the restaurant.  Then, while we were eating, our waiter came over and said Volvo had sent a taxi for us.  Bill was upset, since he was told they wouldn’t come until after 9:00am.  But he never got any confirmation one way or the other and, I guess, trusted that things would go according to plan.  He was pretty upset that we weren’t ready for the taxi and they hadn’t told us it was coming.

After breakfast, we went to the reception and explained what was going on.  A very beautiful blonde woman with delicate features and big blue eyes was running the desk.  She offered to call Volvo for us and find out what to do.  Meanwhile, we went back to our room to wait.  While we were there, I noticed the below sign.

This is pretty awesome!  If you smoke in your room, they’ll charge you a lot to clean it.  Then, they’ll donate half of the fine to Sweden’s Heart and Lung Foundation.  I love the sense of social responsibility the Swedes have.

One more view of the dining room.  Next time, we’ll be sure to reserve a table for dinner.  Upper House has a restaurant with a Michelin star.

Volvo agreed to send us another taxi at 10:40am, so we waited in our room, checked out, and hung out in the lobby to wait for yet another taxi driver driving a Volvo to take us to our new wheels.  I prepaid for the room, so the only bill to be settled was for our dual massages and drinks in the bar.  It was about $400.

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Volvo, Mark Knopfler, and East German adventures… part two

Last Saturday was the day we’d been waiting for.  Bill took the dogs to the Tierpension in the morning, then ordered a cab to take us to the Frankfurt Airport.  We could have driven my car, but because we picked up a new car, we didn’t want to deal with the hassle of having to retrieve my Mini Cooper a week later.  Plus, it’s not cheap to park at the airport for eight days.

I decided to book business class on Lufthansa, since it’s relatively affordable over here and doing so nets us more frequent flier points.  Sometimes, those points come in handy.  I also booked all of our accommodations on Expedia.com.  When we stay in hotels, I use Expedia.  When we book self catering accommodations, I tend to use Booking, because they have more variety.  I book directly if a place is somewhere I really want to try and they aren’t on a travel site.

Surreal look at life above the clouds.

Since we booked business class for our 90 minute flight, check in was a breeze.  A very friendly Asian lady checked our bags.  I was originally going to book both of my bags, but I brought my laptop and it seems the airlines are getting a lot stricter about not allowing certain electronics to be in checked baggage.  Flying business class got us access to the business class lounge, which was very crowded, but not as crowded as the rest of the airport was.  The friendly Lufthansa clerk was not lying when she told us it was the “high” season.  We also happened to be traveling at the same time a bunch of handball teams from around the world were going to Sweden for a tournament.  Our flight, in particular, had the entire Brazilian team on it.  The players were mostly kids and teenagers and their coaches.  A lot of them are still firmly in their ids.

Wine in the business class lounge…  

 

Right before our flight.  Glad we could go to the lounge, especially since it took forever to get to the plane, which was parked all the way at the end of the airport.  We had to take a lengthy bus ride.

 

This guy’s in love with me…  ha ha ha!

 

It turned out there was no beer or wine available on our flight.  There was a reason given for the lack of booze, but I couldn’t hear what it was.  It was no big deal, since the flight was finished in a jiffy.  Now that we’re living near Frankfurt, getting to Scandinavia without layovers is a cinch!  We’ll have to visit Scandinavia more often, now that it’s more accessible.

Gothenburg is Volvo land…  even the airport has Volvo exhibits.  

 

It’s also home to Liseberg, which is a very well-known amusement park that was located directly across the street from where we stayed.  This play station was sponsored by the park.

 

A driver sent by Volvo picked us up and took us to Gothia Towers, which are three huge towers in Gothenburg.  They include the Gothia Towers hotel, several restaurants, and Upper House, which is a five star hotel located on the 20th through the 25th floors of the second tower.  If we had only wanted to stay one night, Volvo would have probably put us up at a different hotel.  But since we wanted two nights, we were on our own to book and pay for them.

I have expensive tastes, so I booked us in the Upper House.  I got several emails and a phone call from them before we arrived.  It’s supposedly among the best hotels in Sweden.  Having now stayed there, I can mostly see why.  The service is superb; the rooms are huge and comfortable; and there is an amazing spa complete with a heated swimming pool that juts out of the 18th floor of the building.  The spa is free for Upper House guests.  Others have to pay admission.  We decided to book a due aromatherapy massage for Sunday, then use the spa afterwards.

This was our view from the 21st floor.  To access Upper House, you have to go to the 25th floor.  All of the rooms are under the reception.

Bathroom was generously stocked with Molton Brown toiletries!

It was a very nice room…  The bed was excellent.  Wish I could have taken it home with me.

 

Once we dumped our bags, we went looking for food.  Gothia Towers has several restaurants, but most of them were fully booked last Saturday night, on account of all of the handball players who were staying in Gothia Towers.  We had dinner at the bar at West Coast, which is a seafood place on the first floor of the towers.  It was okay…

Bill had seafood casserole, which was very comforting and filling.

I had a martini…  

And trout, that looks like salmon.  I noticed the food was never served very hot.  I don’t know if that’s a Swedish thing, or the kitchen was just weeded.  I did enjoy the Swedish dishes we had, though.  It was a nice change from German fare.

Swedish beer, too.

 

It was after 10:00pm when I took this photo.  The park had just closed.  Thank God for blackout curtains.

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Volvo, Mark Knopfler, and East German adventures… part one

For the past week, Bill and I have been engaged in an epic road trip.  What started out as just plans for a long weekend in Leipzig over the Independence Day holiday, eventually turned into a car buying odyssey in Sweden, with stops in Copenhagen, Denmark and Rostock, Germany.  Our road trip will end on Sunday, but since this is going to be a long story with lots of pictures, I’ve decided to start writing about it today.

If you’ve been following my blogs, you may know that over the past couple of years, Bill and I have been attending a lot of concerts.  Although I really love music, it’s not that often that I go to concerts.  I don’t like crowds, spending lots of money for uncomfortable seats, or having people’s armpits in my face.  However, even though I don’t enjoy being in huge crowds, I also realize that a lot of my favorite musicians are getting old.  A few have already died before I ever got the chance to see them live.

I didn’t have a lot of money or generous boyfriends when I was younger and more tolerant of crowds, so I missed a lot of my best concert going years.  Likewise, for Bill, it’s only been recently that we’ve been able to afford to get tickets for good seats.  I don’t like paying a premium for seats in the nosebleed section.  I can just as easily listen to a live album at home.

In any case, 2018 and 2019 have been unusually active concert going years for us.  Since a year ago, we’ve seen The Rolling Stones, Paul Simon, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, Roger Hodgson (of Supertramp), Scottish Music Parade, The Irish Folk Music Festival, Elton John, The Eagles, and tonight, Mark Knopfler (of Dire Straits).  In 2017, we saw Sting, and in 2016, we saw Van Morrison…  or, at least I think it was 2016.  I can’t keep the dates straight anymore.  In 2015, we saw Diana Krall, and in 2009, we saw Lyle Lovett.

I like going to concerts in Europe.  People tend to be more considerate here, for the most part.  Also, they don’t seem to have as many rules.  At American concerts, it costs an arm and a leg to buy a beer.  People lose their shit and have less regard for people around them.  Although I may be proven wrong tonight, I’ve found that people aren’t like that so much on this side of the pond.

I bought the tickets for Mark Knopfler last fall, as we were preparing to leave the Stuttgart area.  I decided to get them for the Leipzig show, even though Knopfler is playing in Mannheim tomorrow, and Mannheim is much closer to where we live now.  I chose Leipzig because I’d been wanting to visit there.  Also, the date for Knopfler’s show in Leipzig seemed to make better use of the long weekend.  Originally, I had just planned for a three night break.  I was excited about this show, especially, because I’ve been wanting to see Mark Knopfler for years.  I missed him when he came to Germany in 2015.  His music means a lot to me for a lot of reasons.

Bill booked our dogs at the Tierpension Birkenhof in Darmstadt, and I got us a nice room at the Grand Hotel Steigenberger, which is one of Leipzig’s nicest hotels.  Had we not been able to book the dogs, we planned to find a self catering place where they could hang out while we went to the show.  Fortunately, the dog sitting situation is less severe in Wiesbaden than it is in Stuttgart.  We had no issues getting them a place at their new boarding facility.

For months, we waited for our trip to Leipzig, planning for just the three nights.  Then, in the spring, Bill decided he was ready to get a new car.  Our thirteen year old Toyota RAV 4, which was an excellent vehicle that served us very well in many countries, was beginning to need costly repairs.  It was time for a new car.  Bill wanted a luxury SUV.

In late April, we visited Capitol Motors Volvo in Kaiserslautern, as well as the BMW dealership, to see what kind of wheels we were going to buy.  Volvo won, so we ordered a beautiful 2020 XC 60 SUV in denim blue.  It’s a T6 Inscription, which is the top of the line trim.  Our dealer told us the car would be ready to pick up on July 1st.  Realizing that it had been way too long since our last proper vacation, I proposed to Bill the idea of flying to Gothenburg, Sweden, picking up the car at the factory, then driving it back to Germany.

Some readers may be aware that U.S. based Volvo dealers offer a great program for people who want to fly to Sweden, pick up their new cars, enjoy a European vacation, then fly home and have the car shipped to them.  Well…  over here in Europe, Volvo buyers, even through military sales, don’t get the same love.  If you are reading this from the United States and are thinking of having a Volvo sponsored European vacation, I recommend that you read this guy’s blog about it.  It’s not that I don’t want you to read my account, too.  It’s just that because we purchased our car in Germany, our experience was somewhat different.  However, we did get a very nice military discount.  I think Bill said we got our new Volvo for about $8,000 less than we would have paid if we hadn’t bought from military sales.

Since the car was going to be ready so close to when our Leipzig concert was planned, I proposed turning our car delivery into an epic trip.  Since Volvo was not going to be paying for our flight to Sweden and would only put us up for one night in a Gothenburg hotel, we decided to just come up to Sweden on our own, spend two nights in Gothenburg’s best five star spa hotel, pick up the car, and make our way to Leipzig.  I did some research and determined our itinerary.

We’d spend two nights in Sweden, since our only other visit there was at the end of a four night Baltic cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Vision of the Seas.  We ended in Stockholm, and Bill had to fly right back to Germany to go to a meeting in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.  Consequently, we really didn’t see more than the port and the airport in Sweden.  I wanted to do better than that in Gothenburg, which is on the west coast of the country.

Next, we’d spent a night in Copenhagen.  We were able to see Copenhagen on that same Baltic cruise.  I would have liked to have done more than one night there, but we had to make our travel plans fit so that we’d be in Leipzig by July 4th.  After Copenhagen, we’d take the ferry across the Baltic Sea to Rostock.  I had wanted to visit a former East German prison museum there.  Since it looked like a cool town near the beach, we’d stay two nights in Rostock.  Then, we’d make our way to Leipzig for the three nights I planned there months prior to our decision to buy the car.

It’s all worked out seamlessly, so far.

As usual, I’m going to write a blow by blow account of this adventure and will include lots of pictures and TMI commentary.  I hope you’ll follow along, if I manage to capture your interest.  Otherwise, this will just serve as a diary of one of our more interesting trips as a married couple.

Somewhere over Gothenburg, just as we’re about to land…

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Off to Gothenburg…

Yesterday, we took a quick flight from Frankfurt to Gothenburg.  Our plane was loaded with kids from Brazil who are here for a handball tournament.  Turns out a lot of people from the tournament are staying at Gothia Towers.  We are in Upper House, which is a five star hotel located within the Gothia Towers.  It’s basically a hotel within a hotel, with a world class spa.

I chose this hotel because of the spa, which looked absolutely wonderful.  Today, we had occasion to get a treatment and spend a couple of hours in the pools.  The towers are located just across the street from Liseberg, an amusement park that was founded in 1923.  I’m kind of attracted to it and would love to walk around it, but Bill hates rides.  So here I sit, writing a quick blog post.  I’ll write a detailed series later, when I’m at home at my desktop computer.

The spa and the room are very nice, though.  We have a nice view of the park and I’ve got some good pictures.  I definitely need to spend more time in Sweden…  We should plan a real vacation here.

Tomorrow, we’ll tour the Volvo factory and pick up our new wheels.  Then we’ll head to Copenhagen for the night.

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