The day started with another return to the University of Gothenburg for a lecture titled "Doing Business in Europe; The Creation of a Single Internal Market" with our contact, Professor Claes G. Alvstram. He discussed the integration of the European Union and market as it deepened and widened post-WWII, and the steps taken forward for the legal, political, and economic alignment of Europe. In addition, he covered the different levels in the European economies, starting at the supranational level and working down to the household level, and explained his support for free trade and the potential of borderless transactions. It got even better when he began to discuss global and European marketing, and European geography. The best part, however, was when Professor Alvstram opened a dialog between his class and our group on Swedish culture and our opinions of it. I hope we didn't come off as too critical; many of the things mentioned by our group could have been misinterpreted as complaints or whiny. However, we mentioned our favorite parts, like the safety and cleanliness of Gothenburg and Sweden, how friendly Swedes have been, and how sophisticated the city is as a whole. And then we asked them what they thought of Americans in general... their responses were much more polite than I expected. The Swedish students laughed; it was a combination of nervous laughs and exchanged looks as if they were all sharing the same inside joke. I heard some anonymous students jokingly blurt "***holes!" (and worse) and some tried to be nice by awkwardly and halfheartedly saying things like "some are... nice...". However, they made sure to reassure us that we weren't bad and didn't fit that stereotype. Possibly one of the most funny embarrassing comments was when a Swede asked if we really were from Wisconsin, where "That 70s Show" is set. Everyone in the class started laughing as they made the connection, and all I could do was pray they didn't assume we all smoked pot in our parent's basements and got into trouble in Small-Town, Wisconsin. So i'm going to blame America's bad international image on my parents and everyone else from the 1970s.
Afterwards, Alex and I went to a local landmark: the Feskekorka, or Fish Church. Its a famous fish market in a church-like building, and the food and fish they had there looked worthy off worship. There were vendors with every type of fish, crustacean, mollusk, and sea-dwelling animal imaginable; I'm pretty sure I could have gotten a seahorse kebab if I asked around. I saw huge bins of shrimp on ice, salmon steaks bigger than my arm, and completely indescribable delicacies. I could easily have spent several hundred dollars in here if I had the means and a capable kitchen.
While the kitchen in our hostel wouldn't do those ingredients justice, Alex and I used it to its full potential tonight with a "bromantic" Italian/Swedish dinner, which just means we put cheap Swedish meatballs in cheap pasta sauce and poured it on pasta. But for a meal costing $2.50 (most "cheap" meals are $10-15 in Sweden), it was excellent and very filling. As they say here in Sweden, Smaklig måltid! (Bon Appetit)
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