Gothenburg for kids - best places

For anyone coming to Göteborg, here are some of my favorite things to do with kids:

Universeum
Otherwise known as our home away from home in the winter, Universeum is science discovery museum right next to Liseberg. The 3-story indoor rainforest is always a winner (especially when the monkeys are out), as is the aquarium, where you can see Hermann the shark. We spend most of our time, however, in the play area called Puls on the 2nd floor, where you can test your speed on a mini sprint track, ride on a mechanical horse, design your own digital truck, and lots more.

City Library
I just love the Stadsbibliotek, not just because it's around the corner from our house on Götaplatsen, but because it's got a cozy, warm and bright kid's room (with a potty!) with lots of English (and French, German, Norwegian, Arabic, etc.) books, some puzzles and toys. They also put on an amazing array of talks, story hours, lectures, exhibits, etc. Plus, they added a decent cafe off the main rotunda last year so you can buy a juice box on your way in or out.


Liseberg Amusement Park
Our local amusement park with a surprising number of rides for kids ages 2-6 (and of course plenty for older kids, too). I like it best during Christmas time when you can still go on a roller coaster in the snow, but also go ice skating, visit Santa, ride a reindeer-pulled sleigh, check out the Christmas crafts market and warm your hands over drums of hot coals set up around the park as you drink a mug of glögg.

Maritiman
Scramble over and through a collection of 12 or so ships that are anchored in the river close to downtown, from a destroyer to a fire boat. Then have a good cup of coffee and a cinnamon bun in the floating cafe.
Waffles and fish
At the Sjöfartsmuseet (Museum of the Sea) in the Majorna section of town, start your weekend with an all-you-can-eat waffle breakfast in the small cafe, then check out the aquarium or the new play room on the 3rd floor and let the kids burn off the whipped cream and strawberry jam toppings.

Stadsmuseet
The City Museum has a large play area for kids where they can play store, give lessons in an old school room from the 180os, or move barges around a winding model of the Göta River. Head downstairs afterwards to the super-cozy cafe that has a box of toys in the back and plenty of pillars, nooks and crannies for the kids to chase each other around.

Slottskogen
In summer, nothing beats a picnic and people-watching in this sprawling park at the top of Linnegatan. We have spent many a sunny afternoon hanging out on the lawns, playing at Plikta playground, and visiting the cute petting zoo (where pony rides are just a couple of dollars each). Also hidden in Slottskogen is a pool full of energetic penguins, a moose family and a few bored seals. My favorite place to get a glass of wine in summer is Villa Belparc, a restaurant with a huge, picturesque outdoor terrace that overlooks a small lake/pond with a big fountain. The kids love exploring the terrace, eating the yummy french fries and feeding the ducks. In summer, don't forget to buy strawberries on your way home from one of the stands around the park.


In the winter, try the Naturhistoriska Museet (Natural History Museum) that looks down over the playground. It's a bargain (a yearly pass is about $7) and the collection of stuffed animals is old-school creepy to delight boys and girls of all ages.
Swimming
In the summer, the possibilities for swimming are endless. The beaches along the coast are gorgeous and rugged, but we like the kid-friendly and sandy beaches in the Delsjön nature area, especially the beaches at Harlanda Tjärn and Delsjön itself. Both have grassy shaded areas, sand, swings, shallow water for wading and ice cream vendors (key!). An extra benefit of this beach is the cute Cafe Lyckan that is just a short walk away. They do delicious waffles, and outside they have a goat and some bunnies (that they say you can take home if you like). This is the beach at Delsjön last June.
In the winter you can do drop-in swimming at the very warm and low-key Sporthallsbadet, which is next to the large Valhalla swimming complex. This warm pool has tons of floaties and swim noodles to choose from, and a tiny slide. For older kids, Åbybadet south of town is a huge, raucous swim complex with multiple pools, a decked out kiddie wading area and 3 huge spiraling slides that elicit screams from swimmers of all ages.

Kid-friendly Cafes
Most cafes in town are generally kid-friendly (and many have changing tables), but some try harder than others. Glädjebubblan is a big cafe with a play area that's great for babies and young toddlers. And I just love Språkcafeet, the language cafe.

They have a box of toys in the back and a changing table in the bathroom, but this one gets my recommendation because you can sit outside (like the ladies above) and let the kids run around Esperantoplatsen as you eat your delicious vegetarian buffet lunch.

That's all for now, folks!

Centimeter marathon

Today Ava and Julian participated in their first charity running race (a so-called centimeter marathon because it was 42,195 centimeters long) benefiting Queen Silvia's Children's Hospital. Ava is not much for ball sports or sports requiring any kind of concentrated practice come to think of it, but she does really like running, so it was great to see her excited about competing. She told us afterwards all about an English-speaking 4-year-old she "met during the race," so I don't think her competitive instinct is about to override her social butterfly personality any time soon, but we were so proud of her for running with the big kids in the front of the group and feeling confident enough to go out and run with so many kids without really getting what was going on. The second picture, above, shows her about to cross the finish line. She has been really enjoying her medal since the race, as you can imagine: Julian didn't end up running because the race was during his usual nap time and he was exhausted, but he seemed to have an OK time being carried by Adrian across the finish line. His passion at the moment is his new blue helmet, which he has insisted on wearing around town more as a fashion accessory than a practical aid. I was getting irritated by his obsession with the helmet until I realized that a 2-year-old in a helmet is probably a really good idea and now I ask him all the time if he wants to wear it. Eating croissants can be dangerous if you're 2 you know.

Natural History Museum

Ava's reaction to this crazy-looking animal at Göteborg's Natural History Museum was about the same as mine: "Yuck." I mean, really, you could have nightmares. Luckily, the rest of the museum is not nearly so yicky and in fact is really old school cool, complete with dark wood paneling and lots of large stuffed animals in glass boxes with signs that read: "Brown bear. Canada. Shot by Hans Hansson 1905. Prepared by Lars Larsson." Both of the kids really enjoyed it. Julian kept running around pointing and shouting things like "moo cow!" "big neigh!" and "big wow whale!" while Ava patiently explained that the moo cow was actually a bison and the big neigh was some sort of deer. The "Malm" Whale (so called because it was discovered beached south of Göteborg in 1865 by a guy named Malm) they have have on display is sort of a big-wow-whale moment, so there was little debate there.

Lights of Liseberg

When I was little we used to drive by the Chevron refinery in Richmond off of I-80 on our way back from Sacramento late at night. The oil refinery was lit up with a million lights and I'd say "Mom, look, there's heaven!" Well, I think Ava feels the same way about Liseberg right now, and probably more appropriately so. It looks great right now, with lights, fake snow and Christmas booths everywhere. They also have these great BBQ stands filled with glowing coals that are just for warming your hands. Love those. For the kids there's an ice-skating rink, learn-to-ski slope, reindeer sleigh rides, and the regular kiddie rides, of course. I never thought I'd be going on a roller-coaster in the snow, but there you go!

Halloween

The Halloween season is my favorite time of year. I love fall colors, fall foods and fall weather (no jokes about San Francisco not having any seasons please -- we have seasons, they're just sort of casual, like Californians). And I love a good 'ol American harvest fair, complete with pumpkin patches, scarecrows, hay rides, pumpkin pie and little craft booths filled with stuff you'd never actually buy. And then of course there's Halloween itself, which when you're a kid is the best night of the year except for the night before Christmas morning because of the ridiculous amounts of candy you get to collect and consume in a single night.

Anyway, long story short, there's no Halloween in Sweden and I'm confused. I'm not ready for the stores to have all their Christmas Crap on display yet. In the U.S. we have the Halloween Crap and the Thanksgiving Crap to prime the pump for Santa. I'm like: "You want me to think about Christmas? Hello! I'm still mourning summer! Give me a little candy corn and pumpkin pie and then we'll talk." The American Women's Club of Gothenburg did a nice job of putting on a fun kiddie event at a local school (complete with crafts, mini trick or treating, games and a "cake walk," which I'd never heard of before coming to Sweden) the Sunday before Halloween. Here's Ava and Julian peacefully enjoying the decorate-a-skull craft table. This lasted all of 2.32 minutes by the way:And here's a shot of the main hall:
Ava's school, ABC, also had a little Halloween party on the 31st (see pic below), so the kids weren't totally Halloweenless this year, but I think Ava and I were feeling a little down about the whole thing.
It was probably NOT the best idea then to show Ava online pictures of her buddies Everett and Miles celebrating Halloween (in, I must say, very excellent home-made tiger and bat costumes). The slideshow went over like a tone of bricks and you could just see her face droop and her eyes start to tear up. She was fine 20 minutes later, but that was definitely a bad-mama move.

Now what could possibly cheer us up after missing our Halloween traditions? Hmmm. I'm thinking, just maybe, the one thing that could do it would be... GOOOBAMA!!!!!!!!!!! TWO MORE DAYS! TWO MORE DAYS!

Liseberg's last day

I think I mentioned we have an amusement park called Liseberg two blocks from the house. This is good except for the fact we have had to pass it every day on the way home from school and discuss with Ava at length why we can't go today despite the fact a) it's open and b) we have an annual pass. ("Um, er, Mom doesn't have the right shoes on?") Except for the somewhat scary bunny mascot(s), Liseberg is the most kid-friendly amusement park I've ever seen with all sorts of kiddie rides that Ava can go on, including baby bumper cars, which cracks me up. They also have some crazy skilled face-painters:
At any rate, the Liseberg summer season ended on October 9 with a great fireworks display which we watched from our balcony after first thinking the U.S. had redirected planes from Iraq to Sweden. Apparently the park actually opens again for the Christmas season on November 14 with a nice holiday market, complete with purveyors of mulled wine, elk sausage and roasted almonds wrapped in cones. Yum.

Kids in the rain

So what do you do on a rainy weekend in Sweden with two kids? Well, one option is to bundle the tikes up in all the handy rain gear and take them to one of the indoor playlands that are around town. Yesterday, we chose Bushuset, which is a short tram ride from our house. It costs $10/kid for a two-hour window of craziness. Ava particularly enjoyed the slide that shoots you into a frighteningly deep tank of colored balls and the dark disco dance room, where she amazed us with some head-banging African tribal dancing. Julian played with Legos.

Stroller Wars

Most things are smaller in Sweden. Take the size of homes or the slushies at 7 Eleven, for example. The big exception, and I mean BIG, are the strollers. These things are huge, with suspension systems that rival my Subaru Forester. The one in this picture has a bassinet on one side for the baby and a seat for the older kid. Can you imagine folding this up and putting it in your car? I guess the point is you don't -- you just walk everywhere with the kids. Nice, but I still don't get where people store these in their smallish apartments or how they go shopping in the narrow isles of Hemkop or other food stores. Hmmm. I used to be embarrassed taking our jog stroller over to Canyon Market in Glen Park. Not anymore!! Our BOB Revolution is positively petite next to these Hummers.