Sorry that you’re reading this a day late – my professor said it was okay to turn our posts in the next day since we got back to our hostel so late the night before! We started the morning off just like all of our others, having breakfast here at the hostel, and then made our way through the long commute to the Volvo headquarters! We had to take two different trams, a bus, and then we finally arrived at Volvo city! We unfortunately were not able to take a lot of pictures here due to security and privacy reasons, so you will just have to trust my word on a lot of details! The first building we went to was the building where they work on developing the next models of cars for the future. For example: right now, they are working on models for the year 2028! Isn’t that crazy?! Anyways, here are some pictures of the models that they had on display (personally, I like the white one, if you need any last minute gifts for me):
Here, we met our friends Morgan and Sylvia who have worked at Volvo for awhile now. They are so awesome and fun to be around and hooked us up with some great connections and experiences! They took us over to their cafeteria right away where we had lunch.
After lunch, we got to go do the craziest thing! We saw a real life crash test take place at Volvo! I can’t give away a lot of the details, and we of course were not able to take pictures, but it was a mid-size crossover type of car that was going 25 mph, that crashed into a 30 degree angled wall. It was so cool to see, but it also makes you realize just how much damage can be done even when only going 25. Take away of the day: ALWAYS wear a seatbelt no matter what!
After the crash test, we went over to one of their main assembly factories and got a whole tour of that! It was huge and it was so crazy to see the cars being put together piece by piece on a conveyer belt via an assembly line. It had every production step in it except for the welding of the frame of the car. One part was where they build the engines and transitions, and we even got to see all the way to the end step where they put the doors on the car and then take them for a test drive over a bumpy surface to see if there is anything loose in it. So cool to see them being made and it made me look at cars a lot differently, that’s for sure! After that, we continued to chat with Morgan and Sylvia a little bit and did some fika.
After our visit was complete, we took a couple different busses and trams back to our hostel and decided we needed an immediate stop at Tin Tin’s (the café right by our hostel), and did fika again after the long day!
Then, we went back to the hostel and changed our clothes to get ready for the cooking school! I was really looking forward to this, and it was SO much fun! We went to a place called Aveqia, and were divided up into four teams to cook a four course dinner! We had a recipe, and all the ingredients ready to go, so all we had to do was cook it (with a little help from the chefs of course)! Pretty easy and lots of fun! It was all very unique, Swedish gourmet cooking too. Below are some pictures from the kitchen:
After all of the cooking was finished, each team had to present and serve their dish. I was on team #4 – the dessert team! I will show each food round starting with #1 below:
Below is a picture of my team’s recipe for the dessert and how we made it:
I have to say, the food was definitely very unique and I’m still not sure how I feel about it, but it was so interesting and such a great experience, I would love to do it again!
Things I learned today:
- Reindeer belong in the sky, not on my plate
- I want to buy a Volvo as my car when I am older (specifically that white one), but they are also super safe and very well made
- Hopefully maybe I can do marketing or something for Volvo, because if you work for them, you can get a brand new Volvo car for super cheap! And they are an amazing company!
- Walking in heels around Gothenburg is a STRUGGLE!! Don’t worry – haven’t face planted or broken anything… yet!
- Swedish kids are basically as adorable as British kids and they have cute accents but only speak Swedish and don’t understand any English at all and they flip out when you try to talk to them in English
Well, that is all for now! Hope you enjoyed reading about my super cool day! Goodnight from Göteborg!
Nicole's Adventures in Sweden 