Would You Like Fries With That?

Couldn’t resist turning a good thing into a habit and now I have the most intense DOMS of my life, the flight crew asked if I needed wheelchair assistance at the gate today. Turns out Hagabadet has a full-service gym, and you know what your girl has been missing – lifting weights. Naturally, after four weeks off the program was humbling and even my returned soak in the magnesium pools and the sauna did not save me from myself. Which is fine.

Except it’s my last day in Goteborg and I neeeeed to find the World of Volvo. Which is a casual 3.5 kilometres from the spa. No bother, walking is easy! Until you’ve done barbell squats, and Bulgarian split squats, and goblet squats, and did I mention I’ve been squatting?

I made it down the road from the spa on shaky legs and thought I should refuel, that’s what will help! Well, my lunch came with a recommended beer pairing, and immune to learning from past mistakes a midday beer was on the cards. Excellent, time to recommence my walk tired, and still shaky!

Dutifully following Google Maps, the wrong way, and then the right way, and then into some road works, then through a church (literally through it) and then up a hill while my glutes screamed blue murder, I came past the University and things got really busy but Google assured me, I was on the fastest route and my route was clear.

Evidentially, no one told Google Swedish House Mafia was playing a free outdoor concert as part of Goteborgskalaset and that the road it was taking me up was now filled with thousands of people bouncing up and down to house music. Sucked into the throng of people pushing forward I too shuffled into the pit and closer to the stage. It wasn’t until a remixed Avicii song was playing that I thought hold on I should probably enjoy this while I’m here. So brief detour for the rave, aching buttocks forgotten.

When their set was over, and SHM had left the stage I thought right well better press on. And uphill it seemed. Only now I was coated in a cold sweat because, first, it was cold, and two, dancing. This time my maps was leading me down dark paths and rickety staircases which didn’t really bother me in the sense that something would happen to me – no at this point I was huffing and puffing and grimacing aloud so combined with the hobbling and the glistening sweat probably looked crazy enough to deter even the most diligent mugger. No, what I was fearing already was the return trip up those stairs.

Still I made it to a main road, across from which was the Lisberg theme park, Oceanarium and the WORLD OF VOLVO – finally! But of course, a detour around the block because, you know, roadworks.

At long last I entered the hallowed halls of the world’s safest cars. Not the reason I love Volvo to be fair, but probably what they are most well-known for – the invention of the three-point seat belt (not patented because safety over profits) and the double bumper which genuinely means you get to say, yeah, well, you should see the other guy literally any time you hit someone. No, I was here because of one stupid shiny Volvo driver: Edward Cullen.

Now, like any true fan would you know that the movies subbed in a Volvo C30 hatchback in the first film, and then later for some unknown reason Edward stopped being cool and started driving a XC60 – guess parenting Ricky-Ticky-Tok required a bigger make. You would also know that the original ‘shiny Volvo’ in the books was an S60R compact executive car. And the reason Eddy liked it was because he ‘liked to drive fast’ but be ‘inconspicuous’. Which is Volvo to a tee.

Sidebar: we know that Fifty Shades of Grey is a Twilight fan fic, and that in that series E.L. James replaces the Volvos Edward drives with an Audi A3 that Christian gives Ana as a graduation present because he thinks her old bug (stand in for Bella’s Chevy C10 pickup) is unsafe. But like, why? Change the premise from safety. Audis are sexy but there’s no out-safetying a Volvo mk, except maybe with a 1953 Chevvy? Also, while I’m on it, Christian replaces that car in the second book with a Saab 9-3 which is neither sexy nor especially known for its safety, unless your criteria is theft because then yeah, leave the keys in the ignition, no one is stealing that.

It was an important digression, I assure you. In any case, I like Volvo for the same reason – my own EX40 is both FAST and inconspicuous, and yes, I have taken Olive (as that is her name) on both a racetrack and a skid pan. AND, HAD I KNOWN AT THE TIME, I would have opted to greet her at the World of Volvo in Goteborg, Sweden for the two-week honeymoon Volvo offers drivers who purchase their vehicles directly. Which is two weeks registration and insurance to drive your new car in Sweden, flights and accommodation on their Krona. But I did not, and so here I am on my dollar, climbing the stairs to the exhibition hall looking like I’m coming off meth. Hoa hoa, bitches.

I actually really did enjoy the World of Volvo and happily bought a new moose for my boys as they have thoroughly destroyed the one that came with Olive. And if you don’t know why Volvo’s are associated with meese – they invented the moose test, which is oh fuck, moose, swerve and don’t lose control. Because Volvo might be Latin for I roll, but it definitely doesn’t mean I roll over.

Second sidebar: do you know why the plural of moose isn’t meese? It’s because the word comes from the indigenous people of north America, specifically, the Algonquian people and was adopted into the English lexicon in the 1600s, whereas plurals like geese come into old English from the Germanic base, whereby the pluralisation pattern (i-umlaut) changed internal vowels to denote plurals. I have no idea why we don’t call houses hice though so maybe I’ll look that up.

Anyways, I put myself out of my misery and caught a tram back to the Air BnB.