Gothenburg, Sweden

On a weekend during a recent business trip, Jeff had an opportunity to explore Gothenburg Sweden. Like most international business centers, English was spoken widely and the city was very easy to get around. He took a walking tour around the city seeing some of the historic sites, including the Gothenburg founder Gustav Aldofs Torg Plaza, the Fish Church, and Skansen Kronen. He visited the Volvo Museum and the Liseberg Amusement Park for interesting photo opportunities and some local culture.

We find that when visiting a foreign city where we will be reading local signs and maps, it's a good idea to first familiarize ourselves with basic directional and map terms in the local language; such as road, park, square, church, museum etc. This really helps with navigation around a new city, because even if your map is in English, the local signs will usually not be. Another good tip is to have the address of your hotel written in the local language on a card and ask the concierge how to pronounce it. We've often found in major cities that folks working in livery and hospitality industry are not native speakers of the local language, and may not be able to read it at all! This can further complicate the language barrier with two non native speakers trying to communicate in the local language! Jeff has a fun story of going into a restaurant in Paris and using his best middle school French (which I can attest is not the "best") to try to order dinner, when the waitress stopped him and said in an Irish brogue, "Let's try English, sweetie, it will be easier on both of us!"