We had a great time in Gothenburg and Linkoping. We immediately noticed the high volume of cyclists and runners and people generally just out and about walking. To try and get ahead of our jet lag, we woke up early on Monday morning at 5:00am to workout at our hotel gym, followed by a 1-mile cooldown run to explore the city of Gothenburg a bit.
After our workout, we enjoyed a huge array of breakfast buffet-style options where we were able to refuel and recharge to take on the big day ahead. After about 4 plates of food each and a quick nap on the bus ride to Volvo Group, we had a blast at Volvo. We toured the Volvo Trucks factory in Tuve, followed by a few board meetings with executives at the Volvo HQ, followed by an evening tour of the World of Volvo with a nice reception and dinner afterward. For dinner, we had the mysterious “Arctic Char,” which was on point with the theme of seafood being a Swedish norm. The fish tasted good, was a bit rare, and came with a nice butter sauce and asparagus. Monday night, during dinner, we were able to have an in-depth conversation and interview with a gentleman named Urban, one of Niklas’ friends, about Swedish fitness habits. He mentioned how Swedes take their health very seriously and are relatively health-conscious about their diets and exercise quite frequently. We also made the observation that Swedes have a very healthy lifestyle but will also indulge often in their vices, which include alcohol and cigarettes as well as nicotine pouches.
On Tuesday, we woke up and hit the road for Saab in Linköping. We had an absolute blast at Saab, where they fed us lunch and gave us a full production factory tour. We noticed that most of the employees appeared to be in shape and strong, although we are not sure if this is a byproduct of working in aerospace & defense, necessitating strength as a prerequisite to perform the job at hand. After Saab, we arrived in Linköping, which turned out to be our preference over Gothenburg. We had an amazing dinner on Tuesday night at a local spot in town, before we returned to the hotel to rest.
We woke up on Wednesday morning early to rip a nice workout- Evan did a half-Murph workout to celebrate Memorial Day and honor our troops (a full Murph challenge includes a 1-mile run, 100 pullups, 200 pushups, 300 squats, and a 1-mile run). While Bradley went outside to explore the city of Linköping one last time and did a four-mile run. Bradley noted that the city was quiet in the early morning and saw people going to work, cycling to work as their commute. We proceeded to Linköping University, Professor Myhr’s alma mater, for some presentations. We noticed a lot of students were in great shape, and in fact we watched a workout HIIT (high-intensity interval training) class happen at the campus gym. After a good tour of Linköping University with fantastic speakers, we hit the road for Stockholm.
