I’m going to see a bit of Sweden through attending a couple conferences this fall. Tomorrow is the “Exegetical Day” at Göteborg (pronounced something like yuh-teh-BOHR-ee), where the Swedish biblical scholars gather at the University of Göteborg to share and discuss papers. Most will be in English! Whew!
I took the train from Uppsala, switched trains in Stockholm and arrived in Göteborg three hours later by bullet train. Most often, there was no English translation, so I had to work on understanding the announcements.
I had some time in the afternoon to walk around the city. I had plans to visit the city museum. On the way, there was a church with the outside door open, so I decided to stop in. It ended up that a service was in session, so I stepped in and sat down for the rest of the sermon. The pastor’s Swedish was so difficult for me to understand. There is a very different dialect in some places, perhaps he is a representative of that, besides the fact that he talked really fast!
There were 12 people in a church that could sit 560 (I did the math) on the main level and more in the balcony!
I realized that I’m thankful for the Puritans and Pietists which resulted in removing much of the ornate elements from many churches, especially in the USA.
I spent a couple hours in the city museum, which used to be the Swedish East India Trading Company building built in the 1750s. Here are some highlights.
I decided to walk around and get an understanding of where my conference will be tomorrow. I passed two big cathedrals. No, I didn’t open the front door’s!
I timed the walk back to my hotel to make sure I plan for enough time to walk to the university tomorrow morning.
I caught up on some world news (depressing) and skyped with my folks (fun).
Sweet dreams!
Beth