Lost in the Port of Gothenburg

Hello human friends! Another week has passed, and oshkoshbigosh it's March. Cold as it remains, we're seeing tiny little signs of Spring. The sun is sticking around a bit longer, and the vårblommar (spring flowers) are beginning to rear their little heads. 

Me. Sniffing vårblommar.

Who smells Spring coming? I do, because I have enhanced olfactory glands.

This week, we discuss the ridiculous process of shipping a vehicle across the ocean, plus other antics my humans have gotten themselves into. No worries: this post is free of political commentary, so if discussions of partisan jockeying in the Swedish parliament and gun politics have repelled you in recent weeks, you can let your guard down...for now.

First, a mystery. 

This week, ManHuman took a walk through the older part of Gothenburg, burning time before an appointment to get his official Swedish ID card. By the way, I'm told that waiting to get a Swedish ID card is a bit like waiting in line at the deli, except instead of getting warm delicious food from behind the counter right away, you get nothing and you are told to come back to the same office two weeks later. But I digress.

ManHuman. Walking. Right. So he's walking around and sees this storefront.

''Hello Monkey. Goes?''

 

''What could this be?'' he wondered. Either this is a contemporary case of all-your-base-are-belong-to-us poor translation, or this storefront is doing exactly what the designer meant for it to do. Turns out there is a perfectly logical answer. Stay tuned to find out next week on Adventures of Gino the Dog!

The landscape where no humans walk.  

A little over a month ago, my humans dropped off their car at the Port of Charleston, South Carolina.  Four weeks later and thanks to the miracle of international shipping, it arrived in the Port of Gothenburg. 

The logistics of shipping a car are not worth sharing here. Know that the process is infuriating, and the prices are opaque. So the humans were excited to finally greet it. 

The thing about picking up your only car from the port, is that you don't have a car to get to the port. You have to take the bus. So, after a quick appointment clearing things with a customs agent (a process made remarkably easy by LadyHuman's detailed preparation), the humans needed only to take a short bus ride, give the stamped documents to a gate agent, and pick up the car. Simple enough, except they got off at the wrong bus stop and ended up walking through a post-apocalyptic landscape, past a 'ninja center' to the gates of HELL port #2.  Fortunately the weather was nice.

There are places in the world designed for walking humans. Much of the City of Gothenburg is, in fact, fantastic for walking humans. The Port of Gothenburg is not a place designed for walking humans. Their short journey on foot was punctuated by fast-passing trucks, past-passing trains, muddy ditches,  and a world otherwise scaled for giant robots.

LadyHuman, walking awkwardly through the middle of Industrial no-man's-land.

My Humans enjoying their walk through a forest of shipping containers. 

An enormous earth mover and ManHuman. 

Oh. There was also this other thing. 

Question: What's more awkward than getting off at the wrong bus stop at major port complex and having to backtrack, on foot, through an industrial no-man's-land to the right place?

Answer: Doing all that with another random dude who also got off at the wrong bus stop. 

Turns out my Humans weren't the only people confused about where to get off the bus. So was the guy in the picture below, and they walked silently together, everyone embarrassed by their mistake and unwilling to acknowledge their shared fate.   

Another random dude, who also got off at the wrong bus stop. 

But after their journey on foot and rendezvousing with a gate agent who probably thought to herself, ''What are these fools doing?'' we made it to the car and with some luck, it'll be registered and road-ready in two weeks or so. 

ManHuman's first haircut in Sweden.

One of the challenges of moving to a new city is replacing all the trusted service providers in your life. When the Humans moved to Charlotte, it took them both almost two years to find a suitable dentist and it took ManHuman several dramatic attempts to find the right hair stylist. He's not picky about his hair, really. But the first barber he saw in Charlotte somehow interpreted ''shorter on the sides, simple on the top'' to mean ''faux-hawk'' and the next few were too far a drive. Fortunately, he thinks he's found a match in Sweden! It's just down the street from home, and...well, I'll let these results speak for themselves. 

That's all for this week! Stay tuned to find out where Hello Monkey goes.