Göteborg Book Fair - A Roadtrip

I try to get to Göteborg Book Fair every year, so yesterday I went on a road trip with my mom and sister. For once I was dressed and on time and they were running late.

Heading north.

We stop at the same parking lot for breakfast every year.

Mushroom pate and home made pickles. Pickles rule.

I suspect that we always stop at the same place to eat our breakfast because it's as far as Mom can go without a second cup of coffee.
But the driving is the easy part. The fun starts when you have to find a place to park in downtown Göteborg on a Friday. We finally found a spot after two spins around the block.
The parking fee is less than in Malmö or Lund, which is a good thing considering you can't pay with regular credit cards. They're big on coins on the west coast.

At least we lucked out when we took the side entrance to the fair and thus skipped a ten minute wait. And then we headed in to check out books, authors promoting their books, publishers promoting their books and more books.

Shopping for Moomin books.

I'm a girl and I hate pink. I'm not big on stereotypes either.

Pink. The monster that haunts me.

Anyway, I found some paperbacks and a great photo-journalism magazine. But the best thing I got was this Wonder Woman lunch box.

Ah, Wonder Woman.

And I may have splurged and gotten the Wonder Woman apron too...

After a few hours of books, noise and crowds we were starving and headed to a great Turkish restaurant a few blocks away. Taras never disappoints.

I like Göteborg, but the traffic is just silly. It took us 45 minutes to get out of the city and it didn't help that Mom is the worst kind of backseat driver. Road rage, anyone?
And maybe that vanilla latte I got on the way home was a mistake. Giving me too much coffee is like making a kitten drink a double espresso, so I may have been a little hyper.

Good thing I got on my bike and headed to Saint 21 as soon as I got home. Just managed to say hi to Patric before he headed north, complain about my day and talk some shop with Levin and Rob. Oh yeah, Rob has a new tattoo.

I believe I've seen this one before...

More photos on flickr.

Gone Roadtrippin'

Just got back from a road trip to the book fair in Göteborg. Spotted some of Sweden's most popular authors, most of whom were smaller in real life than they appear to be when they're on tv.
I also looked a a lot of books and heard a bunch of speeches. I only bought eight or nine books and some magazines. It doesn't sound like much but a bag of books gets heavy pretty quick when you're dragging it around a convention centre that keeps filling up with the general public.

I kicked off this intense day by getting up at silly o'clock and making sandwiches (hummus with roasted red peppers and fresh cheese with cucumber) and putting on my eyeliner. Time just seemes to fly in the mornings and my sister, the librarian, and her boyfriend Fredrik were punctual as ever and rang the doorbell at five past seven.
For some reason I'm always the last person to get in the car on most road trips. On the three hour drive to Göteborg we listened to trucker music, old school Smashing Pumpkins, Swedish punk and Bruce Springsteen. Fredrik is a DJ and has a diverse taste in music.

The Roadtrippin' Sisters at 7.30 am.

Once we got to Göteborg we found a decent place to park after some traffic-related confusion and outran a group of teachers to get to the front of the line. I don't know why, but teachers always seem to travel in packs.

After a few hours of pushing, shoving and looking at books we decided we'd had enough, so we went and got some fine Turkish food at a local restaurant. Fredrik had some trouble finding his way out of Göteborg, but solved it by making two (almost legal) u-turns.
Our collective craving for sugar kicked in around Falkenberg, so we stopped for sweets and coffee.

Road Trip Essentials. Water, Tom and Jerry cookies, pick and mix sweets and trucker music.

Now I am looking forward to a nice cup of tea and some quiet time with my brand new books. I thinks I will start with Russell Brand's autobiography or maybe "I Walked the Line" by Vivian Cash. Or maybe...