Daily Blog Posts

1/22 – Volvo and the Cooking School

Today we visited the global car company Volvo. Our “Tour guides”, Morgan and Sylvia, are some of the nicest swedes we have met! They are super friendly and personable people, and we even ended up sitting near them at the hockey game the next day. At Volvo, we started with a nice pork and potato lunch. After that, we rolled out to go see an actual Volvo crash test!! The crash consisted of a Volvo SUV being crashed into a 35 degree angled wall at 25 miles per hour. It was a super cool experience to be able to witness the crash, as well as the aftermath where they measure everything that happened to the car and the crash dummies. After the crash test, Morgan and Sylvia took us on a tour of the Volvo manufacturing facilities. There was a lot going on, but it was cool to see how all those moving parts come together to crank out consistent products at a high rate. Volvo produces, on average, 1 car every 60 seconds!

After Volvo, we headed back to the hostel for a short rest/nap, before heading out to the cooking school! The cooking school was an absolute blast! The hosts were chef Daniel, an extremely accomplished chef who has cooked for the King of Sweden… TWICE! The other host was his SuChef, Chef Michael, who formerly had served in the Swedish Military. Both chefs were extremely friendly and helpful, and it didn’t take long for them to start playfully teasing us like they had known us for a long time. The meal was very delicious that we cooked, and hopefully I will be able to post the exact menu as soon as we receive it. The main course was reindeer, which was different, but also not weird. It kind of tasted like a very rare steak. Overall it was a ton of fun, and great bonding for everyone! After dinner, we all sat around the table and shared what our favorite parts of the trip had been, and it was really cool to hear everyone’s thoughts.

3 Big Takeaways

Go out of your way to try new foods, some can be well worth it!
Just because someone is incredibly accomplished and good at what they do, doesn’t mean they are stuck up or too good for you. Chef Daniel was incredibly accommodating and fun and kind.
Cooking brings about great bonding!