Our trip to Göteborg - Universeum (post 6 of 8)

Having explored Liseberg, we still had a list of things to see in Göteborg, the top ones being the castles and the Universeum, which is a science centre just outside Liseberg.

It is the Nordic regions largest science centre, consisting of 7 floors - including an ocean zone/aquarium, river life, mammoth exhibit, indoor rainforest, space centre, exploration of waterways, building/teknoteket building centre and deadly beauties - snake and poisonous animal exhibit.

We got up around 9am, with a checkout time of 11.  So after a breakfast of toast, we started packing the cabin and getting the kids ready to go.  Kris had the cabin packed in about 10minutes, while I fed the kids and started loading the car.

When she went to load the first bags, Kris slipped on some ice and narrowly avoided jarring her back or falling. She came back to warn us about it.  I then headed out with a bag containing the quaffing horn and our IPads.  I was wearing my snow boots so should have had plenty of grip, but I managed to slip on the ice also.  I managed to take the fall on my shoulder but I hit the ground pretty hard and held the bag up so it didn't break.  I also managed to tear the only pair of jeans I had, so I had to wear my waterproof overpants all day to make sure that I didn't inadvertently flash any small children at the Universeum.

We were all checked out and ready to go at 10:30am and made our way back into Göteborg. (I did cheat and snap some of the daytime photos of Liseberg on this trip)

Our first excitement for the day was the frozen pond outside the centre.  (on the way out, Tomas soaked the entire sleeve of his jacket trying to test the ice)

Kris showing off the ice

There was also a giant dinosaur outside the centre - you can also see the Ferris wheel of Liseberg behind it.

Universeum Dinosaur

I tried to get a shot that included the entire dinosaur but the kids didn't stand still for long enough:

Dinosaur MkII - but the kids wouldn't pose for more than 2 seconds.

The centre also had a Megalodon shark jaw (for photos like the one in Den Blå Planet) but this one was somehow "Out of Order".  I'm not sure how a giant model jaw with no moving parts could be out of order - OK, it definitely was for the shark, but it seemed a little odd..

I guess he won't be chomping fish any time soon

Our excitement started when I used the automatic ticket machine to buy our entry tickets.  After I'd paid, it said "please take your ticket" and the proceeded to shoot out five paper tickets in quick succession.  While I scrambled to grab each of the tickets as they floated past, and ended up doing some strange dance as I tried to stop them blowing away - all the while the machine was beeping at me to take my card.

After that excitement I needed a few minutes breather so we took the Funicular railway up to the top floor - the Water Ways exhibit.  This exhibit showed how rain fills the waterways in Sweden.  It started with a show of rain and thunderstorms and then we walked through an exhibit on the various water ways and their inhabitants.

The kids getting an 'Eagle Eye' view of the waterways area

Fish in the waterways

One of the inside water exhibits

Lunch?

Next after the waterways exhibit was the deadly animals - the kids had great delight in pointing out that most of the creatures were from Australia. My favorite exhibit in this area was the Bitis Parviocula - the Ethiopian mountain adder.  It's name essentially means "Small eyes" but it turns out that the first specimen they had discovered had a crushed head and that the snake actually had normal sized eyes.  Since they'd already registered the name they were stuck with it - whoops.  Still it could have been worse, it could have been called the crushed-head snake or the external-brain snake...

Next exhibit was the indoor rain forest, it extended for the entire 7 storeys, but it was partially under construction (they're opening a new section in June 2016).  There was a sloth exhibit and a few birds but overall it was a little quiet until they open the new section.

I love any animal slower than me, so the sloth is one of my favourites.

Looking down the rainforest

After the rainforest, we took the list up to the top floor and the mammut (mammoth) display.  The exhibit showed how the mammoth remains were excavated and showed sabre tooth tigers, wooly rhinos and cave bears.  Tomas somehow managed to convince himself that the cave bear should live in the rainforest and spent the next ten minutes puzzling out what it could eat and why it died out.

Remains of a baby mammoth - showing how the fossils are found

Tomas loved the giant moose

Cam and some random guy making friends with the mammoth

Wooly Rhino

Sabre Tooth Tigers

They also had a photo section where the kids could sit on animals that would normally eat them, we waited about 10minutes for some women who seemed to have endless children to round them all up and push them through.  I swear every time I thought she was finished more kids would appear from the cave bear cave or out of the mammoths fur to push in front of us... Ok there were 4 kids, but it felt like hundreds.

First shot - although Cameron looks like he is doing a poo

In keeping with the Swedish tradition of standing in other people's photos, this kid came and stood directly in front of Kristine and me, even though we were taking photos and he could hear the cameras clicking.  He stood there for about 2 minutes.

 After this section we looked into the teknoteket section which including building things with blocks, robots and electronics, but despite me being excited, the kids decided to wuss out and wouldn't go in.

Next was the space exhibit.  The kids had a lot of fun checking their weight on a variety of planets (it changes due to the difference in gravity) and Kris had lots of fun spinning metal balls in the orbit and gravity simulator - essentially a coin spinner that showed how planets set up orbit.

Walking into the space exhibit

Cam weights 12kg on Mercury

And Alana weighed 16kg

Cam the astronaut

Tomas the astronaut (with a possible broken neck, or at least misplaced head)

And this shot was like something out of "Alien"

The next and final section was hälsa (Health) this was a series of different health and body checks, like speed, strength and agility.  Tomas didn't want to go in, so Kris took him to the toilets, while the other two burnt off some energy.

Cam and Alana on the climbing wall

When they'd finished up, I managed to get both of them with the same Dad trick.  One-by-one they ran up to me to explain how they went on the speed test or the climbing test.  And when I asked each how they did on the 'tickle test' they stupidly asked "Where's the tickle test?"  They weren't too appreciative when I yelled here and tickled them.

We ate a lunch of a Mexican buffet at the museum and then headed back out to the car to go hunting for the first of our castles.