Day 87 | Quiet Oskarshamn

12 hours. That is definitely the longest sleep I had this trip. Around 9 I had breakfast with Pieter who was about to go the a meeting. I stayed there to work.
I really wanted to interview someone from the city of Växjö today. Växjö is interesting, they where the first city in the world to set the goal to become independent of fossil fuels by 2030. The heating in the city comes from forrest residues and 35% is generated from biomass.

Pieter gave me some contacts from people he knew within the city’s government and I tried to contact them for an interview, unfortunately it was to short notice.
Because I was charging on a socket which is normally for vacuum cleaners I set the charging on 10A, which should be safe. Around 9 in the morning I checked if it was still charging and it was on 91%. When you charge on 10A it takes around 15-16 hours for a full charge. There was a note on my windscreen. Apparently the chairman of the community was not happy that I parked and charged here, grumpy old man.

To Oskarshamn

In the afternoon I continued the journey west to Oskarshamn, close to the Baltic Sea. It was a 136km drive and on the way I saw trees. A lot of trees. But no different ones though. Mostly the same trees. Very long and tall trees. Trees. And a road that between all the trees. It’s not deserted, you will see enough cars on the road and trucks mostly loaded with trees are common here. The trucks are huge though, especially the cabins which are decorated with many big lights as they need that in the winter, when it gets dark around 3pm. 

Els & Tom

In Oskarshamn I met Els and Tom, a Dutch couple. Very welcoming people, they even made a welcome sign with my name and the Plug Me In logo! How cool. They are both and highly interested in sustainability and cars. So it comes to no surprise that they both work for Scania and on my way I already passed the factory, just close after the trees. The building was huge, you can’t really miss it and tomorrow I’m going there. Tom told his colleagues about my trip and where very interested and invited me to tell them about my adventures. Scania is also working on e-mobility and they are willing to give me a presentation about their innovative projects. 

https://www.facebook.com/PlugMeIn/photos/a.466370933571974.1073741835.211949022347501/499236970285370/?type=3&theater

Tom and Els moved here three years ago when they just had their newborn Veerle. Part of the deal was that Els also could work here so she got a job as physiotherapist at Scania. The houses in Sweden are big and almost always single houses, so was their house. It was located in a residential area and from their garden you could walk straight into a forrest.
In their spare they like to take their boat and sail the little islands around Oskarshamn. They would look for a deserted one and go fishing, start a campfire or just do whatever they feel like because that is what the Swedish life is all about.

Oskarshamn is small, really small. Just 17.000 people live here. We drove around the town and it has some really interesting beautiful sights. Typical sights like I expected from Sweden. Huts, lakes, boats and rocks.