in retrospect

It’s straight up 9:00pm on a Friday night, and church bells are now a useful and lovely thing for me. What a handy thing. #mustileave

Seeing the network of islands that make up this part of the world was amazing. Seeing the different aspects of Stockholm, then the summer houses to the east and north made us both want to figure out a way to come here every year somehow and enjoy the summer with the locals.

It was an easy Swedish-pickled food day.

Overheard in the Vasa Museum

“How could you know how the crew might have lived on the Vasa, if it sank in the first 30 minutes?” “Well, we mean in general.” [ahem]

Increasingly tethered bicycles. But still.

Pickled everything. Who knew I’d love herring?

We tried to make up for it by walking to the Vasa Museum and Skansen–the world’s oldest open air museum.

The walk alone from the hotel to the museum was amazing, the weather and the light treated us beautifully.

Water.

colorful flags

Boats

Mother and a boat!

More boats.

The Vasa Museum was impressive, seeing the heft of a massive medieval warship is worth a gasp. However, less impressive, was the story of how the ship sank less than an hour after a two gusts of wind. Turns out they began the task of testing the stability of the ship, and halted a few attempts in as it listed and nearly sank, yet still set sail. Impressive carvings though.

Heading to Skansen, which is primarily an open air park for children complete with a petting zoo. What’s great is that it captures life in the middle of the 19th century, and because so many Swedes emigrated from Sweden during that time. Walking through farmhouses, bakeries, churches and manor houses felt like a little time travel.

Then we asked the Uber driver to get as close to Gamla Stan as we could, then we’d walk the rest of the way. Never say we didn’t do our part for the environment.

Mostly the day was made, when my mother said it was her favorite day ever.

To that I say, so far!

Legend of St. George and the dragon

So it turns out this statue right near our flat is based on a story from the Golden Legend: [from wikipedia] “According to the Golden Legend, the narrative episode of Saint George and the Dragon took place somewhere he called “Silene”, in Libya; the Golden Legend is the first to place this story in Libya as a sufficiently exotic locale, where a dragon might be found. In the tenth-century Georgian…

“Where is that noise coming from?”, mother asked. “From the street. Swedish folksingers belting out Chuck Berry and the Beatles is a new experience.” “So we can’t turn it off?” “Nej.”