So I finally got around to seeing Stockholm this week. We went to all the big tourist attractions. Skansen, the open air museum, has been open since the late 19th century. It features old buildings from all over Sweden. There are people dressed up in traditional costumes who hang out in the houses or shops or churches and tell you about what life would be like in that time and place. There is also a zoo, with animals found in Sweden. Moose, seals, and bears, oh my! Oh and there were just peacocks wandering around the paths. The bears and foxes were put in the same habitat for some reason. I was very nervous for the poor foxes. There was a bit of an issue regarding some kind of dead animal. The foxes had it, but the bear wanted it, so when the foxes noticed that the bear was approaching them, one of them took the food behind a bush along the fence and the other fox stood between the bear and the fox with the food. Gutsy. But no one died. Darn.
After a long afternoon at Skansen, we walked over to the Vasa museum. The Vasa is a warship that sunk in the Stockholm harbor on its maiden voyage back in 1628. 333 years later, the wreckage was found. It had been preserved under clay or silt or whatever was at the bottom of the harbor. The ship was salvaged and treated with some sort of polymer (yay materials) to replace the water in the wood and put on display. I hadn't been that excited about seeing the ship. My thoughts were, oh great, a ship, but it actually was very impressive. The place kinda smelled weird though.
The Vasa WarshipAfter 3 days in Stockholm, we left for Copenhagen, Denmark. We stayed at a bed and breakfast. The lady who owned it seemed very nice, but she kept talking to me in Danish, even though I never responded in this language. Fortunately, I could understand a little of what she said because Danish is pretty similar to Swedish. Not that I can speak Swedish all that well. We saw all the important sights. Went of a canal tour and saw the harbor, visited Tivoli, the amusement park in the middle of the city all decked out in Halloween decorations, and ate Danishes (sorry, no more food). My favorite part of the trip was probably the visit to the Carlsberg brewery. I think Carlsberg isn't as popular in the US, but you've heard of it right? Its my beer of choice here, as it was during my summer in London. I didn't learn anything on the tour that I didn't already know, as I've already been on many brewery tours. I just like free beer (well I still had to pay for the tour), and I tried some interesting Carlsberg varieties that I hadn't heard of before. I would have stolen some glasses too if it wasn't for my parents storing their stolen glasses in my bag. Good influences, those two.
My parents flight left several hours before mine, so on Sunday afternoon I went to the Louisiana modern art museum 30 km outside the city. It was a good museum, but god was it crowded. I've never seen so many people at an art museum. And so many children. It was a bit annoying. The museum itself was a bit of a maze. Lots of stuff was outside as well. I found a narrow path/work of art called journey of self discovery or something like that, so I followed it, and I wound up at some other building with other artwork. It was all a very confusing adventure. I returned to Stockholm that night, and over the last few days I've been recovering from all the sightseeing and walking. I don't see how I managed those 2.5 weeks spent backpacking through Europe. Maybe I've grown lazy in my old age. And now finals are approaching (quarter system, how silly) so I might actually have to do some work this week! lame.
Art museums in Denmarkand sorry for switching between flickr and facebook all the time. People are going to have to put a little more effort into their stalking if they want to see pictures of my parents.
2 comments:
That's funny that you saw the Vasa, because a few weeks ago we talked about it as a case study in engineering ethics. Apparently when they tested it they found that it was so top heavy even a slight wind could blow it over, but they let it pass the test anyway because of all the pressure and hype about the ship. Not a very ethical move.
I wanted to hear more about food, actually. Sad.
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