the adventure continues
it seems to rain quite a bit here but for short periods. we bought an umbrella and we were promptly asked where we were from 🙂
on wednesday, we ventured all over the city – lots and lots of walking, public transportation is amazing here but we see so much more staying above ground.
we visited the city hall and home to the nobel prize ceremony. we took one of the tours and learned lots of interesting information about the artwork and architecture of the building. its one of the most popular places in sweden to get married, you have the option of the long ceremony which is 3 minutes long and the short ceremony which is 1 minute.
sweden is the most equal in terms of gender equality in the world, the least religious, and the country with the highest consumption rate of coffee – maybe i should move 😉
a picture of the city hall cannot really capture its beauty. we took a special guided tour so that i could practice walking up the ceremonial stairs, afterall i must prepare for my moment. i promise to invite all of you!
i got myself the cheapest nokia gsm phone i could find so i could actually contact my relatives. so far so good though i can’t understand enough swedish to setup my voice mail…so please don’t leave a message.
one of most fascinating museums was the vasa museum, a ship that sunk in the baltic ocean in 1628 and then was recovered 333 years later nearly fully intact. it turns out the low salinity of the baltic ocean allows for much longer preservation (as the little decomposing sea worms cannot live there)
the museum was setup so you could view it on several levels, the essentially waxed the whole thing to preserve it…fascinating!
on thursday, we headed off to gotland island, about 3 hours southeast of stockholm via ferry. it seems a lot of people can take the ferry over to a small airport that serves a host of locations throughout northern europe. sweden has a remarkable number of airports in general, all of them at least an hour from the city center. on the ferry, they showed a swedish movie, and though we could understand very little of it, we were highly entertained as it had all stereotypical elements of swedish culture. gotland had a ton of interesting history and a gorgeous place with great beaches, parks, and old style buildings, churches, and castles. the town of visby that we spent most of our time in was surrounded by a wall that has been since reconstructed in areas and maintains the city center. we spent the entire day in this picturesque setting…
i was absolutely obsessed with these concrete sheep. they are everywhere on the island. apparently sheep herding must have occurred there. thomas now has a miniature sheep for his desk just like this. so very cute, i know.
