Stockholm, Sweden

 

July 16 - 19, 2015

We just returned from Stockholm, Sweden!
Population approx. 9.7 million. Sunrise: 3:40 am - Sunset: 10:02 pm. In the winter months, the sun sets at around 3 pm! It was a refreshing change from the former Soviet Union cities we have visited and now live in because the air was fresh and the tap water was drinkable!

Stockholm, the capital, is a beautiful city with lots of unique and interesting architecture and a lot of water. 30% of the city area is made up of waterways and another 30% is parks/green spaces. I don't know how that compares to other cities, but it seems like a lot and it is beautiful because of it.

The day we arrived we were fortunate enough to be able to meet up with Jan and Liljana (the Swedish Attache and his wife from Moscow) as they were in Stockholm for their summer vacation. We had such a fun time with this great couple and are so thankful that they took the time to show us their city. They took us for a walk (people walk a LOT here) from our hotel, through downtown towards the Royal Palace and Old Town (Gamla Stan - we love these old towns. This one dates back to the mid-13th century). We stopped at a cafe by a park for our first drink and then moved on towards Old Town through the quaint, narrow, cobblestone pedestrian streets lined with cafes, shops and restaurants. At one of the town squares we stopped for another drink where a beer cost the equivalent of $15 Cdn.! Sweden is beautiful, but not cheap! From there we walked to the Grill Restaurant for a fabulous buffet meal. Craig filled up his meat-o-meter to the top with plate fulls of steak, pork and lamb. It was delicious and we had a  great time with our new friends. They invited us to join them at their summer house on another visit! Craig will love that because Jan (pronounced "Yan") loves to fish!

Old Town (Gamla Stan) - LOVE it!

Old Town - famous square (Stortorget) Stockholm 

A lovely church downtown

Inside said lovely church - love the ceiling

Craig and I - inner courtyard behind Royal Palace

Liljana & Craig at "Grill" Restaurant

Nordik Museum - "Nordika Museet" in Swedish

Same Nordik Museum

The Church of St. Nicholas - or the "Great Church" as it is known. I call it the "Royal Church"

 

St. George and the Dragon - in Great Church

The Royal Princess Victoria of Sweden on her wedding day - June 2010.... I just borrowed the pic.

Cool narrow staircase in Old Town

Opera House

Urban Outfitters store - used to be movie theatre

Train from airport moves fast!

The Vasa Museum

Our first full day there we hit the ground running and toured the ABBA and VASA museums. When in Sweden, ya gotta check these two out if no others. Stockholm has approximately 100 museums, so there's LOTS to choose from. My favorite was the VASA museum. Before going all I knew was that the Vasa was a ship and I didn't think it would be much to see, but it was very interesting. The Vasa was a Swedish war ship built between 1626-28 and it sailed about one kilometer before it sunk on its'  maiden voyage (due to winds barely stronger than a breeze). The ship remained under water for 333 years before it was salvaged and currently sits in the museum with 98% of its' original parts! The ship was built by orders of the King of Sweden to help fight the war against Poland-Lithuania. The ship was richly decorated and was one of the most powerfully armed vessels in the world. However, it was dangerously unstable - obviously! It had too much weight in the upper structure and the bilge (bottom) of the ship wasn't wide enough for the amount of ballast needed. A test was performed before it set sail - 30 men ran back and forth across the width of the ship and it proved to be VERY unstable. However, the King was leading the Army in Poland at the time and a fatal decision was made to set sail despite obvious structural issues. Families of the soldiers were also allowed to sail on the maiden voyage (for the first part of the passage through the Archipelago and several women and children were among the victims of the tragedy. It is not known for sure, but it is believed 30 died of approximately 150 on board. If only someone had the courage to speak up and let the King know that the ship was not sea worthy.

Vasa ship in museum

Me in the diving bell

How the diving cone worked - water pressure

Craig thought this was funny!

Replica of ship in it's full-colour glory!

Back of ship - such incredible detail

Back of the ship and museum shot

  

The ABBA Museum

The ABBA museum was fun and interesting too; very interactive. I don't know the songs as well as I thought, however! I tried out to be the 5th member of the band and I sucked! lol I tried to convince Craig to do a video with the band, but he suddenly got shy! Check out the little girl though - she was not shy AT all. Wish I had done it! I can't get ABBA songs out of my head now that we're home! lol

Frida looks a LOT like ME! lol

This little girl rocked it in her video debut with the band...Craig chickened out!

He showed off his dance moves doing this video though.

Amazing wax figures of the band.... VERY lifelike.

A small part of their record collection

1st "Official" dinner party - South Korea

July 9/15 - Our 1st "official" dinner party at the home of the South Korean Military Attaché.

We weren't sure what to expect because our hosts were South Korean and English is their 2nd language - heavy with an accent, which makes communication more difficult. We were pleasantly surprised! The other guests included a couple from Spain and a couple from Japan. Again, English is their 2nd language. So try to imagine 8 people around a dinner table; people you have only met a few times at large receptions: Two Canadians, two Japanese, two Spaniards, and two South Koreans. Our hostess prepared all the food herself along with one other lady who served the meal. That must have been an incredible amount of work because the dinner was 6 courses! We started off with a salad with shrimp (forgive me, I have zero pictures and zero recollection of the names of these Korean dishes - next time I will do better) which had a home-made dressing that was incredibly flavorful. Next was a home made pumpkin/sweet potatoe soup. The third course was a beef stir-fry (my favorite), fourth was beef with pine nuts, fifth was a broth soup with noodles, beef and another vegetable. Our dessert was a cake/pie with cooked cherries on top. Guess what I did? I popped one of the cherries (get your minds out of the gutter my friends) and squirted cherry juice on the white table cloth AND also on the beige cloth chair! I did manage to miss my white/navy dress, but still, I felt bad. I guess it's better than red wine??? We had wine with dinner, but also we sipped on a shot of a plum wine that has gold in it (see picture above). It was sweet so I did manage to drink about 3/4's of it (I'm not good at drinking liquor straight - as it was 40% - more like liquor than wine). They have a new apartment, which was quite nice and nicely furnished.

After dinner, with dessert, a white lotus tea was served (although the picture below isn't the tea we had, it was served like this with a hollowed out gourd as the utensil we used to pour it in our little cups. It looked very similar to this in a large ceramic bowl.

The conversation flowed well and we enjoyed ourselves. I managed to get a few words in and Craig, of course, was making everyone laugh. After dinner the hostess presented the ladies with a gift - Korean masks in a little bag. That was so sweet! It was a great evening and we look forward to going to other dinner parties and to hosting them also.