Sunday in Stockholm

We had another busy and fun day in Stockholm. It started by taking our luggage to the Central Station to store it in lockers for the day since we had to check out of our hotel. One negative to traveling with a toddler and therefore a stroller is that you have to use elevators a lot. For some reason people think that the elevators of the subways of Stockholm are public restrooms. They were horrible. Katherine and I actually got stuck in one when it kept stopping between two floors. I thought we were never going to get out.

We started our touring for the day at the Vasa Museum. The Vasa was a ship that sank on its maiden voyage in 1628. The Vasa was built top-heavy with insufficient ballast and foundered as soon as she encountered a wind stronger than a breeze, just a few minutes after first setting sail on her maiden voyage. Despite clearly lacking stability even in port, she was allowed to set sail. When I saw this ship, it was obvious to me that it would sink. The ration of height to width was scary and very unstable. It was however a cool looking boat and I immediately thought of Jack Sparrow and Pirates of the Caribbean. It was really difficult to get any good photos because it was so huge and the lighting was poor.

The back of the ship - beautifully carved.

Our only family photo in Stockholm and you can't see the ship in the background.

Cool map of Scandinavia.

Stockholm was a pretty town so we enjoyed walking around a little. This is by the water. Actually, there is a lot of real estate by the water because Stockholm is 14 islands.
This is the Nordic Museum. We were going to go there about 30 minutes before it closed but our tourist card did not include this museum. Oh well.

After the Vasa, we went to Junibacken, the Pippi Longstocking museum. You remember Pippi, the cute girl with red braids that go out to the side. I actually dressed up as Pippi Longstocking once, I assume for Halloween. Well, the author, Astrid Lingren, is Swedish and the character is very popular throughout Scandinavia.



The museum was really more of a kids theme park or play area. It was very crowded. We did not even get to go on the story train because the line was so long and I bet that was the best part. There was a sing a long and you can see Katherine is quite involved in "head, shoulders, knees and toes" in Swedish of course.

There were houses from the movie and play areas that were a lot of fun for Katherine to run around and play in. It did a good job of wearing her out.



Our last stop in Stockholm was Skansen, the open air museum. It seems that these museums are quite popular all over Scandinavia. They are basically large parks with a bunch of old buildings from around the country so you can learn about life.

Stockholm was a great city. I wish we had more time there to see more. Maybe we will go back someday.