This is not IKEA

Lunch on the run...literally. Alex was hungry (again), so he grabbed some Sushi on the run.
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No riding today – we woke up in Stockholm on a ship and we get to play all day! We dropped the bikes off at the hotel (Sheraton – nice hotel, great location) and headed out, map in hand. The city is delightful (Jon thinks this is a ‘pansy’ word but Alex likes it so judge only one of us). It’s another collection of islands efficiently connected by bridge, ferry, and train. The islands are so close that you can see everything – but only get to it directly by boat or a long walk. We tended to select walking but tried the ferry too.

Stockholm is very pretty (and windy). It is made up of many islands, like the small section of a large archipeligo, with a very efficient system of ferries, bridges and trains.
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A really cool museum is the Vasa. The story behind the Vasa is: In the 17^th century Sweden and Poland are at war. Poland is being led by an exiled Swedish monarch, so emotions are pretty hot. Sweden commissioned the biggest, badest warship ever to be built. The best engineers worked on it for years. They put it in the water with much fanfare… and it sank. That was the funny part.

The story continues when it was located in the 1950s and Swedish historians recovered it. Because the Baltic is brackish rather than just salt water it was amazingly preserved. In fact, it’s the best preserved and most complete ship of this era. We thought it was SOOO much better for kids than a fossil archeological dig. We liked it too – big kids, big toys. It was huge and they built a building around it so that you can view it from above, below and anywhere in-between. Very cool.

Wouldn't mind living here.
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Next we went to Skansen Park, which is a large park in the city that houses multiple exhibits, including a zoo. It started out as a good idea (Alex’s), but didn’t turn out so great. It is a beautiful park… but it tends to attract thousands of kids and you couldn’t walk without stepping on one. Alex made one blonde one cry, but then couldn’t even find her to apologize because they’re all blonde. We saw a few Scandinavian animals, a few non-Scandinavian animals, and Jon complained most of the way. The Lemurs were pretty cool as you walk into their area and they go everywhere including where you are. They don’t mind people very much and Jon had quite a conversation with one of ‘em. This was not the highlight of Jon’s visit, even with the great conversation.

The Vasa museum is in the background just over Jon's head.
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We then went by ferry to Gamla Stan, the old town island. The walking streets were pretty interesting, full of shops of all kinds. We used this time to make calls home and walk by the palace. We ended up at a great place for dinner not far from the hotel. It was a packed pub that served great food with lots of friendly people. It was a good night.