Just by the hair of our chinny chin chins

We are on the boat. For many of you, that should be a “Duh!” response. But for us, it is a welcome statement. Our day in Stockholm was a short one. We got off the boat early and grabbed a HOHOBO (hop-on, hop-off boat, not to be confused with a HOHO bus, lest one gets unexpectedly very wet) around town. We saw some more old buildings (the outside of the royal palace is impressive – too bad we didn’t have time to go inside) and went to the Vasa Museum.

I know what you’re thinking – so what, another museum. The Vasa was a Swedish warship launched in 1628. About ten minutes after it set sail, along came some wind (pretty unexpected for a sail-driven boat, don’t you think??) which caused it to list over, take on water through the gunports and sink in the harbor. The ship sunk to the bottom, was covered in mud, and was discovered & raised in the 60’s. It was very well preserved in the Scandinavian muck, and is now on display. It’s huge. And in very good condition. The boat still has all of its original carvings and a lot of the rigging. Going in, I thought, “Great. Another boat. And a museum for one boat.” But it really was impressive. Some remains found in the boat were on display, along with the anthropologic information surmised from the bones – childhood illnesses, trauma, diet, facial reconstruction. And there was a full-size replica of the gun deck so you could walk through & see what live would have been like on the Vasa. Assuming of course, it didn’t sink 10 minutes after setting sail.

After the Vasa, we went to Skansen. It’s a lot like Colonial Williamsburg, but Swedish. The founder of Skansen rounded up a hundred or so antique buildings and set them up on a 75 acre park. On a hill. A steep hill. They had ducks, and baby animals, and Nordic animals (elk, etc). One of my favorite parts was the paci fountain. There was a fountain of pacifiers. Apparently when Swedish tots give up their pacifiers, they bring them to the paci fountain to give to the baby animals. It really was a sight to behold. A fountain made of thousands of pacifiers, and more pacifiers tied to the fence surrounding the baby kittens. But I digress.

After Skansen, we needed to find the HOHOBO to get back to the ship. And we took a wrong turn. And walked about ½ a mile in the wrong direction, when time was already very tight. So, we turned around, raced back (and you know that I don’t do running) and finally found where to pick up the HOHOBO. So we waited for the HOHOBO. And waited some more. At this point, it’s about 3:15. We had to be back by 3:30. Finally, a HOHOBO came, we got on, and we so glad to see our new friends, Lisa & Laurie, on the boat. At least we would know someone if we got stranded in Sweden. We made it to the HOHOBO stop by the ship with about 3 minutes to spare. We ran around to the checkpoint, floundered to get our boarding cards out, and got on the ship. We weren’t the absolute last people on the ship, but it was darn close. Close enough to wonder how hard it would be to learn Swedish.