The next stop on our fall holiday was Stockholm. It was cold. This is Jen and Hazel being cold.
We started our trip to Stockholm with a full-on Hazel day. First, we visited the Vasa Museum. The Vasa ship capsized and sank on her maiden voyage in 1628 while still in harbor. After 333 years on the bottom of the sea it was brought to land and restored. Hazel did not want to leave.
The only thing that could drag her away were promises about our next destination — Skansen. Skansen is the world's oldest open-air museum and has old houses and farmsteads from all over Sweden. It also has a children's petting zoo. In town, Hazel got to bind her very own book and visit the bakery. In the countryside, she got to hear about tales of cholera and how she could cure her cold by wrapping her dirty left sock around her neck at night and then drinking coffee with butter when she woke up in the morning. She was very excited to try this.
On day two, we wandered around Gamla Stan (old town) and took obligatory palace and old town photos.
We capped the day with a boat cruise around the Stockholm archipelago because we were too cold to do anything else outdoors.
On day three, Jen gave a talk at the Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI). Garth took Hazel to Junibacken. It's a children's museum — seen via dioramas on the "Story Train" — dedicated to children's books by Astrid Lindgren (e.g., Pippi Longstocking). Hazel found the dark and very Scandavian humor in Lindgren's work both fascinating and 'spooky'.
It was a short but enjoyable stop. During the periods when we weren't taking shelter from the wind chill and frozen rain, we got a chance to pop into the Moderna Museet and stroll around the impressively clean and beautiful streets.
