Land of the Midnight Sun

Sweden is the home of Pippi Longstocking, Vikings, blondes, the Maypole, and it is so far north that there is twenty hours of daylight during this time of year. It never really got dark. Sweden was awesome. Jenna & I had a wonderful trip. I took loads of pictures, and you can view a highlight reel (196 pictures) on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=119721&id=620259852&l=6e66c1a46f
I'll try to give you the highlights of the trip here.

One thing you see a lot of in Sweden are Dala horses. The name comes from a region of Sweden that did this type of traditional painting you see on the life-size ones Jenna & I got on at Skansen Park. Skansen is the world's first open-air museum; basically a Swedish Williamsburg.

We lucked out to go to Sweden during Midsummer. This holiday is as big a Christmas for the Swedes. Jenna is Swedish; her maternal grandmother emigrated from Sweden when she was a child. Jenna was familiar with the dances. We really enjoyed watching the folk dancers, and Jenna and Ebru even danced with them around the Maypole.

Ebru & Linnea were two of my students. They live in Sweden and we got to hang out with them a couple of days. We even had dinner at their house, which was really nice because it gives you more of an insight into what Sweden is really like, not just the touristy areas.

We went to lots of cool museums. The Vasa Musuem houses a ship that set sail in 1631 and sunk twenty minutes after it left port. In the 1970s they were able to lift it out of the sea. Since the Baltic is not as salty, there was little decomposition. They have restored the ship. It was very impressive.

Jenna was interested in the cultural heritage stuff, since she's Swedish. I'm a history person; I was all about the Viking stuff! We went to Birka, which was a Viking trading town. It is a UNESCO heritage site, so there was not as much to see there. However, at the History Museum, it was full of amazing artifacts. It was a very well done museum. There were so many hands on things for kids. You could even try on Viking outfits. Of course we had to do that! Another favorite museum was the Junebacken Museum which is for kids showcasing Astrid Lindgren's books. They had a life-size model of Pippi Longstocking's house, plus a really neat story train.

Sweden is a constitutional monarchy. I have to admit that I didn't know very much about their monarchy, other than they have a king. I would like to say that Prince William has nothing on the super cute Swedish prince, Prince Carl. Really though we went to the palace for the changing of the guard which is possibly the best I've ever seen. They even had a marching band that gave a concert following the changing of the guard. We also went to the royal armory which had loads of armor, weapons, clothes and even royal carriages.

Stockholm is basically an archipelago. We took a canal ride and two ferry boats. It was so nice to be near water. I have been privileged to travel to a lot of places. There have been lots of places that I have visited that I would love to go back to or could live in. However, Stockholm is the first place that I could really see myself living in. Jenna felt the same way. I believe this is because it reminded me so much of America. It was very green, the people were very causal, and Stockholm had a very international feeling. There was a variety of cars, as you can see here, I even made Jenna take a picture of me with this Mustang, it was the second one I had seen. Public transportation was great. It would be hard to get used to the abundance of sun in the spring and lack of daylight in the winter, but I think it would be worth a try!