Ost

"Ost" means "cheese" in Swedish!

 

Here is a .... well... a giant cheese slicer.

 

 

In fact, it is the largest cheese slicer in the world, as stated by this nifty plaque.  It was just outside of a gas station randomly on our way to Stockholm.  (Only in Sweden...they do love their cheese.)

 

After a nine-hour drive, we finally arrived at our hotel in Stockholm.  It was pretty late, but as you can see, it's still light outside.

 

The next day we went to the Royal Palace.  From there you can see the Parliament building.

 

Another view of the Parliament.

 

This is from the inner courtyard of the palace.

 

They had an area in the palace where you could dress up like the king.  May I present, his Royal Highness, Kieran King Otter. (Say, "Cheese!")

 

And his faithful knight of the Order of the Otter, Sir Kieran.

 

And some cheesy princess girl...

 

Actually, it was Her Royal Highness, Princess Maya.  (yes, yes, I tried on the costumes too...)

 

But really, I liked driving the carriage better.

 

We watched the changing of the guard.  It was kind of well, kind of cheesy.  A bunch of guys dressed up in fancy soldier uniforms walking around in formation for like ten minutes while a band played (all of this just to switch out who was on duty.) 

 

Next we went to Gamla stan, which is the "old town" of the city. 

 

A shop in the old town.

 

Dramatic picture of Kieran eating Swedish ice cream in Gamla stan.  (Swedes love their dairy products!) 

 

The old church in Gamla stan.

 

Everything in Stockholm is on different islands connected by bridges and tunnels.  Stockholm is pretty much a bunch of archipelagos.

 

For dinner we went to our friends, the Höglund's house.  They have a pool and a hot tub.  Here are me and Kieran and Stella and Kaspar in the hot tub.

 

The next day we went to this old ship called the Vasa ship.  So it's an old ship that was built back in the 1600s.  It's really fancy and was built for the King of Sweden at the time.  It had all sorts of carvings and statues and cool stuff all over the ship.  Sadly, on it's maiden voyage, it left the port, and promptly sank to the bottom of the ocean......(nice planning....)  My personal theory is that they had too much cheese in the cargo hold.  Three hundred years later, some guys found it and they took about 20 years to bring it up off the ocean floor and restore it.

 

They had a game where you could sink your own Vasa ship.  Here's Kieran's ship starting to tip...

 

Watch out, Sir Kieran is going to blow you away!

 

Is that an Otter I see on the top of that cannon?

 

And this is the Nordic Museum.....we did not go inside.  But we passed by it!

 

And then we went to this "outdoor museum/zoo/old-timey-town place" called Skansen.  We did go inside here. 

 

Okay, so this is a windmill in the old-timey village section.

 

Here is some washing stuff in the old-timey section.

 

And some tools in the old-timey factory.

 

Old timey-machines...

 

Kieran building an old-timey machine.

 

Old-timey stuff.  You get the picture.

 

There was a nice view of downtown from the top of the hill at Skansen.

 

Here is us by a stick hut thing.  These are houses where the "Sami" Lapland people of North Sweden live.  They are the people who raise reindeer for their livelihood.  (The reindeer do not live inside the huts, just the people do.)  They had reindeer at Skansen, too.

 

They also had otters at Skansen.  In Swedish, they are called "Utter."  Kieran was super excited.

 

The last thing we did in Stockholm was to go to an amusement park called Gröna Lund.  It was pretty much on it's own island.

 

We rode some roller coasters...

 

And ate cotton candy.  (Which, by the way, in Sweden cotton candy is white.  They have not even heard of pink cotton candy.) 

 

Sorry this post was so cheesy!

Älvar och havet

"Älvar och havet" means "rivers and the sea" in Swedish!

 

They use a lot of hydroelectricity in Sweden.  We went to go see the thing they do once a year in a town called Finnfors where they open up the dam and let the water flow freely instead of harnessing the power from the river.  It was kind of a festival thing.

 

 

Here is the dam before they opened it.

 

Here is when it's just starting to be released.

 

And now it's rushing down...

 

 

Here is the museum they had there showing the old hydroelectric plant.

 

The water would flow through these big generators.

 

Aunt Marie lives on the Skellefteå River.

 

Uncle H.G. has a boat.

 

We went on the boat!

 

Little red house alert!

 

While we were on the boat one side of the sky was completely dark and rainy, and one side was bright and sunny.

 

Here is a bridge in Skellefteå.

 

Kieran got cold when it started raining a bit.

 

Yellow house alert!  These are rare!

 

We also took the boat out on the ocean.

 

We went to a little island called Gåsören in the Baltic Sea.

 

It was really tiny.

 

In fact, we were the only people on the whole island that day.

 

We built a fire and roasted hot dogs and we tried to roast our sweet rolls, but they didn't turn out so good.  (Just eat them cold!)

 

Kieran found a piece of driftwood on the beach that looked just like a sword.

 

They had these cool little wooden sidewalks everywhere.

 

Uncle H.G. relaxing in the sun.

 

Kieran and I were throwing rocks into the water.

 

Here is a stick that looks like it's carved and designed, but it's made by worms.

 

Kieran liked riding in the ocean better than on the river because it was bumpier.

 

Another day we went fishing on the river.

 

Alexander showed us the different types of lures we could use.

 

Kieran gave it a try.

 

It was fun.

 

One time I cast it and I felt a really strong pulling....

 

Then we figured out it was just stuck on a rock.

 

We didn't catch anything.

 

But it was fun anyway.

 

Tune in next time for more fun.