Stockholm

We started our first full day in Stockholm with a walking tour at 10am. We met our tour guide, Sara (who is half Swedish and half Latvian) just outside the old town, Gamla Stan.

We walked onto and through Gamla Stan, admiring the old architecture and learnt a lot from Sara about the history of Sweden and Stockholm. We learnt about the turbulent history and relations between Sweden and Denmark (and our guide played a little game where Daniel had to yell out "Blame it on Denmark" at appropriate times in the tour - he won some traditional Swedish lollies for his participation!) Now, we understand that relations between the Swedes and Danes are better but they still love to poke fun at each other!

Some interesting facts we learnt included:
- Stockholm has the third best transport system in the world (which we don't plan to use as we will walk everywhere!)
- Stockholm literally translates to ‘island of sticks’. It was selected by the Vikings by filling a ship with gold and putting it in the water and seeing where it stopped which would be declared the new capital - the stopping point was Stockholm!
- Candy canes originated from Sweden and were taken to Minnesota in the US when Swedes migrated there (it has the highest population of Swedes around the world outside of Sweden).
- Sweden is the second highest consumer of coffee in the world (this is obviously hotly contested because our guide in Oslo said that Norway was the second most consumer!) Fika is a traditional coffee and cake time in Sweden and traditionally during this time there is no talk about work or unhappy things.
- When we visited parliament, we saw the dorms used by members of parliament. Members of rival political parties used to share dorms when they were visiting from out of the city (because it was based on the region that the members came from, not their political party). It is supposed to show that there is peace between the political parties. We also learnt that there is still a tunnel today between the dorms and parliament for members' protection.
- There is no corruption in Swedish government. In fact, one member had been found to have bought a Toblerone with a government work card and there was outrage, she was forced to publicly apologise and resign from her position.
- Nordic women had equality much earlier when compared to the rest of the world because women were treated fairly equally in Viking society (they could also be warriors and played important roles) so this idea was not foreign in Sweden.
- The Swedish used to be required to have a number of windows on their houses to reflect how much wealth they had. Some people (mostly Germans living in Sweden) painted on windows to fake wealth (or some did I'm fact have the wealth but didn't want to install windows as there wasn't good insulation and they didn't want it to be colder in their homes in winter!
- Like Oslo, there have been a large number of fires in Stockholm, especially in Gamla Stan. People paid a type of "insurance" so that fire-fighters would prioritise their house and this was signified by a phoenix emblem above their doors - these can still be seen today on some of the buildings.
-We visited the iron boy statue which is a small statue of a boy looking forwards a light. It is a symbol of Sweden's position during WWII. They adopted a position of neutrality. However, they did contribute resources to the Nazi (it is said that if they did not do this, the war may have been 8 months shorter). The Swedish don't publicise this so much but they did take in / home the most amount of Jews in Europe. The iron boy is also thought to be good luck and fortune for men if they rub his head and a high chance of pregnancy for women if women rub his head!
- Interestingly, the IKEA objects for the bathroom items are named after rivers and lakes, the words used for cupboards are forest names and the names for the carpets are Danish cities as they are used for wiping dirty feet (again, the rivalry continues!)

After the walking tour, based on the recommendation from our guide, we walked to an island with lots of musesums (which is very pretty) and we visited the Vasamuseet. This is a museum dedicated to a ship from the 1600s which sunk and has since been salvaged and preserved. The Vasa sunk just 1km into its maiden voyage, and sat at the bottom of the river right near Stockholm for 333 years. It is thought that 150 people were on board and 30 people died when the ship sunk. It is thought that many were able to survive because of how close the ship was to shore when it sunk. Based on records, we know that after the ship sunk (which took 4 years to build and was the biggest source of employment in Sweden during that time) there were investigations but no one was ever held responsible. It is now known that the boat wasn't architecturally sound.

After 333 years at the bottom of the sea, the Vasa was successfully located and salvaged - it was the first broadcast on TV from Sweden to overseas. This was a massive feat for a number of reasons including that the ship weighs 800-900 tonnes! The Vasa was sprayed with PEG (a preservative that replaces water in wood and prevents cracking) for 17 years and then left to dry for 9 years before it was displayed. After this, amount 1400 lose parts were remounted. This process ensured that 98% of the ship has maintained its original make. Pretty phenomenal stuff and we understand why it is the top visited musesum in Scandinavia!

It was really interesting walking around the museum, learning about the construction and preservation techniques, how they salvaged and retrieved the ship and also learning about what life would have been like on the ship during that time (unfortunately, it was pretty gruesome and these ships were also plagued with disease and spoilt food). Daniel was impressed that the sailors were fed 3 L of beer a day because it wouldn't go off / carry diseases like water - definitely would be an interesting way to go into any fights out at sea. This ship (which of course didn't go far) was supposed to be used in battle with Poland.

We enjoyed viewing the elaborate decorations on the boat and seeing the vastness of this incredible ship!

After the visit, we enjoyed a nice walk along the harbour back to the hostel (about an hour) (we did a lot of walking today!) At the hostel, we made use of the sauna, made dinner and then chilled and shared stories with some fellow travellers staying at the hostel from Canada and Brazil for a couple of hours. It's great meeting people and hearing all about their adventures!Читать далее