Stockholm - more ferry views

Here are a couple straggler photos after weeding out the repeats. 

These kids are good sports.

Pretty much sums it up.

And there you have our trip!

Stockholm - Vasa Museet, Kids with Sculptures

On our 2nd or 3rd day, we took the ferry again to the Vasa Museum, which is the home of the Vasa, a huge ship that embarked from right nearby, had a malfunction and sank immediately, then was unearthed (or unoceaned) in the 20th century and restored for all to see. There was probably more to it than that, but we were kind of running around chasing people and didn't get to read all the text. It's pretty rad though. Apparently the uniquely brackish waters surrounding the islands are especially well suited to preserving the wooden ship, which would have deteriorated more in purely salty or purely fresh water.

It's huge!!

Hard to see, but Sawyer is making the same face as this dragon thing. 

Get him, Sadie!

The following were from the deck of the ferry on our last day - for some reason these got all out of sync. It was a lovely ride. We passed lots of adorable and some really cool modern cabins on the islands - it would be a pretty spectacular place to have a summer house. We'll have to come back.

Too bad this boy is such a grump.

Stockholm - Tekniska Museet

On a drizzly day in the middle of the week, we took a long scenic bus ride to the Tekniska Museet, or Technical Museum, which had loads of hands-on stuff for kids.

This is a hilarious game that projected bats onto a climbing wall, and the kids had to swat them away. Sadie was all over it, but Sawyer held his own pretty well. It was pretty funny to see them hopping all over the place slapping bats.

Just realized I already posted the others from this museum. So there you have it!

Stockholm Miscellany

One of the few unadulterated chunks of skyline amidst a lot of construction. A view we saw many times on our ferry excursions: 

How we were able to get ready for the day every morning. Oh well, it's vacation.

Some more from the Tekniska Museet:

Sadie driving the excavator:

Swinging at our favorite playground:

They must be related! Look at those cheeks!

Stockholm - Theme: Street Art!

Papa has a thing for street art (read: graffiti!) backgrounds and these kids were more or less happy to oblige.

(click on any photo to see full size and scroll through photos using right and left arrows)

Same door, different day!

Sadie with her superhero bunny friend.

Sawyer located the only hummingbird in Stockholm brave enough to face the cold.

This is the floor of a train station.  New York stations seems so filthy by comparison (or by any standard).

We saw these "poster-ffitis" (that's a portmanteu of poster and graffiti) all over Stockholm and nobody knew what they were.  There is no information at all on them about their origin.  So, since they were unauthorized anyway and since they were merely taped up with masking tape, Papa and Sadie carefully pulled a pair down and they have already been framed (appropriately in Ikea frames) and are ready to hang in the kids' room!  Sadie is really excited about her "wuk wuk".

Sawyer simply LOVES his big sister!

Fair to say that Sadie was not always in the mood to pose with the street art.

But both kids were really good sports about stopping for photos.  Hopefully, someday they'll appreciate the photo record of their trip to Stockholm.

Stockholm - A Day in Vaxholm

Ok I'm just gonna publish all these posts that have been piling up, then I promise I will have some evidence of warm-weather fun.

Here goes:

On our last full day in Sweden we took a trip to the island of Vaxholm about an hour and a half ferry ride North-East of Stockholm through the archipelago. There was only one ferry a day to Vaxholm since it was still low season, so we got up very early and took a bus to the port.  We were a little too early so we just played in a park near the port for a while.

(click any photo to see full size, then scroll through photos using right and left arrows)

For no reason at all, big stone bunnies!!

And more swans.

The ferry ride to Vaxholm was lovely.  We had a whole banquette seating arrangement with a table to ourselves where we enjoyed rolls Papa bought the night before.  The view from the ferry was lovely - but those photos will be in another post.

It's a little summer town, so it was kind of like going to the Hamptons in November, but charming. In the little plaza by the port, there were some brave ducks.  Luckily, we had been carting around a couple slices of stale bread for 3 days for just this purpose.

It was so cold that there was a thin layer of ice on top of all the puddles.  The kids got a kick out of stomping it and looking through it.

We wandered down to a little dock on the opposite side of the island from the port.  A man pulled up in a boat and talked to us for a couple minutes while he tied up.  He had motored over from a nearby island to visit his barber.  Imagine that!  Taking a boat to another island get a haircut like its nothing at all!  (that would be like us going to... Manhattan - anyway - it seemed pretty neat) 

We had packed sandwiches, so when Sawyer fell asleep in his stroller we grabbed some drinks and pastries from a place in town and then went up to this lovely hillside overlooking the water for a chilly Bergmanesque picnic.

Although this looks more Polanski than Bergman.

Sadie took these photos!  She picked up Papa's enormous camera and started clicking away.  Not bad.