Skansen

Today is our "bonus" day in Stockholm! This is because instead of beginning our disgustingly long train journey to France we had some extra time to spend here due to the train fiasco situation.

As a form of payment, I spent the morning cleaning as much of the apartment as I could. I tried to consolidate my things, thoroughly vacuumed the living room, entry way, kitchen, and kitchen rug, dusted some of the tables and the area above the TV, put the clean dishes away and rinsed and put all the other dishes in the dishwasher or washed them. Daniel was amused by this and every time I finished a task he would come up to me grinning and say, "Aw, you didn't have to do that!" (Once it was already done!) I didn't mind at all though, it's really the least I could do after taking up space there for the last week and a half!

I wanted to use today to go to the Djurgarden which is a huge island with lots of famous things on it. It has the Nordic History Museum, the Tivoli theme park, the Astrid Lindgren Pippi Longstocking park, the Skansen outdoor museum, and the Vasa museum. I had heard good things about the Vasa museum and about Skansen, but Daniel said we should go to Skansen. He then asked if it would be OK for he and Lynn to come, which of course it was! I wasn't sure if they were maybe getting sick of us and needing their space, so I was more than happy that he was interested in coming along with us and hanging out for the day. It's also a bonus for us because not only do we get to spend time with him and Lynn, but Daniel knows so much history so I figured it would be especially great to have him tour us around this outdoor museum.

The museum is supposed to show how Sweden was a century or two or three ago. There are lots of old traditional buildings/houses/barns/store houses/shops/workshops/etc. It definitely reminded me of the outdoor museum in Switzerland but I liked this one a lot better. It seemed more compact and interesting somehow. We got to watch glass blowing in one of the work shops! And the bakery shop had yummy pastry looking things. I tried vanilla bulle which was amazing. It was dough with powdered sugar with a huge dollop of vanilla in the middle. Powdered sugar got everywhere; it always does. I also found a workshop where they were making traditional northern Sweden flat bread, which was also really good. The buildings and gardens and herb gardens were all really cool to see, and there were also old phone booths and rune stones around! Then there is a part of the outdoor museum that is pretty much a zoo but only for "Nordic" animals found in Sweden and Scandinavia. That was probably my favorite part because the animals were so cool. Since spring just happened, everything had babies. We got to see baby pigs, baby rabbits, baby geese, baby moose, and baby bears! So many babies! The baby pigs were soo cute. The rabbits were obviously cute, just so fluffy looking. They had some rabbits that are the largest breed or rabbit in the world. It's called the Flemish Giant Rabbit or something like that. They're monstrously huge!! Seeing a moose was really cool because I remember Leif telling us about moose and how dangerous it is to hit a moose with your car because they're so big they can hurt/kill you. So I really had wanted to see a moose and here I finally got to. Another one of the coolest animals were these huge gray seals. They were enormous and were sprawled out sleeping in the sun. Then we went past Nordic wild boars and bison and found our way to the bear pits. The bear cubs must have been a few months old because they weren't that tiny anymore. But the bears here were way more active than the bears we saw in Switzerland, so that was really fun and cute. The cubs were adorable and kept waking the mommy bear up. The three of them followed her around and eventually pretty much tackled her and pinned her on her back so the three of them could suckle. It was really funny. Then we went to try to find the wolves! Daniel spotted them - they were just laying down, but still, it was really cool to see a wolf!!

After Skansen, we went to Lynn's father's house, where we had been invited for dinner (we're so lucky). Apparently Daniel had told Lynn's brother and father about us and Lynn said we had a really good reputation to live up to! Flattering :) We got beer on the way but as soon as we stepped inside Lynn's father offered us a cold beer. Can't say no to that, especially since I'm pretty much healthy now. Honestly, I'd be surprised if my health improved much more over the next couple of weeks. Lynn's dad, Morton, got a new grill last summer and was really excited to start using it again. He grilled pork and beef and served it to us with homemade barbecue sauce and tzatziki sauce. As if that, served with great red wine, wasn't enough, there were also good vegetables, and asparagus and carrots that I want to try to recreate when I get home. The asparagus was simply sprinkled with Parmesan cheese and cooked, but the carrots were cooked in salt water and then put in an olive oil and vinegar mix and were really good!! I'm always excited to learn new ways to cook vegetables, so I probably seemed a little nerdy because I kept asking Morton how he did this and that. He very nicely explained to me what he did though, so I am really excited to try making them when I get home.

Dinner, aside from food, was great fun. Conversation flowed easily and Daniel was pretty entertaining. I am really glad that we were invited because it was just a really easy going, pleasant, enjoyable night. After dinner, we moved inside where the chatting continued. Daniel got a call about Sandra crashing Hakan's car (very not good) and spent a while talking about that. I finally decided to break that conversation up by asking Daniel to teach me how to open a beer bottle with a lighter. That's a trick I really want to know how to do. I tried learning in Poland but I couldn't get it. Daniel tried showing me and I was so close to getting it - but it didn't quite work still! But after that intermission, Daniel and Morton switched to Swedish and started talking about politics, I think, and Lynn and Laura and I moved outside again and kept up the girl talk in English. Girl talk, that's another thing that's universal I think.

Eventually I went inside to get my last bottle of beer and tried opening it with the lighter again. But this time, I got it!!Super exciting!

Finally we started making our way home around midnight and took public transportation until it stopped running at which point we settled for a taxi. Daniel likes to announce how happy he is a lot which I adore. We finally made it home and everybody was quite happy and in good spirits. With no more Mad Men to watch, we actually went straight to bed, so that tomorrow we'll actually be able to get up early and pack for real and begin the trek down south.


Quotes:
"Hilary, man, I'm gonna shoot a hug at you!" - Daniel, before giving me the most genuine hug I think I've gotten this whole trip :) And yes, he calls Laura and I "man" and "dude" frequently. We are dudes here.

Accomplishments:
Opened a bottle with a lighter.