Horse Parade
Stepping onto land again I found myself in the middle of a royal cavalry parade. Quick as only tourists can, I brought out the camera and eternalized the moment.
After the archipelago tour we headed over to Djurgården, one of the bigger and most popular Stockholm islands. Translated to English, Djurgården means "animal yard," a name perhaps dating from the time when the island was the royal family's haunting ground. According to our previous tour guide, an overconfident queen once planted a tiger in the park to impress her guests with an extraordinary pray. Her disappointment must have been overwhelming when the tiger froze to death before anyone had a chance to haunt it.
Nowadays Djurgården is peaceful place although still housing bloodthirsty animals. Since it opened in 1891, Skansen has been a popular park and is now the world's oldest outdoor museum, including a Scandinavian animal zoo with woolfs and bears.
Mr. Moose chillaxing in the shade on Skansen.
Nowadays Djurgården is peaceful place although still housing bloodthirsty animals. Since it opened in 1891, Skansen has been a popular park and is now the world's oldest outdoor museum, including a Scandinavian animal zoo with woolfs and bears.
Mr. Moose chillaxing in the shade on Skansen.
Beautiful Archipelago
Stockholm totally charmed us and kept us for four days. On our second day of adventures, we took a guided archipelago tour on a one hundred year old steam ferry boat. Sweden's coastlines are full of scattered archipelagos and Stockholm's count as the biggest, and actually one of the biggest in the world. Made up of about 24 000 rocky islands, some big enough to fit whole towns, some just the size of your picnic blanket, it's amazingly beautiful. The archipelago is the richies top favorite place for fancy summer houses and everyone that is someone has their own island castle here, complete with a pier to dock the yacht. The rest of us are happy just to enjoy the breathtaking views for a couple of hours and dream ourselves away.
Map of Stockholm. The marked area counts as Stockholm city, the whole map as greater Stockholm including the inner archipelago. Thousands of islands east of what the map shows stretches out 60 kilometres or more than 37 miles into the Baltic sea.
A summer dream by the water. Someone said Sweden has the most private owned flag poles (compared to citizens) in the world, and it could very well be true.
Spotting Vaxholm, the capital town of Stockholm archipelago, through the narrow sound.
One of the smaller islands.
Birka
We snuck up on an ancient Viking ship preparing to launch
This is the veiw the Vikings had from this central trading town. It doesn't look like there used to be a town here, but it was a robust trading port. It was founded in the year 760 and all that remains are the tombs of around 3000 people scattered around the island.
I learned to make bread the Viking way.
We took a day trip to the ancient Viking island of Birka.
Stockholm
Parliment
The Fans
My First Festival
Flags
How often do you see a gay pride and confederate flag flying at the same place?
Holy Sh*t
Yes, the bathrooms were really gross. Maybe the worst story from the whole trip was when Jerry - accidently - walked in on a boy and girl kissing in one of the dirty, smelly stalls. These kids have serious problems.
Festival Cooking
Camp Site
July 20th - 22nd: Kaktus Music Festival
Wow, it's hard to sum up this part of the trip. It was fun. It was interesting. There was great music. We were with awesome friends. We camped out for 2 days in a field with about 300 punk rock teenagers....
So the kids didn't sleep at all and neither did we. Music played, horns honked, drunk kids crashed into our tent at 2 am, 3 am, 4am, etc. We got a bit nervous at times from all the commotion. While we sought refuge in our tent, we saw shadows of people move around us and heard their yelling next to us. We promised that at some point we would laugh about it all and in a year or two we'll get there.
On the bright side, Jenny and Jerry were great to hang out with and helped us have fun.
So the kids didn't sleep at all and neither did we. Music played, horns honked, drunk kids crashed into our tent at 2 am, 3 am, 4am, etc. We got a bit nervous at times from all the commotion. While we sought refuge in our tent, we saw shadows of people move around us and heard their yelling next to us. We promised that at some point we would laugh about it all and in a year or two we'll get there.
On the bright side, Jenny and Jerry were great to hang out with and helped us have fun.
Max on the Open Road
Sorry about the bugs on the windshield; this may be the bug capital of the world.
Jenny and Jerry
Powering up before the big drive.
Ozzy the Cat
Bjorn at the helm of the BBQ
Remembering Maine - Summer of 2005
Clocks slay time...
Time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.
Welcome Sweet July
Summer means eating as many fresh from the field strawberries as you want :-)
In a country where winter eats up half of the year summer is holy. During those long, dark months we live in emotional hibernation waiting for spring to bring back light and life. And so it does. Every year we learn it is worth while waiting for. Every year we come out of our hiding places, fill our hungering souls, bloom for a couple of months and remember what life is all about.
Swedish summer is magical and impossible to do justice through a key board. Sitting here with my balcony door open, letting midnight fill the room with scents and summer night's humming I still do not find words to describe it. Of course I am a child of my country and love it just therefore - but I still want to believe there is something more. Dark December is all forgotten and even if someone remembers the depressing sunless midwinter it all pays of in an overflow of light right now. July is the summer peak.
Swedish summer is magical and impossible to do justice through a key board. Sitting here with my balcony door open, letting midnight fill the room with scents and summer night's humming I still do not find words to describe it. Of course I am a child of my country and love it just therefore - but I still want to believe there is something more. Dark December is all forgotten and even if someone remembers the depressing sunless midwinter it all pays of in an overflow of light right now. July is the summer peak.
