Mainly Beer and Museums

Sunday, September 3rd, 2006

If it seems like I’m wearing the same clothes in these pictures, it’s because I am. We have reached a point where one or two days’ wear out of a piece of clothing is no longer the limit. The good news is that our backpacks our still light and our spirits are still high.

IMG_4835.JPGStockholm marks the end of four months of travelling and we have not come close to tiring of it. Much of this is the result of the beers, coffees, snacks, cocktails and wine for which we stop every… oh, 20 meters, or so. This is interspersed by daily wanderings and visits to museums. IMG_4840.JPGWe’ve started a list, now, of Museums We Have Visited. The beginning of this list consists mainly of items such as “That Museum in Renmin Park, in Shanghai, You Know- The One With The Children’s Exhibit” but becomes more accurate towards the end. The latest additions are the Swedish Museum of Modern Art, the Architecture Museum of Sweden and the Vasa Museum. All three were pretty impressive (one of which inspired a creative self-portrait), but the first prize goes to the Vasa: a full-scale restoration of a ship launched – and promptly lost – in 1628.
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It was top heavy and sank within minutes of its maiden launch and then was discovered, recovered, raised and restored between 1959-1970ish. Because the organisms that eat wood don’t thrive in the Baltic sea, the ship is in incredible shape and made for a jaw-dropping afternoon.
Then we drank beers on the shore from which the people watched a fully-loaded ship sink to the bottom of the sea three centuries earlier.

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And here is Marc, with a statue of a tourist in a square in Stockholm. IMG_4986.JPG
The ironing is delicious.