Vasa Park

Toward the end of our stay in Stockholm, Renee and Viktor took us to Vasa Park, the municipal greenspace near their old apartment. This is easily the most kid-friendly park I have ever seen. Complete with a climbing wall, trampolines, mega-swings, and ropes course, this park is the gold standard for outdoor playplaces. There are even marked parking places for strollers along the sandbox. Here you can see Julia doing some impressive stuff on the climbing wall. Below is a slideshow of images from the park. For some reason, I can't find a web site or reference to the park online. I'll keep working on that.

Gamla Stan

These are some photos from Stockholm's "Old Town," or Gamla Stan. I will be adding text here and working on the slideshow.

Marstrand

If Skansen is the Greenfield Village of Sweden, then Marstrand is its Mackinac Island. [Truth be told, both of these places are much cooler and more interesting than their Michigan counterparts... check it out and see.]

This is the island where Viktor grew up and his parents still live. Below is a slideshow of images from the island. Enjoy. I will add more text later.

Hamneskär och Pater Noster

We took a wonderful trip to the island Hamneskär to visit a beautiful 19th century lighthouse, which had recently been restored. Lars explained that the entire lighthouse was lifted on a giant crane and taken to Göteborg, where it was sandblasted and painted, then returned. I will add text later. Here are photos. And a cool web site.

Carlstens Fästning

Text to come. Here are some pictures in a slideshow. Here is the web site.

Viktor, The Swedish Chef

Yorn desh born,
der ritt de gitt der gue,
Orn desh, dee born desh, de umn
Bork! bork! bork!*
--The Swedish Chef [Muppets]

*mock Swedish, of course

I could not resist making a short movie of Viktor as he made us some wonderful Swedish pancakes. These are wonderful with jam and sugar.

FULL DISCLOSURE: It was Viktor's idea to post a video of The Swedish Chef along with this one. How perfect that I found him making pancakes!

Back from Marstrand

The entire family is back in Stockholm after a wonderful visit to Marstrand and a side-trip to Paris for Kathy and Me. There are literally HUNDREDS of photos to upload here. The Marstrand trip in particular needs several blog entries and slideshows. Stay tuned for those here.

Wait until you see the beautiful photos from Marstrand! There will be at least 3 slideshows: the fortress, swimming/boating, and the island. I want to get these photos rotated and organized before I post them and write about them. This might take an evening or two.

Suffice it to say that we had a wonderful time on Marstrand. Thank you so much, Lars & Rigmor. We can't wait to come back and see you again.

NOTE: The above photo was taken on Hamneskär, a beautiful island with a wonderful old lighthouse. Captain Lars took us on a short trip in the trusty Malin to have fika on the island.

Tracing the Ancestry of Bob Fox's Mini Cooper and Vélib’

You might expect that we'd find the distant relatives of Bob's car in the UK, but Old Grand Pere actually turned up on the streets of Paris. Above you see, found at long last, the grandfather of Bob's Mini. Even the paint job is the same.

Other Car-Related Paris Observations (including links to photos)

• Citroën makes a mini-van called Picasso which is even signed by the artist. Hysterical.
• Smart cars are cool. And small. Here's a photo of one next to a classic VW Beetle for scale.
• When I was last in Paris (1985), the streets were filled with the wonderful Fiat 500; I loved this car and wanted one. I only saw one of them this time. That car, of course, has been immortalized as the character Luigi in the movie Cars. When I checked to make sure that this was true, I learned that Tony Shaloub (the guy who plays Monk) did the voice. Perfect.
• BMW makes a full-cage scooter called The Executive. Um, okay.... Paris is the city of scooters.
• This vintage Excalibur, waiting for a wedding party, warranted a photo.
• Many other cool vehicles went unphotographed, including many Europe-only VW products.
• This was the coolest vehicle I spotted in Paris; this photo was taken at an indoor mall. Incredibly dignified.
• Paris has made mass-rental of bicycles work. Here's proof. Here's more. These bikes are rented and ridden all over Paris, mostly by French speaking people. How cool is that?

Stockholm is the city of bicycles; Paris is the city of motor scooters. But here's their plan to change that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velib

Paris Side-Trip Slideshow

The entire family is back in Stockholm after a wonderful visit to Marstrand and a side-trip to Paris for Kathy and Me. There are literally HUNDREDS of photos to upload here. The Marstrand trip in particular needs several blog entries and slideshows. Stay tuned for those here. In the meantime, here's a slideshow of images from the side-trip to Paris. Renee, Viktor, Lars and Rigmor watched our kids while we explored the city. Viktor flew us there with his frequent flyer miles and Dad & Marti put us up in one of their favorite hotels. We had a great time. I need to get into this slideshow and rotate some of the images: Wait until you see the beautiful photos from Marstrand! There will be at least 3 slideshows: the fortress, swimming/boating, and the island. Thank you Lars & Rigmor for a wonderful visit!

The Vacation Blog on Vacation

Our Sweden Trip is taking a short vacation; we will be traveling to Marstrand, and I do not plan to take the laptop there. We are also taking a side trip to Paris (just Kathy and me and just for 2 days), so we won't need the laptop there, either. So I will be keeping things in my head and obviously taking lots of pictures. Expect a flurry of back-dated blog entries on Sunday the 13th. I may even need to resort to good old pencil and paper!

Steve & Viktor Go Clubbing In Old Town

Yes, you read that correctly. It's late and I just returned from seeing a couple of live bands with Viktor in Old Town, Stockholm. We had a great time; a true brother-in-law bonding experience. Before leaving Stocksund--at nearly the last minute--we selected a show to go and see. Good choice, as you will see. We decided to hit a show at a club called Debaser; there are actually several of these clubs in Stockholm. This one was in the Old Town, which Viktor called "party central." When we arrived at the club, which is located in the Slussen (or locks), the place was already happening. An outdoor restaurant was covered with tarps and outside of them, there were about 200 people drinking and talking while a DJ spun tunes. Within the first five minutes, the DJs had played a Gang of Four tune and something by LCD Soundsystem. A very good sign. The stamp on our hand to prove that we were of drinking age was a portrait of Earnest Hemingway. The highlight of the evening for Viktor was a compliment I received on my t-shirt. Viktor was adamant that we put some thought into what to wear to the clubs; he suggested a t-shirt with a "thoughtful message" and some jeans. He didn't expect that someone would really dig my Trogdor shirt. The first band was a 3 piece called Les Artyfacts from Uppsala, a university town; they had a French mod/garage/60s thing happening that was pretty cool, if a little too cerebral and staged. The female bass player was good, but she could work on her backup singing a bit. Overall rating: a college band trying too hard. C+. Oh, and a very short set (reminds me of that Woody Allen joke in Annie Hall: "and such small portions...") The main act was The Early Days, which was clearly more experienced. IMHO they had one too many guitarists up there. The vocals could have been mixed louder. Nice vibe, crowd loved them. We had fun. A solid B.

In the slideshow, you'll notice a mural on the wall paying homage to Detroit as the home of garage/proto-punk (i.e. MC5, The Stooges, etc). Ah, home.... Some observations on Swedish rock and roll:

• Shows started on time. That is very not rock and roll.
• No smoking in the club. I loved this, as being near smoking is akin to waterboarding for me. But it did seem odd.
• Show over at 1:00 a.m. and the line is out the door to hear the DJ. Um, I've come around to the whole EuroDisco/DJ thing, but there's something wrong with that.

This was a great time. Viktor is a very cool guy and fun to hang out with. We left after the second act, walked around through the hip part of town, bought some Greek fast food (gyros for Viktor, falafel for me), and had a great time. The kids were just getting started. As for me, it's nearly 3am here in Sweden, and I am going to get to bed.

Stockholms skärgård: Grinda

Today, we spent a lovely day on the Stockholm archipeligo. We took a boat ride to the island of Grinda and swam in the Baltic Sea (Östersjön in Swedish). The boats that took us to the island were both called Cinderella (Cinderella I and Cinderella II). We made very tight connections on both ends. We had a wonderful lunch down by the water. The kids ate their weight in hot dogs; Viktor really liked his herring; Kathy and Renee had chicken with some kind of bulgar grain and yogurt sauce; I had a tasty lamb burger. Viktor and Renee have very heavy duty urban strollers that do very well on off-road paths. You can see these in some of the other pictures. Here's the slideshow. As you can see, the island is made up of rolling hills and fields. Its rocky shores reminded me of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The water was in between the usual temperature of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. Renee and I actually went swimming (Kathy's reponse, I believe, was "hell no!). Owen went into the water up to about his neck. Julia made sandcastles with dad. I took tons of cute Vera photos on the beach.

Swedish 4th of July

Here's a quick entry without a slideshow. Today we took a nice cruise out in the Stockholm Archipeligo (Stockholms skärgård) and a swim in the Baltic Sea at Södra Grinda beach on the island of Grinda. A nice slideshow will appear later. For now, here's yesterday's 4th of July: My brother in law Viktor can properly fold an American flag! Who knew? Renee & Viktor regularly fly both the Swedish and American flags, and there are special rules for folding the Swedish flag as well. Actually, Renne & Viktor made a big deal out of the 4th of July for us. Viktor grilled burgers and corn, and Renee fried up some potatoes. We had chips and Coke and beer. There was even a red white and blue tablecloth! We also built a huge fire and roasted 'smores (we had to subsitute ginger cookies for grahm crackers, as there were none of the former to be had at the local Konsum). All in all, one of the more memorable 4th of July celebrations I remember. We leave you with a nice video of our 4th of July fire.

Vasamuseet

Renee commented: people from other countries find it interesting that Sweden's most impressive museum is a monument to what may have been its most embarassing moment--the sinking of the Vasa in 1628. The museum's web site tells the story well. I'll skip to the climax:

The Vasa set sail and fired a salute. But only after a few minutes of sailing the ship began to heel over. She righted herself slightly - and heeled over again. Water started to gush in through the open gunports. And, to everyones [sic] horror and disbelief, the glorious and mighty warship suddenly sank! Of the 150 people on board, 30-50 died in the disaster. When Vasa had been salvaged in 1961, archaeologists found the remains of 25 skeletons.

As Viktor pointed out, this was a result of an engineering flaw and poor communication between the managment team (i.e the Admiral and The King). In all, this is one of the coolest museums I've ever visted. In addition to the amazlingly well-preserved ship, this space boasts a number of side exhibits that replicate, simulate, and otherwise document the era and the disaster. There are even recreations of some of the spaces on board, including life-size wooden figures of the sailors.

Skansen: The Greenfield Village of Sweden

Here's a slideshow of images from one of today's excursions: Skansen. This is a very cool place. I suppose it is a lot like our dear Greenfield Village in Michigan. But the buildings are much older. And there are bears. The kids really had a great time.

Stadsparken med Ösbysjön

It took some doing, but I found the beach where we swam today. It's called Stadsparken med Ösbysjön. Kathy took a nap and watched Vera while Viktor went into the city for a quick meeting at work. Renee and I took the kids to this very nice rocky beach. Hugo knew some of the kids there--Linus (pronounced Lee-noose)--and played with them. A number of the beachgoers spoke English. It was a cool place. If I get it to work, below is a Picasa slideshow of the beach outing. This is an experiment to see if this is the best way. Rather than clog the blog with lots of pictures, I think embedding a slideshow is the way to go (lots of rhyming going on there). I'm playing around with the slideshow settings. I customized this on at 450/325 which seems perfect. This is going to be a cool way to blog.

You Know You're Over Jetlag When....

...you're back to your old sleep habit of staying up a few hours later than everyone else. At least, that applies to me. Jetlag was actually fine for me. The first night I slept perfectly (with the help of Benadryl) and was just a little groggy in the morning (again, because of the Benadryl). Both mornings I have woken up at 8:30 local time. Right now it's about 10 minutes to midnight here in Sweden (my computer tells me that it's just a little before 6pm back home). I am doing the nightowl thing now, which must mean that I am adjusted to Sweden time. It's actually quite dark outside. Not totally dark, but enough to definately count as NIGHTIME. I think the sun will rise here at about 2:30am. There are blackout shades in our room, so this is not a problem for me. So, what do you do during nightowl time? Putz around on the computer is one thing. So I am currently uploading all the Sweden photos to Picasa. A little note about Google/Blogger/Picasa. Great free services. Love them. If my schedule continues this way, I will probably sit here at the kitchen table and upload the days photos and movies and blog about the trip. How much fun is that? I can share with the folks back home AND get a jumpstart on the scrapbook. In fact, this blog IS the scrapbook.

Dad & Julia Explore Stocksund on Bicycle

Julia's refrain of late has been, "Daddy, what can I do fun?" How about a bicycle ride. So we saddled up and rode Renee's very cool Nishiki commuter bike around the neighborhood. Lots of bike paths and a rail station. Cool little suburban houses. Lots of hills and "Central Park" type rocks everywhere.

Berry Hunting

Today, Hugo, Owen & Julia did some berry gathering in the forest. We can put some of these in the wonderful Swedish pancakes that Renee makes. Here's a little video interview with the three berry hunters. Notice that Owen says "Goodbye" in Svenska; he is proud to tell people (as he did today at the beach) that he knows three words: hello ("hej"), goodbye ("hej då"), and "fika" (which is a sweet afternoon snack). Here's a Slideshow of the excursion.

Bicycles in Sweden

Okay, so I think everyone is making fun of me for going ga ga over all the bicycles here in Sweden. I just love them. I will be snagging images of bikes and cycling here; I want to bring a Swedish Army bike home with me, but that's not going to happen. So I will bring home lots and lots of pictures. Here's an improved version of this post with a Picasa slideshow embedded. The folloing paragraph might read funny because the sentences were originally captions for individual photos. I will try to string them together now that I have embedded the slideshow, which is much better. I think I can add captions to the slideshow, which would be better still. I don't think the postman noticed me take his photo this morning; these cool utility bikes are all over Sweden. You can also see Viktor and Renee's bikes--their entire family can go places with these. I love the blue family walking/bicycle sign. These are all over the bike paths. Racks and racks of bicycles on the way to the train station. This is the first Swedish Military Bike that caught my eye. Below is an "Orange Julius" bike I saw in a store window. This is actually made by an American company, which is funny. Bike lanes are everywhere. This is a very old city bike. And here is my dream bike, a Swedish Kronan. These are available here for about 200USD; I would love to buy one and take it back, but that idea got vetoed real quick. I think the bike below is the ultimate city bike. My bike back home is more practical, but I would love to have one of these. I love bikes, and so does Stockholm. I am looking forward to exploring the city on a bike soon. Okay, there won't be any more paragraphs like that one.

Owen's Swedish Birthday

For weeks, Owen has been telling everyone who will listen that he is going to Sweden for his birthday. Aunt Renee made it even more special by promising him a "green cake," which she told him was a special Swedish thing. Here's a slideshow of his birthday. The Strombergs got Owen some very cool Speed Racer Legos. Hugo is a huge Lego fan (as is Viktor) and the three of them had fun putting the cars together. Owen and Hugo have been racing them. The cake, by the way, was delicious. The green rolled frosting is marzipan, and the inside of the cake is similar to a boston cream pie with layers of jam and cream. Yummy!

Bungee Jumping in Stockholm

We were in front of the Stockholm Opera House.

Every Good Trip Needs A Blog!!!!

So here is where I can upload photos and movies from our trip. I can put sketches up here and flesh them out later.