A crowbar in every home

You have to love a husband that buys you a crowbar for your birthday.
You know, for the coming zombie apocalypse. Right?

Vacation = Nap Time

After a week and a half, I've had many chances to explain what made the latest vacation so fantastic. After a few tries, I think I've figured it out.

I rested.

Or, more importantly, I finally realized that a good vacation doesn't need to be a constant rush; it's not a bad thing to sleep in or people watch or chill in a park. So, this time around, we were quite comfortable sleeping in (or to a reasonable time), leisurely visiting a museum and then spending the rest of the day wandering, eating and resting.

That's a vacation I can get behind.

Of course, there probably is a difference between a restful trip and a trip when I nap all the time... hmmm... places I slept this trip include:

• Planes
• Trains
• Taxis
• Buses
• Boats
• A proper bed
  
• A friend's couch
• Brighton beach
• St. James' Park

Panoramic Sweden

Not a lot of writing in this post just a few interesting images thanks to Autostitch.

You know when you first get to a city and you have to take a lot of photos of the first thing you see? Well that was what created these shots in Stockholm.


Birka was once a fortified Viking settlement that saw much trade during the height of Viking influence. It is now a beautiful heritage site and museum that you can only reach after a couple of hours on a boat from Stockholm. The first view is from the base of the hill that served as natural fortifications. The second is from the top.

Maybe we didn't need a bigger boat

Our last day in Sweden, we headed to the Vasa Musuem. Basically, the monarchy built this huge ship in the 17th century and on her maiden voyage, it sank... 20 minutes after launch. So it sat at the bottom of the Stockholm harbour and was only recovered around the 1960s. Then they built a musuem around it, commemorating this engineering fail.

The boat was too top heavy and when a strong wind push it over, it wasn't able to right itself and water rushed into the open gunports.

Some of the photos are blurry because it was super dark. I guess the museum is keen to preserve the boat.

Also, I had originally titled this post "We're going to need a bigger boat" and then realized I already made that joke. Oddly, we didn't quote that line to each other while at the museum.

An overview of the boat.

Another overview. There are five levels to the museum, because the boat is that big. The boat didn't have the sails because in the winter, you wouldn't have it rigged up like that. Also, those are not the original ropes. They did find some of the original canvas sails in the bottom of the boat.

I think this is the bow. Or at least the front of the boat.

This was a reproduction of the space at the top of the mast. It creaked ominously as you got on it.

The back of the boat was carved beautifully.

About 95% of the boat is original. The lighter colour wood (ie the statue holding the flag) is new. The restoration crew purposefully kept the new stuff smooth and lighter coloured so you could see how much of the boat was intact.

I think this is on the level second from the bottom.

Apparently, the boat was painted pretty brightly. Would you be afraid of this boat?

This is one of those gun ports that was left opened.

I wish this was in focus. But it's a gun-axe. I'm not sure how you reload it. Carefully?

The second in celebrity WTFs. This was in a section explaining the crew? I'm not sure.

If the boat looks waxy because the preservative stuff they used. The chemical replaced the water in the wood. Apparently, that's not the best way to preserve the wood. And the way the boat is resting is placing a lot of stress on the hull so they'll have to figure out a new way to present it.

Sweden

If you're Facebook friends with Nicole, chances are you've seen some of these photos. Oh well. These aren't really in any order.

View of the sunset from our boat.

On our way to Birka. I'm not sure what's happening.

You gotta love foreign snack foods. It's a whole wall of spreads, in a tube, that you put on crackers. Bacon, fish, who knows? And look at Nicole's lovely teeth!

This picture really doesn't show how tiny our room was. I think it's smaller than my cubicle at work. Daorcey was not very skilled at getting to the top bunk at night.

Cool Pirate Party sticker. We also saw ads for the upcoming EU parliamentary election.

Nicole in a park.

We're standing in front of a river, but behind Daorcey is the palace. I'm not sure why we didn't take the picture there.

Dudes fishing in the river that runs through the city. You'd think with a giant net that you would catch a ton of fish but they caught one or two. I guess, just like the Bow and the Elbow, you can eat the fish you catch in the river. I would not do that with the fish you find in the Thames.

All the pubs had blankets for their outdoor seating. It's brilliant and all the pubs in Calgary should do it.

I think it's a prime minister or a king. Either way, he has a bird on his head and he's telling it where to go.

This photo was taken on our last day. The weather wasn't as nice as the two previous days. Anyways, Sweden has awesome infrastructure for bikes. Separate bike lanes, separate crossings so you don't interfere with pedestrians. It's great. We saw entire families biking around. I was jealous.

At first, I thught it was a movie poster. But it's for an airline. Also, Father Time has taken a tire iron to his face.

Daorcey was very excited to eat this fishburger.