Our second day in Stockholm started off on the crappy side. We slept in to catch up on sleep we missed and recover from how tired we were due to the previous day of running to the bus and walking around the city. We decided to head to the Vasa Museum because of the rain and it came highly recommended from a friend of ours in Madrid. It contains the wreckage of a ship that was built in the 17th century and sank on her maiden voyage. Part of the problem it faced was a misdistribution of weight and probably the fact that the guy who designed it died before the construction was really going. After most of the bronze canons were salvaged by divers shortly after sinking, the ship was forgotten and left to stay sunk in the harbor of Stockholm. In the 1950’s, a man named Anders Franzén thought it would be a good idea to try and recover the ship since he had recently concluded that it would still be intact and not have suffered the deterioration of the shipworm. After some calculating, he found the location of the ship and started a movement to have it raised from the depths of the harbor.
Over a two-year period, divers had to work in total darkness 30 meters under the water digging tunnels so they could put six metal cables under the wreckage to hoist it out. Eventually it worked and the ship was saved. They moved it to its present location and began constructing a building around it to house it. Nowadays, the ship looks good and more research is ongoing but the museums details and just seeing the large ship is amazing. We spent about an hour and a half in the museum. It has six floors so you can get higher and higher to see the ship from many different angles and it is huge. After the museum, our hunger was getting to us so we stopped at a roadside burger hut. This turned out to be a bad idea. I had to continually remind myself that I know better than to eat a hamburger outside of the U.S.
We had nothing else planned and since the weather was still bad, we decided to grin and bear it and head south to an area called Södermalm. Another recommendation from a friend. It is supposed to be the young, hip neighborhood so we thought we’d give it a try. We walked along the road that runs the edge of the harbor so we could enjoy the view because it rises up to a higher elevation but the rain made everything unpleasant. We headed towards the center of the island and then west. We passed a church and as we walked up, the guy was closing the door but very kindly let us have a quick peak at the inside and gave us a two minute history lesson before bidding us farewell. We continued on and started to find fun shops that let us know we’d indeed found the younger, hip part of town. We took a break from the rain and had a beer at a little bar that turned out to be quite seedy. After we left, we continued winding our way through the streets, drying to stay dry and enjoy the architecture as much as possible. The place may be young and hip but the buildings don’t hold a candle to the ones on Strandvägen.
Eventually, we found the Tantolunden Park and decided to take a stroll through it because it appeared that the sun was finally trying to show its face after hiding all day. As we marched further into the park, the sun got brighter and brighter and we found a small a community of what can only be described as mini houses in the park. They were usually surrounded by large, lush gardens. We were later informed that these places were probably small vacation homes because they border the riverfront of the Södermalm and that people pay a lot of money to have them as a getaway place without having to leave Stockholm. Why would someone want to pay that much money to get away and yet not get away? We took a break in the park and spotted several rainbows around the city while giving our feet a break.
From the park, we headed to a large bridge with big pedestrian and bike lanes so we could cross over to Marieberg. There, we regretted walking so far from our hostel and torturing our feet with cruel and unusual punishment. The walk along the water was quite nice and we noticed that the Swedes love to jog. We saw tons of people jogging in the park and along the riverfront of Marieberg. And yet they all seemed to have faces that spoke of the pain they were putting themselves through too. We found a couple of nice buildings in Marieberg but the pain and hunger forced us to move quickly back to the Old Town. We found a nice Irish pub with cheap food and beer and indulged ourselves. Afterwards, we dragged ourselves to our hostel and discovered we had a show waiting for us.
I’m not saying old people can’t stay in a hostel but it is a tad awkward. We had an old man in our room and he was quiet and awkward. And by awkward I mean he liked to just stare at you without saying a word. As the night wore on, he got down out of his bed, left the room, and went through what I guess is his nightly clean up routine. He then returned to the room, locked up his stuff, shimmied out of his pants(leaving him only in his briefs), and proceeded to crawl up into his top bunk and across his bed on all fours. Watching an old man stick his ass out and show you things you’ve never wanted to see reminds you quickly that the hostel life isn’t for them because they are beyond the point of caring and deserve their own room. After seeming to fall off to sleep, he then suddenly sat up and stared at us for a solid thirty seconds before laying back down and grumbling to himself, leaving Izzy and I snickering for a while. We eventually fell asleep between his breaks in snoring. Enjoy the pictures, they were hard earned this day.
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