The North Wind Doth Blew 'Til the Man Fell Off His Horse

Another cold, windy and rainy day here in Stockholm but as I write this, the sun is starting to shine. We took the tram again and this time it successfully took us all the way to our destination. We toured the Vasa Museum today. This is home to the "Vasa", a ship that sunk near Stockholm in the 1600s and was raised from the sea floor 333 years later. It was an amazing recovery and restoration effort and quite the story to see how it transpired. They managed to keep 98% of the ship in its original form. These photos are pretty dark, as was the museum. If you're not into photos of an old ship, pass by today's post.

We stopped in to Junibacken for lunch today. This is a children's museum that focuses on the author Barbro Lindgren. The restaurant caters to children, with a mostly healthy, and extensive menu. Swedish meatballs were our order of the day and a big hit with our toddler (and the adults too).

It's amazing how much English is spoken here. So much so, that you really don't need to know any Swedish at all except when grocery shopping. Reading the ingredients can be challenging but we're getting by. Pictures on the containers are certainly helpful. With everyone's food intolerances we are not eating out much at all but we are having lots of picnics in our suite, instead. Picnics seem to be a popular canal-side endeavour here.

We walked back from the museums today and saw the park police on horse patrol. It was so windy that an election poster blew off the light post in the park, which spooked the horse, which surprised the officer, so he fell off. Thank goodness he was okay and while he was dragged a little distance, he successfully managed to maintain a hold on the frightened horse. Had the horse gotten away, there could have been quite a scene. There's lots of security in the downtown area with the VAGT who are like ordinance enforcers, kind of like an enhanced Downtown Biz Patrol.

The official meetings start tonight so we anticipate we will be having a lot more Lucas time in the days ahead.