Svenska Flicka

We've returned from Sweden. It was excellent. On the whole, more Canadian than I ever could have imagined. Less, of course, the Tim Hortons and more of the old stuff. Oh yeah, and a whole lot more money to buy just about anything.

There are some pretty amazing things going on in Stockholm. First, and not surprisingly to many who know me, the history is top quality. Hats off to Swedish restoration projects, which allow sad people like me to drag my family to all sorts of ancient wonders. Of particular interest is the Vasa warship, which sits in a specially built dry dock for your viewing pleasure. There are many amazing things about the Vasa, no the least of which is that it spent 335 years at the bottom of the ocean. It seems that the water around the Stockholm archipelago are just perfect for the preservation of normally biodegrateable substances like wood and leather. This means that the Vasa is incredibly well preserved; so well preserved, in fact, that when they raised it from the bottom of the ocean, it still floated. It actually floated back to the docks!

Now you're wondering why it sank if it floated? The short story is that the Swedish King (I can't remember his name, but it was particularly Nordic.... I think it was Gustav?) wanted the biggest and most impressive war ship in the world. He commissioned a ship expert to design the Vasa. Lacking computer modelling and such, the ship was made bigger than anything else. It had a remarkable 64 gun ports. To the untrained eye (albeit with the decidedly helpful hindsight of knowing it sank), it seemed to me that the lower row of gun ports were frightfully close to the water line. This meant that there are a number of large holes on the lower sides of the ship. Exacerbating the problem of loads of holes in the hull, was that the Vasa was painfully top heavy (again the result of all those canons). To make a long story short, the ship sailed about 10 minutes out and hit a swell and rolled heavily. While the crew managed to right it, the next swell got them and tipped it over heavily to one side. The water poured into the gun ports and like so many bath-tub boats from our own experience, it sank in moments.

Happily, for many of the crew, they still weren't out of the harbour so a number of fishing boats were on hand for the rescue. Of those that did go down with the ship, many were recovered with the boat (300 odd years later) and in a somewhat eerie display at the museum, their skeletons, clothes and personal belongings are on display! They've even named the skeletons and managed to give a small account of the life they led (things like, "Hagar led a hard life, which we know by the bone indication of malnutrition as a child and the worn hip from hard labour."). The ship is amazing. Stunning, in fact. But one can't help but feel the Swedes are particularly confident in themselves, as this is essentially a huge monument to the questionable nature of Swedish naval engineering.

We also visited a number of museums on the history of Stockholm and Sweden. Ange and Claire (our cousin) went to go see the Swedish National Ballet. Claire and I saw the Pirates of the Carribean. I can honestly say that the Vasa has nothing on the Black Pearl, except they both popped back up after sinking. We also spent a lot of time just walking and taking in the atmosphere, which at times was a bit surreal. On a couple of days, there were loads of flatbed trucks roving the streets of Stockholm with dozens of screaming and dancing students on the backs. Some had the most incredible sound systems set up. Mobile, mid-day raves sauntered past us.

At one point the revelry was too much and a young male fell from the back of the slow moving truck. As the rave-truck-unit behind lurched to a stop and the driver got out to pick him up, I thouht to myself how this sort of fun would never be permitted in North America. Apart from the blatant violation of Calgary-like noise by-laws and the public drinking, safety conscious crusaders would cry out against the obvious folly of drinking and dancing on the back of moving vehicles (however slow moving they may be). No sir. This sort of fun would was to be witnessed only outside of our borders. And so we did, especially enjoying the particular Swedishness when some Abba mash-up blared across the speakers.

Anna seemed to enjoy it all. She waved at the various rave-trucks, usually to their great satisfaction. She ran in the parks. She saw a fountain. We went on a boat across the harbour. She used to say "boat," but now she will only address boats by what they say. Boats say "tooooot-toooooot". In the beautiful old town, a wandering group of Japanese tourists appealed to include Anna in their photo shoot of the ancient courtyard. With her blond hair and blue eyes, she was the perfect Swedish imposter. The tourists were none the wiser that they had a Canadian kid as their stereotypical Swedish child!