Stockholm
Sweden
My adventure in Stockholm started
with a look through a history museum with fascinating information about the
Vikings in Sweden and a walk through Old Stockholm’s streets.
The
worth of a Viking:
One of the exhibits in the Viking
Museum showed how much a person’s life was worth in pieces of silver. If a man killed another man’s slave, the
owner was owed 225 grams of silver to compensate. A free Gotlander man was worth 4.8 kg of
silver and a free non-Gotlander man was worth
2 kg of silver.
Stockholm
is often referred to as the Venice of the North (though St. Petersburg also
claims that title). Stockholm was
founded in 1252 by Gustas Vasa. The old
Town of Stockholm was developed in the 13th Century and has a very
rustic feel. You can date the buildings
by the style of iron work they have on the front of the building . In the Old town or Gamla Stan (the square)
they have many of the significant buildings in Stockholm. Here is the former home of the Royal
family. The weekend we were there was
the Prince of Sweden’s wedding to a commoner who caused quite a stir due to the
reality TV shows she had participated in.
In Gamla Stan there is also the Treasury, Armory, and the changing of
the guard (similar to Buckingham Palace).
The church located in the center of Gamla Stan is called
Storkyrkan. There is also a statue of
George the Dragon Slayer. (The dragon
was often representative of Denmark and the conflict between Sweden and
Denmark). Here there is also the
smallest street and the smallest statue who wears a little hat and scarf. Legend is if you rub his head, he will bring
you good luck. Whoever is the last
person to rub his head, must replace his little cap. People also drop coins at his feet.
The
Archepellago
Southern Sweden and Finland is made
up of many islands which makes the Archepellago. I was able to experience the Archepellago
twice. Once while we were on a cruise
ship going to Estonia and once on a speedboat in Finland. Many people have lake houses at the
Archepellago. Astrid Lindgren who wrote
Pippi Longstockings and Tove Jansson who wrote the popular Moomin series both
spent the majority of their time on the Archepellago and were greatly
influenced by it. The Archepellago was
one of the most picturesque places I’ve seen.
It is a significant part of the midsummer festival and the Swedish and
Finnish culture.
Vasa
Another highlight in Sweden was the
Vasa museum. Vasa was a huge battle ship
that was built in the 1600s. It had a
huge amount of canons and was very colorful in its décor. On August 10, 1628 the ship made it’s maiden
voyage. However, it didn’t make it very far when a large wave rocked the boat,
causing it to fill with water and to sink just off the shore. In 1956 Anders Fransen began the task of
raising the ship. It was fully raised in
1961 and restored nearly 100%. The Vasa
museum was built around the ship. While
you can’t walk on the actual ship, there are many displays and videos that show
what life on the ship would have been like.
One display I found interesting was the medical display that showed what
the barber surgeon on board would have been doing. It referenced the 4 humors that people
believed controlled health. When there
were equal amounts of each humor (fluid) the person was considered in good
health. When it was out of balance, the person was ill. For example, when there was too much red bile
(blood), a person would have a fever and need to lose some red bile, hence the
practice of bleeding.
Skansen
Skansen was an outdoor ethnographic
museum. It’s much like our Pioneer
Heritage Village only on a much larger scale.
This outdoor village features a full zoo with local Swedish animals, an
aquarium, a glass blowing shop, a school, churches, blacksmith shop, and many
other buildings significant to the time period.
I really enjoyed touring the one room schoolhouse. The teacher lived in the back of the school,
which had a parlor, kitchen and bedroom.
The teacher was responsible to clean and take care of the building as
well as teach the children the main subjects of reading, writing, and
mathematics.
Other
Attractions and Adventures
Junibacken
is a museum dedicated to Astrid Lindgren who wrote Pippi Longstocking. The museum also contains displays and
activity centers around Lindgren’s other stories. My sister is a huge Pippi Longstocking fan. She used to watch the movie over and over
when she was little and would cry the whole time my mom was rewinding the VHS.
While
in Stockholm we also attended the Nordiska Museum where I saw a fascinating
exhibit on fashion through the ages. One
of the highlights was a film that demonstrated how a woman would get dressed in
the 1400-1500s. It was quite a
complicated process and took quite a while and most women needed
assistance.
We
also toured the Nobel Peace Museum.
Alfred Nobel was responsible for many inventions and he liked to seek
solutions to problems. In his will, he
left money to give to people who had made significant contributions to physics,
chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace. There has been more than 800 laureates since
that time. On our City Hall Tower tour
we were able to see where the Nobel Peace banquet is held.
We
were able to get a great view of Stockholm during our Djurgarden canal tour. We
were able to see many of the sites we toured such as Skansen and Vasa.
One
of the educational highlights in Sweden was going to The University of
Stockholm with an American professor who teaches at the university in their
education and linguistic department. We had a small reception with some of the
instructors in the program as well as several pre-service teachers. It was great to learn about their teacher education
program and to see the excitement the teachers have about their future
profession. I asked a few of the
teachers to tell me some popular Swedish artists to add to our song of the day
on World Wednesday. The teachers even
taught us some children’s songs in Swedish.
Stockholm is a very friendly place with a mix of old architecture and modern design. It is very clean and inviting.
No comments:
Post a Comment