Sveeden

Stockholm is the only city/town that I visited in Sweden, although I did see some countryside from the bus and archipelago from the boat. But, what I saw, I liked. Yeah, I know, that's getting cliched: "I went here; I liked it." Actually, one of the most interesting this about going to Sweden was hearing parts of Scandinavian history told from a Swedish perspective. For instance, Norway was under Danish rule for 400 years until an unfortunate little incident also know as the Napoleonic wars forced the Danes to give up Norway to Sweden. So then Sweden and Norway were "united" for about 90 years until the Norwegians decided they wanted out. To hear Norway tell the story, "Independence Day" was a long time coming. But in a Stockholm museum I was told that Sweden was "shocked" that Norway wanted to break up the "peaceful union of the brother countries."

The Norway/Sweden divorce doesn't really have much to do with my pictures, though. The little picture is of the changing of the guard at the Royal Palace in Stockholm. The big, dark picture is of the Vasa. Vasa was a Swedish warship that sank 20 minutes into its 1628 maiden voyage (whoops). It sat on the bottom of Stockholm's harbor for 333 years until the Swedes (with the help of some steele cables and one heck of a Shop Vac) rescued it from the depths and built it a nice museum. Aw, what a nice story.