The Stockholm Stadion Sneak...

Friday afternoon while walking towards KTH to revisit my ISU past, we walked by Stockholm Stadion, site of the 1912 Olympics. While wandering around the perimeter trying to get a view of the track inside, the groundskeeper who was leaf blowing nearby must have left a gate opened. Well, when faced with something like that, there's only one thing that you can do, and that's to walk through that gate and apologize later if needed!

Next thing you know, we're inside the stadium wandering around, completely alone except for one runner training with her coach. Pretty soon, we were completely alone, a rather surreal feeling. Well, the only thing you can logically do in THAT situation is to run a lap with the theme from "Chariots of Fire" playing in your head. OK, that was the 1924 Games, but it's the thought that counts! So that's what we did!

Along the way, the boys checked out the steeplechase hurdle. Man that thing is HIGH and the pit is DEEP!

Stockholm Shots!

Vasa Museum

On the way home we saw a guy with a gigantic Toblerone it was 2 kilograms of Toblerone. It's a bit far away but you still can see how huge it is! Remember how Daddy was making fun of Swedish supermarkets yesterday? Well, today we went to the same market and he ended up buying chips!

Lots of Pictures from our Stockholm Adventures!


Today we got the 24 hour Metro pass we also had to pay for cards but they are reloadable so if we come to Sweden Again we can put more on them we also learned that kids are free on the weekends! we went 2 stations and then noticed that we should have only gone 1 stop so we went across and got on the Train that was there but we learned that it was the wrong train to late daddy and Jacob got off but me and mommy didn't. So we had to wait 8 minutes for the next one that went back. Because of that we missed the bus by about 20 seconds. when we did get on the bus we went to the Vasa Museum. After the Vasa we went to the city hall and got a guided tour one room was called the golden room you know why? because it was made of 23 carrot goldthere was a thin leaf of gold sandwiched between 2 pieces of glass in a mosaic.

The story of the Vasa: The Vasa was built by King Gustav Adolfus the second. Because he was in a war with is cousin Sigismund Who was king of Poland about family, religion and conquest. the Vasa was contracted with 3 other ships which only 1 other being finished. Thee king had just lost 10 ships and really needed new ships The Vasa Was the First Ship that was made with 2 gun decks (you would think that if he was in a hurry for ships he would just get normal 1 deck ships). The ship was supposed to go on a 1 day sail to get soldiers to man the 64 cannons and then it was supposed to go on to Poland and stop ships from going in and out. On the first part there were about 200 passengers with the 150 crew members. The Vasa went into the harbor but after about 20 minutes the wind started to blow the Vasa tipped but righted itself once or twice but the guns were used for a royal salute so the holes were open and one time water started pouring in through the holes and the ballast went to the left side.

After about 20 minute more it hit the bottom and instead of blocking the polish harbour it blocked the swedish harbour (the other ship was finished 1 year later so they learned from the Vasa and this ship (called the Apple) was in the royal navy for about 30 years). some things that were wrong with the Vasa were that it was too top heavy with not enough ballast and it was too tall and thin in the other ship they used cannon balls for ballast since they are heavier than the stones that are used in the Vasa. Archaeologists think that about 30-50 people died most of the people survived because they were waving from the top desk 10 of the skeletons were in the museum. In 1961 they started to restore the Vasa. The Vasa was very well preserved because the baltic sea is not salty so there aren,t any ship worms to eat the woodthey brought it partly out of the water and then got out as much of the water and dirt as they could so they could take it to dry dock. they took all the loose pieces out, cleaned, and numbered them then they put them in a water bath untill they could restore them and soak them in polyethylene glycol they also soaked the ship in polyethylene glycol! for 19 years they sprayed it at first every 20 minutes day and night and slowly got longer and then for another 7 years they had to let it dry then they took it to the museum.

Here's a free .mp3 album you can download all about the Vasa!

In the Gold Room of Stockholm City Hall, the mosaic maker wanted seven years to make the room but was only given two years because the opening day was already planned. This led to a big mistake. There is a headless horseman at the very roof when they ran out of room to finish the mosaic because they started from the bottom, so they just left it like that. The horseman turns out to be King Erik from the 1300s. It actually worked out well because Erik was beheaded in battle with the Danes!

On the left we are outside City Hall doing a handstand. On the right we are in the Blue Hall inside City Hall. The architect planned it to be blue but ended up keeping it this way, but the room name was already announced so it stayed that way. He planned the stairs by making eight different wooden models and having his wife test them with big gowns and high heels to decide which is the most comfortable. They are wide and the steps are not very tall so people wouldn't fall or trip at special events like the Nobel Prize banquet.

 On the left is the Ericsson Globe arena, the largest spherical building in the world. If you look closely on the right there is a glass elevator that is also spherical that you can take. On the right we are at the Royal Palace.

On the left is a Viking helmet, and on the right we are doing more handstands in front of St. Jacob's church!

Swedish Supermarket Silliness

We made it by train from Oslo to Stockholm today. The boys have spent the day flaunting their Norway shirts all around town during an exploratory walk, and the highlight for me was returning to the Kungsliga Techniska Hogskolan (Royal Institute of Technology) where I spent the summer of 1995 as a teaching assistant for the International Space University. Another trip down memory lane!

On the way home at the "Sabis" supermarket, we were quite literally stunned speechless at the store layout as you're funnelled towards the checkout...

Birds, The Scream, and Dragonflies

August 9
Today I went to downtown Oslo with Mom and got a Norway T-shirt with a little bit of trouble finding it.Then we went to city hall. At City Hall there where big murals and tapestries. Then we went to the National Art Gallery where we saw a few famous paintings like self portrait of Van Gogh which still had his ear and the first version of ''The scream''. I learned that Munch painted two copies of ''The scream'' and Madonna.

More pictures from Norway

We walked the 6.4 km around a bird sanctuary near Olaf's apartment on Monday.

Here I am in my new Norway t-shirt in front of the Nobel Peace Centre.

The picture on the left is taken outside Oslo's city hall. Inside there were lots of murals depicting Norwegian history.

On the left is a picture of me in front of a self-portrait of Van Gogh, each of us with all of our ears still. On the right is a picture of the first Munch's painting of "The Scream."

This is what our fishing trip at the cabin felt like!

August 10 (by Zachary)

Today we visited Olaf's lab which has the only 2 nuclear reactors in all off Norway. we had to wait for him to finish a meeting before he could show us around. Olaf had a desk that can go up and a down (he said it is so he can get his exercise by standing up and down).he showed us around and we got a oil lesson by one of Olaf's friends. then we went to Toys R Us and looked around and then came home and watched Toy Story 2 with the takeoff from star wars (with Buzz saying Zurg you killed my father and Zurg says Buzz I am your father).

Daddy and Olaf, the two great dragonfly hunters, had been planning all week to wake up early, build Olaf's canoe, and go onto Noklevann well before dawn to photograph dragonflies before they warm up enough to fly. Well, after 4 days of excuses, they finally woke up at 3:30am to get onto the lake before sunrise at 5:26am. However, the dragonflies were all sound asleep deep in the meadows, leaving the two famous hunters to perform one of Daddy's hypothermia experiments instead. Olaf looked thrilled in the kitchen prior to departure, and even more thrilled in the canoe!

Norwegian Dining

Norwegians have an unique view of sandwiches...

Big cabin bash!

Two fishermen

August 3 Wednesday 2011

Today we moved to the Atlantic Ocean near Grimstad on the south coast of Norway. We checked out the cabin which is in two parts 1 half has all the beds and the other has the kitchen and the living room and everything else. There is no bathroom but luckily there was a pre-made hole with a little shed around it for an outhouse so we didn’t have to dig one. After we checked out the house we went to the Ocean and took a plunge, which was pretty warm though not as warm as Crete.


More Pictures from Olaf's Cabin!

August 4 Thursday 2011

Today we missed the before breakfast plunge but we made up for that in the afternoon. We took the upgrade from canoe to motorboat and went to a lake and tried some water-skiing. that almost worked the first time for me but just got steadily worse. Jacob tried it as well but his feet were a bit too small for the skis. Then we all went to land and had about a half an hour nap. Then we packed up and headed for home because it was raining. But on our way home we caught some mussels to catch crabs with tomorrow, with me holding my breath and swimming underwater to grab the mussels. Then we finished going back home and Olaf made fish balls for supper. Another night we had home-made pizza for supper.

I am having ice cream with my new
t-shirt

August 7 Sunday 2011

Yesterday we were going to use Olaf’s telescope and look at stars and other things in the sky. We were having a nap but Olaf and dad didn’t wake us up because it became cloudy Olaf and dad still saw some stuff but when we were looking at the pictures we noticed there were some really amazing things there was even a satellite go by. The Chico song (Daddy and Olaf were members of the infamous Congo Band in Barcelona in 1994) even came out and they recorded it to listen to on the way back. The stars looked like little lines because the earth is spinning so the telescope moved with the earth, even in the space of 10 seconds. Today started out really rainy but ended out with a lot of action. 


We are returning from the south of Norway where Olaf’s cabin is to Oslo. At the cabin we swam, fished, hunted crabs, tried to water-ski, played games, and went to the town which was called Grimstad where I bought a tee- shirt that was made of a jersey kind of material for Only129 Kroners (or around 28 dollars cad) with money Olaf gave me. Jacob and I also bought a game called Ubongo Extreme (Olaf has Ubongo) which is like Ubongo but scoring and shapes are different it is a really good game. Today we also ran to the highway and back it was 3.9KM altogether it took 26:08 minutes and it took Olaf about19.30 minutes. After that we decided to go for a dip to cool off we decided that all five of us should jump off the pier at the same time Olaf forgot his video camera so we had to take pictures instead. We were waiting and Olaf said if it didn’t start clicking in 10 seconds he would check the settings and just when he got there it started clicking and 1 second before we jumped it stopped so we had to do it again and instead of a nice cool down we almost froze. The next time we got these really cool pictures but the water felt even colder!

August 4 we went for a walk in the nearby town of Grimstad. We had a snack at the pharmacy where Henrik Ibsen worked at the start of his career. Grimstad is home to 2 really famous cyclists Dag Otto Lauritzen (who was one of the stars when daddy started following cycling) and Thor Hushovd who is now the current world champion. in the picture there is a display for these two great cyclists it even has their bikes! Daddy actually met Dag Otto Lauritzen on a roadside coffee shop all alone drinking coffee so he got a picture and talked a bit.

Before we went fishing we had to bail out the boat because it had rained the night before this is Olaf's motorboat that we fished, hunted crabs, and water-skied in you can see the grey bucket that is the bucket we kept the mussels in. The engine is 25 horsepower.

Here are pictures of 2 great fishermen! On the right is captain Olaf steering the boat and on the left is Jacob in the boat. There is an Island that looks like a Submarine Olaf says that they call it Submarine Island.      

Here is daddy's feet along with the bonus of Olaf's feet. 

On the right is Olaf playing the Chico song (in the official version you are supposed to sing it for 2 and a half hours of until the police tell you to knock it off but dad and Olaf only did it for 10 minutes) and on the left he is setting up the telescope.

Live from Akerhus Castle

Ever wonder how horses with heavy loads can get up steep cobbled streets in the old days?

more museum blitz!

Today was much like yesterday. We used our Oslo pass some more. First, we went to the Oslo Reptile Park. There were even a few tarantulas and marmosets and a parrot! There were a lot of reptiles such as the Phantom Poison Frog, Red Tailed Racer, African Soft Shelled Turtle, Goliath bird eating spider, Bearded dragon, and those are only a few. They even had piranhas (if they don't get fed enough they will eat each other). Then we went to the Museum of Design where there is a lamp that is in the shape of a parrot. Then we went missed a few bus stops before getting to the International Museum of Children's Art where kids as young as 3 painted pictures and they collected them. Then we missed another bus and had to wait about 5 minutes for the next bus to take us to the Castle but the Castle closed before we got there so we went to the Armed Forces Museum. The last museum we went to was the Nobel Peace Museum then we took the transit home.

More pictures from our museum blitz!

On the left is a picture at the Children's Museum of Art and on the right is a picture of the parrot lamp that was from the Museum of Design.

Some handstands at the castle.

This is called an Axolotl. It was at the Reptile Museum.

After the Museum of design we went to the Frognerbadet water park where at the low diving board I tried to do a front flip but ended out doing a 1 and a quarter flip. These Norwegians are crazy. You have to pay to get into the waterpark and you have to pay 2 dollars cad for one ride on the waterslide when you can kill yourself for free on the diving boards!

Here is Jacob beside a mine at the Museum of Armed Forces.

Note: we will not be posting again untill after sunday because we are going to Olaf's cabin which doesn't have internet.

Museum Blitz

Yesterday we went to a lot of museums. First we took the transit downtown and went to an information center where we bought Oslo passes for 2 days 1 day costs 100 kroner ($20 Cad) and two days is only 20 kroner more for kids (220/340 for adults). On the first day after the information center we took the bus to Bygdoy and went to the Folk museum, the Kon-tiki museum the Fram museum and then the Maritime museum. Then we took the ferry across to the other side (because public transit is included). Then we walked to the palace to watch the changing of the guard and we also had lunch in a shady spot at the bottom of the hill.

Pictures from our museum tour!

Handstands at the folk museum outside the stave church which is from the 1200s, the city hall where the Nobel Peace Prize is given, and the royal palace.

Then since it was on our way we went to the new 2006 Ibsen museum where the made a replica (and used some real pieces of his house) of his apartment. Some things we learned about him were that he was really strict on time every day he would stop by the university and check his watch with the clock there. His schedule was this: he had a 1 and a half hour bath,work from 9 till 11 thirty,then walked to the Grand Cafe for German beer and reading the newspaper, then back writing for 5 hours, and another bath. He had a couch in his office so sometimes he would have a nap but if his wife heard him snoring she would come in and take the blanket. Ibsen has a portrait of another playwright who they each do not like the other behind his back when he was writing for inspiration. Daddy would have a whole row of portraits some days!

On the left is the Ra 2 at the Kon-tiki but they also had the original Kon-tiki raft that is made of balsa wood. On the right is a picture of a harpoon made from a Narwal tusk at the Fram museum.

At the resistance museum the first thing you see when you go is is this huge sculpture made of guns in the Nazi symbol and the last thing you see is the Germans surrendering. On the left is the changing of the guard at the royal palace.

 Here is a picture of me with the cannons at Akerhus castle.

Here is a picture of the scream I took at the Munch museum the painting was stolen for a few months before it was found a little while ago. Olaf said that the museum was given $5,000,000 for security before the painting was stolen but hadn't used it yet. So now it has bullet-proof glass over the scream and you cannot bring any bags into the museums. They also have metal detectors now in front of the ticket booth.