Saturday, May 21

Even though it was my son's birthday (sorry I wasn't there) back home, it was a slower day for us in Stockholm. Being that it's the weekend and we only have a couple of days left, we had only one formal activity and then the group was invited to do whatever they wanted the rest of the day. For most, that meant some good shopping time.

The day's event, however, wasn't shabby as we toured Gamla Stan or "Old Town". This is the area of Stockholm where the king and queen reside, where Parliament meets, and where a lot of good history took place. We toured both the King's Palace and the Armory Museum underneath the palace. We also walked a bit around Gamla Stan and took a look at some of the older buildings.

Most of us capped the day off by going to the newest "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie that premiered this week.

Here we are in the shadows of the north side of the King's Palace with the Parliament building in the background.

Stefanie, Meagan, Heather (hidden), Jeremy, Marcy, and Eric wait inside the courtyard of the palace. We're just about to go inside.

This is inside the King's Palace...one of the many beautiful rooms. We didn't have a guide for this one. We just walked through on our own. The king's flag was flying so we knew he was in the palace, but we didn't see him.

"Sir" Jeremy and his squire, Troy, getting set up for battle (inside the Armory Museum). Good thing no one caught us talking this armor off the manikin and putting it on Jeremy. (Just kidding).

We got outside just in time for the changing of the guards...I hope this video works for most of you.

Back in the courtyard now, while the guards actually did their changing. There were a lot of people who wanted to watch!

As a group, we tried to find this, the smallest statue in Sweden. I was looking behind the wrong church. This is actually behind the Finnish Church near the palace. Jeremy, Eric and I went back to investigate. Eric found a guide who got us close to the place and then gave us good directions. After walking right by it a couple of times, we saw it. People leave coins and do as we are doing...rub it's head for good luck.


I'm not sure about the timing of future posts. We leave next for Turku, Finland on the ferry and are staying in a hotel in Turku. I'll add more posts when I can access the Internet again.

Friday, May 20

Viking burial grounds are found over many parts of Scandinavia. Today, we took a trip to see some up close in the former capital of Sweden: Uppsala. Uppsala is only a short train ride from Stockholm. It took us about an hour to get there. Last time we came to Stockholm with a study abroad group, we rented a van to get to Uppsala. It's too bad we didn't use the train. It was much cheaper and it's easy to get around in Uppsala.

Our first stop in Uppsala was to Gamla Uppsala or "Old Uppsala". This is the area where the burial grounds are easy to see. They have a small museum that details the Viking era and includes a few artifacts uncovered at some of the local sites. In fact, while we were there, we were able to watch some archeologists in action. They showed us a pig tooth they had recently found. Maybe it was part of a Viking meal...don't know.

In the Gamla Uppsala Museum, people can try on "authentic" Viking garb. Meagan and Stefanie put one the heavy chain tops and helmets. Meagan ready to defend us all with her mighty sword.

We were able to participate in a tour of the area. Here the group hikes up a short hill to get a better look at the grave mounds.

Our guide talks about the site. Jeremy, Eric, Lisa, Nathan, Dave and Stefanie listen in. Two of the three major burial grounds are in the background. At one point, people said they were the burial sites of three gods. Later, others believed them to be three major Viking kings. Our guide tells us that the evidence doesn't verify either theory. In fact, one of the sites is home to the remains of a female.

A group of pre-school kids enjoy Gamla Uppsala with us.

After we left Gamla Uppsala, we traveled into the main part of the city where we toured the Dome Church, Gustavianum Museum and the Linne' Botanical Garden. Gustavianum is the museum linked to Uppsala University and includes many of the artifacts collected by the university from around the world.

Here we all are in Gustavianum Museum in a theater once used by university students to view autopsies, as part of their anatomy and physiology training. It's pretty steep.

Marcy takes advantage of the peaceful serenity of Linne' Gardens. As you can tell, she's ready to move on to the next site. Below, Jeremy and Lisa take it to the next level...I guess we walked and saw a lot today.

Part of Linne' Gardens. This one's just for my wife!

In order to give everyone a bit of a break, we organized a trip to see Stadshuset (city hall) today and the rest of the day was open to whatever the group members wanted to do on their own. Stadshuset, among other things, is where the Nobel banquet is housed each year in December. The winners of the Nobel prizes (there are six each year, five awarded in Stockholm and one in Norway) have dinner with the king and queen of Sweden and about 1,400 of their closest friends. We had a guided tour of the building where this was explained to us. We learned that the food is prepared on the third floor and delivered to the first floor...the elevators only go down to the 2nd floor, so the servers have to walk down a flight of stairs in front of all 1,400 people to get the food to them. All 1,400 are served within three minutes of each course being introduced. We also found out that it takes three months to wash the hand-painted dinner wear on which the food is served. We all enjoyed the tour. There was much about the building itself and how it was designed and built in the early 1900s.

Eric, Meagan, Stefanie, Lisa, and Troy, with the rest of us behind them, listen to our guide as he starts the tour in the "Blue Room". This is actually inside Stadshuset in the room where the Nobel banquet is held. It's meant to look like you're outside.

 This is a city hall and this is the chamber room where the city council meets...it's made up of more than 100 members. Heather, Jeremy, Meagan and Stefanie are pictured.

A small area between larger rooms. Everyone's in this one except Lisa...she must be taking pictures. It seemed that every time I tried to take a picture of our group, a few of them were taking pictures as well.

This is inside the "Gold Room", where the walls are actually small golf-leaf squares sandwiched between layers of small glass squares...only 22 lbs of gold, in all, to cover the entire room.

Here we all are outside the building. The above represents the Dalarnahess famous in Sweden. They are small, wooden hand carved and painted horses given long ago as gifts. They now represent Sweden. This is a large cement version.

Outside on the steps in the courtyard of Stadshuset.

At that point in the day, we all went our separate ways. The group who was with me and my camera traveled south to see the Stockholm LDS temple. My former mission president and his wife are now the president and matron of the temple. It was a nice chance to say hi to them.

Nathan, Ken, Sister Bonnie and President Paul Oscarson, and Meagan are pictured here. The Oscarsons were kind enough to offer us dinner in their home next to the temple.

Headed outside to take a few pictures. The temple is in the background. Eric and Jeremy were with us as well. Actually Stefanie, Heather and Marcy joined us for the trip out so they could see the temple, but then headed back while the rest of us stayed.

It was a great day for me in so many ways.

Wednesday, May 18

I was looking forward to today because of our visit to Karolinska Hospital and Institute. One of Europe's biggest and best hospitals, Karolinska is located on more than one campus in Stockholm. This year, we visited the campus in Huddinge. It was just a bit south...a very short train ride...from where we are staying. Our host was Ann Britt Bolin, M.D., chief of quality and patient safety at Karolinska. She graciously spent two hours with us. Part of that time was a tour of a new newborn ICU just built in the hospital, with a neonatalogist, Lars (sorry, I didn't get his last name), who helped design and now runs the unit. It was beautiful. Each room was built to allow both parents to spend nights with their new infant...no charge to them. In some cases, the rooms had a pull-down double bed in it. In some, their was a hospital bed for the mother, if she needed it, and a pull-down single bed for the father.

Dr. Bolin also spent a lot of time telling us about Karolinska and some of what they are doing there.

Dr. Bolin and Lars talk to the group about Karolinska. By now, you should pretty much know the members of our group.

We were to meet with another individual from Karolinska, but had a little misunderstanding of where to meet and so that didn't happen. We did enjoy lunch in the hospital cafeteria.

Later on in the day, most of us took a boat trip to Fjäderholmarna, a small island about a half hour away from Stockholm. It was a very nice day and the trip took us into a beautiful group of islands and along the edge of the Vasa Museum and Skansen, where we visited yesterday. At Fjäderholmarna, we just spent a leisurely afternoon walking around the island. We got back from there around 5 pm and at that point, everyone had free time and were on their own.

On the boat ride to Fjäderholmarna, a reporter from the New York times took Lisa's picture and interviewed her about our trip. He was doing a story about 36 hours in Stockholm. It should be published within the next 10 days, he said. A few pictures will be in the print edition and many more online.

On the island of Fjäderholmarna.

11 skeleton heads of Pike (a fish, and these are pretty big), 11 members of our group??? We weren't sure what that meant.

 Another shot from the island with Heather, Marcy, Stefanie and Meagan.

Of course we all had to visit the underground whiskey distillary on the island. It goes pretty far back and at one point, you see all of the equipment and barrels used there. Eric, Heather (a little tipsy), Meagan and Stefanie were there. Nathan and Marcy are in the background.

After the trip, six of us just wandered through an area of town we hadn't yet visited. Jeremy, Nathan, Lisa, Eric and Dave are all enjoying their Swedish fish, brought by Eric from America. He wondered if they would taste better here. They do.

Tuesday, May 17

We enjoyed, today, a visit to Stockholm University with friends we met last time we brought a group to Sweden. Helena Falkenberg, Niklas Hansen, and Johnny Hellgren, the chair of the occupational psychology department, took the time to come in...even though they are off work right now...and talk with us about the privatization of some of the hospitals here and how that has affected the employees who work at those hospitals. We enjoyed their presentation and then had the opportunity to eat lunch on the campus...real Swedish food. We enjoyed it.

Helena Falkenberg talks to our group. Meagan and Troy are listening intently. Helena met us at the subway stop and walked us around campus...giving a short tour. She also made sure that we found our way out and stayed to help us find some Stockholm University shirts and other goodies.

                                        Johnny, Niklas, Helena and Ken.

After our visit to Stockholm University and lunch, our group headed out to two of the key tourist sites in Stockholm...the Vasa Museum and Skansen. The Vasa Museum houses a hugh sailing ship from the early 1600s, that sunk shortly after it was first launched. It was basically top heavy. The entire ship was recovered from the depths and restored in the 1950s.

Jeremy stands by a model of the Vasa. The actual ship is behind the model and pictured below. It's hard to actually see how big the ship is with these photos, but below, you can see a man standing at the very bottom left of the picture and the ship...just to give some idea of the size.

Skansen is an open-air museum, depicting Scandinavia in the 1800s. It is a large campus with a variety of small shops and sites, including a zoo. Unfortunately, we had to jump in and out of some of the buildings to avoid the rain...we did have a few dry moments.

A number of the local Swedes have jobs at Skansen depicting the old days and old crafts. Below is a glassblower who was creating a number of small glass animals in front of us.

 Lisa and Dave are visiting with the experts at the hardware store. I think Lisa was asking about marbles and we were all having trouble with the translation. They didn't have any for sale.

It just so happens that May 17 is Norway's national day, so many of the visitors in Skansen were dressed in traditional Norwegian outfits. These little girls were willing to pose with Lisa, Jeremy, Eric and Dave.

Skansen sits on a hill above Stockholm. You can see some of the city in the background.

So far on this trip, we've used planes, trains, subway, buses and now the city tram. Meagan, Stefanie, Heather and Marcy are all pictured on the way back from the day's activities.

Monday, May 16

Monday was our first full day in Stockholm and the first opportunity we had to learn about the health care system in Sweden. We visited with Erik Svanfelt of the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR). We spent a couple of hours with Erik as he explained his role, the role of SALAR, how health care is financed and administered throughout the country here, how government is organized, and he answered a number of questions. I was greatly impressed with the questions our group asked and their obvious preparation prior to coming. Even though we were experiencing jet lag and it was the afternoon, we all seemed to stay awake and pay attention. It didn't hurt that Erik gave us a break halfway through the discussion...and he offered us some tasty Swedish treats.

Pictured is Erik speaking to us all...you can see our Eric, Troy and Lisa in the picture.

SALAR is in a beautiful building and we visited on the top floor. It allowed for some great opportunities for photos. Here (below) is Lisa Nichols and Jeremy Conk taking advantage of the opporutnity.

The trip isn't only all work and no play...we took a short boat ride to Drottningholm Palace, one of the homes to the king and queen of Sweden. In fact, as we toured the palace, we were told that the king was coming shortly after our visit to have his photo taken. They were going to close the palace to visitors at that time. As it was, we were able to tour only a small portion of the palace, in which the royalty did not actually live.

Here are a few photos from the visit...

Above is the group getting ready to board the boat (in the background) that would take us to the palace. It was about a one-hour trip. The weather wasn't perfect, but we were lucky in that it seemed to rain when we were in doors and then clear up a bit when we were out of doors.

Below is Heather, Marcy, Jeremy, Stefanie, Meagan, and Eric on the boat ride.

Above...Ken outside the palace on the beautiful grounds...behind me is just a small portion of the entire grounds surrounding the palace. No pictures from inside, we weren't allowed. Below, Stefanie is about to take a picture of Nathan and Meagan.