Sayonara Sweden, Destination Denmark

In that order. Had a really nice day my last day in Stockholm. I found out that there is a Tall Boats race in the Baltic, and they were all docked in Stockholm that weekend. Well over 100 sailing vessels, from just over 10 metres to well over 100 metres in length. Single mast to full rigged four master's. Along with quite a crown along the waterfront, I had a great time looking at all of them, and of course using up a lot of pixels on my memory stick. Some even allowed the tourist to come on board, but the lines were long, and walking around on a deck is not much better than walking along the quay. Boats were from all over the world. Two Polish boats had crews that were of Polish descent, but almost all were American citizens.

The only problem was a repeat of one I had in Trondheim. I ordered peel and eat shrimp again. Forgot that it takes 1/2 hour to peel, and 2 minutes to eat. Plus, this was a stand on the quay, so they didn't even have a bowl of water to rinse the hands in. Live and learn: eventually.

Remember my good comments about the Nobel Museum in Oslo? there is an even better one in Stockholm. This one included a guided tour in English, making it all the more understandable. Much easier to hear it than to read it, even when the text is in English. I won't bore you with any of the details, except to say they had a very nice temporary exhibit on W. Churchill. It included a lot of his art, which wasn't bad, by my standards. I'm now filled with all kinds of Nobel trivia. For example, who is the only person to have won two Nobel prizes, without sharing at least one of the prizes with someone else?

And now I'm in Linkoping (pronounced Linchopinggg, although every other Swedish K I've heard is pronounced the way a K should be pronounced) for a day or so. Not a great tourist town, just a nice one to relax in and re-charge a bit. There is an Air museum out of town, which I'll attend when I finish with this. I did something out of the ordinary last night. Went to see "Harry Potter och Fenixorden" with Swedish subtitles. Not quite as good as earlier ones, in my opinion. Not as much humor, much more of the dark arts. To each his own.

The aviation museum was excellent. Got there about 12:30, and didn't leave until after 4. For you aviation buffs, I took photos of not only the planes, but the vary detailed description of the plane. In English, I might add. I'm going to put them on a separate CD when I get home, and I'll make copies if anyone is interested. One of you has a birthday in November, so I'll make at least one CD. I talked to an older gentleman who said his father was the first pilot to fly one of the planes I looked at, and had given him a ride in it later on. Said his father logged over 13,000 flights, and flew 47 different aircraft in his career.

Off tomorrow AM for Goteborg, where I have a reservation on a hotel that is a ship tied up to the quay. Should be interesting.

Now in Goteborg, and the ship/hotel is interesting. It was built in 1907, I think, a 4 mast sailing vessel. Hauled a lot of freight in it's day, and now is outfitted as a hotel. Cabin much like a cruise ship, only smaller, with bunk beds. Community showers and such, but that's no different than many of the hotels and hostels. Best breakfast selection I've had so far, as best I can remember. It will be a real transition for me when I get home not to have a sandwich, cucumbers. tomatoes and peppers along with my cereal, toast and coffee for breakfast.

Just arrived yesterday PM, and have walked around a bit, but not investigated any of the attractions. So you'll have to wait with bated breath for that. It has a real big city atmosphere, much like Stockholm or Copenhagen.

Time for random thoughts: One doesn't have to worry about being alone in a dark street late at night here in the summer. There aren't any dark streets, with sunset so late, and sunrise so early. The nights don't get much darker than what I think of as dusk. Although it is beginning to get a bit dark in the wee small hours.

Yet another use for cell phones. While riding the local buses, I've noticed that some people just open their cell phone and show it to the driver, and that seems to be their bus pass. Not sure how that works.

Time to go exploring in Goteborg.

Which I did today. Only after making reservations for my next leg, though, which will be to Fredrikshavn, Denmark, then on to Aalborg, on Friday.

Main visit today was to the Maritime Museum. Yes, I know I said I wouldn't do that again on this trip. But this one was real ships that could be boarded and explored. About 8 or thereabouts. Several navy ships, a fire-boat, freighter, tug, salvage vessel, and lightship. All in all, it was really nice. I was about to grouse about not getting down into the engine rooms of the first ones I saw, when I got there on the navy destroyer. Now I'm glad all over again that I wasn't a snipe when in the navy.

Today, I went to the Goteborg City museum, which wasn't all that bad. From pre-history until modern times. Much of it had good English translations. Several areas I thought might be interesting, though, didn't. Ah well, can't have everything. How many American museums are in Swedish? From there, I took in the Goteborg art museum. Not all that bad, either. It concentrated on Scandinavian artists, but had a few from elsewhere. Pretty good selection of impressionists. Also separate wings on photography and modern art. The photography, for the most part, was pretty good. A competition for a scholarship. The modern art, however... Didn't take me long to cover that.

Another place I thought I'd enjoy was the Museum of Culture. Thought it was supposed to be a collection of cultures worldwide, showing how they inter-related. Not so. One floor on trafficking in prostitution, one small exhibit on trans-gender people, one I thought would be an exhibit on global warming turned out to be a commercial for a book, and one very nice exhibit on the Orinoco river rain forests and the people who live there. By the time I got to that one, after the others, I couldn't appreciate it. Too bad, it would have been nice under other circumstances.

And that's it for Sweden. Tomorrow I catch the ferry for Denmark, the last leg of the Scandinavian part of the tour. I'll spend several days in Aalborg. That will be a base for exploring the surrounding area, as Aalborg itself isn't that large or interesting. It says in fine print, who knows?

Anyway, that's it for now. Danish episode to follow.