What have you been doing lately? Why, visiting museums!

I have failed to mention to all of you what I do with most of my time (outside of the reading  for school). I go to museums galore! I arrived and was given a list of 75 museums in the greater Stockholm area to visit. I read through the list and plan on visiting most of them! I have kind of lost track of how many I have gone to but probably like 10-15 I would guess. I wanted to tell you about the best of them so you know which ones to go to!


Top museums so far: Vasa Museum, The Royal Armoury, and Technical Museum
Favorite Places to visit that aren't really classified as "museums:" Drottingholm Palace, Kunglia Operan (The Opera House)


The Vasa Museum: 


This museum houses a real ship from 1628 that sank in the harbor in Stockholm 20 min after leaving the dock. There is still no definitive answer as to why this ship sank but it did. It might have been because the proportions were wrong or because not enough crew members were on board. Whatever the reason it sank. Luckily for us, it was discovered in 1965 and later brought to the museum in 1988 after years of cleaning and restoring. It was probably the coolest thing ever. We enjoyed the guided tour as well as a film about getting the ship out of the harbor. There were 5 floors of interesting stuff to explore as well. I really enjoyed it. I should also say that the Vasa was quite a ship. She was brightly painted and had frightening carvings all over her. She was a warship after all and king Gustav Aldof II did not want anyone to defeat Sweden! The museum had a scale model of the the Vasa which was a sight to see. If you ever come to Stockholm, the Vasa Museum is a must see. It was well worth the money I spent! Oh and the restaurant was very nice as well if you are hankering for some food! 

Vasa replica

The real deal! 

Close up of the canon

The Royal Armoury: 

Located in the basement of the Royal Palace, this small museum has the gems of the city! It was so cool to see weapons and clothes from kings and queens of the past! I love that kind of stuff so I just ate it up! The coolest thing was the blood stained clothes that Gustav III died in at a masquerade ball. I bought my first book from Sweden here because it had pictures of all of the royalty. If anyone likes royalty stuff, they should go here. Way cool!! 

The Technical Museum: 

This museum was awesome!! It contained the exhibit "NASA-A Human Adventure" that had the coolest stuff about space travel, the space race, and other neat stuff. I went with a friend and we just geeked out at the whole space travel stuff. Plus we had rented the audio guides which were cheap and were the best investment! They were iPod touches and had video and pictures to go along with the audio and music. It was so neat! There was a lot of cool stuff at this exhibit. The museum also had exhibits about inventions, energy use, telephones and lots of cool stuff for kids to do that I tried out, of course! It was pretty great. Once again, this is a good museum to go to if you like technology and stuff. A lot of the permanent exhibits were mostly in Swedish but we still looked at lots of cool stuff! 

Space Salt and Pepper shakers! I want these!

Space ship models. I believe this was the Gemini ship.

A current space suit

Drottingholm Palace: 

The residence of the royal family is only a 15 min bus ride from my house! That is so awesome! It is a beautiful palace both inside and out. They didn't allow pictures inside but i bought a book and you could probably google it to find some online! The palace has 100 rooms and we got to see about 25 of them. They were beautiful! The palace is mostly baroque style but also has other styles depending on which king or queen decided to redecorate the rooms. Outside there is a huge garden. Huge doesn't even begin to describe the size. I didn't walk the whole thing because it was so large. There are trees and statues everywhere. Mind you, there was snow all around but it was still really cool. I plan on returning to see it when the snow has melted! I can't wait! :) 

The front of the palace

The back

the back again. they were doing some "yard work" in the gardens on the lime trees they have there.

View from the garden. 

I think I already blogged about the opera house but if I didn't just tell me and I'll fill you all in! :) 

I have visited some other museums that were pretty good, but not my favorite. I am still glad I went for the experience. The Museum of Ethnography, the Modern Museum, and the Architecture Museum. 

Now I think if I just go to at least 2 museums a weekend then I can manage to see most of the museums in the area! That will be great! Did I mention I love museums?! 

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Now, I just need to pack for my trip to Kiruna. You probably have 2 questions. What is that and what are we doing there? Well, Kiruna is a mining town in the very northern part of Sweden known as Lapland. It is close to the Ice Hotel (the hotel made completely from ice). We (myself and 5 other friends from the program) are going up tomorrow night and are going to see the northern lights by dog sled, tour the ice hotel, maybe have a tour of the mine, and enjoy the sauna in the hostel. Oh and eat some delicious food! :) It should be a great trip! 

That's all for now! Thanks for reading!