"Water, water everywhere/ and all the boards did shrink..."~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

What do you think of when you think of visiting Europe? Do you think of visiting Paris? or Spain? What about London? That one seems to be very popular. Have you ever thought about Sweden or Norway? No, me neither. That's what makes this past weekend so Amazing!

While the Baylor in Maastricht program gives up three Month Eurail passes, sometimes there isn't enough time in a weekend to go someplace further away and sightseeing. In that case let me introduce you to this little gem, it's called Ryan Airlines. Ryan Air is a discount airline that services Europe, and when I say discount, I mean discount. My flight to Sweden cost me a whopping 7.00 Euro, that's a little less than $14.00 for you American currency fans, and the flight home from Oslo cost a little less than that.

So Friday morning me and four of my Maastricht buddies boarded a plane bound for Stockholm, Sweden for a bit of Scandinavian bliss. Here's what I saw: lots and lots of boats, ranging in age from new to old, to holy cow that thing still exists?

Stockholm was my favorite for some reason I can't explain in rational terms. I think perhaps we had a very relaxed day. All that was really scheduled was a trip to the Vasa Museum so we got to take out time wandering through souvenir shops and little markets along the way. Oh, and don't forget strolling by the harbor.














I've spent the past three summers working the USS Cairo Museum at Vicksburg National Military Park, and I have heard the Vasa referenced at least once a month by some well travelled retired couple, usually the wife as the husband has already disappeared somewhere into the depths of the museum leaving her to entertain herself i. e. talk to the Park Ranger. "Have you ever heard of the Vasa." "Oh, you should definitely take a trip to see the Vasa" (said as if this trip would take only a couple of hours from Vicksburg). "The Vasa is the best preserved ship I've ever seen!" Really, I've heard just about everything in connection to the Vasa. I knew most of the story, I just hadn't seen it yet. Now I have, and I can say that everything everyone ever mentioned about it.... it's all true.

(These pictures turned out really dark, so I messed with the brightness so you can see them better. This, however makes them look slightly strange I think.)

The Vasa was commissioned by the King of Sweden in 1628, (so think... Spanish Armada, end of Elizabeth's reign, around that time period). It must have been absolutely beautiful for its time with all the decorations and painted sculptures that adorned her facade. Unfortunately this wasn't going to last too long because the ship had not longer been afloat more than 30 minutes before it sank. Why you ask? Well, the Vasa was one of the first ships that was built with not one, but two gun decks, this meant she weighed more and this fact was coupled with the problem that she was disporportionately tall compared to her width. She was top heavy and stared to lag to once side. Since the gun portals were so close to the water line, in goes the water and down goes the ship. She was recovered in 1961 (around the same time as the Cairo, interestingly enough) and now it the central sight to see in Stockholm.


Friday night our Swedish adventures ended, I am sad to say and we all boarded a train for an eleven hour trip to Oslo, but this time we had a sleeper compartment with I thought was really cool. I spent several hours hanging off the edge of my bunk taking pictures at the scenery as it wizzed by at 200+ miles an hour.

Saturday morning brought us to the Norwegian Folk Museum that was primarily about the cultural traditions of Norway. I'm ashamed to admit it, but it took me back to my American Girl doll days and my love for all things Kirsten. She was really supposed to be Swedish but the clothes and furniture all looked the same! There were a couple of permanent museums and then the village which is basically made up of buildings from the 1600s and later that were taken down and moved to the museum. It was a nice little stroll.



Then we high tailed it over to the Viking Museum to see move boats that had sunk and then dug up. Except this time they were older. I know what you're thinking, Lindsay how much older can you get than the Vasa? Uh, alot older actually, and since I haven't seen any Roman stuff yet, I think these ships are the oldest that I've seen since I've been over here. There was one ship in particular, the Gokstad Ship, that was amazingly preserved and it was built in 810 AD!



Can you imagine, the people settled Iceland and Greenland and made it all the way to Canada from Norway in little boats like these...

That was about it for my Scandinavian adventure. Oh, and my interesting food find of the trip was a grilled Moose Hotdog. Yea, instead of ketchup or mustard they put potato salad on top. Yummy.