Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Australia Day

Happy Australia Day! Today in Aus everyone will be having bbq's and running around in bathing suits, not us....

Not sure why it is such a novelty to stand on the ice above water....but it is!


First on the list for today was Skansen, an outdoor museum that details life in Sweden. They had quite a few shops set up as they would have been in the mid 1800's. We watched glass blowing here, very interesting and of course, he made it seem effortless.

In the kiddy land they had these cool sheep made out of rope to play on, so we played.

They had a whole portion of the park for the local animals of Sweden. Reindeer. No sign of Santa though.

One of the bird keepers had these really amazing owls out to show the kids. This one was extremely tame, there were all these little kids around standing really close and it seemed not even to notice them, very interesting birds.

I think it might have been the first time for me to see a moose, don't remember seeing them in a zoo ever.

On our way out of the park we found these classic painted horses. Getting up on them was half the fun. It's harder than it looks.

After Skansen we headed to the island of Gramla Stan, which is their old town, again those classic shop lined streets that are so fantastic for strolling.

We went to this cool cafe that had a cellar for some Swedish desserts. Hannah just got a new camera so we were trying out all the different colors.

Our last stop on Australia day was the Absolute Ice Bar. Complete contrast from what Hannah would be doing at home right now.

It was the very first ice bar ever created, everything but the floor and ceiling are made of ice. We had to put on these special parkas not only to keep us warm but so that our body temperature wouldn't melt the ice.


Even the cups are made of ice... we got some lemonade sort drink...which was glowing, tasty but suspicious.

Not terribly comfortable, but we "chilled" (excuse the terrible pun) in these ice recliners....just long enough to take a picture really.


And of course, to end our Australia day celebration, we had to run around in our t-shirts and freeze on the deck of the boat. Nothing like shrimps on the barbie at the beach like all other Ausies were doing today, but much more memorable.
















1 comment:

Danielle said...

much different from Australia Day in Australia! I love that they are so passionate about being Aussie!! I'm glad you had fun! The ice bar looks super COOL:)