First Day in Sweden

This is our hostel....rad! It was built in the late 1800's and used as a training ship for the navy. It made several trips around the world before serving as WWII bunkers and was then converted into a youth hostel. So fun!

So as the pictures show, it was really freezing. Hannah is wearing about 16 layers and looks like a hybrid between a bag lady and a Japanese tourist! Haha! I had a map to the church, so we inquired about it, but turns out that the closest church is about 250 miles away....too bad, it would have been fun to attempt to sing the hymns in Swedish.

We figured out the bus system and got some yummy Swedish hot dogs from a street vendor ( how he is street vending in this weather I have no idea) and headed to the Vasa Museum.

This is the Vasa. It was a 17th century war ship that tipped over and sunk after sailing for about 20 minutes. It sat at the bottom of the Baltic sea until the 1960's when it was recovered. Because the Baltic sea is not very salty there are no barnacles here, so it able to be easily restored to almost it's original state. Extremely impressive.

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This is the extremely elaborate stern of the ship. It is covered with elaborate crests and statues of roman gods. All these were meant to show the Swedes power....ironic that it sank in 20 minutes....must have put quite a dent in their ego.

This is an old diving bell. You would have stood up in there and been lowered into the water. The air trapped in the top of the bell would have allowed you 30 minutes of oxygen under the water.....cool, but creepy.

After the Vasa museum, we decided to come back to our ship and relax, we were really tired after the long journey and working night shifts. Hannah actually fell asleep in the movie about the ship and slept for about an hour and a half. Hehe. Our room is fantastic, very nautical, and the showers are great which is a huge plus for Hannah. The camera timer caught us here quicker than expected...

We had dropped by the grocery store for some food and found these little coconut covered puff balls. Can't really explain what they are....just heavenly balls of goodness. Some kind of melt in your mouth marshmallow goodness. Nice one Sweden.