Last one, everyone! Thanks for reading, or at least for skimming through or clicking "mark as read". This one is partly about Stockholm, and partly about everywhere else, including the internet, specifically where travel photographs are located. Well, where they will be. They're 70% uploaded at present.

Journalliness!
7/28/07 (oh, goody! sixteen years and one month!) Stockholm
We spent the day at Skansen, a lovely open air museum with building types from all over Sweden and some from Norway and Finland, including the Sami sod tepees and Northern houses on stilts. In some of the buildings, actors in historical costume spun wool, and answered touristy questions, and posed for pictures. I, as usual, looked costumey, so some guy took a picture of me, which I found amusing, especially his confused expression as I rejoined my Ryan and Eileen and walked off. (No, I don't believe that was quite grammatical, but I'm laughing inside, and therefore will overlook it.)
Further along in Skansen was a zoo, where we watched young bears wrestle in and out of the water, pet a moose's horn as it lay by the fence (it's fuzzy! Also, it was warm and felt alive, all the way to the tip. Ryan says that if you squeezed, it was nasty and oily. I didn't.), watched a peacock escape and be followed by children (and, okay, us), longed to stroke the elusive mink, and stared at an owl, which stared back when Ryan made crow sounds (owls don't like crows. Crows mob them.). My favorite part was the red squirrel that approached and walked over Eileen's foot, nosed under my hand, and jumped onto Ryan's pants.
Dinner was traditional Swedish meatballs, potatoes, and lingomberry jam (how do you spell that?).

7/29/07 Stockholm
A metro (I have a very high opinion of this metro- we've always been able to find seats, together even, and they are clean and efficient) brought us to the Historiskamuseet (translation: you could probably guess that this was a history museum), where we learned all about Vikings (pretty gold... pretty silver...), Sweden in the Middle Ages (it was religious. blah.), and strangely, an ethical dilemma (for those of you who don't speak Montessori, that's a problem that comes up in reality that doesn't really have a right answer) relating to the Mayas (some kind of murder mystery set up as some sort of an RPG (for those of you who don't speak geek, that's Role Playing Game) through which you could walk and understand different sides of the issue).
Back out in the streets, we saw a parade line up, and went to watch it. It turned out to be the Tall Ships Races opening ceremonies, with several countries represented (though it was hard to tell which). Across the street, we watched an elderly band perform oldies songs. One of the ladies did a strangely accurate Marilyn Monroe impression, at least vocally. Following a sign, we found a Wooden Horse Museum and perused the history of these toys. They had a collection, in the museum's one room, of horses from the 1800s to the present. Originally, they were used as religious votives, then became children's toys, carved from carpenters' leftovers. It wasn't until the NYC World's Fair (late 1800s) that they became representative of Sweden. So there you go. Now you know more than you will ever need to about Dala horses.
Across the square from the little museum, Ryan went into the Nobel Prize Museum. Did you know that Alfred Nobel invented dynamite and then spent the rest of his life trying to make people forget that? Did you know that someone declined the prize by personal choice, because he felt that awards were fetters to freedom? Do you care? It was a bit pricey,and I wasn't interested enough to actually want to go in, so Eileen and I sat on the steps, facing the square, in which a father and daughter were playing music on violin and accordion. I juggled (well, of course. It's not like I didn't carry them around with me every day), which attracted the attention of some elementary-age kids, with whom I then played catch. One little girl, maybe two and a half years old, wandered over, fascinated, and sat almost on my lap, reaching for a ball. When I handed it to her, she took it and walked away across the square. Her mother had to make her give it back. She kept watching and reaching her hand out for a ball for a while. It rained briefly, and I had to stop juggling, because it's really frustrating to juggle when you keep hitting the domed roof of an umbrella. When the sun came back out, some costumed actors entered the square to rehearse what appeared to be Mercutio and Tybalt's duel scene (Romeo and Juliet, if you didn't catch on). They weren't very convincing at first, but they got better. I particularly enjoyed when the man costumed as the friar took one of the rapiers and demonstrated a more dramatic lunge.
Finally, Ryan came out of the museum and we returned to the hostel for the night.

7/30/07 Stockholm - U.S.A
Thanks to modern transportation (and no thanks to several-hour stopovers and delays), one can travel nearly halfway around the world in twenty-five or so hours. Afoot to Zinkensdamm metro station, metro (or T-bana, as one might actually say here) to the bus station (T-centralen), and from there we took a bus to the airport. We had a seven-or-so-hour layover in the Philadelphia airport, but now, at after 3 AM tomorrow in Stockholm but only 6 PM Seattle time (I'm going to be so jet-lagged) we fly home into the sunset, where shall be chauffered by car from Sea-Tac (yes, of course I mean we'll be chauffered into the sunset. Ambiguity in language is never present).

So, yeah. We got home. For a whole three and a half days. No wait, actually two and mostly. Just enough time to unpack, shower, run a laundry, repack, pet the cats, make caviar (of salmon eggs! On the first day back!), and get sick of smoked salmon (we now have our very own smokehouse, and came home to find the fridge's lower half and vegetable drawers (no, there were no vegetables in them- that's Eileen who puts them there) full of freshly smoked Alaskan salmon from Rick's sisters). Oh yeah, and catch up on email. And download and edit pictures. :P


So, after all that relaxation, I here present photos. They can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/ifoundthemeaningoflife/Europe2007ItalyFranceDenmarkSweden but first read the Handy Dandy Guide to Photographs.

Handy Dandy Guide to Photographs
-The photographs may contain Art, which means we did go to Italy, where they have lots of famous statues of naked people. Also, disclaimer: When they're pictures of mushy sculptures or of buildings, it's usually Eileen who had the camera. I take pictures of people and weird stuff. (All right, Eileen, you can have a little credit for cultural photos. Everyone, she took pictures of the lady making crepes.)
-So, to view a slideshow, click on the little button that says "slideshow". I know you can find it. It's up near the top (sorta). You probably want to view them for one second each, as there is one heck of a lot of them (seriously, one full heck. I checked.).
-There are pictures of people some of you probably don't know and don't care about. You can gloss right over them. They're there for the people who do know them and may or may not care.
-You will notice a little yellow thing in some of the pictures, or in some of them, a larger yellow thing where it's closer to the camera and you can tell that it's a stuffed duck. His name is Peeps. He travels. He was lent to Ryan for this trip by his third grade teacher. Deal with the fact that there is a stuffed duck in the picture. It will be okay. I particularly like his picture with Rodin's Thinker. It's almost as good as the one I put as the (digital) album cover.
-Before viewing the slideshow, check out the map. It shows where we went. I put the first picture (and occasionally a few more) from each new place in its correct position on the map.
-If you're lost, look at the title, if you can figure out how to get it to display those. I may or may not have named it. If you're still lost, look back at my emails. Maybe you just won't get it, though, and that's a risk we'll have to take. Just remember this basic itinerary: Stockholm (briefly), Florence, Venice, Folgaria (orienteering), Paris (briefly- Eiffel and such as we passed through), French coast by Bordeaux (orienteering), Paris (for real), Copenhagen, Mjolby (orienteering), Stockholm. Semi-basic itinerary.

Okay, go forth and view. Fly free, my fledglings. I'm off to Colorado in 45 mins, and no, I won't write.


PS look at the website in my signature. It's ever so exciting.
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Kelsey BresemanñÑ¿?¡!ªº
http://northwestforestfrenzy.googlepages.com/