Weekend Time

So on Saturday I visited the Nordic Museum and went to see the Vasa. The Nordic Museum was ok, there were some interesting things, but I guess I'm just not the museum type. There were a lot of pieces of furniture and silverware that I just didn't find that interesting, but it was ok.

Then I went to see the Vasa which is a huge ship that sunk in 1628 and was rediscovered and raised up in the 1950s. This was more my type of museum. You can click here to learn more about the Vasa, but I'll give a brief rundown:

The King of Sweden was building up his navy and he wanted a big ship - the Vasa. It was launched and sunk within a few minutes because the bottom of the ship wasn't wide nor deep enough to hold enough "ballast" to keep it from tipping over. Back in the day, some divers got some of the guns from the ship and then everyone forgot about the Vasa until the 1950s. Some dude - Anders - started searching for it and was able to find it. It was preserved because of the "brackish" water - I guess some sort of worm lives in salt water that eats away at wood. So they raised the ship and it has its own museum now. I guess they used to let visitors go on the ship, but it has started to deteriorate, so they don't let you on anymore, but it still a really cool museum.

Then on Saturday night, Anna, from the recruiting side at KPMG, took me out to dinner with her friend. I guess the restaurant is run by the most famous chef in Sweden - he also has other restaurants, but this one is Anna's favorite. I was looking forward to a traditional Swedish meal, but I didn't realize that the "Grilled beef with bearnaise sauce" was really just a steak and it came with a side of fries. I just need to go order Swedish meatballs somewhere I guess. But it was a very good steak and it came from a Swedish cow. So that was fun.

So yeah.... I got to see some sights and have some fun this weekend. This week I'm planning on going to the National Museum on Tuesday and then next weekend I'll either take a tour of the Archipelago or go to the Royal Palace.