Stockholm, Sweden in 1.5 days

Some of you might know that I made the crazy journey of spending a collective amount of 50 hours on planes across two weeks to head up to what was meant to be, sunny Zurich to spend some catch up time with the family. My brother-in-law, whom my mum says has 'itchy-backside', had booked a mini 6 day trip to Sweden, Denmark and Finland once he knew I was planning to come up for a trip (meaning that essentially, I only spent about 4 days in the actual Zurich house).

I decided to talk about the places separately since they were all such lovely places, albeit not actually seeing much except the malls.

Stockholm was probably was my favourite of the three. Home to the creators of Ikea, H&M, those yummy Swedish meatballs, Alfred Nobel (and where the Nobel prize ceremonies are held each year), and where the term Stockholm Syndrome came from (duh). One of the creators of a popular app (either Spotify or something like that) is Swedish as well, so they're touted as a fairly innovative society.

Her happy face just 5 seconds before she let out a mouthful of spew on my head. Warm and liquidy.. yum

One thing I remembered most about Stockholm - Poor Ellie was down with a tummy bug! But she's such a precious little bub and didn't fuss that much despite being terribly sick.

This is her 'Oei!! Where my food go!??' look when she dropped it over the edge. Her perpetually drippy nose made her leave her jaw hanging most times and copious amounts of drool moisturised the family and every single piece of furniture at home.

 So back to Stockholm. This was one of the few places where we actually acted like tourists and did 2 tourist-y things! 

1. Buy tickets for the hop-on-hop-off bus (because Gaby just gets so thrilled when she sees a bus)

Girls thoroughly enjoying being on the top deck of the bus!

2. Visit a museum called the "Vasa Museum" that houses the only preserved viking ship . 

Peace and calm for the moment before as we walk toward the museum considering the chaotic morning we had.

The gardens outside the Museum

Our trip to visiting the Vasa Museum was bumpy and eventful. After suffering two spontaneous vomits and changes of clothes for Ellie (one at the hotel, one at Maccas, not including the one on my head), we finally made our way to catch the hop on hop off bus to the museum, which wasn't actually that far, but took a while due to the traffic in Stockholm.

And right when we're about to get our tickets to enter the museum, dear little Ellie does a third spew of the day, this time, all over daddy's jacket! It's a chaotic moment for everyone and we rush off to wash, dry, change, whatever we can (sour milk ain't that great smelling if it's on you), making our eventful day, much much more eventful than any tour could provide!

Thankfully we managed to catch on to an English tour group within the museum and learn quickly that the Vasa was a great warship built in 1628. But low and behold, guess what, as they set it on it's maiden voyage to fight against I can't remember who, the poor stability of the boat and waves cause it to flip, fill up with water, and sink after sailing barely a kilometer out from the shore! The waters weren't too deep, but the Vasa sat there until 1961 when technology was advanced enough for it to be hauled out of the murky waters. Apparently, the water had actually helped to preserve most of it's structure (something to do with salinity blah blah blah). 

So here we are, staring at this great ship, that never even made it out the waters of Sweden, hahahah... I found that quite funny. But it was pretty marvelous to see a ship built in the 17th century!

 

Of course, how can anyone leave Sweden without eating the yummalicious Swedish meatballs?? Honestly, they actually had a flavour that was pretty similar to the Ikea ones! Except that the quality of the meat was much better, as well as the actual cranberries you can spy on the side of the plate in place of that goopy jam Ikea gives you.

We spent most of the remaining time checking out the malls for cheap baby clothes for the kids, or looking for nappy changing tables, or food, or a place to sit down. Haha, not what you might call an ideal European tour, but being with family and just going through all the chaos together makes it enjoyable and memorable!


Ending off with a nice candid family shot taken after fantastic seafood dinner in Copenhagen.

Everyone was more than happy to stand there appreciating a couple of buskers as we were meant to be walking in the opposite direction with the sun in our faces. I had never felt so blind in my life! Plus the reflections off the cobble stones made it even worse. I hope the girls grow up to appreciate music as much as we do!