Just three sites today and we fell into the apartment spent. We started with a fascinating visit to the Vasamuseet, a museum built specifically to house a 1628 warship that sank on it’s maiden voyage in Stockholm’s harbor. It was raised 333 years later and is now preserved with amazing related exhibits. Just across the street we then took in the Nordiska Museet in a wonderful building finished only about 100 years ago. The Folk Art display could have kept me there for the entire day but the other floors which explored trends and traditions, life work and play in Sweden were all interesting too.

Breaking for a traditional smorgasbord, not another until MAYBE Oslo, we enjoyed chatting with our waiter whose story turned out to be that he left Chili as a very young child with his parents who were persecuted by Pinochet in the ’70s.

A walk around Skansen which claims to be the world’s oldest open-air museum housing a collection of about 150 original historical village and farm buildings moved to Stockholm from all over Sweden. It is a kind of Williamsburg crossed with Disneyland. But the authentic historical part made Kristin Lavansdatter come alive for me.

We are now more familiar with the layout of the city and its wonderful blend of Baroque and Neo-Classical buildings with exciting contemporary architecture. Sparkling water at every turn and trees make the city a very soft space even with traffic and loads of people.

We are considering a walk to track Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomquist tomorrow among other attractions.

Each day we still wake up with excitement and anticipation of a new adventure. The weather seems to be unrelentingly perfect. Residents of Stockholm complain about the heat but for the most part with lots of water it is very manageable. Stockholm has the feel of a major European capital with miles and miles of a mix of historical and contemporary buildings. Although it is much more crowded than any place we have been to date and bustles with energy, traffic and noise is almost subdued–very quiet, seldom honking and traffic moves in an orderly rather than agggressive way. Of course many people take off for the month of July so that might also be a factor. Maybe it is the water and trees everywhere or just the beautiful weather but everyone seems to be savoring the moment. Like most Baltic big cities, there is a lot of construction and road building everywhere. Summer, after the thaw is the only time it can be done

.

We arrived in Tallinn yesterday afternoon, after about a 3 hour drive from Riga. We made contact with a former colleague of mine,Carl Orav, last night and after a delightful dinner he led us through the old town of Tallinn.

In the years I worked with him, I didn’t realize it, but he had an amazing story which is probably typical of many Estonian families. Born in Tallinn in 1943. His father had graduated from the Estonian equivalent of West Point in 1940 and was an officer in the Estonian army. The Russians swept through the area first and commissioned him as an officer in the Russian army and he went off to fight Germans. When he realized it was a losing cause with the Russians, he deserted, and came back to Tallinn about the time the Germans were coming through, so the Germans commissioned him as an officer in the German army and eventually he became an officer in the SS. When the Russians were headed back, he commandeered a German army truck, drove to Tallinn, picked up the family and drove to Germany, where they stayed until the war ended. After the war his family lived in several refugee camps until they could get passage to Sweden. His father took a job as an engineer in a factory for several years, then since many other members of the family,grandparents, aunts and uncles, had immigrated to the US, they were able to do so as well.

Carl also gave us the insight that most of young, slender, attractive blonde women we have been seeing dressed in stylish, flamboyant and provocative clothing were young Russians who had grown up in places like Riga and Tallinn and they or their families chose to stay when the Soviets pulled out. Today, Michele checked it out in many of the shops we were in, asking each attractive, slender, blonde woman if they were Russian. Some responded reluctantly, but she hit 100%. So much for the mythology that Russian women all weigh 250# and wear kerchiefs and potato sacks.

On to Helsinki tomorrow,

Bob

The following views have some historical tidbits and then a collage of shop signs follow.

Along with sightseeing, dinner and tour with Carl, we also had my November election filing papers notariized by the American consul and shipped them off via DHL to California. I guess it is because of our age but what an amazing experience it is to track the package which will arrive in just two days!