Kira Looks For Extra Colors: Skansen, Heights, and Soup

Today, Hannah and I braved the pouring rain (getting my shoes, socks, and pants soaked in the process) in order to go to Skansen, a park in Djurgarden that is a combination of an open air museum (like Jamestown), a zoo, an aquarium (Akvariet! I love that word!), and amusement park a la country fair. (Sorry, I totally brought my camera but not my memory card to Skansen today, so no pics from this part. I’ll have to wait until Hannah posts hers) I have decided Skansen is awesome. There were a lot of really helpful and informative people representing many different time periods in Sweden’s history all over the park. The zoo areas featured Nordic wildlife such as several of the famous moose [moosen? (Brian Regan)]. There were brown bears, peacocks, crocodiles, seals, and monkeys, monkeys, monkeys! One of my favorites was Skansen’s speciality: the pygmy marmoset. It is so tiny!

Skansen is also covered with gardens of all shapes and sizes, representing everything from manor house gardens to the tiny allotments given to families during the world wars. Nearly every exhibit featured someone demonstrating a technique for prooducing the necessities of life (butter, cheese, bread) or traditional craftsmanship (saddles, boxes, potterey).

Riding the Train

It was still raining when we started heading back to the boat, so Hannah and I were thinking we would stay in for the rest of the evening, as we were tired and wet from our all day adventure. However, the sky had other ideas. It was starting to clear up (the BBC predicted it, but we were beginning to wonder), and the sky was so beautiful we decided to head over to the Globe to take advantage of our Stockholm cards again. The Globe is a venue like the HP pavilion and is the tallest spherical building in world, according to the informational video. It seems to be very popular for hockey. This, however, was not the reason we went (shocking!). The Globe also hosts an attraction called Skyview, which is basically a glass elevator that travels up the side of the Globe to the top, providing you with an excellent view of Stockholm. Because the elevator is spherical, you have a fairly direct view of the ground (this thrilled me but brought up certain feelings in Hannah…). We had a beautiful view, all the way to the top. The sun was the most brilliant blood red I have ever seen it and I was sorely disappointed my camera didn’t capture it. I’m still really glad we went though. It was gorgeous up there.

The Globe

In the elevator

The track the elevator rides up

Also- Let me tell you about this thing people call soup. I am currently hunting a paricular kind, and this hunt started last week when Hannah and Kaylee ordered it. I found its aroma enormously appealing then, but didn’t order it because I had already eaten. I wasn’t terribly satisfied with what I had eaten anyway, so their comments over how good the soup was didn’t help. My brain kept unconsciously allowing my eyes to drift over and stare intensely at Kaylee’s soup, which creeped her out a bit. It’s become something of a joke. I tried to trap this soup again last night, but it escaped me by going out with a group of (other) tourists who grabbed it before I did (Foiled!). I decided to try again tonight because it was raining beautifully, but they didn’t have it. My inability to get this soup has become something of a joke. I’m not even sure if they’ll have it again because they don’t plan the soups before they make them. Moral of the story: if something smells amazing and you are hungry, just freakin’ order the soup already!