I'm coming home!

Three more sleeps until I will be home.  Hooray!  I am so excited to see everyone. Especially Ted, Lucas and Kayley.  Robert is in Ottawa for the summer.  Then there are also Mercy and Raz and my mom and extended family and friends.

It has been a busy end of year with marking, prep for next year, field trips, picnics and play days.  The students were done last Wednesday but I work until Monday and Tuesday I will be sleeping in my own bed.

I will let everyone know once I get a Canadian phone number but you can get a hold of me through messenger or Whats App in the mean time.

Hope everyone has a great weekend and I look forward to seeing you soon.

Chris

Other Happenings in Stockholm

It has been a busy spring.  Twelve us from work ran in the VarRuset 5K .  It was an amazing experience.  It is a race for women only and I was astounded by the number of women who ran it....thousands.  It was a the university and we ran around a path through a wooded area and the edge o a lake, with cows as spectators.  A perfect evening to run, warm but with a breeze.  Afterwards they gave each group a picnic to enjoy along with a bag of samples from their sponsors.

I also went to Eskilstuna to visit my friend Zhilia who use to live with me.  It is a beautiful little town about 90 minutes outside Stockholm.  We had a good visit.  On Sunday we went to visit her aunt and she drove us around some of the sights.  They have a small lock for boats in the town.  Also a large marina and public beach complete with free changing rooms and washroom.  Free bathrooms are a novelty in Sweden.

 The clock towers still work

Train and bus station 

This is a restaurant near the marina. 

Vasa Museum

I went to the Vasa Museum a few weeks ago.  The VASA was a Swedish warship that was built in the 1600's. The first of its kind.  Like the Titanic it sank on its maiden voyage.  However it did not hit an iceberg.  It capsized on the Stockholm harbour 20 minutes into its journey.  Since it was the first of its kind, the engineering was off and the boat had a high centre of gravity and the gun ports were too close to the water.  When a gust of wind tilted the boat it filled with water through the cannon port wholes.  Ship build after the Vasa were a metre wider and had more rocks in the hull to correct the problem.  There were many survivors since they swam to shore or got help from other boats out to see the big launch.  Only those trapped in the lower levels perished.

In the 1960's a company pulled the ship and its artifacts out of the habour.  Over the next severl years if was restored to it's previous glory, and the Museum was made to house it. It now sits, rebuilt and preserved in a museum in Stockholm.  It is amazing that it survived over 300 years underwater with limited damage.  The Vasa Museum is the number one most popular marine museum in the world.

Here are some pictures:

 This one is a model that was made to look  as it did on the maiden voyage 

  Life Boat

Ship's bell

 The masts were taller on the original ship but are designed to fit the building in the rebuild

 This is what the lower decks would have looked like.

Lions on the frount to make it look more frightening.

It was an absolutely amazing exhibit and I highly recommend it to anyone visiting Stockholm.