Skansen Open Air Museum

6 January:

Woke up later than the previous day, which was nice.  I still felt like I had to wake up early to get to the sites early because sunlight doesn't last long this far north.  So I was out of the hostel as soon as I was ready and planned the route.

The plan was to head to the Skansen Open Air Museum and hang around there for as long as it takes.  If there was time left, and only if there was time left, then I would check out the Vasa Museum which features a giant ship from the 1600s that's boasted to be 95% original (after a very slow and painstaking restoration process that may or may not still be ongoing).  But I was more interested in the Skansen Museum because it's a type of museum I've never been in before, a few trusted travel websites said it was really awesome, and I wanted to see what life was like in Swedish towns 200 years ago.

The museum was broken into quite a few sections that talked about life in various parts of Sweden.  There was a Town Quarter, my first stop, which talked about life in the industry around the 1920s and 1930s.  I walked into a glass blower shop (which was a shopping shop, the actual glass blowers weren't there in the winter.  A bummer because that's why I wantd to go).  Also visited the furniture factory, the engineering works which was all about engines.  There was a small interactive area in the Engineering Works building including a mini theater where you can watch documentaries.  One notable documentary was about the SAAB cars, which I would have watched except the documentary was 40 minutes long and in Swedish.  I couldn't sit through 40 minutes of Swedish, so I continued on. 

Forget exactly what was next, since I was just wandering around for a while.  If I had gone in the summer, I would have spent two full days in that museum, seriously.  What you do is when you walk into a house, or a building, you are greeted by the workers who are there doing a craft in costume.  You can ask questions and they are more than happy to answer you.  Once you get them talking, though, what they have to say is very interesting.  I saw a house from the 1930s that would have featured a new couple from the upper middle class (new money is what the woman said).  Also walked into a house from the late 1800s during Christmas time, so the woman talking about that one went into detail about all the foods on the dinner table and even a few folk traditions.

Christmas was the only time rural Swedish inhabitants had fresh bread from flour, so that was always a treat.  They usually hung it out to dry and kept the small tower of Christmas bread for the 12 days of Christmas; the last day of which they would eat the tower.  I found it interesting how the Swedish didn't eat fresh bread right away.  But this is bread from flour and I guess they normally make bread from something else (forgot to ask what they usually make bread out of). 

An interesting folk tale is about the Jud Tomte, a little gnome who goes up to about the knee of an adult man.  He has a full beard and dresses in grey but wears a red cap.  He's a household gnome and usually lives in the barn.  During Christmas, you're supposed to take a bit from each dish on the table, place it in a basin to leave underneath the table, or put it out with the horses which are his favorite animal.  Keeping the tomte happy would provide good fortune for the household, but bad fortune will come if he is not taken care of.  Although just a folk tale, the woman in this housestead said that one grandmother had come in and told a story about how, when she was seven, she and her brother saw a tomte.  They woke up early to go wake up their neighbors for Christmas mass, and as they came around the barn, they saw a small man dressed in gray disappear around the corner of the barn.  When they went to look, they saw small footprints in the snow.  I really like this idea of a tomte for each household.

Not every household had a good enough guide.  I walked into one house where I took a picture or two then asked a question, and the tour guide just answered the question and didn't elaborate on anything.  I attempted to get her going, but she answered my follow up in just the same way she answered the real question.  Have you ever had that feeling where you have a question in your head but you have no idea how to word it?  And you know that there's more to the answer of your question but you don't know how to work that to get the follow up?  That's my feeling with this girl.  Another couple walked in and they talked about how all the Christmas dinners in all the houses seemed like the same, and the girl agreed and they talked about that for a while.  Then I left.

The next place I went to was very nice.  It didn't have a Christmas dinner, but I asked a question and the woman answered with a longwinded answer that elaborated on a lot of points.  She was nice to listen to.  She was the one that also pointed out that a lot of items in the houses would have been painted bright reds or blues, but since the museum authorities don't want any changes to the current items as they are, they all just look drab and grey and brown.  But there would have been more color if they were new.  Also, a lot of windows in farmsteads faced south, especially in the north, and she thought that was a clever move on the homebuilder's part.

Families usually stayed within one or two rooms with other.  Anymore rooms weren't really needed and it was a sign of wealth if you had more rooms for storage and/or a second floor. 

Christmas tradition:  Some of the Christmas dinners displayed had candles with more than one branch coming from it.  The point of these candles was that each branch represented a member of the family.  During Christmas dinner, everyone lights their candle at the same time and how the flame catches and burns predicts how the coming year will be for that person. 

Also saw someone driving a horse-drawn sleigh and walked through the portion of the museum that is considered the zoo.  Not a lot of the animals were out, but I did see some reindeer and a small pack of grey seals.  There was also a cow, but that was mostly by the farm animals.  That was cute.  Smelled the cows before I saw them too.  Reminded me of home.

When I was all done with the Skansen, I walked into their gift shop.  It was quaint and pricey and I ended up not buying a Swedish horse while in Sweden.  They were so expensive!  I overheard someone say that it's hard to find someone to carve them.  Painting is the easy part, finding a wood carver for them is the hard part and what jacks up the prices on them.  Oh well.  Maybe next time I make it to Sweden?  Hopefully I'll have more money then.

Returning home, I thought I'd maybe stop by the Vasa Museum, but as I walked by, I noticed that people were walking out of it.  After stopping to think about it, I came to the conclusion that it's probably not worth going in.  This is a legit museum where you can spend hours walking through the exhibits.  If I'm going to that museum, I'd rather spend those hours walking through the exhibits then pay a lot of money just to see one thing and then walk out again.  So I skipped it and took the tram to the end of the line, which was an area I was familiar with and a closer walk than if I had walked all the way from the museum myself.

Thought I would spend some time on the Internet before dinner so that I can spend the later part of the evening blogging about the days I've been missing.  This was foiled because the Internet was down.  I tried my computer, and I tried a few of the hostel's computers, but everyone said that another person had the same IP address as the computer I was using, please try again later or contact your network administrator.  This seemed like too much work to handle, so I did some quiet sudoku in a quiet lounge.  A guy came by asking for a shower, and I pointed him in the right direction.  He asked which State I was from because my accent was so obvious, and I said Wisconsin.
"So this must be normal weather for you, huh?"
"Yeah, kinda.  Where are you from?"
"Texas."
"Ooo."
"Yeah.  Hopefully I'll get out and do something."
"You should."

Dinner was a restuarant a few blocks away from the hostel called Cafe Trenem.  It was pricier than I thought it was, but I figured "Hey, why not?  Real Swedish food."  They were nice enough to give me an English menu, so I could actually read what everything said.  Ordered a pig's knuckle thinking that wouldn't be too harmless and drank my water and people-watched as I waited.  There may have been some sudoku involved too.  When the food came, I did not expected a real live cooked pig's foot in front of me.  It kind of creeped me out, so I pointed the toe away from me and took as much meat off the bones as I could before chowing down.  It was good, I have to say.  There were three sauces that it came with.  One was pumpkin, one was apple, and the other was some vegetable combination.  I liked the apple the best, so I ate the pork with that mostly.  The pumpkin was good too, and the vegetable one was crunchy but also good, though not a flavor I was looking for. 

After getting back to the hostel, I did my Internet thing and showered.  Took out my contacts and my eye went bonkers again.  Argh.  As I was dealing with that, a girl came into my once-empty room.  And of course, being the only two people in the room together, we started talking.  Her name was Karen, she comes from California.  She graduated with a major in Spanish and then went to Madrid to find a job.  I guess this was a weekend holiday for her.  I apologized on behalf of my eye and explained that I did something I probably shouldn't have done and now my eye is seeking retribution.  Yes, it hurts.  No, nothing is wrong with me emotionally.  I have a feeling we would have seen parts of the city together had I been staying an extra day, but since I was leaving at five the next morning, I called in early.  She totally understood and I went to bed around 10pm.  I hope she had a good time in Stockholm.