5/12/26

Our new hotel is quite an upgrade. The Queen’s Hotel!

The bed was VERY comfortable. The decor is simple but extravagant. Velvet curtains, towel warming rack, small desk area. Last night I put the tv on the YouTube fireplace. It offered great ambiance.

The hotel is an older building with marble stairs, old time elevator big enough for 3 people, and an overall classy feel. The hall ways are a bit chaotic. Twists and turns everywhere with older furniture. They even have towel bins in the halls because apparently guests aren’t a bunch of thieves like they are at home.

Melissa and I met in 6 th grade. She was in my home room. I didn’t like her at first (she knows this). I think it was because she was friend’s with a mutual friend and I was threatened.

She quickly won me over with her humor, her flare for the arts and the fact I always learn something from her. Even in high school, she helped me study for the 11 th grade social studies test. That was the only reason I passed.

We went to our complimentary breakfast this morning. It was nicely done, lots to choose from. Unfortunately, no one feels the need to cover their mouth when they cough or sneeze. As Melissa was making her last choices for food, this lady sneezes into the air launching her germs towards everyone. Yuck! The lady was unapologetic about her actions.

We had to catch a tram to Galärvarvsvägen. Your guess of pronunciation is as good as mine.

In Galärvarvsvägen, we went to Vasa Museum or as the Swedish people say- Vassamuseet! This was pretty impressive.

Basically in the 1600’s, these people built a Navy ship that was supposed to impress and intimidate its enemy’s. It started off on its first voyage in 1628. It was an impressive battle ship! The walls about 2 feet deep and able to withstand gunfire. This ship was beautiful. It was 4 stories high, housed about 150 people and that included wives and children because of the celebration of the first voyage.

IIt had intricate carvings and was immaculately painted to intimidate. It had several statues each one representative of courage, power, to intimidate….etc. It had these growling, snarling lion heads carved into the gun ports. When they opened the gun ports, these snarling heads were painted in bright colors to scare and intimidate the enemy. Do you get that it was supposed to intimidate?

There was even a poor, imprisoned polish guy carved and painted into the side of the ship. At that time the Swedish people didn’t care for the polish people. This Polish guy was trapped and some of the Swedish people would defecate off the side of the boat on the deck above, right onto the trapped polish guy carving. I think this was my favorite thing to learn.

Within 17 minutes of its first (and last) voyage, the ship sunk. 17 minutes! Sunk! The king had to be SO pissed! It was too tall, not wide enough and didn’t stand a chance with a bit of a gust of wind. Boom! Sunk! 30 people died. They even found 17 skeletons that went down with the ship that were pretty well preserved.

The ship lay at the bottom of the sea for 333 years. They were finally able to resurrect the ship in the 1950’s. The colors washed away by the sea. They restored the ship almost exactly as it was making it one of the world’s ONLY preserved ship for the 1600’s.

It was a pretty cool museum and I enjoyed it when we avoided the crowd.

We then headed to the Viking Museum. We were able to learn a little bit of about Vikings and how they operated. We saw how they made coins, what they ate and drank out of and some artifacts from that time.

There were many people in the museum! People of a similar backgrounds became the crowd of people to stand out. They were pushy and stood right in the way with no self awareness….annoying! Get out of the way!

I would have made a pretty good Viking.

David took a picture with a “Viking”. This guy was ginormous. He is grooming Iceland. David is 6ft 2. He was dwarfed by this guy.

They had a little ride that told a story of a family and how they were able to bypass selling their daughter. Each little stop had a different scene with voice re-enactments. It felt good to sit down.

We were chuckling at the story a little bit. It was dark and the ride was very slow but had a lap bar. At the end, we were getting off the ride at near the same spot we got on.

There was a line of people waiting to get on. I called over to the lady “thank you! My favorite part is when it went upside down!” Ha! This is why people think unfavorably of American’s.

We decided to take a taxi to museum #3. Our taxi driver was a JERK! He wasn’t listening to us, went past our restaurant and I didn’t like him at all. We finally got him to stop driving and just let us out. We ended up having to walk about 15 minutes to the museum.

It was an outdoor museum. There were older buildings, and a zoo area with Nordic animals.

Before walking around the animals, we grabbed a bite to eat in a cafe. It was small. 3 tables but we were able to warm up. It was about 45 degrees and rainy out.

As we got our food the fix it guy showed up to fix something on the door….he kept the door wide open to fix it. Annoying!

We then saw animals! Yay!