Current mood:

tired

Swedish museum crawl
My feet are killing me...Got up at 6 in the morning and jogged to the subway, taking the train to central station. I walk out and see a street second-hand book sale that stretches down the mall for what must have been a kilometer! The vendors had practically everything, even 1960s black and white pornography being peddled by an appropriately fat and pimply, StarTrek shirt-wearing Nerdmeister. Didn't buy anything though since it was kind of all in Swedish (how am I supposed to read untranslated porn?)...

1st stop was the Vasamuseet, a place I've wanted to visit for decades! Yes, the Vasa is everything its cracked out to be and completely blew me away.

Then it was off the the Skansen open air museum. An enchanting place to relax and explore, with antique buildings from all over Stockholm maintained in their original state - even period actors in costume inhabiting some of them! The park is a celebration of pre-industrial Sweden yet they somehow pull it off without being cheesy! Went to the zoo and saw my first Wisent! Patted a moose! Nearly retched when I saw the wolverine feeding!

The next place I wanted to see was the Aquaria Water Museum - given the limited amount of space I was astounded at what they had done! First was a tropical walkthrough South American rainforest exhibit. In the middle of Sweden!? You're surrounded by jungle vegetation and have to walk over a rickety bridge with real RED-BELLIED PIRANHAS in the water beneath you. Arowanas! Amazon River Rays! Arrow-poison frogs! At one point everything went dark and they simulated a jungle thunderstorm with lightning and sprinkler-generated rain. Then there was a small mangrove exhibit with real mangrove trees followed by one of the most stunning coral reef exhibits I've ever seen in a non-tropical climate. Given that the Melbourne aquarium features plastic coral and plastic mangroves, seeing these thriving live examples in a country that experiences snow gave me a profound respect for their custodians.

Finally I came to a showcase of the local freshwater fish. Given how low the diversity was they made a stunning display including a rippling simulated mountain stream with bright red alpine char. And geez, check out the size of that pike. And those Wels catfish are about the size of U-boats!

Was getting late when I finally stumbled out but somehow summoned the strength to check out the Nordiska Museet. It was well worth it, full of all manner of stunning cultural heritage items from the 1500s onwards. But I was still too geeked out at all the cool fish I'd just seen...