Brief history of the Vasa, not taken from Wikipedia because I am writing this on a train and have no internet:
In the mid-1600s Poland and Sweden were having a war. The Polish king technically had the rights to the Swedish throne, and he want to exercise those rights and take the throne from the Swedish king. The Swedish king decided to go down to Poland and teach the Polish king a thing or two. So, he ordered a new navy ship built – a giant ship that would be the pride of the navy and help Sweden to beat Poland once and for all. So, the Vasa was built.
On the Vasa's maiden voyage in 1628, she sailed out of the harbor in Stockholm with only part of her crew, on her way to the archipelago to pick up the rest. Because everyone was out to see the maiden voyage, all of her gun ports were open so she could look as intimidating and powerful as possible. When she was not far offshore, a gust of wind took her sails and the crew had to struggle to get her standing upright again. Shortly thereafter a second gust of wind hit her, and the crew couldn't put her upright again before water started gushing in through her open gunports, and the Vasa sank.
Over time, the Vasa settled into the mud and silt outside the harbor, and people forgot where she was. In the 1950s, she was found again! If she had sank in saltwater the ship would have been very decayed by now, but the water off the coast of Stockholm was brackish, and she was also settled into the mud. She was preserved in amazing condition – although her paint has obviously been washed away, the rest of the ship is preserved.
The Vasa gets her own museum, and is stored in the largest air conditioning unit in the world. Crews of scientists work on preserving her, and she is currently being measured so a to-scale model can be created, because she's falling apart. They estimate that in 50 years, she will have fallen apart completely.
Google image: http://www.hnsa.org/ships/img/vasa1.jpg
After the Vasa, we wandered around the island that the Vasa Mueum is on. Kim wanted to see some elk, so we headed over to the part of the island with trees and possibly elk. We didn't see any, unfortunately, but it was pretty!
After that we shopped some more, and then met our friend Kristiina for dinner. We had met Kristiina in Prague, and she lives in Uppsala but was in Stockholm for the day, so we had dinner and PEAR CIDER!! Kim and I have been missing cider, since most countries don't really have it, but apparently Sweden likes us.
After dinner, we tried to meet up with some people from the hostel, but we couldn't find them! So, we ended up going back to the hostel and falling asleep ASAP.
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