Working in Sweden

Happy New Year everyone!

I know… not many updates these days.  Sorry about that.

These are busy, busy days.

A very significant project at work had me living in Sweden for a short period of time – six weeks – for all of November and the first half of December. That same project kept me very busy for many months prior to that trip.

Sweden is a very neat place. The people are incredibly nice and, yes, it is true – the women are beautiful!!  Yes – I did notice!

However; the period of time that I was there is not known as the most beautiful time of the year.  It was quite dark, cool, and wet – the entire six weeks.  I previously thought that the earth rotated each day such that all parts of the planet were exposed to the sun. That turns out not to be the case – there is no sunshine in that part of world – at least while I was there.

I didn’t have time for a lot of sightseeing but I did get to Stockholm and Uppsalla a couple of times.  To break the monotony of a hotel room, I was able to get an Airbnb twice and both of those stays were quite nice.

The most amazing thing that I saw there??  The Vasa sailing ship museum/exhibit was recommended and sounded very interesting so I gave it a shot. Interesting is right!!  It is an amazing ship and fascinating story.

The Vasa is a giant wooden war ship constructed in Sweden from black walnut and carried 64 cannons. She set sail in August 1628 but only made it about 1400 yards before sinking to the bottom of Stockholm harbor.  She was lost there for over 300 years.   She was discovered again in in the 1950’s and a massive rescue soon followed.  They were able to salvage the vessel, raise it off the bottom, and turn it into a most impressive sight!  The fact that a 300+ year old ship still exists is hard to imagine. Turns out that the conditions in this harbor were just right to prevent the wood from quickly rotting away.

My photos are not very good. The museum is fairly dark and the ship is huge – photos are a real challenge!!

We were able to get one of my boys – Camaron – over to Sweden to help with some of the work. I fed him well and then locked him in the basement of a parking ramp with a bunch of people speaking Swedish for a week.

He survived.

The little building on the right – in the following photo – was one of the Airbnb’s I used. It was located in Sigtuna and was very relaxing.

This is the view – looking out on the lake.

Notice the lack of an orange ball in the sky.