The Seventh Squirrel

So... I have been woefully negligent in updating this blog and I have no excuse for it. Sorry Guys!

These past two weeks have been full of adventures and exploring. Some birthdays have been celebrated (Happy 21st Sarah!), Stockholm has been explored and much fun was had!

Sarah's 21st was this past Thursday so we and a bunch of our friends went out to Herman's, a fantastic vegetarian restaurant in Södermalm. 20 bucks (cheep by Stockholm standards) gets you access to an all you can eat buffet full of awesome vegetarian food. So yummy!

The wednesday before (its great having random days off from class) me and a friend of mine from my microbio class went exploring in Gamla Stan, the old city of Stockholm. The area is really amazing and beautiful, full of cobblestone streets, cute stores, nice cafes and beautiful old buildings. This part of the city is actually a little island at the heart of the Stockholm archipelago which makes it very compact and perfect fore exploring on foot. Also because we visited in the middle of the week in January we pretty much had the place to ourselves (understandable really cause who decides to come to Stockholm in the dead of winter.... haha, oh right I did).

The other highlight of my explorations was the Vasa Museum. The Vasa was a ship build by Sweden in 1628 that made it all of 1500 meters in the water before a gust of wind caught her wrong and down she went (Marine engineering tip of the day: don't build your ship too tall and too narrow and for god's sake put enough ballast in her!) But other than being a lesson in how not to construct a vessel the museum provides a view of Sweden during the 17th century (not such a fun place to live). However my favorite aspect of the museum was looking at how they reconstructed the Vasa after salvaging her from the ocean floor after 300 years, yep in 1961 they pulled the Vasa out from the ocean (in one piece) and stuck her in a museum. Cool biology factoid: the critter that normally munches on wood thats been left in water for too long can't survive in the Baltic water's low salinity so the Vasa's wood survived over 300 years of sitting on the sea-floor in the outer Stockholm archipelago. Needless to say I though the museum was awesome and I think its a must see for anyone coming to Stockholm (ie if you come visit me you're going to this museum).

Unfortunately, I think my explorations of Stockholm will have to be put on hold for a little while at least. This pas week the weather has taken a turn for the worse and instead of being a relatively balmy 2ºC the temps have dropped down to -12ºC which is a bit too cold for outdoor exploring. But, I'm not going to feel too guilty, I still have 5 months left in the city and so for right now I'm going to stay in and stay warm.

Up next on my agenda are: pulling an all-nighter to watch the superbowl tonight (starts at 12:30, yay!), getting my residency permit sorted out, joining a gym and planning my trip to barcelona in May (thanks for the Springsteen tickets Dad!)

Now as penance for being a negligent blogger, Pictures!