After playing on the boat and with other interactive exhibits in the children’s room, Lucy and Isaac settled in to do some writing and coloring.

Meanwhile, Thomas’ hunt took quite a lot of time, as he explored various exhibits on several floors of the museum.  By the time he and David made it to the children’s room, it was around 4 pm (16:00).  We hadn’t noticed the closing time when we entered, but we knew that it must be either 16:00 or 17:00.  When the guard came around and started turning off the lights and shooing us out, we realized it was the earlier one.  That meant no time for browsing in the gift shop, but I feel certain we will have another chance in the future.

After scurrying down a couple flights of marble stairs, we retrieved our backpack from a locker and walked towards the T-Centralen subway station.  It was a nice walk and it gave us time to stop for outdoor snacks.

I actually got chilly and had to put on my jacket.  Lovely!  I doubt I will feel that delightful temperature again until sometime in October.

Next we took a short subway ride to a park near David’s office.  He ran to pick up a few things while the kids and I played on the playground.  The kids played themselves red faced, having found some 4th or 5th grade Swedish boys to run around with them.

After nearly two hours, we started the playground extraction process and began the walk to dinner.  We were heading for an Asian restaurant that we’d never managed to locate in the past.  It should have been an easy walk from this particular park.  But when we got to the intersection where we were expecting to find it, the restaurant wasn’t there.  David used his phone to look up the address, thinking that maybe we were just off by a street.  Nope.  It turns out that the place had moved to a completely different and distant part of the city from where we were standing.  Thus began our search for some place kid friendly and easy.  We went with a pasta place again, knowing that the kids were extra hungry from all that play and knowing how much they love pasta.

After dinner, we decided on a whim to take the #2 Sophia bus, a bus we took all the time back when we lived at the Wenner Gren Center in 2009.  The #2 runs right near our current apartment, so it was the perfect choice for our return.  Plus we got to see the city go by, something we miss by taking the subway.

We all got to bed a little later than we’d hoped, but we didn’t have to get up too terribly early the next morning.  At least not at the crack of dawn like when we take the London flight (that thing is EARLY!).

The harder you come down, the more the other kid bounces off the seat

Lucy especially loved the parallel bars.

Lucy "using her gymnastics moves"

We had just about managed to herd them off to dinner when they noticed the sandbox.

Constructing castles with whatever they could find

T dug down to get the damp stuff and made some molds for his castle

We finally managed to get on our way to dinner, all of us very hungry by this point and some of us less than pristinely clean (so much for those long morning baths!).  The kids wanted Italian food for dinner.  We walked a few blocks to a nice restaurant that David knew about, but a quick look in the window revealed folks dressed in nice clothes sitting at tables with white tablecloths and candles.  Somehow that didn’t seem like quite the right scene for sandy Crocs and hunger crazed kids.  We walked on and came to a simple storefront place offering both pizza and pasta.  Bingo!

Thomas ordered his favorite pizza with ham (skinka), managing to eat all but two pieces of it by himself.  Isaac had cheese pizza (the rest of which I finished off the next day) and Lucy had plain pasta with parmesan cheese.  I ordered a pasta dish as well (spinach stuffed manicotti) and David had a pasta dish with skinka.  We also had pizza salad (slaw) and pizza bread.  It was a quick and easy dinner, which was just about our speed that night.

Isaac took some of his pizza bread with him on the walk back.  By the time we got to the apartment, he had eaten some of it and fashioned the rest into a Star Wars fighter ship.

Isaac showing off his bready Tie Fighter

Alas, just one more day left of our vacation.  We wish we could stay for a couple more weeks!  There’s so much to see and do.  We love it all, even simply hanging around in the apartment.

Here we are getting ready to leave our building

On the nice train to Uppsala

The Uppsala cathedral (Uppsala domkyra)—the interior is just as stunning

Examining the portions of runes that were on display outside the cathedral

After the cathedral, we walked to the Uppsala castle (Uppsala slottet).  Although it doesn’t look like a castle in the medieval (or Hogwarts) sense, it is certainly situated on a hill, fortified, and filled with traditional castle elements (like dungeons and towers).

Hey--who put in an old bottle in there?

Momentary peace amongst the three

David and the kids took a tour of an in-process excavation of an old part of the castle.  It was billed as being spooky with ghosts involved, so naturally the kids had to see it for themselves.  In the meantime, I went in search of drinking water, but ran into the huge crowd for the American car show instead.  I waited for the others outside the castle and when they were done, we walked down the hill to the car show to see what it was all about.

We ended up paying the admission fee to see all the amazing restored cars.  Well, most of them were restored, but a few were still in need of work.  Several vehicles we saw were for sale.  The kids enjoyed it all except for the noisy mufflers whenever a muscle car took to the road heading for the exit (cruising was to commence at 8:00/20:00).

Just a few of the classics for viewing at the American car show

As we were walking toward the train station after the car show, we stumbled onto a children’s play place (Pelle Swanslös Hus) that I’d seen advertised on the Uppsala tourist map.  We got there about 45 minutes until closing time, but the young women at the entrance encouraged us to stay by offering us half-price on the admission fees.  That sold us.   Plus the price included face painting!  The kids had a truly wonderful time.

Thomas the tiger swinging on the rope

Isaac chose a hawk for his face

Lucy was a lion, with a full set of whiskers

Once 5:00 (that’s 17:00 for locals) rolled around, we vacated the premises and walked to the train station.  For dinner we’d already decided to try out a crepe place about a block from our apartment, so we walked there after finally alighting near Slussen.  By the time we got to the restaurant, Isaac was complaining about his stomach.  He said he’d jumped around too much after eating ice cream (which we got at the car show).  I spent some time with him outside the crepe place in an alley holding a plastic bag just in case he got sick.  Finally he decided that he could sit in the restaurant as long as he only got something to drink and didn’t eat anything.  The good sport that Isaac is, he did try a bit of plain crepe.

Waiting for crepes—it turns out that Lucy and Isaac don’t care for them

Later that night was the Stockholm midnight run (Midnattsloppen).  This year they moved the actual starting time back to 9:30/21:30 from 10:00/22:00.  They also started runners in blocks separated by 5 minutes and cut back on the number of runners in each starting group to 2000 (down from 3000).  These two changes made everything a lot more smooth and less congested.

The midnight run going right down our street!

So all in all, an extremely full and spontaneous Saturday.

The grow creatures are still E-X-P-A-N-D-I-N-G

Today we toured through Skansen, the world’s oldest outdoor museum.  We’ve been there several times, but we have yet to see it all.  It would certainly take days to explore all of Skansen.  We intend to visit every time we’re in Stockholm—it’s a wonderful, vibrant place to experience Swedish history as well as to see a wide variety of animals.

We rode the funicular railway up to some of the older settlements and hiked around in that area briefly before Isaac announced that he needed to find a restroom.  So we walked downhill to the closest WC, which just happened to be near a small play park for kids.

Riding on the rope sheep

We meandered around through all sorts of other early settlements before we came to the bake house.  There we were given a delightfully thorough explanation of how flatbread was baked in earlier times.  We also had the opportunity to sample two types of traditional flatbread, one that was primarily composed of barley and the other of barley, wheat, and other grains.  We realized at that point that we were pretty hungry, so we went in search of lunch.

Lunch seemed to take forever even though we bought it from food stalls.  The kids had several courses.  Thomas had one of his beloved korvs (hot dogs), Isaac and David had reindeer meat (!) wrapped up in a pita, and Lucy and I had cheese sandwiches on rolls.  Then there was the popcorn course.  That was followed by the milkshake course.  We never made it to the sockervadd (cotton candy) course, although some folks were calling for it.

After lunch, Thomas mapped out our next move.  He really wanted to see the wolverines, so off we went to find them.  There were a couple of wolverine cubs (three, I think) and all the beasts were roaming around as if it were near feeding time.

One of Skansen’s wolverines

Many of the animals had young that were born this past spring.  We saw lynx cubs, moose calves (they were pretty big already), and wild boar piglets, among others.  We walked and walked and walked to see as many animals as possible.  At various times, we had to carry Lucy or Isaac.  They claimed to have tired feet just about as soon as we arrived in Skansen.  Even Thomas got carried at one point, since he’d stayed up far past his bedtime the night before and was very, very tired.

Isaac with his “won’t you please carry me” look

How many times have the kids been on this bear now?

Eventually everyone was tired and it was getting late, so we decided to find the playground they remembered from previous visits before we left Skansen.  Funny how they don’t have enough energy to walk around, but they seem to have plenty when they come across a play area.

Lucy (far left in green) and Isaac (hanging at the bottom) on the giant spiderweb

Thankfully the seesaw that had been there on previous visits had been dismantled.  While it was a lot of fun, it was also easy for kids to jump off and let the other one crash to the ground (the way it used to be in the olden days, like when I was a kid).  That’s a fine setup if you’re old enough to know what you’re doing, but when little ones are riding it’s a whole different story.

We ate dinner in the apartment that night.  We figured the kids were too worn out to behave in a restaurant, especially sleepy Thomas.  We are still afraid to use the stove with the electrical shorts very much, so David ran out and picked up cheese, salami, caprese salad, garlic potatoes, and cheese paj (like a thick soufflé).  We all ate a little of this and a little of that.  Then we tucked those cranky sleepyheads into bed.

Falafel and hummus and pita for lunch, plus Fanta (of course)

After lunch, we walked over to the Medeltidsmuseet (the Medieval Museum) because the kids wanted to be spooked by the grim exhibits again.  The museum has free admission, which is nice.  It’s not very large, but it’s very well done and includes some children’s play areas.

T-bone in jail again

Riding a horse near the jail crawl-through

Outside the museum, we tried to recreate a photo we took last year.  However, the weather wasn’t the same (last year it was bright and sunny, but this year gray and threatening rain) and it wasn’t nearly spontaneous enough.

Posing on the stairs outside the Medeltidsmuseet

Of course, all that traipsing around the museum meant that the kids needed fortification.

Glass (ice cream) on the bridge

Then we headed home.  David and Thomas needed to pack up for their trip to a private island owned by a friend.  The kids had been waking up pretty early and going to bed awfully late, so we knew that Lucy and Isaac would have a tough time making it all the way to the island, behaving during dinner, and coming back to the city quite late.  So they stayed in town with me and I got them to bed nice and early (and they slept for nearly 12 hours!).  We had our own fun at a nearby McDonald’s and the grocery store.  David and Thomas, meanwhile, decided that it would be smarter to stay over on the island than to try to make it back on the bus that night.  It all worked out fairly well.

Thomas on a boat on his way to the island

It’s crayfish party season!

View on the island

Twice Thomas went swimming in the Baltic Ocean.  He’s a polar bear!  He also enjoyed the Jacuzzi and watched a movie with a younger boy.  He stayed up far too late, though, and was overly tired the next day.

Thomas swimming in the Baltic

Although the rest of us hated to have missed such a special time on the island, it was definitely the right thing to split up that evening.  I’d hate to think what our Friday would’ve been like if we had had THREE sleep deprived cranky kids!

Meanwhile in the apartment, Lucy and Thomas read some and argued plenty (it was just one of those days).  They also checked on the progress of the grow animals (rubbery things that increase in size when submerged in water), which have taken up residence in the bathtub.  The problem is when we need to use the tub, we have to put those suckers in a big bowl of water or the sink (a holding tank, according to the kids) so that they don’t dry out.  Not that they could possibly dry out in the amount of time it takes to have a bath, but whatever.  I find myself transporting those creepy things a couple of times a day.

The creatures are already getting larger—they are supposed to expand for 3 days

The three of us ate lunch in the apartment.  Well, I had lunch, but Thomas and Lucy rejected the grilled sandwiches I made them because they said the bread was too seedy (and I didn’t even chose the healthiest one in the grocery store!).  Then we met up with David and Isaac and took a bus to the Tekniska Museum.  It’s a great museum for kids with lots of hands-on opportunities and we hadn’t been there since 2009.

At the museum we started off in the huge new NASA exhibit, which runs only through early November.  The kids got to use iPod touches for guided tours, something the museum is offering for free in the month of August.  They loved having gadgets, listening to the audio, and seeing additional photos.  Of course that meant that it took us at least four times as long to make it through the exhibit.  Wonderful exhibit, though.  Huge and full of interesting hardware and facts.

Kids listening to the audio for the NASA exhibit

At the end of the exhibit there were some really fun hands-on stations.  One was a landing module that you could sit inside.

Leaning back and checking out the switches, levers, and gauges

Then there were several cartons of mjolk (milk) to pick up, each weighing what it would on a particular planet.  I could scarcely lift the carton on the sun.  There was also a weighing station so you could see how much you weighed (in kilograms) on various planets.

Lucy sets off to see how much she would weigh on the sun

An indoor spinner!

The moon hop was very popular with all the kids.  To try it out, you walk up some steps to a platform and get into a stretchy/bungee swing.  Then someone launches you by tossing you off the platform and towards the padded wall.

Isaac enjoyed being flung out with force

Isaac on the return

Lucy loved it, too, although she wasn’t as keen on hitting the wall hard

There was also a flight simulator!  Of course that cost extra, but it was less than $10 and Thomas and David really wanted to try it out.  Isaac was eager, too, but he was too short.  Thomas did fine in the simulator and declared that he wanted to become an astronaut, but David had to sit down for a spell after he emerged from the pod.

The awesome flight simulator

The description in English

We also toured around through most of the rest of the museum.  The upstairs exhibits were all new to us.  I don’t think they were there in 2009 (or I have a bad memory or we never made it upstairs).  In one section there were inventions created by women, while another exhibit featured ways to generate power and be kind to the environment.

Thomas on the hopper toy invented to allow disabled kids the experience of jumping

After we finished at the Tekniska Museum and on our way to the bus stop, the kids played outside the Polis Museum, which is adjacent to Tekniska.

The clever play equipment outside the Polis Museum

T-bone in jail

Two officers and a K-9

I completely forgot to mention in yesterday’s post that we got our electricity back (hooray!).  It turned out that our power hadn’t been cut off—the main circuit breaker in the apartment had been blown by a short in the stove.  What we didn’t know and what the electrician showed us was that you can’t flip the main breaker by itself.  All the minor breakers must be turned off, then the main switched, and then the minors switched.  We had tried all the breakers numerous times, but not in that exact sequence.  The building maintenance guy was also mystified, thus the electrician was called.

We haven’t figured out the short in the stove.  The electrician didn’t either, although he took the back off the stove and examined things.  At first it seemed that the problem was in the large burner, but then we lost power again after using one of the smaller ones.  Now that we know how to deal with the circuit breakers, we’re fine.  We’re avoiding the stove a lot, so we’re not doing much cooking.  But hey, we have refrigeration in the apartment!  That’s progress!

Today David took Thomas with him to his Stockholm office for most of the day while Lucy and Isaac played in the apartment with me.  Those two crazy kids created an elaborate construction on the kitchen table that they called “Staple Town.”  Lucy even drew up a plan for how it should be laid out.  The whole thing took a very long time and required lots of cooperation.

Staple Town, in the beginning

Staple Town, in one of its early evolutions

Don’t worry about the refrigerator being open–we still had no electricity at this point.

One of the other major activities of the day was working in math workbooks (their idea, not mine!).  Isaac served as the teacher and he checked Lucy’s work.  If she did a good job and got all the right answers, he gave her a sticker.

Lucy with all the stickers she earned in Teacher Isaac’s math class

Around 4 pm (that’s 16:00 local time), David and Thomas returned to the apartment and we all took the subway and a bus over to our old stomping grounds, the Wenner-Gren Center.  The kids were determined to see the place and to play on their old playground.

The kids running down the WGC path, as they used to do all the time

Lucy informed everyone she can climb up the chain ladder easily now (what Isaac's climbing in this photo)

The wading pool that was so perfect for us when the days grew warmer in 2009

I was hoping for a nice photo of the yard bunnies, but we only saw one rabbit sprint across the driveway just as we were beginning to approach the grounds.

After the playground, we set off to climb the rocky hills behind our old apartment.  We weren’t able to access the area behind our old apartment where we used to climb because some of that section has been dug out for the new train route they’ve been working on for years.  So we ascended the small cliffs in a different way and hiked around at the top to see what we could see.

Part of the area we used to climb with the kids

Crane just behind our old place, making way for a future train route

We didn’t get to spend nearly as much time there as we wanted to since it started raining and we heard some serious thunder.  There has been a lot of stormy weather in Stockholm this August, somewhat unpredictable with lightning and thunder.  A hilltop is not the place to be in such circumstances!  So we scurried down in the rain, carefully but quickly, and went in search of a nearby Indian restaurant that we used to enjoy in 2009.

We found the Indian place pretty quickly, but we also discovered that it was entirely empty.  All the signage was still intact, but the restaurant was gone.  We were pretty hungry by that time and ready to be out of the storm.  The next thing on the street was an enticing Chinese restaurant that wasn’t there in 2009 and seemed to have taken over a space previously occupied by an Italian restaurant (i.e, they had not changed the basic décor of columns and busts).  We were about the only ones in the place until a Chinese tour bus unloaded its occupants into the back dining room.  We had a very tasty meal there and the kids were quite happy with their orders—chicken soup for Isaac and plates full of small eggrolls for Thomas and Lucy.

The kids really liked the desserts, which came with paper umbrellas.  Since they’d seen the photos in the menu, they just had to have the banana splits.  Well, Thomas and Isaac did.  Lucy liked Isaac’s soup so much that she ordered chicken soup for her dessert!

A lot of things can change in two years, but enough of the old infrastructure in our neighborhood was intact that the kids felt satisfied that they had revisited a mecca from their past.

But today was go, go, go.  We started in the section with the rides for younger kids.  We rode Lucy’s beloved Tuff-Tuff Train first.  It was her very favorite ride last year, but it didn’t hold her attention as much this year.  Then it was on to the teacups for Thomas, Isaac, and me.  David and Lucy can’t take the spinning rides—they wreak havoc with their stomachs.

Spinning fast on the teacups (that little brown blob is Isaac's head)

This year we didn’t stay in the younger section for long.  The boys really wanted to get to the faster/scarier rides.  Isaac finally made it over the 110 cm mark in height, so he was eligible for more rides this year.  The attendants measured him every time, though—he looks shorter than he is.  Isaac’s absolute favorite ride, at least towards the end, was the swing ride (Kättingflygaren).

The swing ride goes out over the water!

David had to sit down for several minutes after he rode once on the swing ride.  His stomach and head were a mess.  But Isaac loved all the rides, the scarier the better.  Come to think of it, he rode all four rides that he was newly qualified for this year: Bläckfisken (the octopus), Kvasten (T’s favorite, a suspended roller coaster), the swing ride, and Vilda Musen (the wild mouse roller coaster).  Thomas loves the scary rides, too, and can’t get enough of them.

T-bone on the Rock-Jet, not scary but fun

The Ghost Train was open this year, after having been renovated.  We didn’t ride it because the long was incredibly long (all the lines were long—it was a crowded day), but it certainly looked fun.

The entrance to the Ghost Train

After a nice sit down lunch of pizza plus pancakes for Thomas and pasta for Lucy, we split up.  The boys stayed on the older side while Lucy and I went back over to the little folks area.  Lucy seemed to enjoy the carousel quite a lot this year, insisting on riding it twice.  She also drove one of the old fashioned u-drive-it cars and made me sit in the back seat!

Lucy riding one of the very tall giraffes on the historic carousel

Lucy’s biggest accomplishment, though, was riding the kids’ roller coaster, the Nyckelpigan (Ladybird roller coaster).  When she was newly four years old on our very first visit to Gröna Lund, Lucy good heartedly got on the Ladybug (as we call it) and then feared for her life.  When she got off the ride she pointed at the turns and in the track and said, “THAT curve made me sick and THAT curve made me sick.”  She has hated that ride ever since.  But this year Lucy faced her demons and chose the Ladybug as our last ride of the day.  Since it was a two in a seat ride, the boys rode together and Lucy and David rode in a seat and I stayed on the ground to get a photo.

Lucy conquering the Nyckelpigan (Ladybug) roller coaster

It took her two years and David had to distract her up mid-ride by tickling her, but she did it.  And now she can brag about it!

Of course we had a couple of snacks in the afternoon.  Who could possibly turn down the world’s best cotton candy?

Freshly spun sockervadd (cotton candy) and tasty popcorn

We also played some carnival games and won some prizes (i.e., overpaid for some trinkets).  Before we left the apartment that morning, we’d set a limit of 3 games per person.  The kids only played 2 each, saving their 3^rd for next year.  Smart, as surely the prices will increase and who knows what the dollar will be doing!

Apparently goggles in the bathtub are the way to go!

When we finally finished all our washing up, we mosied over to the city center to the McDonalds with the downstairs and the tall stools.  At the McDonald’s we lucked into Mad Science toys since the Kung Fu Panda 2 promotion had ended.  Thomas and Lucy both got very cool spinning tops that work really well.  They are by far the best kids’ meal toy we’ve ever had.  Isaac didn’t want a Happy Meal—he went with a la carte selections and finished up all the leftover apple slices.

Downstairs at the downtown McD’s

It was still raining when we finished our late lunch, so we decided to get a bit of shopping out of the way.  We were very lucky to have gotten two years of use out of the kids’ old Polarn O. Pyret fleeces, but the kids have now outgrown those wonderful jackets with the built-in mittens (holes for thumbs to stick through to keep the hands warm).  So we set out to find new Polarn fleeces in larger sizes.  The kids each picked out their own color this time.  We just wish that the dollar were doing a little better against the Swedish krona (oy!).

The shopping took so long that we soon realized there wasn’t enough time left to get to the Teniska Museum and enjoy the exhibits there before it closed for the day.  Since it was still raining, we meandered around through the underground passages, window shopping and picking up a few things along the way.  Eventually we came to the Kulturhuset and looked around for a bit on the ground floors.

Lighting up different neighborhoods in the model of Stockholm

The kids’ area (Rum för Barn) where we’ve been many times before was full.  No one was too disappointed, though, as our kids are now a little old for that place.  It was great when the twins were only three years old and it was freezing outside.

For dinner we tried a restaurant just across the street from our apartment.  They seated us in the basement where the walls were rustic and cave-like.  Isaac loved it down there.  We forgot to take a photo, so he wants to go back.  Lucy ordered a salmon plate, Isaac had linguini with cheese, and Thomas had an order of garlic bread with ice cream for dessert.  He had a few bites of salmon and potatoes, too.  Not the most well rounded meal, but not too bad.  We tried to get everyone to bed on the early side because we planned to visit Gröna Lund (the amusement park) the next day…!

Saturday morning consisted of more playing in the apartment and visiting nearby parks.  The kids already have a favorite park—one several blocks away that has spinners they can race around and hop on.

Spinners make this park a top pick

Climbing the spider web is always a fun challenge

In the late afternoon, we walked down to the bus terminal at Slussen and boarded a commuter bus headed to the town of Gustavsberg.  We had been invited to a cookout there by one of David’s colleagues.  We were told that there would be korv (hot dogs) and plenty of young kids to play with.  Although earlier in the day it was gray and rainy, by the time we got to the garden party it was bright and beautiful.

Isaac riding the bus on the way to the garden party

Our kids plus the other 7 kids there had a fantastic time running around all over the vast grounds, playing on a trampoline, climbing into a fort, playing in a sandbox, chasing each other with water guns, putting their feet into the sea, and dismantling a croquet field.  They also got to check out a playhouse that was at least 100 years old and contained a real working woodstove, kid-sized!  One of the moms remembered making fudge on that stove when she was a young girl.

The kids also picked ripe apples off the trees and ate them, a real treat.  And there was a large Bernese Mountain dog who was quite gentle and seemed to love children, especially when they were eating korv!  She was crafty, waiting until everyone’s attention was turned to sneak a hotdog right off the serving plate and into her mouth (just one gulp for her).

By the time we took the bus back and walked to the apartment from Slussen, it was late and getting dark.  Too dark in our powerless apartment for baths, so we postponed them until the morning.

Lucy riding in the midsection of the double sectioned bus