Shallow Pockets Brimming with Ich Bin Schweden

Sunday was more touristing in Sveeden. We headed out to see the Big Ship Museum- aka Vasamuseet. Basically the entire museum focused on the 16th century ship, the Vasa. This baby was painfully hand-crafted, manned by hundreds, and it sank within two hours of its maiden voyage right in Stockholm's harbor- oops! Essentially, the Vasa was an utter and complete failure. So what do you do with that? Monumentalize it into a museum of shoulda, woulda, coulda, apparently, and pay back the restoration by charging admission. Sneaky, Sweden, very sneaky.

I really did like the way they had everything set up though. It was a 'pretty' museum at the very least and it was very cool getting to walk around the restoration rooms. Some of it may have been a bit... unnecessary? Space fillers and all that, but it was a nice way to spend an afternoon. It's all enrichment, right? What a cool profession though to get to design a museum of that magnitude. It was more ID than archaeology- I can dig it. We wandered around Stockholm a bit more and then headed off to a friend of a friend's for supper.

For dinner I had the opportunity to try a Swedish delicacy- Surströmming. Essentially what it is is... fermented herring. Canned. Over salted. Left to sit for a year or more. You can't eat it indoors, the smell is that horrendously overbearing, but, like I said, Swedes like being outside so it doesn't seem to be much of a problem. After collecting all of the goodies for our feast from Heiko's, we headed down to the docks, bungeed a tarp as a wind barrier, bundled up, and got adventurous.

Our wonderfully generous host showed us how to prep the Surstromming: cut it up into tiny pieces, mash up some taters, add a bit of red onion, set it on cracker-bread and voila- one smelly sandy coming right up! It was not as awful as I imagined it might be... but it's also not something I would seek out again. I ate my half a sandwich but stuck to crayfish, cheese, and conversation for the rest of the evening.

On the last day we made our way to the markets so I could get my mama her smelly farmer's cheese and Dennis got moose salami. That's right- MOOSE. We got a kick out of all the little signs in the butcher's window. Not sure what's in your meat? Just match up the animal sillhouettes! Genius! Then we each grabbed a lunch of Sweedish meatballs in the most lovely creamy gravy, mashed potatoes, steamed veggies and lingonberry sauce. It was definitely a massive step up from Surstromming.