Tag Archives: Stockholm

Posts from Base Camp

Learning a Language in 5 Days

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(Kingston, Ontario, Canada)

Yes, I said that the next post would be from “on the road”.  While I am on the road already, I actually wrote this at home.  One of the best parts about running my own blog is that I can change my mind!

As I do not speak the language of the two countries I’m visiting on this trip, I decided to try an experiment.  Could I learn the language in less than a week, using only online tools?

More Cuban Crocodiles in Stockholm, Sweden
More Cuban Crocodiles in Stockholm, Sweden

I decided to try my experiment using the “Duolingo” app/website.  You can use it to learn multiple languages…simultaneously, if you want!  There are two ways to start working on your foreign language skills:  as an absolute beginner, or using a five minute placement test that will send you directly to your approximate level of fluency.  Just for fun, I decided to do the placement tests for French and German.  I was curious to see how my fluency in each of those languages would be assessed.  I figured that my German grammar and pronunciation would be better but I thought that I had better French vocabulary.

Swedish primates grooming each other.
Swedish primates grooming each other.

The placement test gives you a percentage score that represents your fluency in that language.   It also adapts to your performance:  if it is clear from the start that you don’t know very much, the remaining questions will focus on the basic components of the language to more accurately determine where you need work.  My scores confirmed that my French skills were not measuring up to my German ones.  Even so, it was encouraging to see that I was not too far from fluency.  I was tempted to work on those languages…but, alas, that would have to wait.  I had another language to learn.

Check out the grin on the reptile, at the bottom right!
Check out the grin on the reptile, at the bottom right!

My progress with my new mystery language is erratic but very tangible.  While I am nowhere near fluency yet (I just passed the 6% fluency checkpoint!), I have learned an incredible amount in only a few days.  With no books and no charts to memorize, I am learning more organically…almost like a child learns a new language.  It’s scary, because I usually learn by note-taking and then studying what I’ve written.  Somehow, much of what I’m seeing and hearing is actually sticking with me, even though I am not writing it down.   This forces you to learn intuitively and invent your own rules for the language:  it’s very hard at first but eventually you remember those rules better because they belong to you!

These are the globes that travel to the top of the Ericsson Globe Arena in Stockholm
These are the globes that travel to the top of the Ericsson Globe Arena in Stockholm

The cool part of using a program like Duolingo is that you can proceed at your own pace.  You can use it anywhere that you have Internet access.  It’s better to use it privately, so that you can hear the language (and speak it back into your computer), but you can still skip over those parts if you need to work silently.

Approaching the top of the Ericsson Globe Arena in Stockholm
Approaching the top of the Ericsson Globe Arena in Stockholm

Studies have shown that learning a completely new language is an excellent way to keep one’s brain from deteriorating with age.  I’m excited to report that it can also be fun.   Over the next couple of weeks, I will find out if it can be useful too!

I promise that my next post will really be from my mystery destination.  In the meantime, here are some more pictures from our 2012 visit to Stockholm, Sweden.

Posts from Base Camp

Travel Flashback: Stockholm (August 17, 2012)

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(Kingston, Ontario, Canada)

Another day, another blitz of the various attractions covered by the Stockholm Card!

We started off by visiting the Vasa ship.   The Vasa was a huge, overly ornamental and excessively armed ship that was launched in Stockholm with much fanfare in 1628.  Alas, with all of the bells and whistles, the engineers failed to take certain things into consideration.  Foremost among those considerations:  would it float?  Sadly, it did not even make it out of the harbour and sunk ingloriously after a mere 20 minutes.

The Vasa ship
The Vasa ship

However, the ship was magically preserved over the centuries at the bottom of the harbour until it was rediscovered in 1956 and finally exhumed in 1961.  Some restoration was obviously required but the ship now stands proudly in its own museum in downtown Stockholm.   While the environment is strictly controlled and does not lend itself well to photography, it was still fascinating to see the 17th century version of the Titanic.  It’s much more impressive, and perplexing, when you see it in person.

A couple of lemurs at Stockholm's Skansen open-air museum
A couple of lemurs at Stockholm’s Skansen open-air museum

Our next stop was Skansen – the “original” open-air folk museum after which many others are modelled (and sometimes even named).    Alas, we were starting to grow a little weary of museums by this time and we decided to focus on Skansen’s small zoo rather than the other elements.

This lemur crossed the line and was subsequently sprayed
This lemur crossed the line and was subsequently sprayed

We spent a fair bit of time “walking among the lemurs”:  there is a large area that you can walk through with about 20 of these odd creatures also wandering around.  They don’t harm humans but aren’t supposed to jump on your back because it could easily become a habit for them.  If they do jump on your back, a staff member will come running out and spray them with water:  the lemurs don’t like that!  It was strange to be hanging out with these creatures from Madagascar; we didn’t quite trust them but they also didn’t seem to be very dangerous.

Some of Skansen's primates
Some of Skansen’s primates

After observing the primates for a while (they all seemed to have those nasty-looking red behinds), we visited some of the indoor enclosures.  We saw rare Cuban crocodiles there, accompanied by this text:  “Since there is an embargo from American authorities regarding Cuban goods, crocodiles born in Cuba are not allowed into the U.S.A.  They are regarded as communistic crocodiles, in the eyes of American authorities.  On the other hand, if they are born in Sweden, they are allowed [and this is] the only way for American zoos to acquire this rare crocodile.”  I wonder if this still applies, given the recent thawing in relations between Havana and Washington?  You can read more about these crocodiles here: I certainly didn’t realize that they were kept in a Russian cosmonaut’s apartment for a while!

Is this a communist crocodile?
Is this crocodile a communist?

As this was our last full day in Stockholm, I pressed onward and visited the Ericsson Globe Arena.  This is a famous globe-shaped sports arena towering 130 metres above Stockholm. I mention the height because I did not go inside the arena:  I rode a globe-shaped “elevator” on an external track to the top!   This is definitely not recommended if you are prone to vertigo but it was a nifty way to see Stockholm from a completely different perspective.   Once again, the Stockholm Card covered the admission cost.

The Skyview ride to the top of the world's largest spherical building: the Ericsson Globe
The Skyview ride to the top of the world’s largest spherical building: the Ericsson Globe Arena

While I’ve got more pictures from Stockholm to share, I’m going to keep them in reserve for now.  The next blog post you see will be from our 2016 journey to the Southern Hemisphere.  Stay tuned to find out what I’ve been hinting about for the past couple of months!

Posts from Base Camp

Travel Flashback: Stockholm (August 16, 2012)

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(Kingston, Ontario, Canada)

On our first day in Stockholm, we had an unforgettable experience at an international soccer game between Sweden and Brazil.  However, we also found a lot of other things to like about Sweden’s capital city.  Today’s post is about our second day in Stockholm.

The National Museum in Stockholm (as seen on our boat tour)
The National Museum in Stockholm (as seen on our boat tour)

Stockholm offers a multi-day combination tourist pass called the Stockholm Card that includes all public transit, museums and a host of other attractions.  We easily made it pay for itself, although we raced around at a blistering pace.  We began with a tour of the Royal Palace (Kungliga Slottet), the Postmuseum and a boat tour of the downtown area.    The Palace was appropriately huge and opulent; the Postmuseum included oddities such as a realistic portrait of a Swedish postal director from the early 1900s that was made entirely from postage stamps!  It was one of the oddest things I’ve ever seen:  kind of like a mosaic but using stamps instead of stones or pieces of glass.

The streets are very narrow in Gamla Stan (the old town) area of Stockholm
The streets are very narrow in Gamla Stan (the old town) area of Stockholm

The boat tour turned out to be rather brief (it was free, after all) but it was still nice to see Stockholm from another perspective.  It is built on 14 islands and, as you’ll see from my next blog post, has quite a fascinating naval history.

Mårten Trotzigs gränd - the narrowest street in Sweden
Mårten Trotzigs gränd – the narrowest street in Sweden

We worked up quite an appetite navigating the narrow streets of Gamla stan (the oldest part of Stockholm) and had a fun outdoor lunch at one of the local restaurants.  Downtown restaurants generally have a lunch special (called “Dagens rätt“) with a price corresponding to the local “lunch allowance”, so we took the opportunity to have some Swedish meatballs with lingonberry sauce.  In the afternoon, we went to the Nobel Museum [“Nobelmuseet“].  This was important for us to see but the last “site” of the  day was, to our surprise, even more impressive.

One of the sculptures at Millesgården in Stockholm
One of the sculptures at Millesgården in Stockholm

Carl Milles was a sculptor who created most of his enduring works in the first half of the 20th century.  His home overlooked downtown Stockholm and was turned into a museum after his death.  The  home/museum is interesting (it looks as it did during Milles’ lifetime), but almost all of his major works are outside.  The complex is called Millesgården.

Another one of the ethereal sculptures at Millesgården
Another one of the ethereal sculptures at Millesgården

While he created all kinds of sculptures, Milles is best known for those that appear to defy gravity and even take flight.  You can see a few of them here, as well as a very small portion of the extensively landscaped grounds overlooking Stockholm.

More of Millesgården, with some of downtown Stockholm in the background
More of Millesgården, with some of downtown Stockholm in the background

Millesgården is relatively difficult to find, if you are based in the downtown area, but it is well worth the effort if you would like to have an unconventional art experience.  While I did my best to capture them in my photographs, the sculptures are even more impressive when observed in situ.  It turned out to be one of our favourite stops on our whirlwind cultural tour of Stockholm.

Stay tuned for the highly unusual next day in Stockholm: who would have thought there would be an element of Madagascar to our visit?

Posts from Base Camp

Travel Flashback: Ultimate Soccer Experience in Stockholm, 2012

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(Kingston, Ontario, Canada)

Sweden doesn’t enjoy a high profile among Canadians considering a trip to Europe.  It may be perceived as being somewhat similar to Canada, both geographically and culturally…and therefore perhaps not quite “exotic” enough as a destination.  However, we loved it there and hope to return someday.

While I hope to report more on Sweden in a later post, I’ll cut to the chase in this one: even if we had done nothing else in Stockholm, the evening of August 15, 2012 completely justified our three day visit to that vibrant, beautiful and multicultural city.  The final international soccer game to ever be played in historic Råsunda Stadium was scheduled for that evening.

Fun at halftime. This is how close we were to the field!
Fun at halftime. Every attendee was given a Swedish flag!

While it has hosted the Swedish national team for many decades, Råsunda is best known as the stadium that hosted the 1958 World Cup.  In turn, the 1958 tournament was notable because it was Brazil’s first ever World Cup victory and also marked the emergence of a brilliant new 17 year-old superstar named Edson Arantes do Nascimento…better known as Pelé.  Pelé is generally acknowledged to have been the greatest soccer player of all time.  In the final, Brazil defeated Sweden by a score of 5-2.  And now, 54 years later, the stadium was being retired with a match between the current national soccer teams of Brazil and Sweden.

Neymar prepares to humiliate a Swedish defender
Neymar prepares to humiliate a Swedish defender

I found out about this match in a most unusual way.  Earlier that year, I had been asked at the last minute to play in a hockey tournament in Kingston.   A team from Sweden had arrived without 3 of their players and were looking for some local replacement players.   One of the tournament organizers heard that I was “Swedish” and I was contacted to play.  While my background is actually Swiss and Dutch, it is not uncommon for people to confuse Sweden and Switzerland.  In any case, I brought along a couple of (equally non-Swedish) friends from my local team and we all had a great time playing for the Swedish squad.  We even made it to one of the tournament finals.

Neymar takes a first-half free kick against Sweden
Neymar takes a first-half free kick against Sweden

I stayed in touch with a couple of the Swedish hockey players and I asked one of them about going to a pro soccer game when visiting Sweden that summer.  He told me that the timing was not right for a regular league game…but that an international match between Sweden and Brazil would be played while we were there.    Although he couldn’t make it to that match, he gave me the contact information for the tickets and I embarked on a complicated journey to purchase them from Kingston.  It was a crazy roller-coaster of very long-distance phone calls, credit card follies and international money orders.  I persevered, however, and we were able to get tickets only a few rows from the field!

Somebody must have cancelled their purchase right before I bought those tickets, as the game was completely sold out.  We arrived to a scene of sheer madness:  there even was a samba band playing at the entrance, complete with outrageous Carnival costumes.  It was a little bit of Rio in Scandinavia.

A little bit of Rio in Stockholm, Sweden.
A little bit of Rio in Stockholm, Sweden.

Just a few minutes after we settled into our seats, the ceremonies began.  First, we saw some of the Swedish players who played in that 1958 final.  Then we saw some of the Brazilian players who played…including Pelé himself!  Wow!  He said a few words about the 1958 World Cup and even performed the ceremonial opening kickoff (see photo at the top of this post).  For a soccer player and fan like me, it is truly amazing to be able to say that I saw Pelé kick a soccer ball.   He was 71 at the time and still looked like he could control a game.

Pelé runs off the field after performing the ceremonial opening kickoff
Pelé runs off the field after performing the ceremonial opening kickoff

The game was equally thrilling.  Led by Neymar (the “next Pelé”), and having just finished playing at the Olympics in London, the Brazilians made the Swedes look like amateurs.  The final score was 3-0 but it could have been much worse.   Their ball control was particularly amazing:  we could not believe how Neymar (and many of his teammates) could do such magical things with the ball while also running at full speed.    It is far more impressive in person than on television.   Even the partisan Swedish crowd had to applaud the impressive display by the Brazilians.

It was a "friendly" match, but there were still some hard tackles (and resulting injuries)
It was a “friendly” match, but there were still some hard tackles (and resulting injuries)

We felt sad when the game ended, as it had been so entertaining, but for the Swedish fans it was especially poignant because this was the last hurrah for their fabled national stadium.  There was a great deal of emotion in the air on that beautiful northern evening:  we felt honoured to have been a part of it.

Getting back to our hotel on a ridiculously packed subway was a chaotic experience but it did not diminish the thrill of seeing both the greatest soccer player of all time and (possibly) the greatest soccer player of the near future.  We will be extremely lucky if we ever see something like that again.