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Stockholm: Day 2

The sun was out today, which definitely motivated us to get outdoors sooner. Breakfast at our hotel was very similar to all the others - the difference was a selection of cookies on top of the other usual items, which was a nice touch. Once we'd finished eating, we headed out to the Skansen open-air museum near the royal gardens, beside Djurgårdsbrunnviken.

We found that the museum was a collection of buildings that were moved from their original location (a lot were from Stockholm) to the heritage site, or replicas of historical buildings. It was an interesting and very tactile approach to preserving how Stockholm evolved over time, that encourages education. We saw buildings from the 15th century to the 20th century - and it was fascinating to learn about how people lived, from employees dressed up according to the time period. Some of the buildings actually remained functional - such as the glass workshop, bakery, and tavern - so you could buy souvenirs and/or snacks as you explored. 

The museum sits on top of a hill, so walking around the perimeter also offered spectacular views of the city. As we wandered through each area, we found runes, exhibits featuring indigenous people (Sámi people) and how they build storehouses on stilts to keep their stuff away from animals, and even a zoo. The zoo wasn't as natural as the one we saw in Gothenburg, but it did have a greater variety of animals: reindeer, moose, horses, lynx, wolves, wolverines, bison, and brown bears (which we didn't actually see, since they should have been hibernating).

We stayed almost until the museum closed (around 3:00pm), spending some time in the gift shop because there were so many handcrafted items for sale. For our fika, we headed back to Södermalm to try some pastries at Fabrique - a nice break and moment to relax before our dinner with Ellinor.

Dinner with Ellinor and her family was eye-opening, and helped us understand more about Swedish life and culture. She made us a traditional Hungarian meal of chicken paprikash and nokedli, which was delicious. We found a lot of similarities between Canada and Sweden (friendliness, prices of meals, strata council management of apartments, 18-month parental leave) but also advantages available in Sweden. Their real estate is high but not as ridiculous as Vancouver, minimum vacation is 5 weeks, doctors and pharmacists can all access a centralized system for prescriptions which can also be accessed by the individuals, education seems to help kids become bilingual in Swedish and English. There are others, but I'll save some for a future post.

Tomorrow, we will meet Ellinor for a fika/lunch and explore Gamla Stan.

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