Sweden: Lake Malarian with Kids

Last post on Europe, I swear.

After Norway we headed back into Sweden and made one critical stop:

A visit an IKEA to buy swedish fish. Know you, When in Sweden...

We also marveled at the fact that Swedes are under the impression that they can pull anything behind their Saabs and Volvos.

Exhibit 1:

Exhibit 2:

Trucks? SUVs? Pah! Not necessary!

Exhibit 3 (and the hands-down winner):

We also noticed that south central Sweden is quite flat and the roads straight, so I suppose a big V8 isn’t strictly necessary. But still! A huge trailer being pulled by a car! We couldn’t believe it.

We’d rented a little cottage on Lake Malaren, which is about an hour outside of Stockholm. The cottage itself was on an island, so by this point we were getting pretty good at loading our gear into boats for the trip over to the house.

A hammock? The kids are sold.

Ben was thrilled to be back in the boat.

Still thrilled.

And....asleep.

We had a group of eight ducks that visited us every morning. They were quite social and the kids looked forward to their arrival each day. For our part, Chris and I were worried that the ducks were going to go after the tiny pieces of bread we were using as bait on our fishing rods and we’d end up with a stuck duck.

We had a few heart-to-heart discussions with the quckers, gently using the business end of a stick, and they thereafter gave the fishing poles a wide berth.

We continued the 'smore tradition. Pretty sure I’ve eaten my weight in marshmallows and chocolate this summer. Not a bad thing, I suppose.

Ben also had tremendous fishing success. We kept a few but most of them went back into the lake. Lucky dudes.

Fishing is serious business.

I kind of expected Ben to shy away from the actual killing of the fish, perhaps because I so strongly dislike it. Taking anything’s one, precious life is a miserable business in my opinion.

Not the case for our little guy. KILL IT, DAD! Let’s have fish for dinner tonight! Yeah, bang its head on that rock!

I’m slightly worried.

Back in the water you go, you lucky little fish.

Another thing you have to do in Sweden? Jump into a cold lake after a sauna session.

I should amend this: That is what you do if you’re Chris and Ben. I passed, like the wimp that I am!

We also did a bit of touring around, including a visit to the silver mine in Sala. Speaking of wimps, I also passed on going down into the mine.

318 meters down a black hole? God no.

I will jump out of an airplane and swim through sunken ship wrecks but I will not go nearly a quarter mile into the earth.

My great grandfather was a miner in Montana and it nearly killed him. By some accounts, the misery resulting from his occupation caused him to abandon his wife and six children in the middle of the great depression.

But if you’re braver than I, you can even spend the night down there. Fun yes?

Part of me can’t help but wonder what the miners would have thought of the mine today: a bunch of tourists happily sticking their heads into a mockup of mine life and sending forth big grins for the camera. Hey look! Here’s Ben pretending to do child labor! It falls a bit flat, you know? How quickly we willingly forget the human toll and original purpose of the mine.

And here is Ben pretending to be ore. A much more entertaining pursuit in his opinion.

It was on this trip that Emma’s hair finally consented to lay flat, instead of sticking straight up. Milestones!

Once again, the boys raided the apples trees. We’ve got a little monkey on our hands.

We also visited the nearby town of Vasteras, which has a delightful old town area and farmer’s market.

Ok, I promise this is my last “When in Sweden” but when in Sweden, one must eat lingonberries!!

(On a related note, I ate so many peanut butter and lingonberry sandwiches that I’d be happy to not see another lingonberry for a very, very long time)

After that, it was time to pack our bags one final time and head home. We had a layover in Iceland, which wasn’t too bad, despite the airport being absolutely packed. We did appreciate the free strollers for the babes and a quick bypass security line for families.

Now if only there was a way to avoid the 8 hr flight home...