A Swede Weekend, Day 2

Welcome to Day 2 of our running diary. If you're looking for Day 1 go here.

8:00 - Breakfast in the Hostel: Ham, Cheese, bad Orange Juice, toast. The typical European breakfast. These people love cold cuts.

10:00 - Bus tour around Karlskrona. We had a jolly old man as our tour guide, who would supply us with useful knowledge like. "That church there is called the German Church. It is red, and that is because it is painted red. All the Germans went there. Thats why they called it the German Church."

He also referred to the square on the right (outside the German Church, which was called the German church because the Germans went there, as he reminded us) as the third biggest market in Eastern Europe. An interesting claim to make, seeing as there was approximately 3 vendors in the lot, and Sweden isn't even in Eastern Europe. In the words of Charles Barkley, "I love old people, I even hope to be one someday."

My favorite building was a different church we went to that was built in 1680 entirely out of wood. Because these churches were candle lit, you just don't see wooden buildings that old that often. Our tour guide told us that it was only expected to last for like 7 years when they built it. I also enjoyed that they had a sailboat over the pulpit. See pic on left.

11:00- Tour ends. You want to know why our tour of Karlskrona was only an hour long? I think its either because that's as long as Karlskrona can be interesting or our tour guide needed to take his morning nap. The most exciting part was when our bus driver Lief threaded the needle and squeezed the bus around some very tight Swedish corners.

11:45- Lunch at the Swedish Naval Officers Club. This place was awesome. Only a short walk from the naval base, all the officers take lunch and dinner here. This ornately decorated building just oozed history. There were portraits of Kings and Commodores on the walls, and leather chairs aplenty. I could picture myself planning another conquest of Denmark by candlelight, in one of these smoke filled rooms. There was also a playing card on one of the high ceilings, supposedly the byproduct of an outstanding card trick 15 years ago when Sweden was busy being neutral in the Cold War, but more on that in a bit.

Lunch consisted of pound steak, potatoes and asparagus (I was born to eat in Scandinavia), very tasty... Moral of story: It's good to be an officer.

13:00 - Swedish Naval Base - One of the highlights of the trip was our visit to the Swedish's navy's only base. We started by touring one of their larger ships, which is used for submarine rescue and repair. Some interesting nuggets.

-This boat is 300 feet long, yet doesn't have any significant ammunition on board... hmmm?
-The boat is supposed to access any Swedish submarine in the world within 24 hours. Not so hard considering there's only 4.
-Sweden doesn't have any nuclear powered subs, they're all Diesel Electric.
-Much to the delight of our tour guide, there's a Swedish sub that has been engaged in a war game with the US Navy for over a year and a half now. Apparently we can't catch it because their subs are quieter and more nimble than ours. I also wanted to note that our Navy has better things to do than just play games, ike wage war and what not.
-They have a decompression chamber that can handle up to 40 people if they rescued a sub from the depths. The people in these chambers can spend up to weeks getting their bodies re-pressurized if necessary.
-They actually end up rescuing foreign subs the most.
-This ship had no rudders, only props that can rotate 360 degrees. Also navigation is pretty much all automated at this point.

Next we visited a ship that specializes in Mine detection and destruction. From what I can tell, this is pretty much the only thing that the Swedish navy actually does.
This boat was interesting as well:
-Because many mines are activated through magnetic activity the ship is built entirely of fiberglass, and the small amounts of metal left have to be de-magnetized.
-It's also very quiet, as mines can be sound activitated.
-When they're mine hunting it only moves 1-3 Km/H. That must be exciting.
-I asked if the ship could withstand a direct hit from the mine, and the captain said that it probably could, but I don't think he's ever tried. He did say that once they detonated 8 mines simultaneously within 150 meters of the boat, that must have been pretty cool.

In general the Swedish navy is verrrrry low key. 20+ years ago they were much more active, as they were trying to stay strategically neutral in the cold war, which was apparently exhausting. But now that they're in the EU they're pretty much only fighting the last battles of WWII, detonating mines laid by the Nazis or the Russians. The Swedish navy has 588 employees and a yearly operating budget of about $10 million. So its a smaller operation than the Needham Public School System. They only have one base. I wanted to ask one of the officers, "Do you ever get bored being in the Swedish navy?" but I didn't. The security around the base was incredibly lax. When we got there our guide said, "I have about 50 foreigners" and we walked right in. I had my passport out and was been ready to have my bag inspected but we just waltzed through. Also there was a sign to not take pictures, which makes sense seeing as we had access to the ENTIRE SWEDISH NAVY, but on the inside the sailors were like, "take all the pictures you want." Therefore I like to call this picture, "The feebleness of the Swedish Navy." But hey, I guess there are advantages to being neutral for all those years.


18:00 - Bergdala Glass Blowing. We finished the day at a small glassblowing farm in the Swedish country side. This was a really nice way to experience this part of the country. We had a traditional meal of Herring (no thanks), Sausage (yes please), the biggest baked potatoes I've ever seen (hoo-bingo), and heaping portions of bacon. Since this is the political science class, we had some good politics talk too. After dinner was a performance by a dude with an accordion and a guitar, so we sang some songs and danced to music you can't really dance to. Fun night. There was also a glass blowing demonstration. I had seen it before at Simon Pearce in Vermont, but it is fascinating to watch. We got a glass to take home, woo.

23:45 - In an instance of beautiful irony, I got yelled at to be quiet by our chaperone, a librarian. Our card games became very competitive (I'd like to apologize to Meredith again for ripping that spoon out of her hand) and were apparently a little too loud.

One day left....