back to Stockholm; Vasa

I struggled awake at 11:00am when I heard Ted et al. up and about. After hurriedly packing I headed up to the main house for breakfast, which I ate standing up amidst goodbyes. Mayur drove Ted, Marc, Kristen and me to the Flen train station, though the manual transmission, our second guessing of the route, and over-shooting a turn caused us to miss our 12:30 Intercity train by 30 or 40 seconds. It was that close. I was throwing luggage out the back and we had 40 yards to run, and as we were it pulled away. But 30 minutes later, a regional came and we boarded for Stockholm C. At Eskilstuna, we transferred, like before, but couldn't buy tickets from the kiosk for some reason -- perhaps our foreign credit cards -- so we had to buy on the train at a premium. Said goodbye to Marc and Kristen at the station and they headed to the airport to continue to Copenhagen. Ted and I walked back to our trusty Sheraton and ran into Graciela and Mayur. We put our bags in their room and headed out to say goodbye to Sara Martin at McDonald's and then on to get food. In the afternoon, Alex, Sara Matuszak and I toured the Vasa Museum, a 17th-Century ship-wrecked naval vessel that sank after sailing less than a nautical mile into her maiden voyage. The ship ended up being way too tall relative to the width of its hull, and that high center of gravity made it unstable. Its instability also was due to insufficient ballast. And then its canon portholes were right at the water line. All these things were a disaster waiting to happen. So it sank: probably tilted a little and then filled with water but it was perfectly preserved and now offers a great glimpse into 17th century Swedish life (at least 17th century Swedish maritime life). A national embarrassment turned great museum -- nice job, Sweden. Sara headed back early and Alex and I got some food from a vendor and discussed theology on our way back. That night I roomed with Schultze at the Sheraton.