Well we decided to sign up for the Engadine Night race, a 17 km race on Thursday, March 7th.It’s only a 17 km skate ski starting at 7 pm and it will give us a great chance to ski a section before the big Engadine race on Sunday, March 10th. We have to have a headlamp and there are 5 different bands playing along the candlelight course! Last night we went over to visit with our new Canadian friends and had cake with them as it was Emily’s birthday. She is also doing the Engadin so we will meet up with her again in St. Moritz. Today we did some more sight seeing in Stockholm.
The Vasa Museum
The Ship Vasa was a Swedish war ship built by King Adolphus Gustav. It sunk on it’s maiden voyage in Stockholm harbour in 1628. It lay on the sea floor in the harbour for 300 years and it was preserved by the low oxygen content in the water secondary to the city dumping all of their garbage into the sea for hundreds of years. It was raised in 1959 and for 17 years they sprayed it with polyethylene glycol to preserve the wood.
Now it is sitting in the Vasa Museum 98% original. It’s huge. Here are some pictures of it now.
The museum is filled with very interesting artifacts recovered from the ship and we learnt a lot about the people and life on board.
Forgot to include this picture below of our new Canadian friends. One couple was going on to the World Masters in Norway, one couple to Lappland and the other couple to the Norwegian Birkiebeiner.The birthday girl we’ll try to hook up with tomorrow.
Next we walked to the Fotografika Museum of Photography. It had two exhibits. The first was interesting as the photos were on display and went with the song, She Could Have Been A Cowboy being played.
The second one was really cool! It was called “The Truth is Dead”by Allison Jackson. Her work is about voyeurism, our need to believe and simulation. She cleverly uses actors or look-a-likes of celebrities and public figures to produce convincingly paparazzi or documentary style photographs of the intimate, often salacious, imagined lives of many of the world’s most famous or well-known individuals. Here are a few we found entertaining!
When we arrived in Zurich it was 10 degrees with green grass everywhere! However, we were given chains for our car rental!
The drive from Zurich to St. Moritz was really beautiful- fun on the autobahn and then up through a couple of passes (2250m) with switch backs and lots of snow! Would be very fun to ride on!
In St. Moritz now!
Well we’ve spent the day picking up our race kits, perusing the Sports Market( the toy shop), waxing our skis, talking to lots of fellow Canadians, getting ready for the Night race and of course blogging! It has been snowing a very wet heavy snow all day and it’s right around zero. Want a great way to meet fellow Canadians at a world event? Wear a Canada hat around as you meet so many new people! Today we met a group of 4 that have been travelling the world doing the WorldLoppets for 20 years! The one guy, Robert Palliser from Stirling, Ontario has 21 Gold Worldloppet Masters and is working on his 21nd. ( In other words he has done 210 Worldloppet races in at least 10 different countries. )He’s invited us to stay with him for the Marcia Longa Loppet in Italy next year!
Better go! Time to get dressed and to the bus stop for the start of the Engadine Nachtlauf/Night Race!!
A Nordic Skiing World Loppet Tour 