Life in Sweden: The Aquaria Wattenmuseum

Today our adventure took us to the Aquaria Wattenmuseum (or the Aquarium). http://www.aquaria.se/swe/start.html It is located in the Durjarden area. To explore another new mode of transportation, we chose to take the ferry across the water. It is located near the Vasa Museum so you can also get there by tram. The ferry leaves every 15 minutes and is a 7 minute ride to the other side. Our SL cards that allow us to ride the subway is valid for the ferry.

Ellie loved riding on the boat. She enjoyed looking out the window at the water. The museum is fairly small but very well laid out. It covers mainly tropical and Nordic aquatic environments. You enter into the rainforest, which Ellie loved. She had a great time looking at the fish, frogs and plants. There was even a wooden bouncy bridge to walk across to get a better look at the fish. However, she did not like the thundershower that came through the rainforest. In addition to the “changing” weather conditions in the rainforest, they also cycled through night and day. The next section was tropical fish. The had a large tank with lots of brightly colored fish. There was even a crawling observation tunnel that children could crawl through to get a better look at the tank. It was Ellie’s absolute favorite thing about the museum. They had several tanks that were up high and they had ledges with step that the children could climb up and see. There was also a shallow pond that the children could get right up by to easily see the fish.

In the environmental section, you could climb down in the sewer system to learn all about pollution and what it does to the water and fish. We then walked outside to learn about the Baltic. They museum takes advantage of being on the water and uses it as a teaching tool. They have built a salmon ladder from the water to the inside of the museum. They have released salmon from inside the museum and each year in October they have salmon return to spawn. We hung around the ladder for a while but did not see any returning salmon.

For lunch, we ate at a street vendor. We had the biggest hamburger patty I think I have ever seen. About ½ of it was sticking out of the standard size bun. It was a really great hamburger though. We did learn that fries are called “sticks”. Not sure if that is a standard translation or just what the street vendors use.

As we prefer, we ended the night with a little tiger football, both Auburn and Clemson. Both teams won. However, this staying up late to see the 3:30 EST game is going to kill us.