July 15, 2025: Watercolors

Skärhamm, Sweden

Elisabeth took us on a drive to a seaside village. It was crowded with people and their boats.

Elisabeth said that people drive here and spend time on their boats and invite friends to join them. They don’t take the boats out since fuel is so expensive.

We came here specifically to see the Nordic Watercolor Museum. They wanted to build an art collection based on watercolor techniques. The purpose of the collection is to expand our understanding of what watercolor art can be, what it can contain and express.

Here are a few installations:

Sketch for Textile by Stin Linberg
Fog by Lars Lerin
Singing Suns by Du Yun is an electronic presentation where the suns evolve
and then disappear.
Maija Isola of Finland worked as a designer for Marimekko. Her iconic 1964 floral Unikko made Isola the world’s most famous textile designer of her time.
Birchwood by Lars Lerin. It is hard to believe that this large  landscape is a watercolor with intricate details.
After viewing the exhibit, there was a workshop where we could create our own. The little boy next to me (not Rob) was doing much better than I was!!
At the coffee shop, Elisabeth pointed out these Swedish pastries called “vacuum cleaners”. They are called that because they looked like the Electrolux vacuum of the past.
Is that Rob, the climber???? Where’s he going??

Kyrkesund

We drove a little further to a very small, but picturesque fishing village.

Grocery Shopping

It is always an authentic experience when one goes to a grocery store in another country.
We didn’t have an account so we couldn’t use these grocery scanners. It looked like fun. I think that this is our future in the USA.
An ear of corn in Sweden costs $2.00. At home in the USA, it would cost 20¢.
On the other hand, an avocado cost $1.30 and at home a good one costs as much as $3.00.
Are babies really excited about couscous??
This is an automated basket elevator. It took us three times to figure it out. It would have just been easier to lift it one time!! Haha!
We purchased a Princess Cake to eat after dinner tonight. When Elisabeth got out her Swedish knife to cut the cake, it looked more like a saw. It seemed like overkill to me!!

The traditional Swedish layer cake consists of alternating layers of airy sponge cake, pastry cream, and a thick-domed layer of whipped cream. The cake is covered by a layer of rolled green marzipan, giving it a smooth, rounded top often decorated with a pink marzipan rose.

The Swedish princesses were said to have been especially fond of the cake. The princesses were Princess Margaretha (1899–1977; later Princess of Denmark), Princess Märtha (1901–1954; later Crown Princess of Norway), and Princess Astrid (1905–1935; later Queen of the Belgians).

And yes, I felt like a Swedish princess when I was eating it … not so sure about Rob.

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