Stockholm and Indian Jazz funk

I still have little time for miniatures, the newest reason is that my daughter Mari performed with her dancing class at the annual show of the Communal Culture School today, and there's been much to prepare. She dances jazz funk and her class should all be dressed as American Indians, sort of, and I, who can't sew a straight seem, had to make her a costume! Luckily we found an old brown blouse at a charity shop, she also had some old brown trousers which could be used and finally our large collection of beads came in handy! Here is the end result, with heavy stage makeup and darkened hair for the occasion. The blouse hangs freely, it's just tucked in on the sides a little bit by her arms.

The concert house was full (about 700 persons) and being the proud mother I am, I have to tell you her dance group got the longest and strongest applause from the audience. I tried to take photos during the show, but since there were no lights except on stage, and we weren't allowed to use the flash, the camera decided to go artistic instead (if you look very closely, you can see Mari dancing to the left).

This weekend we'll be visiting family, so rather than showing the miniscenes I don't have, I thought I'd show you some photos from our holiday in Stockholm, Sweden. With all you folks out there with a new or old Lundby Stockholm dollhouse, I think it's appropiate you should get to know the eponymic city a little bit better :-)

Gamla Stan (The Old Town) skyline

A closer look

Stora Torget (the old Main Square)

Old Town streetviews

Down to the left from here is a nice little shop with lots of miniatures.

For those who didn't get enough pomp and circumstance last Friday, here's the Royal Mounted Pageantry of Sweden.

And for those who miss miniatures in this post, here's a weaver in a bottle. Genius!
(Seen in one of the many antique shops)

One of Stockholm's many islands; Kastellholmen (Castle Island).
We went for a walk around that and its neighbouring island, Skeppsholmen (Ship Island)

At Moderna Museet (the Museum of Modern Arts) anything older than 50 years is considered garbage and thrown away.

While the Vasa ship, which capsized and sank the minute is was launched is rewarded with a museum of its own.

Torsten likes garden gnomes.

We left just in time to miss out on the blossoming of the cherrytrees in Kungsträdgården (The Royal Garden).

Snipetorpmarken

On the last Sunday of August each year, there's a large street market taking place called "Snipetorpmarken" just a few minutes walk from where we live, in the street down towards the town centre.

This year there were as many as 120 market stalls and almost 15. 000 people visiting during the four hours the market was open. Not bad for a town with a population of about 50. 000. Here are some photos I took to show you, I also bought two miniatures that I will show you in a later post. Because of the moving crowd it was hard to get good photos, but if you google Snipetorpmarken I'm sure you will find many other photos and much better ones too :-)

This house with a pottery shop on the ground floor won a prize for restoration this year.

In a basement by the street there is a tiny art exhibition which is open just this one Sunday each year.

But some are more interested in babies than art.

At the market you can buy all kinds of crafts, local food, old books and other second hand items. Here's some nice pottery.

Some of the visitors were slightly taller than the others
..

And some were dressed up in period clothes from Ibsen's time. The house to the right has a plaque commemorating that Henrik Ibsen lived there for three adolescent months. (I think it's a bit too short to make a fuzz about..)

More tall ladies.

A sudden shower, but it seems almost everyone was prepared.

UPDATE: A comment from Sans reminded me I forgot to tell you that the Snipetorp area was the only part of town that survived the great town fire in 1886 and it contains many 17th and 18th century buildings. The profit from the street market goes back to the area and has made it possible to pay for old style street lamps and trashbins and stone pavement.