vikings

My grandpa is Swedish; my grandma, English. Whenever his wife would start reminiscing about the glories of the motherland, my Papa, a lifelong chemist, would always reply, “But you’ll never meet an English inventor. Bunch of druids. The Swedes invent things.” Whether or not you’ll ever meet an English inventor, the Swedes are known for their pioneering spirit--just look at Anders Celcius, who invented the 100 point temperature scale, or Alfred Nobel, who invented dynamite and founded the prizes named after him. In particular, Sweden’s capital city, Stockholm, is a thriving hub where Swedish ingenuity is housed.

Breathtaking fjords. Majestic mountains. Giant glaciers. In the ninth century, Vikings and other explorers happened upon this peaceful, beautiful island. This idyllic place came to be called Iceland because of the snow-tipped mountains and the drifting ice found in some of the fjords.