Took the Kids to the Science Centre

The kids' teachers had a training day yesterday, so we picked up a visiting cousin in town and went to the science centre in Södertälje. I hesitate to tell you its name: the place's mascot is for some reason named Tom Tit, and there's no genitive apostrophe in Swedish, so our much-beloved science centre for kids is named... err... Tom Tits. Sounds like a buddy of Seymour Butts's to me, but I guess the people who named it weren't thinking in English.

A science centre is an interactive science exhibition where kids can perform prepared experiments. The little ones of course don't understand all that much, but they really enjoy running around the labyrinthine place, playing with all the outlandish gear. Tom Tits is in a huge refurbished old factory, so there's plenty of room. It's easy to lose them there for a while, but we don't have much of the American child abduction paranoia.

(In my opinion, the reason that Americans and Englishmen are so afraid of psychos is that the English language is so huge and has news media with international coverage. Psychos are in fact exceptionally rare, but in such a huge sample the likelihood that one will pop up on your radar every once in a while is great. In Europe, though the continental ratio of psychos to healthy people is very likely the same as in the US, most psychos will turn up in other countries with incomprehensible languages. Us Swedes never even hear about the Strangler of Lwow or the Eviscerator of Oporto or the Naples Slicer 'n' Dicer. Even though they pose a greater threat to us as measured by their proximity than does a Californian psycho to Floridans.)

Anyway, we had a very good day at the science centre, checking out mechanics, optics, fluid dynamics, acoustics, physiology, various tech... And still I overheard two kids saying that the gardens, that are closed this time of year, are the best bit. We'll be back soon.