A busy week and a half in Uppsala, on a relative scale. Started with Kulturnatt, or the town-wide culture night, where different cultural groups and organizations across Uppsala showcase their activities or host events. The event is huge and brings the masses out to the streets. It began with a fika in cafe barista, progressed to perusing the stands lining the street and halted momentarily at the cathedral where we explored the treasury museum (hidden in the walls of the cathedral). Here are Manon, Kyle and Aaron feasting on the delicious cultural treats we found. Below is a picture of the candles lit in the cathedral.



















After a trip to the Carl Linneaus museum/garden, I headed home for dinner and later returned to hit the streets on a solo expedition. The view across the river from the bridge on S:t Olofsgatan (one of the main streets through town) was beautiful. All the windows were lit, people milling in the street, the lights of a packed restaurant.















After some more time of rambling in the crowds, I headed for the cathedral and luckily hit the middle of the choral performance. The entire cathedral was packed, hushed. And the singing! Lovely. Returned home full of energy and settled into pancakes with one of my splendid hallmates.















Next excursion! Manon, Kyle, Eva and I took a spontaneous trip to Enköping, a western town of, as we discovered, pretty little note. BUT. The drive was beautiful, through farmlands and forests. At first, we stopped at Viks Slottet (or Viks castle), a tall, impressive building on a knoll overlooking a lake. Also along the way we stumbled into several of the many, many viking runestones common in the province where Uppsala lies (Upland).



















Most of the runestones commemorate dead relatives, developmental events (the building of bridges) and the conquests/conversions of different rulers.



















Viks slottet.















A pathway at Skokloster, the palace where the day ended. There was also a beautiful old church there, unfortunately closed. Although we couldn't get into the palace due to the late hour, the grounds were gorgeous and we managed to sneak some apples out of the church orchard.



Manon, Kyle and Eva inside an impressive tree of the palace grounds.




























The lake at Viks Slottet.



















Manon being f'ing awesome. After we all went home, she came over for a delightful evening of tea, chocolate and whisky.


Third and last adventure of the last week! Stockholm. Feeling that I hadn't explored quite enough of my surroundings over the past week, I took an impromptu trip to Stockholm, my first time there. It was, unfortunately, a grey day after a string of very long grey days. Below are views of Stockholm from the tower in the Stadhuset (City Hall), where I started my morning with a quite a climb to the top. Then I had the upper half of the tower entirely to myself for some time and was able to look out 360 degrees around the city. Stockholm is built on 14 islands in an archipelago, so numerous bridges connect the various sections of the city.






























After stadhuset, I went to Gamla Stad (old city) and rambled in the streets, went to the palace briefly and walked through an interesting, archaeological/historical museum. Afterward, I walked to the National Museum, and spent a few hours looking at the paintings, etc. housed there.



















This squirrel is p-iisssedd.














The palace from across the channel.














The streets in Gamla Stad.




















An open air market above the central metro station. PAELLA. If only the line hadn't been so long and I wasn't trying to limit my spendings because oh my god paella.
















Dinner: chokladbulla.














I believe this is the east asian museum on one of the small islands.














In Stockholm, if you are wealthy enough you can take a tour of the city...in hot air balloon! The tickets cost about 1000-2000 kronor, so 200-400 dollars, so, to summarize...that's not me in one of those balloons.














Well, over a month of my time has already gone by. Already I'm feeling that it will be too short. I've met some wonderful people and the thought of having only three-four months left with them is worrisome to me. More so, with ridiculous amounts of free time and unlimited sources of adventure, I've felt, at times, overwhelming amounts of energy. This has been a good and a bad thing. On the positive, greater end of things, I'm doing and thinking more than in earlier times but on the low-down, I'm not sleeping too much...But it's a good way to live for now, always more to see, do, say, etc. Right now the key is to let time pass using it well and let the possibilities of being here develop a little more without getting at all caught up thinking too far ahead.

End thoughts:

Back indoors after two beautiful days of rare sunlight! The first was spent biking outside of the city again, this time further than I'd previously gone.



















A few days earlier, I had gone outside of the city with my fiddle, which allowed me to play without disturbing certain studious corridor-mates. Besides which, the act of biking out into the fields (a distance of 3-5 kilometers) is completely energizing, to say nothing of being out in the sun (or under the clouds) and fiddling almost utterly alone. I think twice a car came through, but in general the place tends to be very isolated. This is very good. The first time I went out, it was evening. Perfect. Windy, chill, quiet. I returned back just after dark. This second time going out with the fiddle was in the late morning to early afternoon.




































This below is a picture of what the streets look like. Yesterday saw another trip to the open air market - really good cheap vegetables and fruit, as well as kurdish and arabic foods.















Cooking! A good deal of time revolves around cooking. There is no dining service here on campus so every student cooks for him/herself. For me, this generally entails throwing a lot of vegetables in a pan and cooking them. Alternatively, my schmarren has been approved by my lovely hallmates. This was, unfortunately, not the case with the falafel that I attempted the other day. (Even if I thought it was a riotous success).















Systembolaget, the government run alcohol shop. The government here essentially holds a monopoly on all alcohol sales, so this is the only shop that is really allowed to sell liquor. I've been dancing around purchasing some amaretto but the price has kept me away for now. Maybe in a couple of weeks/...days I'll get around to it.















Well, this has all been very rambling. I wish I could say that I've done enormous, concrete things, but in essence life here has been quiet in a wonderful way. My corridor-mates and I spend a long time talking, drinking tea. They're all from Sweden, one girl and three boys. Marian and I went back to the woods and went walking again - lloovely. This involved the precarious operation of fitting two people on one bike with a backpack full of pears picked from a local tree. Bah, it worked out very well I think! This time it was very late at night and unfortunately we ran out of woods too fast, got briefly lost coming back but made it out eventually.
My friends and I went to the Gustavium, a museum of the university that's free for students. The picture in the previous post of the anatomical theater is from there - it's the room where the first scientific autopsies were performed in all of Sweden. I think it may be upwards of 300 years old, although certainly remodeled recently... The museum houses some very neat artifacts - the first celsius thermometer, drawings from Carl Linneaus's sketch books, the notes of a student from the 15th century. Sundry swedeny things.















I want to be this chick.



End thoughts:

I think I'm going to start doing picture posts between longer written ones, so you can briefly see what I've been up to and the things that I've seen. Anything that isn't explained here will be in the longer posts...allegedly.

















The cathedral (domkyrkan)


















Inside the cathedral, at the front, one of the many tombs.


















The anatomical theater in the Gustavium.




























The Fyrisån, which runs straight through town.














Out between two wheat fields.


















Down the vault of the cathedral.














Hiroka and Manon thefting a snack from one of the many apple trees in town.














The castle (slottet).

The Fyrisån again.















The high lookout near the castle. From l-r, Kino, Mari, Hiroka, Voukko, Erik, Eva.

I arrived in Sweden, which oscillates between the wonderful and the ridiculous, on the 21st and pretty much settled in right away. The plane touched down at just past 8 in the morning, giving me the whole day to fix small matters of business that I had to take care of. Frolicking commenced immediately on the train from Arlanda airport but ended abruptly when a gaggle of Swedish highschoolers entered the previously empty car and pressed me into a subdued although no less mirthful silence.














Sweden at last! This has, for a long time, been the light at the end of many dark tunnels and although I don't actually intend to hold to it any improbable idealistic visions I was still extremely, extremely happy to arrive. The train pulled past farm fields for about fifteen minutes and then finally stopped in the Centralstation. Anyways, it wasn't long before I got to my room on the third floor of a student housing building near the center of town.


Uppsala is very small. But I'm glad to be in a smaller area. I think this will alleviate any pressure to be a tourist and allow me to patiently go about exploring and getting to know the city. In any event, to get to the real point: it's gorgeous.














One of my plans is to explore the area surrounding the city on bike, but I've got to move fast because the summer weather has already peaced out as far as I can tell. About a week ago, I headed out into the farmlands and spent an hour or so sitting, reading, drawing, what have you under a tree between some wheat fields. A nice break from the orientation activities.





































I got here in the middle of orientation week, which, as far as I can tell, involves offering international kids free entrance to student pubs in the hopes that they get wasted and...make...meaningful friendships. Hmm. No matter. The week and some of the activities have been effective. Many have also been avoided. A friend from Austria and I were planning a trip to a lake in the south of Uppsala, but unfortunately the trip was thwarted because of some untimely food poisoning on my part. This may have been off set by my decision to smoke a hookah with my hallmates while fully conscious of the fact that I was feeling a wee bit queasy.

One final note on Sweden: I am in the only country in the world that demands higher security measures to buy groceries than American airports do for customs. Today I had to get food and as I was paying with my visa the man at the register asked for my passport. Uhh. Qua? Good thing I had my drivers license instead - he grudgingly accepted this as second best. So I handed this to him and he then examined it for a very substantial amount of time (upwards of 30 seconds). And then let me sign and go. It is also true that in Sweden you have to have your passport with you...to pay your bills.

Anyways, to sum up quickly, I've visited Gamla Uppsala, the old viking graves (beautiful!), met a butt-ton of Spaniards, enjoyed sampling some local beers, explored the woods around Uppsala with a friend (many deer and mushrooms were found!), drunk home made plum schnapps from the Serbian village where his grandparents live annndd oh, yeah: started classes. Thhbt.

All right, that's it for now.

End thoughts: