Blogs from Uppsala, Uppsala County, Sweden, Europe

my last day in Sweden, i took the train an hour north to "the Oxford of Sweden," Uppsala (so says my Rough Guide, anyway). so glad i did. easily one of the highlights of the trip. the comparison to Oxford is a bit of a stretch, but it is very compact, and life does center around Uppsala University. inside the Carolina Rediviva, which is the university library, is a not-to-be-missed exhibition of priceless manuscripts. these include a 6th-century copy of the Bible (named the Silver Bible), an original copy of Mozart's Magic Flute score, and Newton's Principae Mathematica. and admission to this collection, easily the best of all the collections i've visited in all of Scandinavia...20 kr. settled in for another hot latte (which means it's served once again in a glass mug that is absolutely ... read more

Stayed up late last night listening to the SENS game, unfortunately the website I usually stream games from wasn't working so I had to listen to the Team 1200 broadcast. It's better than nothing but Dave Schreiber and Gord Wilson aren't exactly the best commentators to say the least; they always make it sound like the SENS are getting screwed by the refs/have an excuse for every bad play but it generally isn't the case. Also ran out of Reese PBC's last night while watching the game, which sucks cause you can't buy them over here. My mom and dad stashed two 4 packs in my suitcase when I wasn't looking as well as gave me a 4 pack as part of a farewell present but for those who know me well you know I def ... read more

Instead of telling the same stories about my semester abroad over again to different people I figured it would be easiest to keep a blog about it so people could just read and get a more detailed idea of what my time over here has and will be like. I arrived here on January 15th and have been keeping a rough journal I guess you could call it in a word file but I might as well make it public so its useful to more than just myself. If I have time I'll go back and fill in the previous days that I have kept track of on Word (as my first 10 days here have been pretty interesting) but for now I'll stick to real time. Today I really didn't do too much, Woke up ... read more

13th August 2010 Uppsala 71 km north of Copenhagen is the city of Uppsala: known for it’s Cathedral, Castle and University. The hour drive in the car gave Oom Gerrit and Mamma a well-needed rest and time for me to somehow recover from my lost-wallet-ordeal. Activity in old town was dwindling down as locals were locking their stores. We strolled around and discovered that we had an hour to visit the Cathedral(Domkyrka), the biggest cathedral in Scandinavia, dating back from the 13th century: - an impressive red-stone, twin-spire Gothic building. As we walked into the church we were greeted by an unexpected, impressive Gothic interior, allowing in much light so that we were accompanied by a golden glow as we visited the little bordering chapels and explored the rich history. We had a cup of coffee ... read more

Zwar schien an unserem letzten Tag in Stockholm die Sonne, geweckt wurden wir von ihr jedoch schon wieder nicht. Mit der Feststellung, dass Fenster doch ziemlich fein sind schafften wir es (wieder mal) gerade noch vor der Check-Out-Time aus unserem Hostel zu kommen. Dann starteten wir aber los: Mit der U-Bahn ging es flink zum Bahnhof, wo wir nach einiger Suche unser Gepaeck abliefern konnten, und danach schnell weiter (unser 24h-Ticket lief bald aus) zu Skogskyrkogården, einem Friedhof, der auf der UNESCO World Heritage List ist. Die ganze Anlage koennte zwar sehr schoen sein, allerdings hat das Gras von der Sonne eine unschoene gelbe Farbe angenommen, welche das Gefuehl der Kargheit etwas bestaerkt, und die Kirchen und Kapellen haben uns eher an Betonkloetze à la Lainzer Kirche erinnert. So brachen wir uns nach einem kleinem Spaziergang ... read more

I'm attaching random photos from our days in Uppsala.... read more

So we got up early and went to Bre's for the final cleanup then off to Stockholm to drop off the car. Stockholm is a crazy city to get around. Bridges and tunnels everywhere. Yah, and try to say the names of the streets. Lastmakargatan, Stora Nygatan, Tegnergatan... Bre just laughs when we try. Oh well. We had to fill up the car and Ted put in E85 for the Toyota we were driving. Not realizing that it is 85% ethynol not 85% gas and 15% ethynol. Crap. Hope the car doesn't burn up... We got to our hotel and cleaned up for dinner. We were all starving. So we asked for recommendations in Sodermalm so we could walk around the shops there after dinner. The guy at the counter found this Italian restaurant that wasn't ... read more

So up again early to head out to Lake Malaran for a BBQ with Bre. We stopped by the market for a one-time BBQ, some steaks, grill cheese, fruit and such. Yes, they have grill cheese. You actually throw it on the grill for a few minutes to get grill marks and then slice it up. It's like Tillamook squeeky cheese. Weird but good. We seemed to have gotten a defective grill cuz it took about an hour for the briquettes to finally heat up. Two other picnic parties had started their grill after us and they were almost finished eating by the time we started cooking. Oh, well. There were lots of young kids at the lake. Some actually were swimming. It was about 68 degrees. The sun came and went so either you were ... read more