Day # 9 Uppsala

This morning the Nordic Relocation Agent, Kristina, met Jon & I at the visitor entrance of G.E. to give us a tour of Uppsala. Kristina gave us a packet with LOTS of information on Sweden including a book dedicated to visiting Stockholm (too bad we didn’t have this for last weekend!). The purpose of the tour was to show us some places in Uppsala and to help us find things we may need or places she recommended to visit. She started out driving around the outskirts of town. Jon and I were very impressed with how dense some of the forests are and how quickly the landscape changes for forest to houses and then right back to forests. A couple of minutes later, we were by Lake Valloxen. We were surprised to see that there were not any lake houses lining the water front. Kristina explained to us that there are laws preventing people from doing that here – because as a country they feel that everyone should have equal right to nature and that no one should be able to stop someone from using nature. She also said that no one can stop you from camping or walking through a forest, though they would tend to do so out of town. As long as you are not “hurting nature” you are free to experience nature anywhere.

While we were driving we saw little patches of land where it looked like people had started gardens, or lived in a small square of land (about the size of a small backyard garden with a tiny hut to store tools in). Kristina said that since most people live in apartments and they are unable to have a garden, they will buy the little patches of land so that they can have a garden. More and more people are starting to build little huts on the piece of land and in the summer they will spend the weekend or night at their garden!

Kristina told us about Mid-Summer and how we definitely should NOT miss it! (we have heard a lot about this already and how it is a great event – though we hope to be invited to a “party” because that is the only way to experience true Swedish food). During Mid-Summer around 7 or 8am the students start the day off with a glass of champagne. The student nations build rafts that they float down the river that runs through downtown Uppsala. The rafts are not meant to float but to be entertaining. During the drive through Gamla Uppsala (Old Uppsala) we saw the library where the dean will give his speech.

Around 11:30 we decided to break for lunch. We walked through a Swedish in-door food shop so Kristina could explain some of the foods to us and which ones are traditional Swedish dishes. Besides the typically herring, we saw the meat filled cabbage rolls, and world-winning cheddar cheese. Apparently, the cheddar cheese in Europe (and probably the rest of the world) is not yellow – rather it is white! This explains why when I was in the store looking for cheddar cheese I could not find it.

For lunch we went to an old English bakery/restaurant. It has been around since the 1600’s! Jon ordered the pinoch (meat on top of bread) and I had the kyckling potato (chicken filled potato with curry). Both were delicious! Kristina said that we had to experience the pastries too because they are too good to pass up – so we had a small cream filled pastry (similar to a cream puff) and a small almond flavored cake? The pastries here are not as sugary as in the U.S. but they actually taste much better I think.

Kristina and her husband lived in Montery, California for 2.5 years. I think she was better to relate to us because of this. She knew the main differences between the States and Sweden. She said that if we are invited to someone’s house for dinner – we should expect to eat and then stay for 2 – 4 more hours visiting. That was the hardest thing for her to understand about the U.S. They would have people over for dinner and after they were done eating her guests would leave shortly. Also, vanilla extract is only found in powder form here.

We were glad to have met Kristina – she provided us with some great information. We were also glad that we had figured out some of the key things already.

The rest of the day/night was spent trying to figure out how to book a Ski Bus Pass this weekend w/out having to pay with cash on the bus, how to buy tickets for the cruise boat that goes from Stockholm to Helsinki, and a place to stay while we are in London – even a 3 night stay in a hostel with a shared dorm style bedroom is about $300!