Nästa Uppsala

We took a long bus ride to the amazing city of Uppsala, Sweden, less than an hour north of Stockholm.  Lina’s brother and his fiancée live there and they were gracious enough to let us stay with them and showed us an amazing time!

Our first night in town, we walked down by the river and met up with some of Jonas and Magda’s friends at a bar.  It was so much fun! We had some beers, some cider and some really fun conversations (I even got to have some nerdy Doctor Who conversations!).

Photo by Lina

Photo by Lina

Photo by Lina

The next day Jonas took the three of us sightseeing! Lina went to school here for a little while and Liz had visited her here, so it was really fun to hear their stories too!

We started our day off with a stroll through the park, where Jonas took a lovely photo of the three of us sitting on this statue of Pelle Svanslös (Peter No-Tail) a famous character from a children’s book series that take place in Uppsala.

We toured around the campus of the University there.  Each Nation (like a county in the states) has a Student Union-type building that you’re automatically a member of when you’re a student there.  So, we had to pop into the Östgöta Nation- the nation that Norrköping is from.  These unions are a bit different than the ones we have in the states though, but the biggest difference that stuck out to me is that each of these have a bar in them- seems crazy to me!

The building and the auditorium pictured above is where the graduation ceremonies take place.  It’s quite beautiful! 

Outside of the library (where I got to see the famous Silver Bible- sorry, no photos allowed) are these beautiful rune stones.  These stones were carved into by vikings, but have been painted over so you can see the rune etchings more clearly! Pretty awesome!

Photo by Liz

We climbed up a large hill up to the castle.  It was quite pretty and offered a gorgeous view of the city, especially the peaks of the cathedral here.  You can see from the photo of the canons, that the king placed the church in the line of fire, as to say you may be the church, but I’m the king!  Back down the stairs is the castle garden.  Quite beautiful!

Photo by Liz

 The cathedral there was amazingly beautiful! The pinkish brick on the exterior was such an interesting and beautiful color, and the inside was really interesting with different works of art and exhibits that made this different than many other European cathedrals I’ve visited.  King Gustav I (a.k.a. Vasa) is buried here with five of his wives, as is Carl Linnaeus, the man who came up with our modern way of classifying living organism using binomial nomenclature!

Photo by Liz

Photo by Liz

Photo by Lina

We ended our amazing day in the same park it started in, but this time for a BBQ with new friends and family!  It was so much fun! The food was amazing and the conversations were even better!  We ended the BBQ making the closest thing to s’mores that we could and made a huge mess doing it! It was way too much fun, and such an incredible way to end our visit there.

I truly cherish my visit to Uppsala and I look forward to visiting this city again.  I saw some beautiful sites and made really amazing friends!  Vi hörs!

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