Swedish Experience

On Wednesday we took a train to the northern Swedish city of Uppsala, which has the earliest recorded history in the country. Uppsala today boasts a lot of oldest/largest locations throughout the city. We visited a handful of them on our self-made walking tour.

First we visited Uppsala Cathedral which is the largest church in Scandanavia. We walked through the inside and admired its 16th century design. It was pretty, but ever since we saw Sagrada Familia in Barcelona we have been jaded toward churches. Nothing could quite beat the emense and gorgeous Sagrada Familia.

From there we went across the street to part of Uppsala University called the Gustavianum museum, which is the largest university museum in Sweden. The museum has 4 main collections, throughout 4 stories of the museum.

We started at the top in the anatomical theatre, which was once used for disections as part of the medical curriculum in the 1600s. The anatomical theatre is in a tower portion of the building and has about 5 tiers of standing room for viewers to was the disection being performed below. The stairs to the tiers are extremely steep as to give each tier a good view of the disection table. Another part of the anatomy collection included plaster cast faces of the deceased persons who had been disected there, and a menagerie of various animals in jars of phermaldohyde which had been disected and preserved for study.

The next floor was a viking burial exhibit. The vikings of that area used to bury people in long boats with everything the deceased would need in the after life. One of these boat graves was so elaborate it included: 3 shields, swords, axes, armor, games, food, pots, pans, a goblet, pillows and a mattress, 2 horses, 2 cows, a couple of cats and dogs, a goat, an owl, and of course...the viking. I don't know about you, but that sounds like a great burial to me!

The next exhibit included the Augsburg Art Cabinet, and all of its trinkets and mysteries plus a history of Uppsala University. The art cabinet is the only one of its kind left today. It is a massive cabinet with doors on all four sides which reveal drawers, cabinets, and other compartments. In the compartments there are over 1000 items! The art cabinet was made to represent the world through items collected from around the globe. It was like a very complex time capsule of sorts. Crowned with coral and decorated with ivory, gems, marble, it was gorgeous!

The final exhibit was a collection of mummies and other items collected from Egypt. Most mummy collections seem the same, but even Heather was impressed with this vast exhibit. Egyptian collections are always mind-blowing to me. To try and comprehend that the items you are viewing are so incredibly old, is surreal.

After the museum we walked through the exhibit hall of the Uppsala University library (largest University library in Sweden). This library has over 5 millions books including one-of-a-kind prints of the Silver Bible, sheet music of Mozart, maps, and some ancient scrolls from the Torrah. 

Our next adventure was up to the Uppsala castle, which has been rebuilt and remodeled over the decades and now looks very modern and lack-luster.

By this time we were hungry for lunch. Of course, we wanted some Swedish Meatballs. So we trekked 3 miles to the nearest IKEA to eat at the cafe. IKEA is also Swedish in origin, so it seemed fitting. Not to mention they have cheap, delicious food! We each had a plate of meatballs, potatos and jam. The jam was delicious with the meatballs! Suddenly I understand cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving. Before leaving IKEA we each bought a bag of Swedish fish! These delicious candies are made by Malaco here and the only place you can get "Swedish Fish" is IKEA! Otherwise you find them in other various shapes and forms. They were even more delicious thank the ones in the states, which I didn't think was possible!

Instead of making the 3 mile hike back we took the bus to the station then headed back to Stockholm. Once back at our hostel we did laundry (nothing better than a pack full of clean clothes!) and had dinner. We had gone to the supermarket and each bought a frozen meal and train snacks. Then we bought 8 baby potatos which Heather boiled and we ate with butter abd salt. Delicious!!

Overall, Stockholm was great. I really love Scandanavia!!!

Safe Travels,
- Kit & Heather

Sweet Sweden!

The train this morning from Copenhagen to Stockholm was about 5 hours, most of which I slept through. :) We estimate that about 15% of this trip is spent on trains. But that's cool, because the views from the trains are spectacular! Not to mention train time means down time. We can journal, I can blog, we play card games, sleep, snack, etc. Its great!

we have had perfect weather the whole trip so far, however it is a bit chilly here in Stockholm. It is a harbor town in the north, so I suppose that should be expected. Not to worry, we both have very nice jackets we bought from REI for the trip! Windbreakers with a little insulation through the chest, inner pockets for maps and things, and hoods. Plus they compact very well without wrinkling. Today, I was very grateful for my jacket.

We checked into our hostel. The City Hostel is only a 10 minute walk from the central train station. We are in a 10 bed mixed dorm (co-ed) BUT we are the only 2 guests!! Haha, that's a first! A huge room to ourselves!

After check in we went to the Vasa museum. The Vasa was a warship in 1628. On its maiden voyage it went 1500 meters from the harbor, then capsized. In 1961 (333 years later) it was brought back from the depths, and completely salvaged. They towed it to the harbor and built a museum around it!! So you walk in the building andc are instatntly met with this TITAN of a ship. 95% of what you see today is all ORIGINAL!

The museum is a total of 5 stories, each with a unique view of the massive vessel. And each floor full of treasures salvaged from inside the ship. It was the craziest/largest thing I had seen in a musuem! It was gorgeous. You can tell that the building was especially built around it too, which makes it even better.

We only got to spend a little over an hour there because they were closing, but we got to visit each level and at least get our money's worth. Speaking of which we are on a new currency, again. From Danish Kroner we are now spending Swedish Kroner. Scandanavian countries all have their own currencies, instead of using the Euro like most other countries. Its sort of cute though, because the exchange is about 9 Swedish Kroner equals 1 Euro.

After Vasa, we decided to forego the tram back and walked along the harbor to the island where the old town & royal palace are. The palace is massive!! I loved it! We window shopped through old town, and stopped for hot chocolate before walking the couple of miles back to our hostel.

Now we're enjoying our big empty dorm and chilling. Tomorrow we are going to Uppsala to see a castle! (And hopefully eat some meatballs)

Safe Travels,
- Kit & Heather