Spring tour of Uppsala

Wednesday
Had a very interesting lecture for once in Sustainable Design. The lecturer, John Manoocheri, who is an architect, was almost half an hour late and then spoke without a break for over 2 hours, which is unheard of in Sweden. His presentation on sustainability and ideas of profit and growth was very interesting and interactive though.

Thursday
This was the beginning of the short Easter break for most students in Uppsala and many Swedes went home for the weekend. Easter is a rather large holiday for such a secular population, but it seemed to be more about family time as is Christmas in Sweden. It was another gorgeous day and Nick, Lovisa and I kicked the soccer ball around on the BBQ field outside our corridor.

Friday
Some American exchange students I hadn’t previously met were hanging out on the field beneath our corridor and tossing an American football around. Turned out Nick knew a few of them from a shared class and we ended up tossing the football around then walking towards downtown where a school had two basketball hoops. Basketball amenities are seemingly rather rare here, but it was fun playing some knockout, 3-on-3, and Horse.

Saturday
It was a stunning spring day and I decided I would go on a nice long walk all around Uppsala taking pictures of the city now that it is clear of snow and getting greener by the day. I first headed through some parks and the University botanic gardens towards Uppsala castle on the hill overlooking town.

I then headed down the hill towards a main park along the lower section of the river where many Swedes were taking advantage of the great weather by having a picnic.

I then walked upstream along the river snapping pictures of most of the nation buildings. I then headed towards the Cathedral before finishing the big loop and 2.5 hour walk back to the corridor.

I’ve shown some of the pictures here, but more that I took can be found in this link to my public Facebook album.
I did laundry after the walk and had a nice night in getting to bed early to help get over a little cold that had been attempting to come on.

Sunday
Happy Easter! It was a pretty quite day around the city and I didn’t do anything special for the day. I did sit outside and started to read the book Digital Fortress by Dan Brown. Many of my friends were gone on trips taking advantage of the extra time off for the Easter break.