Day 9: Uppsala recap and more Stockholm

We did not find the time in Uppsala to blog so I'll (Jackie) have to provide a recap of 3 days in a single post. Here goes.

We left the Hotel Rival (our fancy digs in Stockholm) and took a taxi to the train station to catch a train to Uppsala (the fourth largest city in Sweden and a university town). We bought some m&m's for the train, and I loved the cute packaging (and smaller size) that is sold in Europe (picture included). We arrived in the early afternoon and schlepped our bags to the hostel. This was our first experience with hostel life, and to be honest, it was rather frightening. The building was cold and sterile feeling and the other people staying there were strange looking and unfriendly. Even Daryl agreed, and he often does not notice such things. I will not post a picture because I fear it will worry my mother. The city itself was quite lovely and lively. We walked around the city center, checked out the Domkyrka (Sweden's largest Cathedral - see picture of interior candle stand below), and stopped in a cozy cafe for our fika and some reading. We then picked up some groceries and had a light meal back at the hostel.

The next morning we had breakfast at the hostel, traveled back to the train station (see picture below of establishment we saw along the way), and (re)arrived in Stockholm in the afternoon. Again, we schlepped our bags through the streets to the next hostel (we really need to offload our rolling bag, which is holding our dressy conference clothes, but we are waiting until it is fully loaded with purchased items before shipping it back home). Our current hostel is much nicer - a younger crowd, a nice location right on the water and across from Gamla Stan (the Old Town), and nice showers and kitchen facilities. We went for a jog around our little island and then headed out for dinner at a nice Italian restaurant (not authentic, but yummy and cheap).

This morning, we finally got a somewhat early start (8am) and jogged and got breakfast before heading to Skansen. Skansen is an open air museum and zoo located on the same island as the Vasa Museum (the ship museum we hit up on Friday last week). It consists of traditional Swedish buildings from the 18th and 19th century (before the Industrial era) that were saved from demolition and moved to the museum. It was pretty cool to walk through the buildings, and especially, to talk to the employees who were dressed in era-appropriate garb and quite knowledgeable about Sweden during that time period. There were also animals throughout the museum, including goats, cows, pigs, and peacocks. In particular, the peacocks were very friendly. We were able to get quite close and capture pictures of them with their new friend :)

We have included some additional pictures from Skansen below.

From Skansen, we took the ferry back across to Gamla Stan, walked around for a bit, and then took a fika break.

We finished the day by getting some groceries and beer and heading back to the hostel. We are now in the process of doing laundry, making dinner, and prepping for the big trip tomorrow from Stockholm to Oslo. Wish us luck!

In parting, be sure to tune in tomorrow (dependent on wifi access, of course), to see our summary of Sweden - what did we like, what did we dislike, what did we learn about the culture. Sure to be an interesting diversion from your daily life :)