Philip Glass Concert

Tonight I went to a concert at the Uppsala Koncert & Kongress, the cube-ish building on the east side of the river that I’ve pictured a couple times before.  The concert was headlined by Philip Glass, the well-known modern classical composer and pianist, and also featured Tim Fain, an American violinist.  I’d known about Glass’s music for some time, so back in February when I saw that he would be here , I jumped on the opportunity.

The concert started at 7:00 in the evening, slightly earlier than I’m used to, and was on the top floor of the building, from which you had an excellent view of the cathedral, especially at the end of the concert when the sun was setting.  There was a good crowd, but it was not sold out, and the average age was considerably younger, perhaps by 10-15 years, relative to what I’m used to in the States.  This is not to say that the crowd was particularly young, rather that in my experience classical concert crowds aren’t very young in the U.S.  I’d say the median age was probably somewhere in the 40’s.  The audience was dressed somewhat less formally than I’m accustomed to in the U.S., perhaps due to the start time being 7:00 and thus affording less time to get home and change before the concert.

The concert started slightly after 7:00, with Mr. Glass himself entering the stage.  Though 73 or 74 now, he looked quite good for his age, and clearly has maintained his skill both as a player and as a composer.  There were some slight changes in the performance from what was printed in the program (in Swedish), and as such he announced the pieces before they were performed, in English.

The concert began with two of Glass’s Metamorphoses, numbers 2 and 4.  These were pieces with which I was familiar, and it was the latter, already my preferred of the two, which really drew me in.  Number 4 especially was enchanting, and being able to watch Glass play them on the Steinway and Sons was fascinating.  His left hand hardly moved horizontally, forming the steady backbone of the piece, while his right hand moved dexterously (but rarely quickly) to play the highlighting notes that are essential for making the piece captivating and interesting.

Next, Fain came out to play Glass’s Partita for Solo Violin in Seven Movements.  This was a new piece, composed just a few months ago, and this was the first time it was performed in Europe.  From the first movement, Opening, you could tell that it was a Glass work, though this movement also had a hint of more traditional classical fare.  The second movement, Dance #1, was less traditional, and although an very good piece, I couldn’t figure out how you would dance to it.  Chaconne #1 followed.  By this time it was quite clear that when Glass had said the Partita was an extended violin solo, he was not kidding.  In whole it must have been at least 25 minutes, and Fain even slightly re-tuned his violin after the third movement, not that I could tell it was even the tiniest bit off.  I missed the name of the fourth movement, but the fifth was Chaconne #2, followed by Dance #2 and Evening Song to complete the piece.  I must say, it was clear why Glass chose Fain to play it, as he was impressive.  At several points he was making music with the movement of the bow alone, even if his violin had been silent, and at other points his bow was moving faster than the eye could witness it.  During one section lasting a minute and a half to two minutes, his bow probably never moved more than an inch from left to right, yet moved an incredible distance in that time.  It was a virtuoso performance, and after the fifth movement, the crowd burst into applause, before allowing him to finish the Partita.  Not only the finesse but the stamina as well was impressive.  I also realized partway through that he had entirely memorized the piece, and indeed throughout the whole concert he used no sheet music.  I wouldn’t be surprised to hear more about him in the future, and if this is any indication, at some point he will probably be a headline performer.

At this point Glass returned, and played three of his études for piano, numbers 1, 2, and 6.  The second one I was already familiar with, and is available for free from the Amazon MP3 store if you’d like to listen to it.  Once again the performance was very good, and I found I liked the sixth étude as much as the second with which I’m more familiar.  Part of what I like about Glass’s pieces is they seem to have a very human element, something that usually seems less present in grand orchestral pieces with many different instruments.  As the French might say, “ça me dit”, or “it speaks to me”.  These études, especially #2 and #6, are good examples of this.

Thereafter, both Glass and Fain played duets of some of Glass’s film music.  The first piece they played was France.  This was probably the most traditional classical piece of the night.  Following was The Orchard.  This was a haunting piece, with both the piano and violin complementing each other well.  Third, and last of the film pieces, as The French Lieutenant.  This was my favorite of these pieces.  Glass’s piano provided a sombre base to the piece, while Fain’s violin told a sad tale of the lieutenant, or in my imagination, likely a battle endured by the lieutenant’s troops the day before.  I could picture the lieutenant looking out over the previous day’s battlefield from the top of a hill, mourning the loss of many of his men in a devastating defeat.  In my imagination, the setting was likely in the 1700s, pre-Revolution, though I could see it being in the colonies after the First Empire as well.  I have no idea if the film it was in was at all like this, but the piece certainly conveyed the human element, perhaps more precisely than usual in part due to its title.

The next duet was another newly-composed piece, Pendulum, which was also making its European premiere.  The violin seemed to take the crucial role of showing the pendulum swinging back and forth and various sides trying to alter its course, with occasional tranquil periods and more periods of fervent struggle, with just as many times of, perhaps, balance, with a considerable amount of double stops.  Again both performers did quite well, and the enthusiastic audience applauded loudly afterwards.  Not to be disappointed, Glass and Fain did a double encore, with each performing a solo piece.  I was unable to catch the names of them, but they were excellent selections.  Fain’s piece, the first, once again demonstrated outstanding skill on both his and Glass’s part, and teased the audience with the ending of the piece twice before Fain actually played the finale, with great flourish and to the audience’s entertainment.  Glass’s piece, the second, seemed the perfect piece on which to end a concert, but the audience was still quite enthusiastic.  So, they decided to do a second encore, this time with Fain playing a short violin piece, which was also quite good.  With the audience now content to let the performers rest for the night, the concert ended, everyone seeming to be quite satisfied.

In summary, if you like modern classical music, I’d highly recommend seeing either Glass or Fain in concert, and if they’re both playing at the same event, all the better.  The concert was a great success with the audience, and I see no reason why it wouldn’t be elsewhere.  It was a pleasure to not only hear music I was already enjoyed but had never heard in person, but also to discover new music, a good part of which I liked as much or better than what I already was familiar with.

Easter Trip Photos

Over Easter I took a trip to the Netherlands, Belgium, and France.  I still intend to write more detailed descriptions of this trip, but for now, I've finished commenting and uploading my photos.  There's 550 of them uploaded, so I've broken them down into sections corresponding to the days of my trip:

If you view the pictures in Firefox or Internet Explorer they'll be in slideshow format, and you can make them full-screen.  Otherwise you can page through them in a more standard browser window.

The first day, Wednesday, consisting of the train ride from Stockholm to Amsterdam: http://cid-79412ff903e4128e.photos.live.com/play.aspx/Netherlands-Belgium-France%202011/DSCF1263.jpg?ref=2
 
The second day, Thursday, during which we explored Amsterdam: http://cid-79412ff903e4128e.photos.live.com/play.aspx/Netherlands-Belgium-France 2011/DSCF1333.jpg?ref=2


Friday, in Ghent and Bruges: http://cid-79412ff903e4128e.photos.live.com/play.aspx/Netherlands-Belgium-France%202011/DSCF1357.jpg?ref=2
 
Saturday, in Ieper (Ypres) and the Trappist monastery in Westvleteren, Belgium: http://cid-79412ff903e4128e.photos.live.com/play.aspx/Netherlands-Belgium-France%202011/DSCF1444.jpg?ref=2
 
Sunday, at Versailles: http://cid-79412ff903e4128e.photos.live.com/play.aspx/Netherlands-Belgium-France%202011/DSC00110.jpg?ref=2
 
Monday, in Paris, at Sacre Couer, Notre Dame, Saint-Chapelle, Les Invalides, La Tour Eiffel, and elsewhere: http://cid-79412ff903e4128e.photos.live.com/play.aspx/Netherlands-Belgium-France%202011/DSCF1549.jpg?ref=2
 
Tuesday, in Paris, at Les Catacombes and the Musée Rodin, plus the first part of the voyage back: http://cid-79412ff903e4128e.photos.live.com/play.aspx/Netherlands-Belgium-France%202011/DSCF1694.jpg?ref=2
 
And Wednesday, on the voyage back from Germany to Stockholm: http://cid-79412ff903e4128e.photos.live.com/play.aspx/Netherlands-Belgium-France%202011/DSCF1848.jpg?ref=2

More Wildlife in Sweden

It’s spring in Sweden, and part of what that means in more wildlife!  Not only flies and gnats and generally annoying creatures such as that, but also larger wildlife.  I’d only seen two frogs as of Monday, however, so I decided to go back to the road with the “grodor på väg” (frogs on the road) sign, and look for more.  Alas, I found no more frogs, so I’m still left with only two frog sightings, both of which were photographed, but both of which had atrocious lighting conditions and no flash.  There’s still time for additional frog sightings, though.
Instead, I found deer!  I went back to where I’d taken a night photograph with a lake and the moon the last time, and explored around there.  There was no longer a lake there, but the ‘hay bales’ that I’d seen earlier were still there.  The lake probably is a seasonal phenomenon, and now that it’s been a long time since snow melt, no longer existed.

The ‘hay bales’ were actually a sort of plant.  Intrigued, I went down into one of the lake beds and investigated more closely.

I’m not really sure what they are.  I’d be curious to know more about them; perhaps they’re a part of Swedish flora that doesn’t have an equivalent in the U.S.?  Or perhaps I just haven’t been in the right part of the U.S. to find them.
There was an actual lake across the road from where I’d taken the photograph last month, as well as some very tall grasses.  A large area of the ground was covered with several inches of these grasses, apparently from years past, as well as with our ‘hay bales’.

I made my way along the right side of the lake, with some help from the plants to avoid slipping into the lake.  I then went up the embankment, and found myself on a dirt path alongside a field.  I didn’t go much further, when I looked to myself and found that I was being watched.  As the deer was looking straight at my, at first I couldn’t tell if it was a deer.  But I soon realized it was, and took several photographs to document its presence.  As I hadn’t brought a proper camera, I lacked zoom abilities, and thus the deer is rather small in the photos.  But you can tell its a deer.

Right near the center of the photo!  There were actually two deer; the other is just to the right of the trunk of the tree, and facing away.  I didn’t realize the second one was there until a couple minutes after I realized the first one was a deer, thanks to it being camouflaged by the trees.  The deer, once they determined I was merely an observer, didn’t seem to mind me too much, and continued about their routine, as seen above.
And all this way within sight of Flogsta!

On my way back, I saw a sign that said that the area where I had seen the deer was part of a nature reserve.  Appropriate.
More exotic than the deer, however, was what I had seen the week before on my way back from Swedish class – on Wednesday the 4th.  On that day I was taking my standard suburban route back, which I’ve traversed dozens of times.  It was about the same time of evening – roundabouts 8:00.  And, as I’m approaching the apartments prior to Flogsta, what runs across the path a few hundred feet in front of me but a wild boar!  At first I couldn’t believe it actually was one, and was thinking, “Is this actually a wild boar or is my mind playing tricks on me?”  Then I started wondering what wild boars acted like around humans when not provoked, as I knew that they did have tusks that could be damaging if they weren’t happy.  But, though it paused long enough for me to get a good look at it, it continued on its way to wherever it was going, and ignored the pedestrians, who also seemed to ignore it.
Well, except one man’s dog.  The dog thought it a good idea to bark at the boar, and the dog’s owner, perhaps not realizing that his dog was barking at a boar, let the dog lead him off the path a bit in the direction the boar had gone.  By this time I was watching from across the street from where the boar had crossed the path, by the apartments.  Fortunately, the boar seems to have kept going past where it disappeared from sight, and either didn’t hear the dog or ignored it.  The dog seemed content that the boar wasn’t in the area, too, so no conflagration occurred.
In my surprise that it actually was a boar, I did not react quickly enough to photograph it, but after double-checking with some pictures of documented boars I’ve concluded that it was indeed a boar and not a very shaggy dog or a rather small yak.  And Swedish Wikipedia indicates that wild boar may indeed live this far north in Sweden.
What other potentially dangerous animals live in Sweden?  Well, there’s bears, but they aren’t supposed to be in this area.  And there may be wolves in parts of Sweden here, but again probably not in Uppsala.  Foxes are also a possibility.  But, despite the presence of wild boar, I’m still probably pretty safe in Uppsala.

Gamla Uppsala

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Gamla Uppsala, or ‘Old Uppsala’, is Uppsala from the Viking times.  Actually, it’s not quite that simple.  You see, way back when, Uppsala was founded, a few miles north of its current location.  With changing river patterns and so forth, eventually it made more sense to have a city in the current location of Uppsala, so the city more or less moved to its present location.  The original location, however, still does have the remains of the original settlement.  Interestingly, it’s not quite like your average Roman remains, which often are ruins, or at least abandoned for centuries.  Some of the buildings, such as the parish church, are still in use, and thus in quite good condition.

I decided to head out to Gamla Uppsala on a whim on Sunday.  More precisely, I decided to take a walk with a vague notion that I might end up at Gamla Uppsala, and what do you know, I did.

When I left, the evening was still young.  They’re doing some road work on one of the major roads, as seen in the picture below.

However, it took quite awhile to get there, about two hours, five miles, or eight kilometers.  My plan had been to go to the police station and then go north, but when I encountered a nice riverside path shortly before the police station, I took that instead.  Slightly longer in all likelihood, but it was nice to walk along the river.  I didn’t run into anyone I knew before reaching that path, so I didn’t have to explain why I was going to the police station.

There were houses, apartments, and occasionally businesses along the river, but it was also nicely wooded.  Fairly often I would see fishing docks or canoes along the edge of the river, occasionally with people on the docks.  The below photo illustrates this nicely:

 

It is an unfortunate consequence of the angle of the sun that my pictures along this stretch all came out with things appearing darker than they actually are.  I continued along the river for twenty to thirty minutes, before heading east, and by the end the sun was nearing the horizon in the west.

I managed not to get lost despite not having a map (thanks road signs!) and half an hour later passed a sign announcing that I was in Gamla Uppsala.  But it didn’t look like what I expected for a Viking settlement.  Rather, it looked quite…

… ordinary.  It was at this point that I realized that Gamla Uppsala not only refers to the Viking settlement and the historic area there, but it also refers to the suburb of Uppsala that’s located at and just south of where Uppsala originally was.  Kind of like how there’s Williamsburg and Colonial Williamsburg, only in this case with the same name, I think (I should know this better having gone to college in Virginia…).  But not a big problem, there were signs directing me to the Gamla Uppsala.

Once in Gamla Uppsala, one of the first things I saw was the parish church.

Originally, this was a cathedral, and much larger.  It also housed the remains of St. Erik, who technically never became a saint in the Catholic Church but is considered one in Sweden anyway, and is the patron saint of Stockholm.  In the 13th century, there was a fire, the remains of St. Erik were moved to the current Uppsala cathedral (also technically a church), where I saw his relicary in January (see Visiting the Cathedral, although I don’t have a picture), and the cathedral seen above became its present parish church.

Another significant sight were the burial mounds.  They are older than the church, and pagan.  No one knows for sure who is buried in them, but they are almost certainly of royal blood.  An excavation was done in the 1800s after someone suggested that the mounds might have been natural formations rather than burial mounds.  Not willing to let this affront to Swedish tradition stand, the King ordered an excavation on one of the mounds, and sure enough, they were actual burial mounds.

Although it may look like your ordinary grassy knoll in this photo, they are quite sizeable in real life.  There are three primary burial mounds at the site, today known as the East, Center, and West mounds.  Earlier they were named after early Swedish kings who it was thought might have been buried there, but today, with uncertainty over who is buried, the directional names are used.  It’s quite possible we’ll never know who is buried there, as the remains were cremated before being buried, a necessary condition for reaching Valhalla in Viking tradition.  However, as at least the Center mound has never been excavated, it’s not impossible that this could change.

To the west of the central settlement, a couple millennia ago, lie the Baltic Sea.  The high grounds today, including where Gamla Uppsala is, were islands in the sea.  Gradually the waters receded, until the water was a lake, not part of the sea, and then until the lands were a marsh, rather than a lake.  This is what it was like in the 500-1000 AD period when Uppsala was a Viking settlement.  As an interesting linguistic tidbit, this change also resulted in the Swedish word träsk changing in meaning from lake to marsh, its current meaning.  Gradually the marsh dried out, making farming in the area possible.

The farmland is seen between the hill and the horizon in the above picture, taken from the hill.  Apparently if you come during the snowmelt season (it’s almost long enough to be its own season in Uppsala), the farmlands resemble marshes even today.

Even though I was several miles north of town, that didn’t mean I couldn’t find my way back to town if need be.  For the cathedral and castle, the two largest landmarks in the city, were visible even from this far out.

 

That’s the cathedral with the spires, and the castle in pink on its left.  Slightly less blurry in real life!  But that I could get this good of a picture, looking away from the sun at 9:48 PM, attests to how much longer the days are now.  That’s at least six hours later sunset than it was when I got here, and a much earlier sunrise as well.  Even as I write this now, shortly before 11 PM, you can tell which way is west because the sky isn’t as dark in that direction.  There is still a night, but it’s becoming rather short.

After seeing the burial mounds, I found the outdoor museum, which doesn’t open until June 1.  I then tried to find the Viking settlement, but I must have been slightly off in setting the map to real places, as I could find neither that nor the wall remains (unless they were the walls near the church, which certainly didn’t look that old).  There’s also an indoor museum, which wasn’t open at 10 PM, of course, and a few other places south of where I explored in Gamla Uppsala.  A daytime visit is necessary to complete the tour.  But it was certainly nice to get a start on exploring the old city, as well as to see the river north of town.

If you prefer a slightly shorter, less intensive way to get to Gamla Uppsala, there are a number of busses that go there, and you can catch one back as late as midnight.  I took the #2 back, which conveniently goes all the way back to Flogsta without any connections, and even more conveniently, was waiting outside the entrance for its scheduled departure time when I left.  The bus trip took about 30 minutes, which I may have been able to make slightly shorter by taking two busses with a connection in between.

Taking a Walk on the Boardwalk

... and not paying $50 rent to do so!

Thursday, April 07 -

Today I had another Graphics course at Pollacksbacken, and still not having bought a bike (oh yeah, that's what I was planning to do when I got back...) I walked down there as usual.  It's several kilometers, about 4.6 kilometers (2.9 miles) according to Google.  And, like all routes to school, it's uphill both ways and covered with snow, even in April.

  

 See?  Right there on the left side of the picture, the route's covered in snow.  As it would be unheard of me to walk off the path, I had no choice but to scale the mountains of snow.  Which was actually somewhat easier last week, as then the snow was solid enough that I could just walk on top of it.  Today my feet sunk into the more-melted snow.  But I trudged on, as generations of schoolchildren have on their way to and fro classes.

But, although it will have value if I ever have to prove to future generations just how difficult it used to be in the days before flying cars, the primary reason I took this picture was that awesome-looking tree.  I don't know what type of tree it is, if anyone knows I'm curious.  It reminds me somewhat of a baobab, but I don't think it actually is one.

I'd decided that it might not be a bad idea to get some money back on my bus card again, to cover running late, buying large amounts of items at IKEA, visiting Nyckelaxet again to order pizza in Swedish (Nyckelaxet being where I ended up when I got lost), or whatever other situation may come up where a bus would be handy.  So rather than heading directly home, I went into town.  And I cut towards the river as I hadn't been there for quite some time.  You may recognize this boat:

 The last time I photographed it, there was snow all around it.  Now, no snow on the river!

Shortly after encountering that boat again, I saw that there was a boardwalk along the river.  I'm sure it was there all winter, just buried under several feet of snow.  I'd seen a girl reading on another boardwalk in more towards the center of the city yesterday, so I figured it probably was open to anyone who wanted to traverse it, and decided to take a walk on the boardwalk.

 Here you see the view to the north (towards Uppsala) from near the start of the boardwalk.  There is some water on the boardwalk, as it's basically at river level, so any place in the boardwalk that is marginally lower than the rest gets covered in water.  But it was fairly level.  There were several places where I was walking through five or ten millmeters of water, but there was only one place where I had to move to higher ground due to excessive water.  The benefits of having good shoes that keep out water halfway decently.

 Here is the view from the same place looking south.

As you can see from the next photo, the boardwalk started a decent amount south of town.

Heading upriver, I eventually came to a bright red picnic table!  Not only could you walk the boardwalk, you could have a picnic on the boardwalk if you wanted to.

 As you can see the water was washing up over the boardwalk in places here.  The bridge just visible in this picture is the southernmost of the ones in the center of town.

I ended up walking the entire length of the boardwalk, but didn't encounter any people.  However, I was not the only one on the boardwalk today.

 Uppsala is the home to a great many ducks, many of them mallards.  The sight of these ducks prompted me to visit the pond which I knew to be the home to most of Uppsala's ducks during the winter.  And sure enough, most of them were still there today.

Yep, those are all ducks, except the one swan by the tree in the upper-left.  There were at least this many if not more in February.  They're quite tame ducks, too.  Sometimes they'll sit right on the path people walk along and won't even move as people walk past them.  Upon observing this for the first time I bent down to try to pet one, but they weren't quite shy enough to stay around then - although even in that situation they walked, not flew, away.  Still, Uppsala, and this part of the city in particular, should be a destination for any duck-lover who's heading to Sweden.

Heading back towards the Central Station, I crossed the bridge I'd been approaching from the south and took a photo to the south.

 Did I mention that it was very, very windy today?  The river may be moving faster than normal just do to snowmelt, but the wind was no doubt helping today.  The forecast called for gusts of up to 46 mph, and I'm pretty sure it reached that.  Although it wasn't actually much if any colder today than yesterday, it certainly felt that way after noon with the heavy winds.

On my way back to Flogsta, I encountered another new site - flowers!

 Although I think these were planted last fall, going by their mathematical layout, I did encounter a few later that were much more sporadic in their pattern - perhaps volunteers from the previous fall's planting.  I think they may be crocuses, although my botany skills are quite lacking, so I may well be mistaken.

As spring has sprung one of the interesting things in Uppsala has been seeing what existed the whole time, but I didn't know about because it was buried under the snow.  Boardwalks, statues, benches, the fact that some paths were actually not paved at all but it just looked plausible that they were because everyone walked over the same part of the snowbank.  There's not really enough snow left to hide anything anymore, but I may yet find a few more surprises as I return to areas I haven't been to since there was more significant snowfall.

Frogs in the Road!

Thursday, April 6th -

Yesterday evening after Swedish I decided to take a different route home on a whim.  It was a rather good day for it; the weather was undoubtedly the best of any day since I arrived in Sweden.  I had been downtown in the afternoon and it was actually warm enough that I didn't need a jacket.  Which was really nice after enduring a four-month winter (including December in Richmond/Ohio).  I'd grown used to three-month Richmond winters, often with at least one short-lived break in the middle.  And Uppsala actually looks really nice in the early spring, even before things bloom.  Just as long as the slushy mess phase has ended, that is - Uppsala looks much better both in the cold snowy winter and in the early spring than when everything's a slushy mess.

My typical route back to Flogsta is along St. Johannesgatan, a pretty direct route.  The first thing I pass on the way to St. Johannesgatan from Engelska Parken (the English park, where the language building is) is a rather large graveyard.  I decided to go through it this time, and it was, as one would hope, peaceful.  This section of the graveyard, at least, was built during the 1900s; the areas I had walked by when I took the bus to class are probably earlier.

On the opposite side of the graveyard was a residential area.  I continued into this area, as it went the general direction I wanted to go (west).  The houses had a rather odd, barn-like appearance in this area.

 As you can see there were a good number of such houses.  I don't know if they are all individual houses or if they might be duplex-style, but they were certainly inhabited.  I noticed one house had a 'beware of dog' sign, in Swedish, which I was able to read.  There was no dog, but it's good to know that I can read such signs.

Later on, the houses were more traditional:

 Across the road from this area were sports-fields, and there were a good number of people jogging, bicycling, or walking along the roads, probably due to the good weather.

Eventually this neighborhood ended, and at the intersection between this neighborhood and the next one was an interesting contrast.  On one corner was an old abandoned gas station, with some graffiti and generally looking more what I'd expect in a run-down area of an American city than in Uppsala.  But on the opposite corner, at a lower elevation than the sidewalk, were large sports fields with generous artificial lighting.  It was not a dissimilar arrangement to the intramural fields at Richmond.

Continuing into the new neighborhood, Eriksberg, there were far fewer houses, but lots of green fields and snowy knolls.  It was a calm area, also with lots of people outdoors.  And then I saw something I'd never seen before.  This sign:

 Groder på väg!  Frogs in the road!  I hadn't learned the word 'groder', but it was clear what it meant.  I figured there must actually be frogs in the road sometimes, but I was doubtful I'd find one that night, as it was the first day with weather in the fifties after all, probably still pretty cold for frogs.  And I knew from experience that a 'deer crossing' sign didn't mean there were usually deer crossing the road.  But what do you know, fifteen minutes later I found a frog!

 As you can tell the lighting wasn't very good by this time; it was after 8:30 PM and I only had my cell phone with no flash for photos (I had to lighten both of the past two photos just for this level of detail).  I nearly missed the frog myself as it did rather blend in with the road.  But there it was, a living, breathing frog!  I think.  I don't know for sure if it was alive, because if it was it was playing dead.  And doing a pretty good job of it.  But it wasn't flattened, and it seemed to be in a position that would require some muscle to maintain.  I was surprised it didn't hop away when I got close to it to take pictures, but it let me photograph it.  Its actual size was pretty small, less than the palm of my hand.  But sure enough, there was a frog in the road!

Back at Flogsta, Markus, one of the Swedes, said that at least where he is from near Stockholm there are tons and tons of frogs on the road in the summer, such that it's impossible to avoid running into them if you're driving.  He said there's also a good amount of toads.  So you can expect that I'll have quite a few more frog photos as the weather warms up.

The sunset and moonrise was pictureworthy as well, and I managed to get a decent snapshot of the rising moon:

 This was taken at 8:26 PM, and isn't lightened for detail.  It's hard to believe that when I arrived here, it was considerably darker than this at 4 PM.  Granted, one hour of that is daylight saving, but I still find it a bit hard to believe and I lived through 4 PM sunsets.

Today was also warm, but not as nice of weather overall.  But more on that in the next post.

The Coming of Spring?

In the past fortnight or so it's begun to get warmer in Uppsala.  First just a little bit above freezing, but then actual several degrees (Celsius) above zero for most of last week, and the snow was melting and we were in the yucky slushy phase, as my international buddy had aptly termed it.  It was nigh impossible to walk some places without getting your feet wet from all the slush-water.  Then last Friday, it got abruptly cold again and snowed most of the day, leaving the city looking pretty again under a fresh cover of snow, and making my short journey down to ICA for food and milk Friday night rather chilly.

But Saturday was quite possibly the warmest day yet, and it might even have hit fifty (Fahrenheit - I'm switching back and forth between Imperial and metric units with no rhyme or reason these days).  Most of the snow from the day before melted, and it was almost balmy outside.  The past two days have been warm as well, and the city has really been transformed.  I really didn't know what the city would look like without snow when I got here, and, well... there's more streets covered with pebbles than gold.  You can actually see where the bicycles are supposed to be and where the pedestrians are supposed to be, whereas you didn't even know that there were separate bicycle and pedestrian lanes in the winter in most places, and where you did it was only because there were signs.  And the city looks similar enough that I didn't get lost because of the lack of snow.  So, in short, a big transformation but not one that made the city look stunning.  Which is probably in part because parts of the city are still in the yucky slushy phase.

It also seems really weird in a way to not have the ground covered in snow.  After two months of having snow everywhere, it just kind of becomes ingrained that the ground is covered in snow.  You know intellectually that the snow will melt eventually, unless The Day After Tomorrow becomes reality, but it's just part of life that the snow is there.  And then in a relatively short period of time, it isn't.  It's weird.  I'm used to walking on ice now, and now there's hardly any ice to walk on.  Our offroad back-path to Ica is still covered in ice, but even that, the most famous of ice paths in the Flogsta area, is showing definite signs of stress from the heat.  Who knows, I might learn that it isn't actually an offroad path but there's actually pavement underneath after all in the next few days.

So, with only a few weeks left in winter, I've managed to fall on the ice only twice.  Once with not even a flesh wound, and the other leaving a nice gash on my right hand that took a couple weeks to heal, but managing not to damage my phone even cosmetically despite its skid across the ice.  I'll take that for not being accustomed to walking on ice before this.  Although I'm sure I've just jinxed myself and will fall three times in the remainder of this week on the little ice that's left.  I think the award for most impressive Uppsala ice statistics has to go to my friend Vanessa, though, who fell 17 and a half times but managed not to be injured a single time.  That's impressive injury-avoiding skills, and something most of us can only wish we had.

Also changing has been the length of the day.  We don't have daylight savings time until next week, but already it's not dark at 6:15 PM when my Swedish class starts, and not completely dark at 6:30.  Compare that to being completely dark at 4 PM when I arrived.  Even though 6:15 - 6:30 PM isn't late for it getting dark, compared to what it has been here it seems pretty good.  I guess the way to get someone to stop complaining about how early it gets dark is to send them to Sweden for a couple of months in the middle of the winter.  From now on we'll have more sun than most of the world, though, and before long we'll have quite generous amounts of sunlight in the evening.  Being an evening person myself, I'm quite looking forward to that - even being in France in midsummer a few years ago I quite enjoyed the late sunsets, and it should be even more drastic here fairly soon.

Wildlife is also starting to appear.  I saw a squirrel yesterday, and more birds are starting to appear.  No flowers yet, but I'm sure there will be some eventually.  And then we'll probably get insects, too.  That's one nice thing about the Swedish winter, there aren't very many insects.  But we'll see how it goes, as long as there aren't as many mosquitos as in Sault Sainte Marie I'll be happy with the generous sunlight!

International Gasque

Friday, February 25th, 2011 was the night of the International Gasque!  This event was highly anticipated, as our orientation packet describes it thusly:

"The highlight of your orientation is undoubtedly this traditional Uppsala formal dinner party!"

A 'formal dinner party' is a very short, but not completely inaccurate, definition of a gasque.  A gasque does indeed have a formal dinner, with students seated boy-girl-boy-girl at long tables, and dressed formally - the exact degree of formality depends on the gasque, but at this gasque it was dresses, and suit-and-tie (including jacket).  There's likely to be an afterparty, as well.  Gasques are a longstanding tradition of Swedish university life, and 'gasque' is one of the few Swedish words containing a 'q'.  Most gasques at Uppsala are hosted by nations (this one being an exception, as it was organized for all international students), and it's my impression that most Upplanders go to at least some of the gasques their Nation organizes.  As such, I can't think of any equivalent in the American university system.  The closest equivalent we would have is probably prom, but the dinner is as important as the afterparty at gasques, and is a dinner for all attendees, not organized individually.  Richmond's Ring Dance is similar in that it is a formal dance, but most Richmond students only attend it once, and there's no parental involvement at gasques.

The gasque began at 5:30 at V-Dala Nation (which has the largest rooms, quite useful as this is an unusually large gasque), although as is often the case with dinner events, that was a 'soft' start, and the dinner part itself didn't begin until sometime between 6:00 and 6:30.  Until then, we were socializing in a large (but crowded) room a floor below the dinner room, with an open bar with either white wine or relatively sweet champagne - I've heard both ways and can't tell by taste myself.  Then sometime between 6 and 6:30, we entered the dining area, and found our assigned seats.  Just as at the V-Dala Welcome Reception, there were a number of long tables aligned in front of the stage, but this time I was near the stage.  The first course was reindeer capriccio.  Yes - reindeer!  The organizers made sure there was some Swedishness in the gasque!  I actually didn't realize it was reindeer until I'd already eaten some - I guess that's the surest way to be sure you don't turn something down without trying it.  I've shamelessly pilfered a quality photograph from another attendee's Facebook as an illustration:

Reindeer does not taste too much like chicken.  As such, it isn't exceedingly easy to describe.  The taste I'd consider generally agreeable to most people, and the texture, while unique, is also generally agreeable - not spongy or suction-cupp-y like octopus, and not tough either, although not especially tender, either.  It's something that you have to try to know what it's like, but it's not a food to be afraid of trying.

Also visible in the picture is the snaps (in the shot glass).  We had two choices of snaps beverage - I didn't catch what the name of one of them was, so I went with akvavit, which I knew to be a Swedish beverage.  Basically, snaps are drinks for toasting, although (at least at gasques) you don't drink the entire thing at once, but rather about a third at a time.  What occasion had we for toasting?  Well, several, but the most common one was singing Swedish songs that we largely didn't understand.  We each had a menu of sorts, containing both the actual menu, and about 20 Swedish songs. There were two English songs hidden under our plates as well.  All more or less had to do with drinking.  The two English ones were to Oh Susanna and Camptown Races, but with lyrics changed to make them Swedish drinking songs.  Throughout the dinner, we sang about half the Swedish songs and one of the English ones, and after each one (and in the middle of a couple of the longer ones) we'd take a drink - snaps while it lasted, and later beer or wine.  The other occasion for toasts was after speeches or performances.

And of the performances, there were several.  Not as much of the evening was taken up by performances as at V-Dala's welcome reception, but we didn't have the Swedish songs at the welcome reception either, and the performances here were good, as expected.  One group was V-Dala's traditional Swedish music group, which performed mainly on guitars but also had a banjo, an oboe, and a brass instrument that I couldn't see due to another performer in my line of site.  A fellow diner observed that the music sounded rather Irish, which it did, but traditional Swedish it was.  Also performing was Vastgöta's international men's choir (band?), which entered as while performing La Marseillaise.  They then performed a German song (perhaps the anthem?  I don't have the German one memorize - although it certainly wasn't the WWII era German anthem), and they sang to both La Marseillaise and this one.  It was nice to be able to understand a good part of La Marseillaise, unlike the Swedish songs, and their French singing was good to the best of my estimation.  They then played another song, while members took turns recounting stories in their native languages, which probably would have been insightful had I been able to understand them.  These languages included Russian (I could pick up a few words), Irish, Swedish (from the southern Skåne region, and thus not quite the same as in Uppsala), and French, which I was able to pick up some of but not enough for the story to make sense.  Finally, they made a recessional to, appropriately, The Internationale (instrumental version).  There's a traditional toast in Sweden where the toasters sing several lines about what a great performance/speech they've witnessed/heard, and the toasted then sings an impromptu reply, and the toasters then sing a final line praising the toasted, after which the toast is consumed.  We attempted to make a toast to this choir, but unfortunately they seemed to have forgotten that we might do so and didn't stick around for the 'reply' part of it.  After our second attempt to get a reply failed, we continued with the third part and the toast anyway.

The main course was moose steak with juniperberry sauce, and Jerusalem artichoke puree.  Again, a shamelessly pilfered illustration (without the juniperberry sauce):

 The moose was completely new to me.  It's not bad tasting, although not the most flavorful meat either, but unfortunately it was rather tough.  Not as tough as most Swiss (beef) steaks I've had back in the states, but more tough than would have been ideal.  I don't know if this is just because it was moose meat, or due to the preparation.  The juniperberrysauce helped with this, though, and unlike some steaks I've had it was certainly edible.  But of the two, I certainly preferred the reindeer.  The Jerusalem artichoke puree was probably new to most students, or at least most American students, but I'd tried Jerusalem artichokes a few weeks ago, so the taste was not entirely new for me, and the Jerusalem artichoke puree was good and enjoyable.

Our toastmaster does deserve mention.  He was a Swede, older than university students after having had somewhat of a military career, but still fairly young, and was named Oscar.  Apparently this was at least his second appearance as toastmaster.  One of his friends was at my end of the table, and had the misfortune of his reindeer capriccio being devoured by a hungry Belgian girl, and his snaps split between the Belgian and an Australian, because he was quite late to the point of it looking like he wasn't coming at all, due to having to come in after work from Stockholm.  Fortunately this didn't seem to bother him, and he was in a good mood.  Anyways, Oscar had a good sense of humor and kept us entertained - according to his friend, he was completely disregarding proper procedure, but Oscar always did this and it was just as well for the humor value.

It must have been close to 10:00 when dessert came, a panna cotta with chocolate and raspberries.

But, not to give up the Swedish food theme completely, another round of snaps came, with a choice of either punsch, or the non-Swedish Bailey's Irish Cream.  Being at a Swedish event, of course I chose the former.  Both the dessert and the second round of snaps were good, although the chocolate was a bit hard, especially relative to the soft panna cotta and raspberries.  Punsch is sweet and tastes just like you would expect it to after having a punsch roll.  Unfortunately that doesn't help you much if you've never had a punsch roll.  Suffice to say it has a pleasant flavor and, like akvavit, doesn't have nearly as much of a sting you'd expect considering its alcohol content.   Punsch seemed to have a stronger flavor, which in this case was good.  Apparently, punsch has a rich tradition in Uppsala, too; according to Wikipedia,

"The high point of the Punsch consumption in Sweden came during the nineteenth century and focused on the students and teachers in the universities of Uppsala and Lund. Many traditional songs from that time are about the consumption of punsch or are meant to be sung during the collective festivities that were part of the cultural life in the universities' student associations at the time and still is."

I don't know how many of the songs we sang related to punsch, but Uppsala University is definitely one of the universities in Uppsala this statement is referring to!

All told, the meal was both tasty and a good introduction to some of the Swedish foods that aren't common outside of Sweden.  It was also the longest meal I've ever had - it ended at 10:40, after starting sometime between 6 and 6:30.  That bests the previous 4-hour meal I once had in Belgium.  At 10:40, we sang one last Swedish song, and then headed downstairs to socialize for 20 minutes or so while the student workers cleaned upstairs, moved the furniture, and the live DJ set up (as Oscar said, we wouldn't want a dead one).  Then at 11:00, the upstairs opened for anyone who wanted to to dance, while the downstairs remained open for socializing, with bars with limited selection open on both floors.  The gasque then continued until 2:00, at which point the music stopped and the attendees slowly filed out.  It was too late to get to the bus stop before the last bus, so I didn't try and walked back along St. Johannesgatan instead.

 The International Gasque was certainly worth going to, both to learn about Swedish food and culture, and to meet more international students (and perhaps even some of the Swedish students who decided to attend!).  It may not have been the best night of my life or worth canceling vacation plans for if I'd already had some this weekend, but it was definitely the place for an exchange student at Uppsala to be last Friday night.  If you find yourself as an international student at Uppsala, do yourself a favor and go to at least one gasque.  Even if you don't like dancing, and even if you don't eat meat (there was a vegetarian option, too, and special requests were possible).  Just buy your ticket quickly, especially if you are here in the fall - according to the Belgian student at my table, they sell out especially quickly then.  You'll be glad you went!

Julmust

Julmust is a Swedish soft drink, traditionally consumed around Christmas ('jul' meaning 'Christmas' in Swedish).  My local ICA still had some, so I bought a bottle.

Those of you who know me will know that I usually dislike soft drinks, in no small part due to the carbonation, with rare exceptions such as Fitz's cream soda in St. Louis.  Well, pleasingly, Julmust was another exception.  It's not dissimilar to a cola, but is sweeter and more of its kick is from flavorings and spices than carbonation.  I might actually buy another.

But it won't be long before Julmust disappears from shelves, and is replaced by påskmust, for Easter.  Påskmust and Julmust are exactly the same, but with different labels (påsk meaning Easter in Swedish).  Even so, Julmust is by far the most popular, with three-quarters of all Julmust (including Påskmust) being sold in December, and Julmust being the most popular soft drink in Sweden in December (sorry, Coca-Cola).  So perhaps I should stock up soon if I still want to have some in May or June.

Blog Updates...

I've actually looked through the settings in some detail for a change, and in addition to a few formatting changes (there's no longer two dates on retroactive posts, for example), have made comments more accessible.  Now anyone can make comments, including robots.  As a precaution against swarms of robots, I've changed it so that comments don't appear right away, but I plan to approve all comments unless they're obviously from automated systems.

I also discovered that there is an auto-notification feature of Blogger from the author's end, so I can enable automatic notification by e-mail of new posts for whoever wants that.  Apparently it doesn't always work for followers (maybe it depends on which ID type you used to follow?), so if you want notifications of new posts, just e-mail me or leave a comment and I can add you.  For some reason there's a limit of 10 e-mail addresses, though, so if there's dozens of people reading this by the end of the semester it'll have to become first-come first-serve.

Weekday lunch at Vastgöta

Last Friday, February 11th, I had class all day, at Pollacksbacken.  It's too far to make a round trip to Flogsta from Pollacksbacken in 75 minutes, at least if you're going to eat anything at Flogsta, so that necessitated getting lunch at Pollacksbacken.  This was actually the third time this had occured, but the previous two times I had packed a lunch.  Last Friday I didn't get up early enough to do so, so a quest was on to find somewhere to eat.  I remembered that my international buddy had recommended Vastgöta Nation's lunch as a good place to eat on weekdays, so I took bus 20 there.  Almost at least - I went one stop too far, but was able to find my way back easily enough.

It was a good choice.  The lunch is only 35 kronor (about five dollars), and included a good helping of soup, some tasty bread, and a side dish, which I believe was red cabbage and onions on Friday.  The soup was a carrot soup, and was appetizing as well, and the whole lunch was vegetarian.  There was a decent crowd there, perhaps 2-3 dozen students at any one time, and there seemed to be a good stock of foodstuffs - there was no wait for the food, which was important with class at 1:15.

The settings was also interesting - it was in the room to the right of the entryway of Vastgöta's building, which I'd been through once before, but had never really looked at.  Along the walls were about a dozen paintings, all of towns from the Vastgöta region.  Nearly all of them featured a cathedral not unlike the one in Uppsala stylistically.  The building has belonged to Vastgöta since the early 1800s, and I would guess that the paintings have been there for most of that time.  The architecture in the room was excellent as well, which is not surprising considering I was at Vastgöta Nation.  In my estimation, Vastgöta has the best building architecturally, although some say Norrlands does.  I shall have to photograph it.

The lunch expedition was a success, and I returned a partial minute late only because the bus was running behind schedule due to the new snowfall.  With better road conditions, it certainly would be possible to go to Vastgöta for lunch and return on time.  I recommend going there at least once as an exchange student to try it out, and may well return myself.

Chinese New Year at Uplands

On Sunday, February 6th, I went to a Chinese New Year celebration at Uplands Nation.  The schedule included performances of (mostly) traditional Chinese arts, authentic Chinese food for dinner, and a Chinese (or at least Hong Kong) movie afterwards.  I arrived promptly at 4:00 when it was supposed to begin, but it didn't begin promptly at 4, nor did most people arrive at 4.  However, I was able to get a table by arriving early - if you were one of the last ones to arrive that was difficult.  At first I was with an SLU exchange student from Germany I had met before, and later several Uppsala students we were acquainted with arrived.  SLU is another university in Uppsala, but it is an agricultural university, and to the west of the city.  While SLU students aren't students at Uppsala, they are still able to join the Nations.

After perhaps an hour the food was prepared in adequate quantity for consumption to begin.  It wasn't bad, but I'm not sure authentic Chinese food is my favorite, either.  Granted, it was prepared by students, not professional chefs, but most of the students who were helping with cooking were actually Chinese.  The SLU student with whom I was eating said she thought there was too much oil in the rice, whereas a vegan student at our table noticed the dearth of vegetarian options.  Similar to at the Smorgasbord at Uplands, none of the food was labeled, which was unfortunate.  Maybe some more of it actually was vegetarian but it wasn't clear to westerners that it was?  The food was restocked a few times, and there was enough in the end.  There also was Chinese tea, but it was depleted when I went to get some, and being thirsty, I settled for water.

The performances were a mixed bag - the auditory ones were mired at first by a speakermaster who wasn't particularly good - I think the main problem was the sound was too loud, both for the audience and the speakers, but the transitions in volume were not smooth, either.  The recorded music tracks were also too loud relative to the live singing.  Fortunately it did get a bit better as time went on, and by the time there was a performance on a traditional Chinese string instrument (whose name escapes me now), it was enjoyable to listen to.  There was one performance that seemed decidedly non-traditional, a dance to decidedly modern, club-style music.  While it may well be common in China (my guess would be Hong Kong in particular, but by now it may be throughout China), it didn't seem to mesh with the general theme.

I didn't stay for the movie, as I'd already been there awhile and it hadn't gone as smoothly as might have been hoped.  I left with the SLU student and an Uppsala student, and after some debate we decided to go to the Hemkop grocery store in the center of the city.  It was the first time I'd been to a non-Ica grocery store, and they did indeed have some different inventory.  I tried a new vegetable, Jerusalem artichokes, which I found to taste similar to a potato but with the texture of a carrot, as well as some traditional Swedish pastries.  Probably the most traditionally Swedish is the Punsche-rolle, or vacuum cleaner.  All the pastries were to my liking, which probably isn't surprising.

The Flogsta Kitchen

It may be of interest to potential Uppsala students to know more about the buildings themselves.  I basically looked at a summary of each potential and made a decision in about 10 minutes.  It worked out well enough, but some people may prefer other buildings.  Or prefer a building closer to their classes (reminder to myself to make a post with a map of classes and residences, once I learn where more residences are).  Today I'll include some pictures of the kitchen.

This is the kitchen as viewed to the left from the entrance.  Twelve people share the kitchen, but the two stoves are usually enough to keep up with demand.  Everyone has two cabinets, one above and one of the half-height ones below (the full-height ones contain communal skillets, pots, and other cooking utensils.  The two drawers in the middle contain small cooking utensils (paring knives, butcher knives, etc.), and dining utensils.  The spices and anything on top of the oven fans (such as the olive oil) are free for anyone to use.  The logic is that most people don't use a whole jar of one spice in a semester, so why not share it?  Not visible in this picture is the second drying rack.

 Here we see the dining area.  The table comfortably seats seven, and you can fit in a few more than that on special occasions.  Included on the windowsill, in addition to the plant, are some KPMG playing cards, which are entirely in Swedish.  On the bulletin board are pictures of past residents.  There is a box in the common room with pictures of residents dating back to the '70s, and a select few are present on the bulletin board in the kitchen.  In most cases the picture features a silly action of some sort, although not always - one is up there purely because the person in it radiates '80's-ness.  There is a sole picture with a current resident in it.  Often present on the table, but not in this picture, is the Guestbook.  It's actually a resident book.  Started around 2003, it includes a page for each resident who decided to make an entry, telling what they studied, what their favorite food was, where they lived, and a few more things, in Swedish.  Two current residents have already made entries, and I found the entry for the Spanish exchange student who lived in my room a few semesters back fairly easily.  It was kind of neat to look through even though I couldn't understand a whole lot, but probably will be more so in the future with a greater knowledge of Swedish.

 And looking back.  Here we see that the other side of the table has a couch rather than chairs.  I actually find the chairs more comfortable, as they are a better height for the table, but the couch is not bad either.  The microwave is dial-based, which I hadn't been used to but I know is common at American colleges that provide microwaves for resident students.  There are three refrigerators, shared amongst four people each.  The third one is...

 ... in the common room!  The common room is directly across the hallway from the kitchen.  Three refrigerators just didn't fit in the kitchen.  If you go out the door in the picture, you go onto the balcony.  I've gone out there a few times to take in the view, but it's been too cold to go out there a lot.  To the left of that door (but inside) is another door that leads to the freezers.  There are two freezers for the hall.

There are enough communal utensils that you really don't need to purchase your own.  I was fine the first week before I got to IKEA and bought some, but even then I didn't buy a whole lot.  Buying your own plates is a good idea as there aren't that many communal plates, and you'll need your own containers for leftovers.  Otherwise, though, the custom of leaving cutlery and utensils for future residents has left a good stock.  Occasionally they're a bit old - we have two of the heaviest skillets I've ever lifted, probably real cast iron - but they tend to do the job fairly well.

I should note that the kitchen condition as well as inventory may differ significantly in different corridors within Flogsta.  The kitchen in my corridor tends to be fairly clean, but I've heard that isn't the case in some other corridors.  The general layout and stock of large appliances should be more or less the same, though.

Uplands' Welcome Reception

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011 -

The Uplands Welcome Reception was on Thursday.  I thought I remembered seeing something about everyone being welcome even if they weren't a member, but I wasn't sure and wasn't sure I wanted to crash the party in case it was only for members.  But when I got back from class Thursday afternoon (a long day compared to what I'm used to, six hours of class), I checked the Uplands International Students group and saw that one of their international secretaries had posted that everyone was welcome, even if they hadn't joined Uplands.  So I decided I was going to attend, meet some more people, and get to know Uplands better, despite being somewhat fatigued after the long and early day.  I had almost joined Uplands, so I was curious to see what I might be missing out on.

If the V-Dala reception seemed large and impersonal at times, the Uplands one was much smaller scale and more personal.  There weren't all that many students, perhaps three dozen, less than half of whom were internationals (compared to V-Dala's about 200, also less than half of whom were internationals).  We split into two tours groups, one the internationals (in English) and one the Swedes and those who spoke Swedish, and started going around meeting the leaders of various Uplands organizations.  Unlike at V-Dala, they were expecting us (well, I guess the V-Dala people probably were too) and told us about the organization when we arrived, rather than just looking at us.  Our tour guide helpfully asked questions that she probably knew the answer to, but we probably didn't know the answer to and probably wouldn't have thought to ask.  You could say it was staged, but it was very helpful both at getting more information for us, and for making sure all the group members told us about their part in the organization.  Most memorable of the groups, despite the fact that I don't plan to join it, was the band, who were all wearing somewhat dirty sailors' uniforms.  The story goes, back 40 years ago or so when the band was founded, they needed some sort of uniform so they looked alike, but they had a small budget.  Sailors' uniforms were the cheapest ones they could find, so they went with that.  Now, they aren't allowed to wash the uniforms, because of superstitions as well as all the medals affixed that would take some time to take off.  The exception is that they are allowed to wash them in the river if they are kept on while in the river, but the one member who had done so said her uniform ended up more dirty after being washed than before.

The tour went well I thought, and the whole time we had been accompanied by a friendly rodent, the rat Oops.  Most of the time Oops rode along on our tour guide's shoulders (not stationary, of course, but walking all around as feasible), although she occasionally gave Oops to someone else to hold for awhile.  Oops belonged to one of the students who had housing through Uplands, and who also happened to be one of the band members.  He owns three rats, Oops, Toxic, and Trouble.  They are all named after Britney Spears songs.  Oops is about six months old, and is a very soft rat in addition to being very friendly.  I know the general impression people in the U.S. have is, why would you want to have a rat as a pet when they are generally seen as pests, but after spending time with Oops you could see why you might want to have a rat as a pet - they can be very friendly and sociable indeed.  It would never work back at home for me, having three cats, but for someone who didn't already have pets who might mistake Oops for prey, a rat could be a pretty good pet.

 I did learn on the tour that there is a rivalry between Uplands and V-Dala.  Apparently it began back when V-Dala built their current building, which is both right next to Uplands and taller.  In effect, they stole Uplands' sun, so once a year Uplands has a gasque where they go around V-Dala's building and hope it falls down.  I don't know if V-Dala considers it a rivalry, as they didn't mention anything during their welcome ceremony, but Uplands does at least.  I didn't mention that I was in V-Dala upon hearing this, for fear of being tossed out or worse, but during dinner it inevitably came up, as some of the internationals already knew I was in V-Dala (one of the other internationals was in Snerikes, so I wasn't the only non-Uplander at least).  It brought about the requisite "how dare you!"s, and, "oh, you're in that nation"s, but fortunately it wasn't too difficult to convince them that I really hadn't been aware of the rivalry and wasn't actually acting as a spy.

Dinner was good, consisting of pea soup and Swedish pancakes.  Our tour group started out eating downstairs in the main dining area that anyone could come into for Uplands' dinner, but moved up to the banquet hall (the same place we'd eaten on the Russian night) upon learning that was where we were actually supposed to be.  Pea soup is more exciting than is sounds, unlike American tomato soup, and is tasty as well.  While peas are of course the main vegetable, there are other vegetables as well, and their was even a version with meat in it, although we pretty much all went for the vegetarian version as there was more of it when we arrived to eat.  Swedish pancakes are not similar to American pancakes, although they did remind me of crepes.  They are thicker than crepes, but it is traditional to put some sort of jam in them and fold them over, not dissimilar to how crepes are often filled.  I'd actually had them once before, at GH Nation's Sunday brunch my second day here.  There were a few short speeches during the dinner, but not nearly as many as there had been at V-Dala, and the dinner was significantly shorter as a result.

After the dinner, several of us went down to Uplands Nation's pub, Svantes Källare, including the international secretary who had been our tour guide, to socialize and get to know each other some more.  We were in the back room of Svantes Källare, which is one of the neatest single rooms I've been in in Uppsala.  It looks like it could date back to medieval times with its stone, brick, and concrete walls in the shape of a long arch, but the most credible version of its history seems to be that it originated as a bomb shelter back in the '40s or '50s.  Now it's been somewhat refurbished into an additional seating area, and it has a pretty good atmosphere for such a history.  It's a bit loud, with the walls pretty much directing the sound to the table across the archway and not absorbing hardly any sound, but still definitely a neat area to hang out.  We stayed there for a couple hours.  The international secretary was going to give a (hopefully-funny) speech at the reccegasque (the gasque for new students) at Uplands, and as such she asked us what 'weird' tendencies we had noticed in Swedes, as well as what stereotypes or tendencies we had heard or noticed about Swedes (good or bad) and whether we thought the stereotypes had some basis.  It made for an interesting topic of discussion, and of course we also discussed what the Swedes' stereotypes about internationals (particularly international students) were, and what stereotypes the Swedes thought might be prevalent about themselves.  As it turns out, American international students are perceived as not stylish, while international students in general tend to either be very hard working and academically focused, or focused mostly on partying and living it up.  International students also need to learn to say when they agree or disagree with a Swede's suggestions, rather than saying they agree with suggestions when they really don't.  Swedes tend to be polite, but sometimes seem to not be very friendly at first (the V-Dala organization fair being one example).  Many of the other things the internationals noticed were more about items in life in Sweden, such as IKEA being much more confusing than was expected, rather than about the Swedes themselves.

The biggest difference between V-Dala's and Uplands' welcome receptions was that Uplands felt much more personal - it's what people are talking about when they talk about the difference between a large nation and a small one.  Technically Uplands is a medium-sized nation (2000 students), but you could tell the difference between it and V-Dala (5000 students).  V-Dala was able to put on an impressive show, which Uplands didn't attempt, but there's something to be said for actually getting to know the international secretary over the course of several hours at a welcome reception.  To be fair, I did meet and talk to the international secretary at V-Dala a bit during the winter fika (see the first part of this post), but the chances of getting to meet her at the welcome reception was pretty slim due to the number of people in attendance.  There's advantages to both large and small nations, and I see why some internationals said they were considering joining both a large and a small nation.

V-Dala Welcome Reception

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011 -

On Tuesday I went to V-Dala's welcome reception for new students (both Swedish and international) who had joined V-Dala.  It began at 6 PM with an organization fair of sorts, with dinner following at 7:00.  The organization fair seemed a bit odd.  I'm used to organizations advertising themselves and actively trying to convince you to join at such events, but that was not the case here.  Instead, you had to ask the questions about the organization, or the people staffing the organization's table would, in many cases, just look at you and not say anything.  It didn't seem very friendly, and the Canadian, Germans, and Austrian I was with most of the evening agreed (I'd met the Germans and Austrian the week before at the pub crawl, as well as a Turk whom I also ate with at the welcome reception - it just so happened we had all joined V-Dala).  But I signed up for notifications about events from several V-Dala organizations, including the international committee, cultural club, games club, and sports committee.

Though we were a bit disconcerted after the fairly unfriendly, impersonal events fair, the dinner was much better.  It was semi-candlelight, with only sparse electric lighting, although no one was formally dressed.  The food was good, rice and either chicken, carrot and (I think) mushroom soup, or a tomato-based chunky vegetable sauce, and wine was dispersed at a bottle per three people.  Around nine-o-clock dessert came, a very good chocolate cake/brownie (kind of in between), as well as coffee and sugar cubes (for the coffee, not to eat in the manner of horses).  I still don't like coffee, but it was better with milk than without as I had it my first day at Göteborgs.  But the food was not the main event.  That was the stage performances by several V-Dala organizations.  The choir performed first, performing a few pieces in primarily A Capella style, followed by the band.  The band said it was hard to describe exactly what type of music they perform, but to listen, and I agree that I can't put it easily in a common category.  It was a brass band, with dancers, and the music reminded me of what I might expect with a '20s or '30s theme more than once, although perhaps it was actually more reminiscent of 1800s style - the dancers did perform the can-can at one point.  But at other points the music had a midcentury Latin American feel to it.  It certainly wasn't the more common jazz music.

The theatrical group, Spex, also performed at several points, including an act with multiple Julius Caesars with low lifespans, and a group of two penguins and one other bird.  The latter was in Swedish, and while I was laughing watching the actors walk around birdlike and converse both in Swedish and bird sounds, with the non-penguin always seeming rather sad, the Swedes were really laughing, so it must have been even funnier knowing the Swedish.  Once again I found myself wishing I knew Swedish - a fairly common thought.  There were a few speakers as well, including the chaplain and V-Dala's inspector, who is an adult, V-Dala alum, and employee in charge of finances and generally keeping order.  The latter had an especially good sense of humor, poking fun both at the tendencies of college students as well as himself and eliciting many laughs.  Good news, though - for some reason he doesn't understand, the business world thinks it's good to have an Uppsala Universitet degree!

Overall it was a very good evening, and definitely worth coming to.  There was enough time between the events on stage both to get to know the people around us better, and consume the food, and the event was clearly well-planned and well-executed.  The quality of both the musical groups and the theatre group was high, and they'd be worth seeing perform in the future.  The actual dinner part went without issue, as well.  The overall feel was rather like that of a cabaret, with the dual focus on both stage performers, and dining and socializing.  I didn't stay for the party after dinner, but I can say that V-Dala certainly knows how to put on a semi-formal dinner with onstage entertainment.

Visiting the Cathedral

Monday, January 31st, 2011

Today it was necessary to head in to town, as my rent had to be paid before February 1st. As I had plenty of time, I decided to walk. They say that you can see the cathedral for miles out - sure enough, I could see the cathedral not long after I left Flogsta.

That's the cathedral in the center of the picture.  Sure enough, it's dusk, too.  At 3:38 PM.  Which is no longer at all surprising.

The cathedral served as a good guide to make sure I kept going in the right direction, although it wasn't difficult.  Not much later, I came across a sight that not many Americans would like:

Cheap gasoline!  Usually it's about 13.40 kronor per litre.  12.93 is low!  The 9.74 is for 85% ethanol.  The price works out to about $2/litre, or a bit below $8 per gallon.

When I was more or less in town, I came across a truck with a familiar brand:

Polarbröd!  Polarbröd is a yummy flat bread that's a traditional northern Swedish bread.  I eat it often for open-faced sandwiches.  It's the third of fourth largest bread brand in Sweden.

I made it into town and paid my rent, then went east across the river to the Uppsala Konsert & Kongress building to buy a ticket to a classical concert occurring in May.  I decided to walk back as well.  I found myself near the cathedral, so I decided to take a walk around it and see what its open hours were.

It was still open!  It's open until 6 PM.  So I went on in.  It wasn't crowded, but it wasn't the ideal time to visit either, as it was dusk, so there wasn't much light coming in through the stained glass windows.  I plan to visit again, but during daylight hours.  Even so, it was impressive.  It's just as tall and decorated as the French cathedrals I saw several years ago.  The exterior style is quite different, red brick instead of stone, but it is all stone inside.  My pictures aren't great due to the lack of light, but I'll include some nevertheless.

 This is the memorial to Dag Hammarskjöld, who grew up in Uppsala and was the second secretary-general of the UN.  It seemed to be one of the most recent displays in the cathedral; the relics of Saint Eric of Sweden (who was never actually made a saint by the Pope, but is considered one here anyway) from the 1100s seemed to be the oldest.

 The chandeliers made this a difficult picture to take, but this is the view from near the back of the church, looking forward.  All the chandeliers are electric, except the one above the altar, which has candles but was not lit.  The electric cabling seems to be attached to the sides of cathedral with a sticky substance, rather than actually going through the stone.

 The pipe organ at the back of the cathedral.  There are two pipe organs.  The white cloth is covering construction work - the cathedral is undergoing renovations.

 

 The second organ, at the left side of the church (when facing the altar), and one of the stained glass windows.

 One of the tombs on the right side of the church.  It's much more impressive with real, rather than photographed, light.  The two tombs in this area dated from the 1600s or early 1700s.

 One of the paintings on the wall.  The styling seems a bit more northern European than what I remember from the French cathedrals, and definitely medieval (the cathedral was begun in the late 1200s).  The scene on the left is peaceful, but the one partly visible on the right is warlike, as were several of the other scenes in this room.

There were a few worshippers present, saying their own prayers, but I did not see any priests while I was there.  I thought I saw a nun near the room where Gustav Vasa I, King of Sweden, was entombed, but later learned that it was actually an incredibly realistic statue.  I hadn't approached too close to be polite!