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.