Woah! That was a fast week...

Back in the land of the internet! Woo-hoo!


After a week of spotty, shotty, expensive internet, I'm back to a free and reliable (if a little slow) connection. That means I can keep updating my blog and responding to e-mails! Isn't that cool?


Today we arrived in Stockholm via train from Uppsala. Our past week at Uppsala has just blown by. Since day one we have been on our feet (and the occasional bus) and in classes, learning about Swedish culinary cuisine, the environment, railroad microbiology, famous Swedish scientists, and other chemistry-related activities. We also spent time at the Gamla Uppsala museum, where this fragment of gold was found inside one of the old queen's burial mounds. It's so tiny, and the level of detail is truly amazing. They say that the goldsmiths who have seen it do not have the capability or expertise to recreate it using methods known to them today, and these mounds were constructed between 400 and 600AD.


Uppsala is a great town with a vibrant city center. This past week was the Bandy tournament finals, so 20,000 extra people were flooding the streets on top of the usual college-aged crowd. However, on the outskirts of the town can take on a distinctly more Iowan flavor. Flat lands with greening fields- it seems exactly like we're back in southern Minnesota. In fact, there have been a few days where I forget entirely that I'm in a foreign country, and it is only after I hear people speaking Swedish that I realize I'm here. Now that I'm in Stockholm, however, I don't think I'll encounter that difficulty.


Yesterday we went to the Linneaus Botanical Gardens in downtown Uppsala, as well as toured the greenhouse and castle nearby. A lot of these flower pictures have been from that visit, as well as some of the more peculiar pictures. Daniel and Julia, our teachers here in Uppsala, did the Titanic pose near the castle, we saw a borg cube that had landed in town, and I directed the cannons to commence fire, only to realize later that they pointed directly at the old church.


One of the coolest parts of the trip to the botanical gardens was seeing a tree that has a very interesting history. Buddha was said to have achieved enlightenment from underneath a tree after sitting there for seven weeks. This tree was well documented and preserved for many generations, until a famous queen took a branch to Sri Lanka in roughly 150BC, the first transplantation of the original tree from India. This branch eventually became it's own tree, which was well documented for thousands of years. A splicing of this tree was taken, and given to the Linneaus Botanical Garden as a gift some years ago, and has now been growing there. It was cool to see the tree, and part of me just wanted to sit under it for the remainder of this trip. If enlightenment is capable for me to achieve, then I doubt me spending the next weeks traveling would interfere too much.


Now that we're in Stockholm, life is going to pick up pace again. We left Uppsala at the same temperature we arrived at, and we also were welcomed into Stockholm by a dramatic shift in weather from sunny to snowy in less than two hours. However, I was able to snap some pictures of things I found interesting before it changed. I found a driftwood bench just sitting there, and I also saw some Swans on the same lake as Af Chapman (the boat we're all sleeping on right in the middle of town). Af Chapman should be a really great place for us to stay; it's in the center of town, and it's really easy to get to the Riksdag and the other interesting places here. So much to do and see, I just want to get out there and search for a place to have dinner!


I took this video just a few minutes ago after it started snowing. Apparently, it's going to be right below freezing for the rest of the week. Good thing I didn't ship my winter things home! I saw an advertisement for Aruba yesterday, and I had second thoughts about spending my spring break in the only more cloudy, hectic, and generally chilly place than here. Only kidding- wishfully I hope I'll be blogging about my surprise dinner with Sir Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart in two weeks.