Sweden Day 2: a day of rest

5 April 2010
Uppsala, Sweden

I laid down after taking a shower this morning (see photo of bathroom: toilet, sink, shower) waiting for Josh to wake up, and wound up sleeping most of the day... I'm not sure what Josh did while I slept, although I do know that he ironed my white coat for me (that gets him some cool points for sure =)










These are some photos I took of our hostel as well. There is a living area/kitchen sort of place.


















When I woke up, we went to the Cathedral here. We missed yesterday's Easter service, sadly. I think it's an Episcopalian church, but we're not really for sure...but we got to go inside today, and it was really nice. It is the oldest church in Scandinavia, built in honor of St. Erik, whose remains are actually buried there. The church is built in the shape of a cross. There are a lot of stained glass windows. Then at three of the ends (the entrance or the bottom of the cross, and each of the sides of the cross) are three large windows which represent the Trinity--Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit.





Carl Linneaus is also buried there beneath the floor, and there is a little statue off to the side. He is the guy who was responsible for plant classifications, I believe. There is also a garden here in Uppsala, which I think we'll probably visit in the next few days that is named after him. There is also a king and two of his consorts (?), as well as his son and his son's wife buried at the top part of the cross. There is a pulpit that is in the middle of the room, rather than at the front like most churches. The services are conducted from this point, as well as coronations of kings.





There is also another guy with the last name of Swedenborg who is a famous scientist who is also buried there. There was also a place where a lady puts up carved wooden figures which change throughout the year based on the life of Jesus. The one there now is Jesus coming out of the tomb on Easter! Sadly, I do not have any pictures of the inside of the church. No one else was taking them, and I didn't really know if it was right to do so, so I refrained. It was really just beautiful though.






After that, we walked over to the University which was completely deserted. It's still a holiday here in Sweden.













There was a little pub called William's, so we decided to try that out. It was a British pub which served Indian food. We tried out some pretty interesting stuff. I got something that I can't recall the name of, but it was these fried onions with mint sauce. I also got Shrimp Puri which was AWESOME. Josh got this Indian equivalent of chicken nuggets and mushroom soup. You can see our food pictured below.



























We both got Carlsberg Hof beers. I've had Carlsberg at the Flying Saucer in Memphis before, and I really liked it. This was definitely a different flavor, though, more fruity. Food is really expensive here, sadly. We were the only ones in the pub because everywhere was deserted and closed due to the holiday, like I mentioned before.




After dinner, we tried to find a grocery store where we could pick up some food, but we couldn't really find it. I think we'll probably try that again tomorrow. It's a store called ICA, which I saw, but our waitress had told us there was a place called Time on a street I can't pronounce or remember how to spell. We never saw that...and I didn't know that ICA was a grocery.






Anyhow, we start rotation officially tomorrow at 10:30, I believe. So we're going to get there a bit early to find our destination as we have no clue, and things aren't really labeled as clearly as I'd like (or in English, for that matter).

Goodnight!