Uppsala
Today we got to sleep in a little bit--until 7:45. First we drove downtown and found a parking spot central to where we would be. Sweden, including Uppsala is doing what many complain about Minneapolis doing. They are engineering the environment of the city to encourage people to walk and use bicycles while making it less comfortable to drive your car. They have built and enlarged walking and biking paths. The bike paths are often separated by a raised curb or up on a curb height from the street. Parking is very restricted. Most businesses do not have parking spots. There are parking bays on some of the streets, but not the most driven ones. Most streets are one lane each way. Parking anywhere in the city is monitored by an app. You need to enter your car and the number for the area in which you are parked (ie: specific parking lot, along this street in this area of the street). You then leave and when you return, you enter that and it ends. You pay per minute. One problem is that there is more than one app. Whoever owns the parking area decides what app to use. And then you enter your credit card info to pay for the parking. There are many parking police who drive around checking to make sure that each person parked in an area has entered their information and if they haven't, they get a parking ticket placed under their windshield wiper. And I believe that it is significant. But today we were there earlier on a Saturday, so we found a spot right away (unlike yesterday).
Our first stop was a guided tour at Museum Gustavianum which is part of the university here in Uppsala. First we went into an operating theater. It is one of those that you see in movies, with the the table at the center and the rising rings for students and colleagues to stand and observe. A medical professor (Olaf Rudbeck the elder) back in the 1660s was learning from other doctors in other parts of Europe and saw one there and insisted on one in Uppsala as a condition of his working at the University. They said that the wooden table would have been marble with a small trough cut just inside the outside edge for the blood and goo to go to drain into buckets. And also, they rebuilt the current one from the old one though the upper walls and ceiling are original. It was mostly used for animals, there were only 10 human dissections in the 100 years it was used. In Sweden, there were only three sources for humans to dissect: a murderer, a suicide (self-murderer), or a child up to the age of 12 conceived outside of wedlock. I asked why 12--that was the age of marriage. The purpose of the dissections, in addition to teaching students, was to try to understand the mind of God.
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| The walls of the theater are speckled so that any flying blood or goo would just blend in. |
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This is looking down on the table which would have been marble instead of wood like this one.
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Then we saw the Augsburg cabinet. It was created in Augsburg, Germany and presented from the city as a gift to King Gustavus Adolphus in 1632. Unfortunately, he died later that same year. His 6 year old daughter became queen and had the cabinet brought to Uppsala for her coronation. It is full of drawers, and openings, and other spaces and was filled with objects from all over the world. Many of the items were kept with the cabinet until it was donated. Some are broken beacause the young queen would play with them. (Side note: she abdicated her throne at the age of 12 because she converted to Catholicism, I believe. She was banished from Sweden). The cabinet was also supposed to help understand the mind of God. There was even a pipe from a native American tribe on the East Coast. It is supposed to represent the entire world. It is built in the themes of the sea and love. On top was a nut from Seychelles that was washed up on the shores of a western Europe colony and traded. The guide said that there are also steps inside that can be folded out to use to access and observe the top. It was extremely valuable. At the time, the cabinet was valued at roughly the price of a castle. Many references to Christianity as well as mythology.
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| Items from the cabinet |
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| A close-up of one side |
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| The top |
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| More objects from the cabinet |
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| Another side |
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| Another side (the white statue in the center was of Cain and Abel). |
Finally was the room of science. Our guide showed us many interesting holdings and explained the Eugenics movement in Sweden that began in the 1300s and ended with the final sterilization in 1971.
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This was the first Celcius measurement device, though at that time
the scale was backwards to what it is now, with 0 degrees being boiling and 100 degrees freezing. |
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| Other parts of their science holdings |
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| The atrium area |
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Oh, it's a modern statue in the niche!
Too bad it isn't taller to fill the space better! |
After this we walked over for brunch at the Stockholm Nation building. The university in Uppsala is divided into "nations", more like societies. Each is an area, such as the north, etc. It seems to be to help students to feel less alone--give them a peer group besides those of their classes and other organizations. Especially helpful for freshmen. Each society has its own library, student center, pub, etc. but anyone can use them, including member of the public. So we went there. They had several choices for their brunch. I had french toast with nutella and whipped mascarpone and the Smoothie of the Day--it was a mixed berry smoothie. Very yummy brunch for less than $10. It is known for its brunches and its good prices. (Guess I didn't get a picture of the breakfast--meant to!)
Next on the agenda was a matinee musical performed by one of the high schools that we had visited. We were able to walk there as well. It was performed in a small theater downtown--the Regina Theater--kind of fun for high school kids to get to perform in an actual theater. They were doing "The Prom", a translated American musical based on true events and is a movie you can watch on Netflix. It is the account of a high school student in Indiana who wanted to go with her girlfriend as her date to their high school prom. The girlfriend's mom was very homophobic and didn't accept that her daughter liked girls. And, being in a small Indiana town, most of the students are homophobic as well. They are shown the errors of their ways and the girlfriend fully comes out to her mom, though the couple did miss the prom. They even broke up for a short time, but got back together in the final scene. The nuances and specifics of the plot were difficult to pick up on Swedish, but it was fun seeing the kids having fun acting their hearts out. I met the director and we spoke for a few minutes during intermission. These are pictures of Uppsala that I snapped as we walked back to the car park through downtown and part of the old town.
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| pinky finger is waving at you! |
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| There is a street running through the bottom floor. |
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There is a story associated with this about a person getting their head cut off
by the French; it flew off and where
it ended is where they built the fountain and it is named after his head. |
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The cathedral in the background
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Our group had a discussion outside the theater on whether or not to go out that evening as a group one more time, but decided to just say goodbye there and have a quiet last night with our hosts. Margareta and Gunnar made a delicious dinner of salmon, salad, potatoes, and homemade bread with wine and we finished it off with the last of my brownies with freshly whipped cream. (Being retired, Margareta is able to make all of their bread). Then I repacked and started writing this, then spent the rest of the night talking with Gunnar and Margareta. Gunnar and Margareta shared a few days ago that she had gotten cochlear implants which has made a huge difference in her life. Last time I was there, she wasn't able to participate in our conversations and I think there were some social/cultural misunderstandings as well which made it awkward at times. It was much easier and enjoyable this time and I was able to draw Margareta into some of the discussions and she showed me her photo album of vacations that she took in the US with her first husband. As a host/ess gift, I gave them a nice couch blanket of a map of the state of Minnesota with pictures. It was very thick and large and they seemed to like it. Gunnar gave me two pairs of socks that his mom knit. When he visited last time he gave me a pair of wool mittens that his mom had knit---very warm but large, meant for a man's hands. His mom is 98 and still makes things and lives on her own. Then to bed.
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