Pea soup and pancakes thursday

It will come as no surprise to anyone that I'm really enjoying exploring all the new food in Sweden. One thing that I think is absolutely fantastic is pea soup and pancakes on Thursday. Last Thursday I went to the uni refectory at lunch time with a colleague and discovered that the special for the day was pea and ham soup and pancakes.

Apparently it's a Swedish tradition to have pea soup and pancakes on thursdays. Not really sure why, the guy I was with thought it might be something to do with the meal being served in the army on thursdays or something. Anyway, I was delighted - I love pea and ham soup and am quite fond of pancakes, especially the thin crepey ones they make here.

So I was a very happy camper, but was still intregued - do you use the pancakes to dip in the soup? or put soup in the pancakes and roll them up? And what about the jam and cream - do you put them on the pancake first and then dip in the soup? As it turns out, I was totally off the mark! The soup and the pancakes are two different, SEPARATE, courses. It's just a nice combination. So you eat the soup like soup with a spoon and then eat your pancakes for dessert with jam and cream. Very civilised. And much easier than the dipping combo I had in mind!

So, today it is also a Thursday. No surprises what I just had for lunch.....

I have a bicycle fit for a granny!

One final post for today is to introduce you to Doris - my bicycle! When I first arrived here, I had a bike on loan from the uni department I'm working at. It was very old and dodgy - a pink racer with wheels that were slightly out of round, lots of rust and dodgy brakes. But it was terrific! Uppsala is great for riding bikes (it is definately the main form of transport here) - it's quite flat and has loads of bike paths especially pretty ones through forests. So I was really pleased to be able to ride a bike to work and town and forests etc.

Then, in my second week, I had a stroke of bad luck. My lovely pink bike got stolen! I left it, locked, at uni over night. It was something I'd done a couple of times before, but alas, the next morning my bike had disappeared! Apparently, it happens quite a lot here.

So I was really sad. I had no bike to ride through the forests any more. Bu hao! This week though, the weather has been really sunny and I thought, I'd really like to ride to work again. So I've hired myself a bike for my last week. I've called her Doris because she really is a bike for grannies. And she's fabulous! Pedal brakes, a big basket, a wide seat and a very upright frame! What more could anyone ask for? And the best bit is, now I really feel like I'm a resident of Uppsala because everyone else has this sort of granny bike too! Yay for Doris!

Walks in the forest

When I first arrived in Uppsala, I discussed going on field trips with my collaborators at work. In NZ, if you go on a field trip, it usually means driving somewhere, spending a day or half a day looking around, and it's usually a big deal. Here, totally different story. I've been on a couple of field trips now, and actually I'd call them something like a walk in the woods! Most times we've gone, by bicycle, to some of the local forests and wandered around, on paths, looking at trees. It's great! I've been out in the field on my lunch break! The woods/forests are very pretty and it's really nice to have such easy access to them.

This is actually a spruce plantation that we went to by car (!) but it was only a 10 minute drive at most. It's also the only time I've been rained on in the field so far - and we really did get very wet!

I've also made a few awesome fungal finds. There were the edible boletes I mentioned in an earlier post, but I also found a lovely crop of bird's nest fungi - my absolute favourite!!

Sweden weekend number two: a castle, some mushies and piles of dirt

I decided to spend last weekend in Uppsala doing some of the more touristy things on offer and getting to know the town a bit better. On Friday night, I took myself out for dinner to this restaurant which sold reindeer! Yes, that's correct, I ate Dancer, or Prancer, hopefully not Rudolph! It was really tasty, strangely enough a bit like venison. And it came with white asparagus and a chantarelle sauce - mmmm.

Then on Saturday I went and checked out the local markets. There were heaps of stalls selling mushrooms picked from the forest which delighted me no end. There were chantarelles (the orange ones) and also the king bolete that is made into porcini in Italy. I didn't buy any because.....I'd already been mushroom hunting in the local forest with people from work! So I'd already collected a heap of boletes and cooked them up for dinner on Thursday! Huh! How cool is that?
Also on Saturday, I visited the Uppsala Slottet (castle) and the Botanic gardens. I go past them every day on my way to work but thought I should really have a proper look. The castle was once used lots by the royal family but now it's mostly used as a function centre. There's also an art gallery which was interesting.
The botanic gardens are pretty - very ornamental with different plants in little hedged areas. So it was quite hedgy really. But it also contains Linneaus' organery!
And you should all have guessed by now that I'm obsessed with the cathedral so here are some more pics from the castle direction.

On Saturday night, I did something which turned out to be very appropriately Swedish - I went to the movies. It hadn't really occurred to me that Mamma Mia was based on songs written in Sweden, but there you have it. A good choice, and a funny movie!

On Sunday, I met up with Lucy's friend Hanna and we went to Gamla Uppsala. It's the original site of Uppsala city but what's really cool about it is that it's a burial ground with lots of huge mounds under which important people were buried during viking times. Awesome! And there was a fabulous museum attached which explains the history of the mounds and the general region and also has lots of information about vikings. I like vikings! It was a terrific day, plus we got to have pancakes for lunch!

On Monday night, I went around to Lovisa's fabulous apartment for dinner!So all in all, a top weekend!

The Uppsala gamla kyrkogård and more pics

Most days on my way home from work, I get off the bus early and explore new bits of Uppsala by foot or bike. One of my favourite ways to go home now (and also one of the quickest) is past the Uppsala gamla kyrkogård which is a really old cemetery. Actually, the graves aren't that old, because they are recycled after 50 years but I'm sure the area has been there for a long time. It's a very peaceful place - lots of trees.


And all the graves are really well kept. There are stations all around the cemetery with watering cans and rakes and other gardening impliments so that people can keep their relatives' graves neat and pretty. They can plant flowers or little hedges or whatever. So organised! Or people can pay a service to maintain the graves if they can't easily do it themselves!

I've taken some more pictures around Uppsala recently too. This is an old part of town near the river.

This is a bar/restuarant right next to the river where I've had drinks after work a few times. It's right below the cathedral.

A ski trail in a city!!!

Recently I was looking at my Uppsala map and noticed some interesting figures on it - like a little man skiing. Surely Uppsala, this pretty, flat, regional city doesn't have its own ski field I thought..... I check the legend on the map and found that yes, it was a ski trail and a lighted one at that! Oh my goodness! Who would have thought.
A couple of days later I was visiting the Stadsskogen (that's a pretty forest near the middle of town for those us whose Swedish is dodgy) and I found one of these so called lighted ski trails! They are through the forest, pretty flat with slight undulations and real electic lights for cross country skiing in winter! Ace man! Apparently last year it didn't really snow much, but it often does.

Stockholm is beautiful!

So, for last weekend's adventure I decided to check out Stockholm. There are still heaps of things that I want to do around Uppsala, but hey it's light here until 9pm so I can probably do them after work!! So Stockholm it was.
It's only about a 40 minute train ride away so I had just planned to go for the day when I got a call from my friend Lovisa who suggested we meet up in the evening and stay the night at her grandparents' spare flat in the middle of the city. Great plan! And extra exciting to see Lovisa too.

So I arrived in Stockholm just in time to make my way down to the old part (Gamla Stan) and see the changing of the guards at the Royal Palace. Ace! There were about a million people there but it was fun to hear the marching band and see the guards doing their best to look serious.

You really can't see much changing going on here but, trust me, they did!

This guy kept shouting at everyone who came near him. Maybe he was scared someone would want to steal his beret...or his white sock things....

Then I spent a bit of time wandering around Gamla Stan through the narrow streets checking out all the lovely old, brightly coloured buildings. I took a tour inside some parts of the Royal Palace and saw the dining hall where they host the Nobel Prize dinner. And I also saw lots of pretty crowns and swords at the treasury. It's pretty cool to be in a place with a royal family.

Very funky old buildings!

And narrow, cobbled streets

This lovely looking building is actually a public toilet!

Stockholm is made up of lots of little islands joined together by bridges or accessed by ferry. It's very very pretty and reminds me in some ways of Venice. It doesn't have as many little canals but it does have lovely views across the water and a whole lot of nice parks. I went for a walk around one little island that had boats parked all the way around the edge and lots of parklands.

After that I was feeling pretty pooped, so spent a couple of hours lying on a park bench in the sun looking out across the water. It was beautiful.

It was a gorgeous day!

In the evening, I met Lovisa at the train station and we went for dinner at a pub nearby. I had my first real Swedish pub food (baked potato with a kind of seafood thing on top). Then, in true Swedish fashion, we had a couple more drinks at Lovisa's grandparents' flat and then went out dancing. It was a great night. Swedish night clubs are funny - so crowded that everyone is kind of dancing on top of each other. Fun though.

The next day, we had a late brekkie in town and then caught the train back to Uppsala. I apologise to everyone but I haven't any pics of Lovisa or Mattias (her boyfriend). I forgot! But I will get some soon I promise as we will definately catch up again.

I'd like to spend some more time in Stockholm too - maybe hire a bike and ride around some of the bigger parkland areas. A plan for next weekend perhaps??

Why not many people in Sverige smoke:

The most expensive delicious. mag ever!!

This post is dedicated to Claire S.
I was hunting down some reading material in English a couple of days ago when I came across a UK version of delicious. magazine! Naturally I was delighted (I buy them every month at home to oogle at food porn!) although became a little hesitant when I saw that it cost SEK85 which is about NZ$16! It was worth it though!

Speaking of food, I bought some of those chantarelles I saw in the market stall the other day. Yay! My first adventure into wild mushie eating! They lasted for two meals and were pretty nice. I'm never going to get a job as a food stylist, but here are the meals I cooked:
Okay, so it is steak with mushroom sauce people!!
And mushroom stirfry...

Uppsala domkyrkan

I must say that I reckon every city ought to have its own castle and its own cathedral if it can possibly help it. The bigger and more elaborate the better I reckon! So it's no wonder I really like Uppsala - it has both. The cathedral (domkyrkan) is pretty speccy and dominates the skyline. Very useful for navigating around the place too. I went into the cathedral the other day and was delighted to find not only a nice, light spacious elaborately decorated space but also that Carl Linneus is buried there! (That's Linneus as in L. at the end of almost all plant names....) Fun times eh!

Those nasty dark clouds got me on my way home yesterday, just minutes after I took the pic!

Inside regular old Uppsala cathedral

Linneus' grave

Me trying to take a picture of myself outside the church - didn't work so well!

Sweden is awesome!

It’s Tuesday today which means that I’ve been in Sweden now for two days. I arrived late, late Sunday night after a million hours in the plane from HK to Franfurt and then hundreds more hours in Frankfurt airport after my flight to Stockholm was delayed. Actually, it wasn’t so bad. The flight was pretty good – Lufthansa aren’t nearly as bad as everyone says – but I was still tired and impatient just to get there!

Anyway, Sweden. So far I really like Sweden. And all I’ve really seen is Uppsala and the airport. It’s a place that really makes sense to me. It’s full of colourful old buildings and tree-lined roads and bicycles and random cathedrals and castles. The people are very friendly and mostly very good looking. I love how environmentally conscious it is. The buses all run on biofuel, the heating is powered by refuse (I think), there are recycling bins and composting bins everywhere (yep, everywhere). And the supermarket expects you to bring your own bags. There’s heaps of greenery everywhere and people seem to recognise the importance of that. And everything is so organised. There’s a system for everything and people are very happy to explain it to you and help you the first time. Like when I got my bus pass yesterday. At the place you buy bus passes there is a system for lining up where you take a number and then when the very helpful person gives you your pass, they even have a replica of the swipe thing that’s on the bus so they can show you how to work it! Ah, so clever.

The only thing I don’t like so far is that I feel hopelessly inadequate that I can’t speak any Swedish. It’s just not fair that you should come to a country to visit and expect everyone to speak English. But here they do and are quite happy to talk to you in English –not the slightest bit worried. But it does make me uncomfortable and I would like to learn some more phrases while I’m here.

My work is going well so far. Today I caught the bus (using my new bus pass) to the uni just outside Uppsala and spent a very interesting day with my collaborators. And I think that workwise, things are going to work out very well. It seems like a very international department with staff from all over the world. Interestingly this means that English is the main language at work. So much so that one of my collaborators who is from Lithuania says that his Swedish is much worse than his English as he hardly ever uses it! And, importantly for a work place, the uni refectory seems to serve an interesting array of Swedish food for lunches!!

View from the window of my bedroom
My room
The front of my building
My street
My first IKEA item - a towel.

Street stall selling chantarelles (that's those yellow mushrooms in the boxes)

What else to say about Uppsala so far? My little room is very comfy. I’ve successfully braved the supermarket twice and think I mostly bought what I meant to. Not so sure if I’ve managed to work the washing machine properly though – my Swedish phrase book didn’t have a ‘laundry’ section….. And I have come across some amusing signs: