Yesterday I woke up early and after breakfast (buffet breakfast for the win), went out for an early morning walk. Mind, it was not THAT early - it was about 9:30am when I left and the sun had started rising so it was light outside and I was able to get my first views of Uppsala! It was still quite cold, and some parts of the streets and things were icey.
The city was still pretty much a ghost town but I went for a walk with my aim to try and find the University. I had a sorta rough idea of where to go but got lost really quite quickly and so it just turned into a random walk around Uppsala exploring in the crazy cold. I found this river which is sorta central to the city and runs through it and it had bits of ice!
I then found this icey pond which had some ducks in it. By now, I was getting really quite cold. It is hard to explain, but I felt like my legs were frozen... or at least my pants. Because everytime I stoppped to take a photo, my jeans/legs became very stiff and walking felt like they were cracking or defrosting a little. I had to keep moving to keep from freezing solid! Mainly it was my legs and face that were cold. My down jacket and giant scarf were quite helpful for my top half as were my snow boots.
I then saw the "pink castle" which is meant to be some kind of landmark in Uppsala and I mistakenly thought that it was a University building so off I trudged to take a closer look. Unfortunately, it was up a cold and treacherous hill.
Up the top, I was puffed and wheezy and even colder but I got to see a pretty good view of the city - it's actually quite large! Also, I could see the cathedral from here and it looked nice.
As I walked down the other side... I was feeling quite like I needed to go inside. Look how cold I look!
On the way back to the hostel, I felt well due for a nice hot cup of tea. I stopped to take this photo on the way.
After a bit of a sit down and a consulting of my map, I decided to venture back out with the aim to find the information centre and ask them how to get to the University. It proved a little hard to find also but I got there eventually. It was funny cause I was literally standing next to the information centre but didn't recognise the Swedish flags...for some reason assuming they were Greek flags and it was some Greek shop.... don't ask me why.
I got hungry so decided to find some lunch, after wandering around... popped into this friendly looking cafe called "cappacino" - how original - and asked if they had any soup. They said, they had a kind of soup I had never heard of. I asked her what that was in English and she said Lintz Soup. I said, what is Lintz? Do you mean Lentils? She said no, Lintz...it is Lintz. I said, is it nice? And she said Yes. So I said Sounds Good To Me! And took a seat. In my happiness to sit down, I plonked my receipt on the candle and burnt a whole through the word so I couldn't even tell you what it is in Swedish.
The soup came, with the obligatory slice of cheese, looks like some things don't change. And it was yum! But it was definitely lentil soup. So yay for lentil soup! I then, returned back to the hostel again and negotiated a change of rooms into a room that would have a girl staying in it. The cost? A very downsized room... tiny! miniscule! It's basically you open the door and you take a step and you are at the end of the room. There are bunk beds on either side of you and no windows except the one in the door facing the corridor but the window is blocked off. WOO
This is happy Annie to be in a room, for the moment, by myself!
After that, I made some plans for the coming week on my trusty laptop and went to meet Jenny, my swedish friend, at the Central Station at 4pm (when it was again, dark
And we caught a bus to an IKEA (my first sighting of IKEA in Sweden) to go to a fish store next to it to get her fish something she needed to get. Then we walked around the University buildings and she explained to me that Uppsala doesn't have a campus...the whole city has the University buildings spread through out it! No wonder I couldn't find the campus. After that, I went back to the hostel to find a girl had moved into my dorm which was awesome!
She had just got back from a big trip around Asia and had put all her clothes save her singlet and jeans in the wash and so couldn't leave the room cause it was, you know, cold. But we were hungry so I lent her some of my clothes and we went to the closest place we could find and had dinner. It was Italian... so I had carbonara!
Pear cider for me again!
I hardly made a dent in such a big serving so I got it take away and I'm looking forward to lunch today! As meals are so expensive here... today is my cheap day. So for breakfast I went to the grocery store and bought 2 baked goodies... unsure how else to call them and also a carton of juice which will double as my juice for lunch with my dinner from last night and for dinner.... 2 minute noodles! Ye ya! I am living the hostel life! Ok... well it is 12:20pm and the shops are finally open... they open at 12pm and close at 4pm on a Sunday. Nuts! Tomorrow I'm planning to go to Stockholm. Hope you enjoyed the millions of photos in this blog.
I apoligise if my blogs are rather tedious and detailed but it is also my travel diary :)
