This Saturday and Sunday I went on a Swedish road trip with a few German friends and a friend from ISU! We had a great time! Since it was a Swedish road trip, we rented a Volvo, of course! Thankfully, the car also came with a GPS system, otherwise we would have been lost for most of the weekend!
On Saturday, we went to the cities of Falun and Mora in the Dalarna province, which is north of Uppsala. The first thing I noticed when we got out of the car was how cold it was! It's incredible how much colder it gets just 3-4 hours north of Uppsala! In Falun, we went to the famous copper mine for a guided tour. Unfortunately, the tour was only in Swedish. However, the information
center gave us guide sheets in English, so we were able to read up on the history before we went into the mine. Once we were inside, it was too dark to see anything on the paper. Luckily Frederike has taken two Swedish courses, so she was able to tell us some of the things that the guide was saying.
Trent, Florian, Frederike (hiding) and Wojtek in our mine gear
After our mine tour and a walk around the rest of Falun, we drove another hour out to a place that is famous for making Dalarna horses ( that's what I am on in the picture). We were so disappointed to find that the shop was closed, but we ended up getting lucky because the owner saw us outside and opened up the shop again! Finally, we drove a little bit farther north to the town of Mora to grab something to eat. Apparently everything in that city closes before 6, so we ended up walking around the whole town trying to find a restaurant!! After dinner, we had a long drive back to
Uppsala, but we were amused listening to the Swedish radio stations which seem to play the same 5 songs over and over!
Me on a Dalarna horse!!
On Sunday, we went southwest of Uppsala to the towns of Västeras and Örebro (which I cannot pronounce correctly to save my life!). Västeras was a little bit disappointing because it was a lot
like Uppsala with the river running through the middle and a nice church at the center of the town. That would be fine, except for the fact that the town is not nearly as nice as our Uppsala! After a stop at a Swedish cafe in Västeras we continued onto Örebro, which I liked a lot. Again, the city was very similar to Uppsala because of the river, castle, and cathedral. However, they also have an old section of the town where there is good shopping. We had a lot of fun in this city because we found a part of the river right outside of the castle that was completely frozen over. We ended up spending quite a bit of time playing out on the ice! Even though we had a lot of fun, we were a little bit disappointed with how the town compared to the description in the tour book. The tour book had mentioned a giant mushroom (svampen in Swedish) where you can take an elevator
up to the top and see the whole city. However, this tower was exactly like every single water tower in America!! Also, the tour book had mentioned that Örebro was famous for its "stylish candlesticks". We thought that that was a funny thing for a city to be famous for, but we were intersted in how these candlesticks would look. It turns out that no one in the city seemed to know what we were talking about- another strike out! Oh well. The city was lovely, and we had a wonderful time out on the ice and walking around the river and the town square.
Wojtek sliding on the river in Orebro
Wojtek and Florian on the cannon outside the castle
A view of Orebro from the castle
Overall, the trips gave me an even greater appreciation for Uppsala. Uppsala is by far the nicest city I have been to in Sweden, and I think I will only find Stockholm to be nicer. The trips have gotten me itching to do more traveling :-)
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