Uppsala – Catching up with friends and family

So, we have now reached the end of our stay in Uppsala…we’ve been here for over three weeks and we’re so settled in that it almost feels like we’re leaving home. We’re just about to hit the road again (well….airport at least) and do some more travelling. But before we get to that, what have we been up to here in Uppsala??

Most of the time here we’ve spent with either my family and friends and just catching up on old times. But we’ll try and give you an idea of what we’ve done so far….

We flew in from a sunny and warm Portugal to a wet and cold Sweden…..the difference in temperature was: Portugal 34C, Sweden 14C. So our first thoughts were: “Crap, we don’t have enough clothes for this weather”. What can we say, we were expecting to travel throughout summer. And the disappointment didn’t end there…..after we got off the plane we picked up our bags and didn’t have to go through immigration. So no stamp for Suzies passport, she was quite disappointed (I tried to explain to her that when you fly between EU nations you don’t always have to pass any immigration…..she was still upset, I think she wanted to beat me in the stamp stakes).

My tio (uncle) Clifton came and picked us up at the airport and our first stop in Uppsala was to pick up my cousin Sandra’s daughter Mimmi from daycare…..and she has grown so much since I saw her last time (which was almost 2 years ago). Since my sister Zilia and her fiancé Pär (whose apartment we were staying at) were busy when we arrived, tio Clifton gave us a quick tour of Uppsala…..but since it was cold and we weren’t dressed for the weather we went to a café for some hot drinks.

After a little while Zilia and Pär arrived and I got to see my sister with a big belly for the first time (no she’s not fat….just 6 months pregnant). We went home, dropped our bags, my cousin Sandra showed up and we just spent the day catching up.

After dinner Zilia suggested that we could go to the movies, she wanted to see “The Da Vinci Code” and since we hadn’t seen it we all rushed to the cinema and managed to catch the last show of the day…. It was a good idea in theory, one thing that we didn’t think of was that the movie contains lots of dialogues in different languages such as Latin, French and Italian. All off it subtitled of course, the only problem was that the subtitles were all in Swedish!! So even thought the movie was in English Suz had no idea of what was going on (I had to do some simultaneous translations for her while the movie was running).

Well, the next couple of days we spent sleeping in (it’s hard to go to sleep early since it’s always light outside), washing clothes and just taking it easy. It was a nice change from the fast pace of Portugal.

Our first weekend we took an old fashioned steam train from Uppsala to Länna where tio Clifton lives. He was out there preparing a BBQ for us all that night. The train was fun, it stopped halfway and refilled it’s water levels and during that time we had some of our pre-packed coffee outside in the sun (have to appreciate every moment of sun we get). The train ride through the Swedish countryside, forests and lakes was beautiful.

Suzie and I ended up staying the night at tio Clifton’s to be able to work on my storage the next day (I had lots and lots of boxes being stored there). That night after Zilia and Pär had left we just sat up talking for hours and then we got out the water pipe. Suz had a lot of fun pretending she was a dragon, blowing the smoke out from her nostrils. The following day we spent up in the attic going through my boxes….and man did we find some crazy crap.

A few days later (not long after our Stockholm trip) the weather started getting warmer and we finally had a Swedish summer…..which was very fitting since now the FIFA World Cup was just about to start!!

A big group of us went to the pub for Sweden’s first match. We sat at the pub for about 7 hours watching the Brits first and then Sweden. The experience was fun but it really sucked that we didn’t manage to beat Trinidad/Tobago and by now Suz was quite sick of the hours of Swedish commentary. During the game we caught up with my old friend Magnus and his wife Hanna, and after the game we went with them back to their house in Alunda (around 40min on the bus).

At 12am (as in midnight) we had a BBQ…..it’s not like it was dark out anyways! The rest of the night Magnus and I sat at the table and just talked about old days…..well, not that old but still.

The next day we went back to Uppsala as we were invited to dinner by Sandra’s mum Inger, and her partner Anders. We had a great dinner, got to do some catching up and as always Mimmi was the center of attention.

Now that the FIFA World Cup had started life in Sweden revolved around the matches, so the next week or so we spent not doing a great deal other than eating and watching football. Suz had her traditions to follow prior to the Australian games, this involved eating copious amounts of Vegemite toasts in order to spur the team on!!

We did get to do a small excursion during the World Cup. Zilia, Sandra, Suz and I went together to a summer house on the island Väddö (which is around an hour northeast of Uppsala). The place is right by the sea and also had a TV (the only condition to get me there).

We spent two nights there and it was freezing cold…again. But the girls (Sandra and Zilia) still managed to fit in some sunbaking…..Sandra even managed to jump in the ocean, crazy girl!!

As a thank you for everyones generous hospitality we decided to have a big Thai cooking night for them all. Neither Suz or I had ever cooked Thai for so many before so it was a bit of a challenge but one that we managed to pull off. After the food we all went back inside, to watch the football of course (what else!). The guys in front of the TV watching the game and the girls on the balcony chatting.

Towards the end of our stay we borrowed tio Clifton’s car, it was time to show Suz the areas where I grew up!

First we went to the little village of Söder Edinge and found the house where we lived for most of my time in Sweden, when Suz saw the football pitch right in front of the house she understood where my big interest came from. We later continued on towards my old primary school, weird, I remember the school being a lot bigger…..Once we were in the area we visited some of my old mates parents and got to catch up on old times as well…all fun.

One of the last big family get together was at Sandra’s place, she cooked for us and invited us over. Ethiopian food…..yum!! There was so much food and we ate so much, delicious. And then after all of this she presents us with an enormous chocolate cake….Yes, we’ve probably put on a few kilos here in Sweden!

Coming back to Sweden is always nice, I have lots of family and great friends here. And Sweden in summer is really beautiful, the lakes, forests and the countryside, it’s all great. But I also realized once and for all that I really don’t want to move back here again. I left Sweden almost 4 years ago and nowadays I feel more at home in Australia…

Tomorrow we are leaving Sweden and flying towards Washington DC (these upcomming days we will have to plan carefully…..now that Sweden and Australia have made it through to the 16’s!!).