2017.09.09: Culture Night

The second Saturday of September is Culture Night in Uppsala. It actually is a full day of about 600 events with art, music, dance, fair food, and 175,000 people spread out through down town. It is also the day that the museums are free! I have visited some museums around here, mostly with visiting guests, but out of the 28 museums in Uppsala, there are a few that I have wanted to see. Today, I went out solo and saw 2 of them.

I made a bee-line to the cathedral to get one of the limited tickets for a free short tour of the cathedral treasury in English. With ticket in hand, I had about 40 minutes to eat at one of the food trucks by the cathedral. There was a Greek place, so I ordered a gyros. I should have been a little skeptical, when I saw the photo that showed that french fries replaced the lettuce and tomato. The meat, instead of rotisserie beef and/or lamb, was pork, to be exact, bacon.

The tour of the treasury was interesting. As you can expect, there were many gold communion chalices (the most ornate ones were war booty from Germany and Poland from the 30-years war) and old bishop chasubles and other liturgical vestments. The treasury also had the crowns and scepters that were originally buried with King Gustav Vasa (who was a victor in the 30-years war) and two of his three (consecutive) wives. (The third wife was only 18 years old when Gustav Vasa died.)

My favorite item was Nathan Söderblom’s Nobel Peace Prize.

There aren’t a lot of these in the world, and here is one before my eyes. He was awarded this for his work in the ecumenical church movement, as he is described as one of the founders of it. In light of changes in the world, I think this will not be another one awarded for a similar reason!

After the treasury, I wandered toward the river and decided to visit the Upplands Museum, which also is open and free today. The other benefit is that there are very few public toilets, but the museums (not in the cathedral) have free access. I am amazed that with and estimated 175,000 people, there aren’t rows of port-a-potties around. Perhaps, this a way to encourage everyone to pause for fika or lunch, and then take advantage of the restrooms.

The Upplands Museum had several exhibits related to the history of this area of Sweden, but especially Uppsala. This is the part I found most interesting. It included several maps over the time, with a miniature models of the city and a less miniature model of the cathedral.

Uppsala used to have a large bicycle factory that produced 300 bicycles a day. The first bicycle in Uppsala is on display, but the factory was later, producing the standard two same-sized wheeled bicycles.

I took a little walk through the main square and down the main walking street to check things out and pick up a few groceries. And then, I was ready to head home.

The events are still going on, but this was enough for me today, especially since rain was forecast for late afternoon, and I have things to do.

While I was away, Anya was with our German friend from church who teaches in the engineering department at the university. She had offered to meet with Anya and show here some things with Matlab (MATLAB [matrix laboratory] is a multi-paradigm numerical computing environment and fourth-generation programming language). This was what Anya wanted for her birthday, and she had been learning it, but with expert help, Anya was excited to develop a project for her school work. Cool!

I arrived home to an email from the editor managing my book production. The cover and inside printer’s pages are ready for proof.

This is the last step before going to the printing presses in Germany.

The other portions of the day included the morning work to confirm that I was one of the Equifax people with hacked information. It is harder to work on credit freezes and things from Sweden, as very few here have a landline to make a secure phone call.

I’ve got writing to do, so that’s planned for the rest of the evening.

With blessings,

Beth