Susan's Summer in Sweden: uppsala and sandhamn...

Yesterday was fun. Spent taking a 40 minute train ride north to Uppsala, Sweden, this town is a college-town, based around one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Scandinavia. Yet one more thing that predates the U.S. Wandering around the town I finally walked into a promising building hoping to find what I had been looking for, but it wasn't until I guaranteed the front-desk attendant that I was about to ask something rather stupid and then proceeded to ask if I was in fact standing in a library, that I knew I ended up where I had hoped. I love libraries, especially university libraries. So I was particularly eager to see the library at the university in Uppsala. Seeing the look of bemusement on the face of the student who couldn't believe I appeared so completely dull, not able to recognize a library when I saw it, was just icing on the cake.

After enjoying the library I wandered along the river, taking random pictures of photographic strangers. My cousins here would be proud. They thought it especially funny when I first told them I like to walk wander around new cities and just watch people. They think I'm a potentially creeper. Life is good.

Today I took a two-hour boat trip with my cousin, Hillevi, through the Swedish archipelago out to Sandhamn. Sandhamn is an island on the edge of the archipelago, essentially sitting between Stockholm and the open Baltic Sea. Keep going and you'll eventually hit Finland. As an island where Stockholmers will often escape the city to their summer cottages, Sandhamn was nearly empty today, being just a couple of weeks before most Swedes take their holiday. Walking along paths to small sandy beaches with clear, blue water or through pine forests blanketed with vibrant green blueberry bushes, Hillevi and I enjoyed the sun and silence of a vacation spot not yet overrun by vacationers. Places like that are best when empty.