Sweden purchases so far, and other things

Aside from food and beverage, these are the items I (we) have purchased in Sweden so far:
- rain coat
- umbrella
- pack cover
- bicycles
- helmets
- bike lights
- bike locks
- bike basket
- alarm clock
- a cell... ahem mobile phone

Other observations:

Greg spotted a wild hedgehog! It was awesome and adorable.

Here they call cilantro koriander. Which I suppose makes sense, although I didn't know for a long time that coriander is the seed that makes a cilantro plant.

I also made progress with getting a bank account, which is good, since I need one to be paid.

Despite the fact that people might be advertising hallways for rent, we are also making some progress on the apartment-finding-front. We updated our ad to say that we are 'scientists' looking for an apartment to rent instead of just a 'couple', and we also changed the photo to one of our engagement photos. Updating your ad also bumps you back to the top of the list. So some combination of these factors is contributing to more housing options than we had previously.

Welcome to a life of helmet hair!

One of the things I was most looking forward to when it was decided I'd be moving to Sweden was not  having a car. Luckily, Uppsala is a city with a very good bus system. But even more luckily, Uppsala is a city with a very good system of bicycle routes! (Seriously, check out the bicycle routes on the google map.)

Greg and I have gotten pretty good at taking the buses. So far we haven't had any issues with not knowing which direction is North and which is South (which happened in Barcelona after getting out of the underground train). We have also gotten pretty good at showing up at the bus stop just when our bus is driving away. The timetables are all online, but sometimes I just need a break from Swedish webpages, so I rarely check them before we head anywhere. The wait is never too terrible, only 10 minutes during busier times and 20 minutes during less busy times. But lately we were getting more and more aware of how we could have walked halfway to town in the amount of time we spent waiting.

And so we bought bicycles! My bicycle is the Viking - Elegance 3. I don't know what Greg's is called, but it is neat. We also bought matching helmets (I asked the poor worker who was helping us for about an hour what the cheapest helmet that would fit my head was.) which are not required by law. And we bought lights and reflectors, which are required by law. Our bicycles also came with bells, which is apparently also required by law. Today Greg got me a basket for my bicycle, so now I am fully decked out. Oh and we got these rear wheel locking devices, as well as a rope lock thing.

Interesting fact about the bicycles here: the front brake is controlled with a hand lever, but the rear brake is controlled by pedalling backwards. I am still getting used to this. I had a bit of trouble today, due to that as well as the fact that my turning radius is large, and I sort of fell over, but I didn't scrape a knee or anything, so all is well.

Interesting fact about the helmets here: they have this mechanism to easily adjust the size, for the purpose of being able to wear a hat under your helmet whenever you want.

For the bicycles we pay up front, but I figure that if I ride my bicycle for 100 days, it will have paid for itself in the money I save from not taking the bus. Also, I highly recommend Cykelringen; it was a superb shop with really helpful workers who can mimic the sound of a zip-tie when they can't think of the English word for it.

Also, I enjoyed looking back to see the last time I wrote about riding my bike, which was possibly the last time I even rode a bike. I also found it really funny to read about former bike-riding ambitions which failed miserably. Luckily this time I don't have a car to make it easy to back out of my plan.

Above and below are photos of bicycles outside of the lab. This is taken just as we were leaving for the day. During peak hours there are more than twice this many bicycles.

Bicycle parking near the river. Also, the road pictured has one-way traffic on half of it, and a luxurious bike lane for the other half of it, as demonstrated by the person on the bike.

Riding my Bike!

About three years ago I purchased a bike from Craig's list. It looked a little like the one above, a Giant hybrid, only mine is plum colored and I have a crate on the back to carry things, as well as a rack on the front, but so far I haven't used that to carry anything. I also have two cup-holders, which hold my travel mug really well, so I can bring my coffee. In previous years I always intended to ride my bike to school instead of driving, but I never seemed to stick with it. This year I'm going to try to be more serious about that.

Here are my reasons for wanting to ride my bike more:

1. It makes me feel healthy. I definitely am one who hates exercising for exercise purposes alone. This doesn't mean I hate physical activity. I just hate going to the gym. I love doing things like hiking or gardening, or even running outdoors with a group of friends, because the primary focus is not 'getting fit', it is just an added bonus. So biking to work fits right in this category. It gets me to my office, but also gives me a bit of a workout. Also, since I only live 5 miles away, it only takes me slightly longer to get to the office by biking than it does by driving, since I have to walk about 10 minutes from the parking lot to my building. And I think if I start getting better at biking (aka not using the brakes on big hills because I'm scared of going fast) then the times should be pretty equivalent. Plus biking is easier on my knees than running.

2. I am all set up to ride my bike in a variety of conditions... or at least I have the ability to be. I got bike lights for my birthday from my mommy this year! A front white light, and a back red light, and both have various modes of flashing or pulsing and whatnot. Very Cool! I still have to get batteries in them and put them on my bike though. Also, I have a really nice rain jacket as well as rain pants, so even the weather shouldn't stop me.

3. This is my sneaky plan to save a lot of money. The cost of gas alone for driving to and from work is somewhere between $.80 and $1.00/day. That is nearly $30/month, just for the gas to drive to school. If you add in other car expenses, like oil, maintenance, tires, etc., the national average cost of a small sedan is around $.50/mile. Obviously this average changes depending on the source, but I went with that number as it is the amount Dartmouth reimburses for mileage on expense reimbursements for work travel. That is $5 per day that I would be spending if I drive to school, which is a LOT of money.

4. Opting for riding my bike over driving is the green thing to do. I have been a Vermonter for almost three years now, so it is about time I started actively trying to be more environmentally friendly. This seems pretty self-explanatory, although I did just find this disturbing article that basically justifies driving, since walking requires more calories, and food production has become so energy-intensive that the pollution from a car is actually less than that of additional food production. There were also some other odd facts* on things like how organic cow's milk is worse than non-organic because the cows produce less milk, making their methane emissions higher because more cows are needed. I feel justified in not buying organic milk, but I'm still going to ride my bike.

Anyhow, I kind of got off-track there, but I am Super excited for my new plan to ride my bike more. This is the third spring that I have said that, so I hope I actually stick with it this year. I have hopes of having bike-riding become my natural choice for getting myself places, and having my car be the backup plan. Plus I want to ride my bike to all sorts of great places, like the farmer's market, the local contradances (I'll still need to drive to the far ones, but at least I can carpool), The Chutes by the Union Village Dam, Isabell's for delicious breakfast, the Whippy Dip for delicious ice cream, and probably other places as well. Ta Da.


*I use the word "facts" loosely, as I don't really know the source for this info.