Paparazzi!

I was just crossing the bridge, had my camera out, snapped a quick photo of this red-pant/purple-pant couple. I am the paparazzi.

Then I was walking along (seeking ice sculptures of course) and I could hear accordions. Obviously I walked myself in the direction of accordions. I wasn't even sure if some sort of place was playing recorded music of accordions, but then I spotted this accordion duet! They were so awesome! I stood on the opposite side of the square listening to them for kind of a long time.

Oh and who could that be? Hello world.

Before & after/Day & night

The past two weekends I visited the ice festival. On the first weekend, I caught the tail-end of the sculpting of the ice sculptures. Then on the following weekend I went at night, because I had been told that the ice sculptures are lit up.

I have to say, I really liked having the ice festival in town. And I really liked that it was free. But it also made me understand why I paid to get into the Fairbanks Ice Festival. These sculptures are cool, but the caliber of those in Fairbanks was in a totally different ballpark. Also, that one was a world art festival, and there were definitely sculptors from all over, including Scandinavia, so I'm not trying to imply anything about the origins of the greatest ice sculptors. Here is an old post where I included a couple pictures of the more impressive ice festival.

A riveting Saturday!

One day, I thought to myself, "I wonder if Uppsala University has a letterpress studio.."

And well, as far as I can tell, they do not. But in my searches I found out that there is currently an exhibit about bookbinding at the library. So I went by to check it out yesterday. I had brought my camera with the hopes that I'd be allowed to use it, but alas, I was not. Either way, it was such a great experience that I will write about it sans photos!

It was a pretty small exhibit, but I read ALL the signs and I stayed in there for over a half hour. I am usually the kind of person that hates history, but man, someone just needs to tell me about the more interesting things and I am completely enthralled. Here are the highlights I saw.

1. A first edition Principia by Isaac Newton. I maintain that, as a physicist, this is the coolest book I could have ever seen. Here is a wikipedia article on the book. Apparently, this particular book had been stolen from the UU collection about forty years ago. And somehow it ended up in an auction in New York, where some kind soul bought it and donated it back to the university. Pretty crazy.

2. The Silver Bible. This is Sweden's most valuable book, I guess. It is actually just the four gospels, not the entire bible, and it is in the Gothic language (they also had a bible that was the first complete one printed in the Swedish language). Mostly I just loved reading the phrase "Swedish war booty" at a bookbinding exhibit. Here is some info on the UU library webpage, including a picture that someone must have illegally taken.

3. Carta Marina. This map was huge and awesome! And it is surprisingly accurate for being made in 1539. It is made in nine pieces that, together, make a map that was four feet by five and a half feet. On the webpage you can look at each of the nine blocks, and get just a tiny taste of the detail that is on this map. The sea creatures are fantastic.

After I got home I made this white hot chocolate, because anything that is equated to a form of frosting is a thing I've got to try. And it was sooo amazing. I seriously don't know how I lived my whole life without this stuff. As a side note, even though it is a Swedish-inspired recipe, I managed to forget to buy pearl sugar and almond flavor, so I just made it without. I also think I used nutmeg, but it could have been allspice. I don't really know, and I didn't feel like looking it up, but I smelled it and was in favor. I also used a bit of cinnamon, since I was missing the almond flavor. I even invested the time in whipping up some whipped cream, which was completely worth the time spent.

I use the internet for taking quizzes and posting the results to my blog.

I also didn't know that quizzes had two z's?


Harry Potter Personality Quiz by Pirate Monkeys Inc.

And since Ginny Weasley wasn't listed as any of the options I'm going to go ahead and say she is in our camp too.

The most impressive part (to me) is that this quiz gave me the same results (INFJ) as a full Myers Briggs test. I remember taking it in a religion class in high school and we spent maybe a week's worth of classes doing the test? Maybe that is an exaggeration, but it seemed to take a really long time. Far longer than these 20 questions.

Also, then I was thinking, I wonder what percentage of people are my same type, and after a quick google search I found this page. Not sure if their info is legitimate, but I'll just believe it as fact and say that I think it is pretty interesting. I also think it is hilarious that the one descriptive word for me is 'confidant'. Once, several years ago, after telling a friend that yet another person had told me all about the details of a situation they were in, she remarked 'people just tell you stuff.' I don't know how true this is anymore, but there was definitely a time where people did indeed just tell me stuff.

quick takes

- 1 -

These images of spacey objects are so amazing! Easily my best internet find from the week.

- 2 -

One thing I wish I remembered to do more often is to put leftover foods into the container upside down. So like, first put the stir fry, then put the rice on top. When I eat foods like this, I like the grain to be on the bottom. So if I package them upside down, I can easily dump them onto a plate for re-heating, and they are already in my preferred order.

Probably a lot of people aren't so particular about food things, but this is something I always pay attention to. And yet, more often than not I forget as I'm putting away leftovers, and then I get it wrong.

- 3 -

In the book Quiet I am learning about the trait of being high-reactive, or sensitive. I am SO fascinated by this. I wanted to read the book because I love reading about introversion/extroversion. And I had no idea that there was a trait such as sensitive. In our everyday world, I feel like being sensitive is generally considered a negative thing. But guess what. It is a biological trait (to some extent, I'm no expert, I just read things and interpret them to my liking). And it survived the gene pool.

I am a sensitive type, and I am evolutionarily important.

- 4 -

Uppsala must have a graveyard of lost mittens and gloves. Just the other day I counted three lone mittens on my walk between home and the office. They are just everywhere, stuck on top of poles, perched on fences or other high places sticking out of the snow.

- 5 -

And it happens on occasion that I hear a bicycle approaching me from behind, and I can hear that the man on the bicycle is singing. Immediate thought? That is rather strange. Then he passes and I see that there is a kid in the kid seat, and it is just a dad singing to his kid, and my heart melts a little (but my face is scowling because winter bicycle riding with a child in tow scares me (at least if the kid is in the seat on the back. those chariots that get pulled behind a bicycle don't bother me so much, because I imagine they have some sort of release mechanism for if the bicycle falls down)).

- 6 -

This is probably the trendiest item you could own in Sweden.

Seriously.
I didn't even know what they were called. I just googled "cool Sweden backpack" and all of the top results showed them instantly. Apparently they are made in Sweden and also quite expensive (but what isn't, really), and very very cool.
In all honesty, when I first started noticing them, they often look like a grown man was carrying his child's backpack. But the look is kind of growing on me, and I have to admit, the people who carry these look pretty cool to me.

- 7 -

Today I had champagne before 10 am. It was not the most complementary food item to coffee, that I can say for sure. Usually a full glass of champagne is a sure way to give me a headache, so I made sure to take the least full glass. But maybe the real problem is that I had previously only been drinking champagne in the after 10 am hours. Amateur!

- -

And to read the quick takes of the other quick takers, head over here.

This is what happens the day after a really good dance

I love my folk dance class so much. And the people in that class make me happy. Last night we did a lot of engelskas which involve a lot of hopping, which is kind of a major workout. Folk dance is all sweat and smiles, apparently.



And today I woke up feeling pretty vibrant, so tomato pants happened. These things glow.

The Bikes of Uppsala

The city of Uppsala has more bicycles than a person can reasonably fathom. My brother likes riding his bicycle to work in a place that is not very bicycle-friendly (as in, not many bike paths and cars are not friendly to bicycles on the road). He came to visit me and was astounded by the number of bicycles. He said something like, "I know you said there were a lot of bicycles, but I never imagined this!" And from a brother whose speech usually doesn't necessitate exclamation points, that really means something.

And even though I've been living here for awhile, I just keep being amazed by the bicycles. Last week we were getting maybe two inches of new snow each day, so there was a lot of loose snow on the paths, making them a bit more difficult to pass with bicycles. But that didn't stop people from trying! No, it certainly did not!

I heard a story about seeing a bicycle do a full 360 in those kind of conditions, and then proceeding to continue on her way. That doesn't even happen in movies!

So for awhile now, I've been thinking about how I'd like to start taking pictures for a photo series I'd call The Bikes of Uppsala.

The number of bicycles around would make it easy. And I just love seeing the different people on the different bicycles, in their different outfits, and carrying their different things. I'd love to document that with photos.

The problem is that I am incredibly hesitant about taking pictures of strangers. What if someone gets really upset and yells at me in Swedish? (Although typing that makes me realize that it is probably highly unlikely because Swedes never complain about anything.) I'm going to try to ease my way into it though. I can at least start out trying to take pictures in very not-obvious ways. And hopefully, the more pictures I take, the more I will lose that hesitation in order to get some superb shots. That will be the goal.

And now I present to you, my first paparazzi shot.



I had my camera hanging from my neck and hit the shutter button. I juuuuust barely got the bicycle in the frame. Here is the original, sans cropping.



I would describe this bicyclist as pretty far to the 'practical' side of the spectrum, as noted by her warm winter gear, waterproof pants (the winter slush on the roads can make things less than pleasant if you don't wear waterproof pants), tires that were probably studded, and a seat low enough to be able to get your feet on the ground if necessary.