Exchange in Uppsala - Part 4: Exploring the City

This post is the part of a series regarding my exchange semester in Uppsala, Sweden 🇸🇪

You can find all posts here:

Exchange Semester - Alex’s Blog

Alex's Blog

Second night in Uppsala

As I mentioned in my previous post, the field bed combined with the sleeping bag is not the best setup to get a good night sleep. Therefore, last night I tried out the couches in the public area. This decision was more or less made unintentionally. I just wanted to watch some videos before going to bed and also not disturb my mum. Therefore, I lied down on one of the couches and fell asleep soon after. I woke up around 3 am and it was ok to sleep there, but a bit cold because of a missing blanket. Hence, I went back to my apartment and continued sleeping on the field bed. But this time, we prepared it with an extra blanket and bedsheet to make it more comfortable. So this night was in total more refreshing than the previous ones.

Going into the city

Today was a great day to explore the city. I woke up at around 10:00 and there was no rain this time to stop us from going outside. Hence, we got out of the door soon after and hopped on the bus to drive to the Botanic garden. Dropped off at the bus stop, we had to walk a bit to reach to garden. On the way to it, we saw the main building of the Uppsala Universitet and two cute dogs which posed for a picture.

Botanic Garden

Soon after, we arrived at the Botanic garden. There we found a well-maintained garden with a huge variety of plants and trees. There was also an Orangery, which is home to numerous cactuses. Additionally, a café, a small lake and the Uppsala Castle can be found here.

Visisting Ångströmlaboratoriet

The Botanic garden is located in the south-west of Uppsala. Fortunately, the Ångströmlaboratoriet campus of the University is also nearby. Therefore, we went there to get a first impression of the facilities.

Arrived there, we were greeted by a huge glass-based building. It looks stunning from the in and outside. Inside you can find the reception desk, a staircase with some seating options, a pendulum, multiple restaurants, spacious hallways and many spaces to sit down together or get some work done. In general, a very inviting atmosphere is present all the time.

Moreover, I was also really impressed by the Auditoriums inside the building. They are really new and provide comfortable seating options with plenty of additional features like coat hooks, wall sockets and spacious tables for taking notes or using a computer. After that initial impression, I was surprised in every way in comparison to my home town university facilities.

I also got my student ID card to get access to all facilities around the campus. They took a picture of me and printed it on a plastic card.

Last but not least, we went up into the second floor to have a look at the terrace. It also looks really great, but today was not the best day to be outside on a terrace. It was windy at around 15 degrees Celsius.

Back into the city

After checking out the campus, we went back to Centralstationen - the main bus stop in the city centre. The stop is right next to Uppsala Central - the main train station. Because we were a bit hungry, we went into the station to look out for some food. Finally, we decided to try the Swedish Kanelbulle. It's a desert with cinnamon rolled together and sugar on top. It was very sweet but tasted delicious.

At the train station, we also looked around and noticed a huge amount of bicycle parking spaces. The city even offers a multi level parking garage for cycles for free. Inside you can store your bicycle, pump up the tires or use some tools to fix up your best buddy.

The city also installed a bicycle counter next to the cycle way at the main station to record how many cycles drive by.

I also noticed good bike infrastructure throughout the city, with clear separation and priority of bikes on the side of the roads. They even implemented a fast lane cycle network, with road signs specifically pointing you to popular destinations.

All in all, I am really thrilled to get my own bicycle and start riding in Uppsala. The city looked really bike-friendly to me. I also would like to see some of these things in my home town, Magdeburg, but I have little hope to see there any changes soon.

City centre

Soon after, we went to the main pedestrianized areas of the city. They are a short walk away from the main station. During our walk through it, we saw many people also walking along and a huge selection of stores to go into. I really miss a downtown area like this in Magdeburg too. We also visited the city library and took a short look around. It's still interesting to see a need for some people to rent movies in the time of Netflix and Amazon Prime from the local library. I was even asked by a person how to check if the movie on the DVD is provided in English.

Conclusion

That sums up the day. Tomorrow we travel to Stockholm and stay there until Sunday. See you soon!