The six-hour drive to Uppsala went fine. It was mostly highway and major-road driving, mostly though farmland, but it was an okay trip. We got to our hotel and were ready to head out into our last night of touring for this trip by about 4:30 p.m.

This timing didn’t leave a ton of options, since most things close at 5:00. I decided to check out the pretty public spaces around Uppsala. That meant going to our third botanical garden of the trip, and this one was about what I expected from a good, but free, garden. It was a block long and a block wide, and had a small half-block extension across the street from the main garden. There was a formal garden and a small fir tree forest on the main side, and a rock-based garden and lots of flowers on the extension side. We were surprised at how many ground-cover flowers in the garden came from Greenland. I guess a short growing season keeps the flowers small. It was a pretty little place to walk, but that got us to just a little after 5:00, so I consulted my phone and headed down to the City Park.

The City Park is a long and narrow park that runs next to the river in Uppsala. It was a great place to see Swedes at play. There’s even a “Summer Experience” section that is a huge playground-like area with in-line skating, basketball, soccer, floor hockey, and yes, hobby-horse jumping (woooo!), and it’s all free.

The park itself is pretty with the river next to it. We got a chance to see the Swedes throwing sticks at blocks again, and we figured out more of the rules. It seems as if to win, you really do have to knock down the king block by throwing your stick from between your legs and backwards. Fun and wacky game. It’s called Kubb, or “Viking Chess.” The group we were watching had three courts set up all at the same time. It was funny to see people playing a summer lawn game in sweaters and jackets (temperatures were in the fifties here, with cloud cover).

After the park, we walked along the river toward the cathedral to go to an Italian restaurant. The buildings along the river were architecturally pleasing, and it was a pleasant stroll. Supper was very fine, and we walked back to the hotel a slightly longer way to see the river and go through a park. It was a fine, if short, way to end our trip.

Some general thoughts:
– The Swedes seem to be genuinely nice people. All of our interactions were friendly, and we almost never heard a horn in the three cities we were in.
– The Swedish are very ecological. Even the small island towns have a central recycling area, and we saw old men and women walking with arm baskets full of recycling to take to the bins. Many houses have solar panels, and this in a country with only a few hours of daylight in the winter. Almost everywhere we went, you could see some modern windmills generating electricity (there is a LOT of wind in this country). My eye-test guess is that about ten to fifteen percent of all cars on the road are electric or hybrid.
– Everyone we interacted with spoke some English, and many spoke it very well. One Swede told us that if you have a small country, you need to know another language.
– Sweden is more diverse than I would have guessed. While there are plenty of six-foot-tall blonds walking everywhere, there’s a surprising number of Middle Eastern and Black people in Sweden, even in the smaller towns.
– Mer and I admired the buildings everywhere. The homes were cozy with lots of details around the doors and windows and eaves, and in the cities, many of the buildings were quite elegant.
– This is the first trip we’ve ever done on which we didn’t bother to take out any cash at all. The Swedes use the Swedish kronor, and no one else uses it, so we didn’t want to have extra currency around after the trip. And many stores and restaurants specify “no cash.” I’m not sure if this will spread to the rest of Europe or if it’s a Scandinavian thing.

And so, Lord willing, we’ll be home very late tomorrow. As always, I’m looking forward to seeing friends, family, and felines. AND I’ll be very happy to have full control of my own room temperature and sleep in my own bed. A very good trip indeed, but I’m ready to see home. “If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work.”