In 2017 I was so incredibly fortunate and was selected by my employer to attend the World Nuclear University Summer Institute a six week intensive school for young professionals in the nuclear industry. WNU 2017 was held in Uppsala Sweden, a smaller city about 40 minutes from Stockholm. For six weeks I studied and worked with 75 other young nuclear professionals from 30 different countries around the world, gaining a deep understanding of the industry from a broad, international perspective. With an emphasis on leadership and teamwork, we spent a great deal of time in smaller working groups, and even spent a week touring around Sweden and Finland on various site visits. I’ll devote another post to talking more about the course, but for this one I’m just going to focus on the travel opportunity.
Uppsala was a lovely walkable city, with dozens of fantastic restaurants (and plenty of clubs and pubs) within just a few blocks of our hotel and a gorgeous river just two block away. Bikes and pedestrians were welcome on every street, the entire city was immaculately clean, and I felt safe even at 3am (especially since the sun would be just coming up!) There was plenty to see and do in Uppsala, but of course I took the opportunity to explore other areas in this part of the world, including weekend trips to Norway and Berlin.
The main site in Uppsala proper is probably the cathedral, and of course the riverfront (notice the beautiful streets!)
Services are still held inside the cathedral, and they had multiple guided tours in both English and Swedish every day. It’s nearly impossible to capture the grandeur of this place. Perhaps a better photographer could do it.
In Uppsala in the summer the sun was starting to set around 11:00, and beginning to rise between 3 and 3:30 in the morning. The night sky never got completely dark, it was an otherworldly experience. One night a few of us from WNU decided to stay up until sunrise. While I was exhausted the next day, it was entirely worth it.
Just a few miles from Uppsala center is “Gamla Uppsala” or old Uppsala. A village dating back to around the 5th century. It’s a beautiful walk to the village, taking about an hour and passing largely on a gorgeous nature trail. The main site in Gamla Uppsala is the series of burrial mounts. These mounds are thought to be as old as the village, and were built up over funeral pyres. Nobody’s entirely sure who is buried in them though. Two of them were dug up in the early 1900s, and some remains and possessions were excavated and are on display in the nearby museum. But they’re still not sure if they were royalty or what.
There’s a great little museum up here and this cool safe was a hollowed out tree trunk requiring 7 separate keys to open it. We took the opportunity to play dress-up. Maybe I should tag this post cosplay?
After a long walk I took the opportunity to lay down in the softest most peaceful field outside the museum.
As part of our tour the WNU group visited a few other sites in southern Sweden, before continuing over to Finland.
After the completion of our tour I continued on to Helsinki and spent a day and a half there before flying back. These photos show the main promenade, main square, a few photos from Suomenlinna (an old fortress island and world heritage site just a short ferry ride from Helsinki), military museum, rock church, natural history museum, Sibelius Monument, and cathedrals.
On my way back from Helsinki I stopped in a gift shop…I…I don’t know what this is but I have a feeling it wouldn’t fly here in the US, and with good reason. Oh Scandinavia. You get away with this shit because you seem so non-threatening.
Finally Ryan arrived and we took the chance to head into Stockholm. Unfortunately I was this sick by this point in the trip, and we didn’t stay too long. We did manage to hit the Vasa museum, and of course the ABBA museum (life goal achieved!)
