After the trip to Stockholm, it was not so hard to sleep until almost 8am. Apart from sleeping as long as possible, the plan for today was to clean my room and do the laundry. At the end of the day none of them was done.
I was about to use another washing machine than previously and I could not start it, desperately searching for an on/off button. When I failed to do so, I moved all my laundry into the other one but I did not manage to start the washing again. Trying to turn the light on unsuccessfully, I concluded there was an electricity problem in the basement and picked up my dirty stuff, a minor problem being that some of my clothing was wet with the content of a washing gel capsule. For this reason, I could not avoid a bit of hand washing.
The cleaning part of the plan failed for a much simpler reason: my laziness to do so.
I took it easy once again and for my lunch I just warmed up a precooked portion of ravioli in tomato sauce in a microwave. Unfortunately it turned out to be not the best meal in my life, I would put very low on the “list of edibility”. Since the can was quite a big one and the rest of it is on my Wednesday menu, I better start thinking of a way of improving its content at least a little bit.
Realizing what a nice weather the city of Uppsala got today, I went downtown to continue my weekend of “Swedish essentials”. Today it was time to visit the garden of Carl von Linné, located not far from Uppsala Library. The garden can be visited for free daily between 5pm-8pm. I was really excited about the worm weather, so I went out much earlier. I spent the time enjoying sun at two very nice locations.
The first “relaxation stop” was little wooden chairs next to the Uppsala Central Station. It was nicely warm and sunny there, and it was also some fun to watch other people.
After few minutes of walking I reached even nicer location, Svandammen, meaning “swan pond”. Indeed, there was a pond with a small island in the middle, however not a single swan. The place was completely under the control of seagulls, ducks and jackdaws. As a result of that, there were lots of people feeding people and it was also surprisingly hard to find an unshitty spot to sit down. Once seated, it was really hard then to stand up and keep going.
Nevertheless, I made it to the Linnaeus Garden at the end. Founded in 1655 by Olof Rudbeck the Elder, it was the first botanical garden in Sweden. It was originally laid in a French style and restored in 1745 following plans of Linné. Since then Linné, who also lived there with his family, maintained the garden. In the garden there were not only plenty of flowerbeds, but also orangery to keep cold-sensitive plants there, a little greenhouse for succulents, a little pond, a patch of ferns and a heated house to make seeds germinate better. Everything seemed to be very well organized. The center of the garden was bounded by trees to protect plants from cold winds. The very first tree (a poplar) Linné planted there fell down in a storm in early 1900’s, however quite old trees can be still found there: elms from the first half of 19th century being the oldest ones. In total, 1300 plant species all known to be cultivated by Linné are grown there, arranged in regard to his sexual system.
“Horti Upsalensis Prospectus”, a very detailed plan of botanical garden and its flowerbeds:
House of Carl von Linné, where he lived from 1743 till his death in 1778. The house is located right next to the botanical garden:
Orangery, where Linné grew plants originating from places with much warmer climate:
So called Vaporarium, or also Forcing Frame, was used by Linné to make seeds germinate faster. To do so, the finest humus was used and the two meters high house was heated both by sun, and by horse-dung with tanner’s bark below the building:
At the end of the day, there was one duty I could not avoid: cooking my lunch for Monday. Having an opened can of tomatoes and few slices of ham, most likely at the very end of their “still edible stage”, I did not expect much.
MOMENTS IN . . . 