All Saints Day

Yesterday was All Saints Day in Sweden, a day somewhat similar to Memorial Day in the US.  It's a national religious holiday here, so everyone got off work early Friday.  On All Saints Day, people take flowers, wreaths, and candles to cemeteries and lay them on gravesites in remembrance of family members.  The candles, however, make for an interesting and somewhat eery ambiance, especially on a very foggy night.

It's getting noticeably darker here, particularly since daylight savings time last weekend.  It's now dark by 4, and daylight is decreasing by 5 min each day.  Tyson's been riding home from work in the dark for weeks now, and soon almost everything will be done in the dark.  The roads and sidewalks are well lit, so much so that our bike lights serve more as alerts to other bikes and cars than to light the path ahead of us. 

The weather has been lovely though - 50s during the day and 40s at night.  The leaves are off the trees but it still hasn't frosted.  Our building caretaker told me this week that by this time last year, there had already been 2 snowstorms.  Last year was a particularly snowy winter for the Uppsala area, which typically doesn't get more than a few inches at a time. 

Last night we attended Mozart's Requiem at the Uppsala Cathedral.  The acoustics in there are amazing and it was a full house for the conclusion of the Sacred Music Festival.  Sweden, or perhaps just Uppsala, is big on week-long festivals.