I loves me some Sverige

Roliga Folk, Roliga Tider

2006-12-22T14:19:00.000-08:00

De melk is in de koelkast

2006-12-22T13:07:00.000-08:00

"The milk is in the refrigerator." That's my favorite Dutch sentence because it's pretty much the only Dutch sentence I know. Today I got back from visiting Bram in Holland. It was really nice to get to hang out with him a bit more. I also finally got to see Amsterdam. It was fun, even though I was pretty tired from having spent the night before on the train and in the airport. It's a really cool looking old city:

This is the house where Ann Frank and her family hid when she wrote her diary. There's a museum in it now, which is really good; definitely one of the highlights of Amsterdam for me. Luckily we did that in the morning so I hadn't completely crashed and burned yet.
After the Anne Frank museum, we walked around ate pancakes and walked around and went to the Van Gogh museum, and walked around had some yummy Dutch cookies, and walked around and looked in some cool shops, and walked around some more. By about 3 o'clock I really did crash and burn, so we took the train to Eindhoven, where Bram's apartment and university are. We slept in really late the next morning, and then just cruised around Eindhoven.

The stairs in Bram's building are really really steep.

This just a store in Eindhoven whose name made me laugh.

Can you believe I got to go to the "coolste" city in the Netherlands?

The Frying Dutchman. Get it??? Ahahahahahahah!

It was a really nice couple of days because Bram is very cool, and I got to hear him speak a lot of Dutch, which I find incredibly adorable. He's promised to come visit me in California, and if he doesn't make good on that promise, I'm going to be quite unhappy! Thanks for having me over, Brammetje.

Getting close to the end

2006-12-18T13:36:00.000-08:00

Today Bram went back to Holland, which makes me sad because it means I'm also going home in just one week. I won't have much time to sit around and be sad, though; I've got a busy week ahead. Tomorrow is my last psycholinguistics lecture, then I have to spend tomorrow night at the Copenhagen airport because I'm flying to Holland at 7 am Wednesday morning. Bram is going to come meet me in the Amsterdam airport and we're going to spend Wednesday hanging out in Amsterdam. Then we're taking the train to Eindhoven, where Bram studies and lives. We're going to spend Thursday hanging around Eindhoven, and then Friday morning it's back to Amsterdam and back to Lund. I'll have Friday evening and Saturday to pack and clean, then Sunday I take the train to Sofie's house for Christmas with her family. And the next day, I'm flying home!

I can't believe it's almost over. I keep getting all verklempt about it...Still I'm really excited about my trip to the Netherlands and my traditional Swedish Christmas Eve. I guess I'll have plenty of time to be sad once I'm home. Actually I'll probably be crying my eyes out all 12 hours of the way home. :(

On that note, here are some more sad faces that I've collected:

Patrick

Aaron

Annika

Henning

And this was at Bram's send-off today:

Henning, Bram, and Annika. They always hated it when I called them the Three Musketeers.

Now I really better hit the sack. I feel a bit like I'm coming down with something, and that would be "inte bra" considering the busy week I have ahead of me. Ta for now!

Julmat

2006-12-18T12:49:00.000-08:00

Saturday was the UC farewell smorgasbord. Now I see where all my money goes; this was pretty fancy. It was inside Lund's Grand Hotel, and while the atmosphere was posh, the traditional Swedish Christmas food was maybe a bit too exotic for my taste. The foyer, pre-chowfest. We're being welcomed by the maitre'de. (sp?)
The main staircase.
Have you ever seen so much herring in your life?

This is blood. Really- that's all it is. And I ate some. Gross, huh?
To top it all off, the actual head of the actual pig that we munched on was decorating the buffet table, with pink frosting in his nostrils. I don't usually like to see the nostrils of the things I eat, frosted or not.

The eel was pretty good, believe it or not! And there was still plenty of potatoes and gravy and good old Swedish meatballs so that I stuffed myself pretty darn good. It was a nice way to end the semester. The Swedes are serious about eating and drinking, man. They're not wimps.

Lucia

2006-12-18T11:54:00.000-08:00

Last Wednesday was St. Lucia Day here in Sweden, and my korridor mate Emilia got me a ticket to the University Choir's performance/ceremony in the old university building. I've been hearing about this tradition ever since I was a little girl ("American Girl" books :)), but this was the first time I had seen it live and it was really beautiful. Here are some of the photos I took:

The singers first entering the auditorium. Lucia entered first, and then the rest of the choir followed her singing "Santa Lucia." Each singer was holding a candle, and Lucia had a wreath with candles on her head.

The choir making its way through the audience to the stage.

Arranged on the stage. Lucia is in the center with candles on her head and a red ribbon around her waist. The rest of the girls have plain white gowns and plain wreaths on their heads. The guys all wore pointy wizard hat-looking things.

After the performance. Lucia leads the choir back out of the auditorium.

Godis

2006-12-13T14:31:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday was the scheduled Christmas baking day in our korridor. It was a GORGEOUS sunny day: This is the windowsill in the kitchen catching some rays.
Left to right, Emilia and Sofie make knäck (Swedish candy that tastes a lot like almond roca), Annika and her German friend Sarah cut cookie dough for German butter cookies. I think Bram is in the back there trying to scam some cookie dough.
I made chocolate-chip oatmeal cookies (Betty Crocker's recipe). Love grabbed this picture of me when I wasn't looking. Don't I look domestic?
The cookies in the right a re mine. They were the best. Just kidding.
A Pippi cookie!!!
Finished knäck. The word loosely translates to "crack," which I have to say describes this addictive treat perfectly.

"Is" Skating

2006-12-13T14:11:00.000-08:00

The Canadians forced us all to go ice skating on Saturday, and it turned out very cute...here are the adorable photos:

(Bram and me): "Please don't make us skate!! It looks so cold and slippery!"
"Hey, this isn't so bad..."
Caitlin and Aya get fancy.
Mohamed and Lucas....hahaha....
Bram, me, Caitlin, Aya, Mohamed. Lucas was taking the picture. Are we not like the cutest bunch ever? I'm going to miss these folks so so much.

Ledsen

2006-12-11T00:55:00.000-08:00

Emotional times here in Lund. I leave in exactly 2 weeks!! Everybody is sad about this, and I've been collecting the sad faces:

Martin

Mohamed

Caitlin
Love
Bram

I guess everybody's just going to miss me so much!These are all I have for now, but I'm sure I'll be acquiring more sad faces in the next couple of weeks.

Bilder!

2006-12-02T10:18:00.000-08:00

Random pictures from the past couple weeks...In Cafe Ariman last Saturday, before Thanksgiving dinner with the UC students at Lund and Copenhagen. This was in "the crying room"; all the pictures on the wall are of people crying.
Kevin posing with sweet potatoes at the Thanksgiving meal. It was mycket smaklig!
My friend Valerie and I went to a spex: a traditional Swedish all-male farce musical. Of the two hour play I understood about 3 or 4 jokes. But the Swedish people were all laughing a lot, so I assume it was pretty good. The singing was definitely good.
This is what a typical midday here looks like lately. Not extremely pleasant.
There are rare moments of sunshine, though! Here's my krukväxt Cornelius soaking up such a moment on my windowsill the other morning. Isn't he cute?
My friend Aaron and I wend out for (bad) Mexican food the other night and bravely tried the seasonal fruity alcoholic drink. It was sparkly like that stuff that comes in those tube things you squeeze and play with (you know, those things you could get from the Discovery Channel store?) I felt very uncomfortable ingesting it.
When Bram and I got home from shopping yesterday, Emilia was making lussakatter. They're little rolls made with saffron and raisins, and they're usually made for St. Lucia day, which is next week I think. When the lussakatter were ready, Love showed up with glögg, and we all had a little impromptu Swedish glögg party. It was very cute! Sweden!

Christmassy Lund

2006-12-02T09:22:00.000-08:00

Hey! I'm still here. (For now.) One of the best things about going to Finland is that it made Lund feel nice and warm by comparison. I've been only having to wear knee socks under my pants instead of full-length leggings. And I'm trying to remember if there was ever a time in my life when I thought I would be wearing knee socks....Still though, the days have been getting gradually shorter and darker and colder. And now that it's December everything's all Christmassy around here. Last weekend was the first Sunday Christmas market and I took some pictures. Sign by the highway. "Thanks for visiting, we wish you a Merry Christmas."
Christmas lights downtown.
Christmas market in the main square, Stortorget.
For some reason there are little pink bunny statues all over the square between the train station and the hotel. I'm not sure if they have anything to do with Christmas, but they're kind of cute and strange.
The sunset on my way home from downtown. This is a regular sight for me, extra gorgeous sunset that particular evening, though. Or I should say afternoon; this was about 3:30 pm.

Lund is just such a cute old tiny European adorable place. I'm really really going to miss it!

A little more Helsinki

2006-11-19T10:52:00.000-08:00

Here are some more photos from my trip to Helsinki: The largest Orthodox church in Scandinavia.
Real live icicles!!
On the Finnish island Suommenlinna. The water you see is the Baltic Sea.
A frozen pond! There were people skating on it, just like in the movies!
We had fun walking on the ice.

Helsinki!

2006-11-19T01:48:00.000-08:00

Last weekend Aya decided at the last minute that we should go to Helsinki. She said she would lend me money (still waiting on my new ATM card since canceling it after I lost my wallet in Stockholm) and I didn't have any other plans for the weekend, so I went along. The only people able to go were me, her, and Caitlin, which turned out pretty fun. We did all kinds of girly things: went shopping, went to the opera, got our ears pierced, and even got totally nekkid at a sauna (no pictures of that, of course.) I had thought Stockholm was cold, but Helsinki was definitely colder. It didn't snow while we were there, but there was snow and ice all over the ground, everywhere. Statue in the middle of the shopping district. You can see how icy the ground is!
Helsinki is purty in the morning.
View from our hostel kitchen window. I was grateful for all the sunshine, even if it wasn't warming me up.
My favorite Helsinki statue: "The Bear and the Anthill." I'm kissing the bear's nose.

I don't quite remember how it was decided that we would all get piercings...all I know is I had agreed and didn't want to chicken out. I got one in the cartilage in the middle of my ear. I was scared until I was sitting in the chair; then I got really calm until the needle was shoved through. It HURT. Aya held my hand and I screamed obscenities, 40-Year-Old Virgin chest waxing scene- style. (I think I actually kind of scared the sweet little piercer man.) I'm pretty happy with the result, though:

Stockholm, Day 3

2006-11-16T13:24:00.000-08:00

On our last day, we got up early to see the palace and do some shopping. Here's some more Stockholm prettiness:

Cute little fact about this water: It has fish in it! The water is just regular sea water, so you can actually see people fishing smack dab in the middle of the big city! I just thought that was kind of neato.

It was ferrreaking cold!!!! Lucas and I each bought ourselves a Swedish mossa/touque/beanie (depending on what country you come from). By the way, we are dorks.

Caitlin and I sweet-talked this royal flautist outside the palace. Cuteness!

Changing of the guards in front of the palace.

After we were done at the palace, we were on our way to some other touristy site when my cell phone rang. It was a man who had found my wallet!! I figured it was one of the workers from the subway. We went to meet him at the subway station, and it turns out he didn't work for the subway, he was just a guy who lived nearby and whose friend had happened to pick up my wallet. He had found my student card, called Lund University to get my cell phone number, and then called me. All the cash and cards and everything was still in my wallet. It was an absolute miracle! I thanked the guy profusely. I wanted to get a picture of him, but he declined, and we said goodbye.

That night we took a night train back to Lund. I think if I could get my bed to move like a train, I would sleep like a baby every night. Soooo nice.

Stockholm, Day Two

2006-11-15T14:59:00.000-08:00

We did a bunch of stuff on the second day, and since I got pictures of most of it, I'll let them tell the story:
Beautiful Stockholm in the morning.
This is Villa Villekula (Pippi Longstocking's house!) This was at a children's story museum called Junibecken. Aya and I thought it was super cool, but the guys and Caitlin were less impressed.
The Vasa Museum. The Vasa was an ill-proportioned ship which sank outside of Stockholm in a century long ago (I don't remember exactly when). They reconstructed the ship and built a museum around it. It was perty interesting.
Caitlin and Aya at Murens, the coolest coffee shop ever. We played cards and backgammon there for hours while we waited for our reservation at....
The Ice Bar! This was one thing I had heard about that I really wanted to see! It's inside the Nordic Sea Hotel, and it's a bar that is literally made out of ice! It cost 150 kronor, which includes entrance, parkas and gloves, and one Absolut vodka cocktail served in a block of ice. It was neato, but super cold inside. Left to right is me, Aya, Lucas, Caitlin, and Fabian. I guess Mohamed was taking the picture.
Aya and I (the Californians, and the only non-Canadians), were the first to wimp out after about an hour in the Ice Bar. We were happy to find that the ladies' toalett was empty, and we sat on the counter and ran hot water over our freezing toes.

One thing I forgot to mention earlier about the second day in Stockholm was that I lost my wallet on the subway :(. I discovered it was missing as we were checking into the hotel we stayed in Saturday night, so we spent most of the morning looking for it. I immediately called the bank to cancel my cards, and filed a report with the police department, and checked the subway station lost and found. I was pretty upset about it, but Aya loaned me some cash and I managed to forget about and enjoy the rest of the day.

Stockholm, Day One (at long last)

2006-11-05T08:58:00.000-08:00

Wow, I am soooooooooooo far behind on this blog! I still haven't posted about when I went to Stockholm two and a half weeks ago! I am finally sitting my booty at this desk and posting on my blog. SO:
I went to Stockholm with Lucas, Mohamed, Aya, Fabian, and Lucas' friend Caitlin, another Canadian. It is a GORGEOUS city! One of my favorites. It was really cold though. Here are some pictures of around the city our first day there:

These lion statues were everywhere! Are they not the cutest?
After the sun went down, I was complaining about the cold, so Lucas bundled me up into a scary monster. It was much warmer this way, though.

Isn't it beautiful? We did some museums that day, my favorite of which was the national gallery which had an exhibit on Swedish design featuring the cute little scrubbrushes everyone here uses to wash their dishes. We also took a boat tour around the city, which is built aon several islands. We stayed at a hostel in Gamla Stan, the old part of the city which is the most charming, I think. More photos in the next post.

Mer sno!

2006-11-03T00:56:00.000-08:00

So after I finished my last post, I went and got in the shower. When I came out of the shower, this is what I saw out my window:
It was really snowing now! I couldn't tear myself away from the windows! My korridor mates thought it was pretty funny. It wasn't that much snow, they said, but it was more than I had ever seen falling! I thought it was exciting. This is what I saw on my way to school that day:

And this is what I saw once I got to school:

Isn't that pretty? It kept snowing until about 3:30 that day. The next morning all the puddles from the melted snow were frozen into solid ice. It's so alien to me. I don't know how much longer I'll be excited by the snow, but for now it's still novel enough to make me forgive it for being so cold. (Below 0 Celsius all day yesterday!) The weather people say we're going "direkt fran sommaren till vintern" and apparently they're right!

Sno!

2006-11-01T00:41:00.000-08:00

It is totally snowing right now, people! It has been since I woke up this morning, about half an hour ago. Pretty exciting! I tried to take some pictures, but they didn't turn out that great. Believe it or not, these are the best two:

Can you kind of see the snowflakes? I know it's hard. My window swings upward so I was opening it to catch snowflakes on it and then watching them melt. It was kind of fun.

Anyway, I guess winter has begun. That's what the weather people are saying anyway. I was in Stockholm last weekend and it definitely felt wintry. Fun trip, though. More on that later. I have to give a presentation today about the position of English language in Swedish culture, and I'm also in desperate need of some groceries. I hope everyone had a good Halloween! More posts soon, I promise.

Hedwig och the Oresund Rund

2006-10-23T02:30:00.000-07:00

Last Friday was an excursion for my Intro to Scandinavian Society class. We did the "Oresund Rund" trip, which consists of taking the train up to Helsingborg, Sweden, ferry across to Helsingor, Denmark, and then down to Copenhagen and across the bridge back to Lund. We saw an exhibit on ancient Nordic civilization at Dunkers Kulturhus, ate real homemade Danish ice cream in Helsingor, visited the Karen Blixen museum (she was an author who wrote under the name Isak Dinesen). All this was very cool, but the true highlight of the trip was that my professor brought his children! Cute Swedish children that I could actually take pictures of! Eldgrinn, the boy, was about 7 or 8, and there was also an *adorable* 2 and half year old girl named Hedwig! Here they are....

(Hedwig has a nyckelpiga (ladybug) on her finger) :)

Tivoli!

2006-10-22T11:21:00.000-07:00

Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen was open for Halloween on Friday the 13th, so Aya and I decided we had to go! Kevin (Santa Barbara), AJ (Berkeley), and Andreas (Sweden) went with us. We were freezing but it was beautiful there and we had a bunch of fun! Here is the photographic evidence:

Near the main entrance.

Digging into my candy floss.

It's okay, AJ! The pirates aren't real.

Andreas and Kevin are super excited to be going on the spinning swinging thing.

Andreas tests his archery skills.

Danish She-trolls.

There were jack-o-lanterns and pumpkins all over the park.....

And some of them wanted to come home with Aya. Tsk, tsk!

Update

2006-10-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

So I finally booked my flight home. The only flight that had any student discount seats left was on Christmas Day. So I'm flying Air France, connecting in Paris, and I should be back in San Diego around 10 pm on December 25. Hopefully I will still get to see Noah...? We'll see. As soon as I had booked the flight I started feeling sad. I don't want to leave this place!

Hosten ar har!

2006-10-22T09:32:00.000-07:00

It's definitely Fall here in Sweden. I feel a bit silly because I'm sitting here at my computer in leggings, sweatpants, three long-sleeved shirts, thick socks, and a big fat scarf wrapped around my neck 3 times. I have the heater in my room turned all the way up, but I don't think it does jack squat. I would go make tea, but the kitchen is being cleaned right now, so I'll just sit here in my neckbrace and feel silly. Here are some Autumny pictures of Lund (I love this cute little town!)

Lundagard (park outside the university), looking toward Knut den Stores

Pretty fall color on the University Bibliotek

Pretty fall color downtown

Johannes' artwork warms up the kitchen a bit.

I'm set for winter in these sweet mittens Lucas brought me from Estonia.

Swedish Hedgehog

2006-10-18T18:39:00.000-07:00

I've been hearing about them but I finally saw one tonight!

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!! I touched it too! It was prickly.

My Smaklig Swedish Lunch

2006-10-17T03:35:00.000-07:00

I made it myself! Kottbullar, pasta, paprika, and lok. And I even read the Swedish newspaper while I ate it. I'm so enculturated! (Just ignore the giant REI water bottle.)

Today is sunny, which makes me HAPPY, even though it's still pretty cold. I need to head to the library to do some research for my paper. I'm looking forward to soaking up some sunshine on the way. Vi ses!

Something is Awesome in the State of Denmark

2006-10-14T18:10:00.000-07:00

Okay, time to get caught up on my blogging....

Last weekend was another UC field trip, this time across the Oresund to Helsingor, Denmark. First we went to some contemporary art museum that was much like all contemporary art museums. The best part was after that, when we visited Kronberg, which is generally accepted to be the castle that inspired William Shakespeare's Hamlet. For this reason it's usually referred to as "Hamlet's Castle"and I thought it was pretty exciting.

Kronberg. Isn't it beautiful?
View from inside the courtyard. I was told they perform Hamlet in this courtyard every summer; another reason I need to come back in the summertime.
Our extremely adorable tour guide. The dancing hall. This is supposedly the longest room in Denmark.

We even go to go down into the casemates, under the castle....spooky. Aya looks thrilled.

Swedish popular music is so bad it's good (although sometimes it's so bad it goes past good and back to bad again)

2006-10-14T17:00:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone,
It. . . is. . . COLD! Today was 8 degrees Celsius. And all the Swedish people delight in telling me how much colder it's going to get. I really hope I can survive it. I think I need a sherpa hat with ear flaps.
Anyhow- this post is about Swedish music because that's what Friday's lecture in my Intro to Scandinavian Culture class was about and I felt compelled to share. I'm kind of loving Swedish music right now, in all it's nerdy glory. The traditional folk stuff is actually really good though, and there is a good pop song I'm a little obsessed with.

This band, Vit Pals, was one that I saw at Lund's Kulturnatten. They're kind of bad, but in a cool way. The more I listen to this song, the more I like it. It's called "Loving you was crazy sh*t." Make sure you listen to the whole thing, because the English part (which is the best part) comes at the end:
http://www.canarierecords.com/music/04%20Loving%20you%20was%20crazy%20shit.mp3

This one is a very traditional Swedish ballad about a female troll who has to get married to a Christian man or else she'll die (or something). I just like how ballady it sounds. This band (Garmarna) also does some really beautiful folk instrumentals (which I couldn't find on the internet) and some weirder new age stuff. This song is called "Herr Mannelig" (just click on the song title):
http://www.myspace.com/garmarna

This next one is a mushy folk song, and my professor says pretty much everyone in Sweden has it played at their wedding. I think it's kind of pretty. It's called "Av Langton till Dig" (which means "Of Longing for You") and it's by folk singer Asa Jinder (it may take a few minutes to load):
http://pandemoniuminternet.castpost.com/165244.html

This next one is kind of my favorite song right now. I think the song and the music video really express how easy it is to get depressed in Sweden. The scenery in the video looks a lot like Lund and its surroundings, and really puts me in mind of the days since I'm come here when I've had a taste of true, authentic, Swedish depression. There's just something about Sweden, the lagom (which is an untranslatable word that you only understand once you've been to Sweden; it means something between perfect and peaceful and bland and boring, which is just so completely how Sweden is), coupled with the reserved nature of Swedes, that causes this sort of numb, emotionless, isolated, depressed feeling. Don't worry- -I'm not depressed right now and I have so much to do here that I couldn't stay depressed for very long. And I still love Sweden. But lagom is definitely part of Sweden, and I'm glad I'm affected by it because I think that's part of the Swedish experience. Anyway, that's why I love this song. And I want you to see this video and hear the song because I think it will show really clearly what life is like here sometimes, which is really the point of this blog. It's also kind of a beautiful song. So enjoy. The artist is Anna Ternheim and the song is called "To be Gone":
http://youtube.com/watch?v=o_CBKkFIzOY

London, Part Last

2006-10-08T06:43:00.000-07:00

Left to right, top to bottom: 1) A bobby! 2) Buckingham Palace. 3) "Anne and I are very much in love. I must give her these drawings!" [Little Britain reference]. 4) Lovin' on the lion statues in Trafalgar Square. 5) Goodby, rainy London!

London Part 3

2006-10-08T06:20:00.000-07:00

Left to right, top to bottom: 1) Aya and London as seen from "The London Eye." 2) High Gate Cemetary is spooky and gorgeous. 3) Pubbin' it at The Brewmaster. 4) It's fun getting lost. 5) The most cliche London tourist photo ever. 6) Me and Big Ben himself.

London Part 2

2006-10-07T09:07:00.000-07:00

Left to right, top to bottom: 1) My traveling companions: Aya (Croatian-Italian-Japanese-American), Mohamed (Egyptian-Canadian), and Fabian (Israeli-Argentinian-French-Canadian).
2) The houses of parliament are BIG. 3) Fish and chips--fat at last! 4) The Tower of London restrooms apparently won the "Loo of the Year" Award 11 years ago, and they're still mighty proud of it. 5) Mohamed came prepared w/ cookies, which made him my hero. (This was taken our room at our hostel, the Astor Victoria.) 6) Riding the underground; "Mind the gap!"

London, chaps! (Part 1)

2006-10-05T07:09:00.000-07:00

Brilliant! I've been to London to visit the queen! Here are some of the things my mates and I did there:
-Took a tour of the Tower of London
-Ate fish and chips
-Visited both the Tate Modern and Tate Britain art museums
-Stared at people in Piccadilly Circus
-Visited the Old Globe Theater
-Rode the famous London Underground about 50 million times
-Went shopping at Camden Market
-Saw Big Ben/ The Houses of Parliament
-Saw Westminster Abbey
-Saw a show ("Avenue Q", which was really great)
-Bought sandwiches at Harrods
-Rode the London Eye
-Visited Buckingham Palace
-Saw a lot of the River Thames
-Visited High Gate Cemetary in the middle of a thunderstorm
-Had a pint at both "Brewmaster" and "The White Horse" in Covent Garden
And there's still a ton of stuff that we didn't get to do. I liked London, but it reminded me of other big cities I've visited; lots of traffic, people, garbage, and noise. So while there was lots of fun to be had there, I wasn't too sad to return to cute little Lund.

Here are all the pictures I could fit into one post (Many more in the next):

Left to right, top to bottom: 1) Modern art makes Fabian sleepy. 2) The Millenium Bridge, in front of Tate Modern. 3) The Tower of London. 4) The Beefeater who was our awesomely authentic tour guide at the Tower (they're really called Beefeaters). 5) Look how strong I am!

Svensk Kultur

2006-10-04T15:23:00.000-07:00

Last week was all about culture and Swedish history. First I went to Kulturnatten that weekend, which was a festival in Lund with music and food and stuff from all the cultures of the people who live around here, which apparently is more diverse than I thought. It was fun to walk around sober and watch all the Swedes get off-their-butts, stumble-down-the-sidewalk, fight-to-the-death-over-the-last-bottle-of-vodka drunk. (Apparently this is part of their culture.) I saw a couple Swedish bands, one that was bad, but in a cool way, and one that was really good. I hung out with my friend A.J. and his German roommate Mark. It was good fun.

Then on Tuesday night I showed up for a "ghost tour" of Lund University that I had heard about. I learned a bunch of cool stuff:

1.) Lund University is really, really old. (It was founded 1666.)

2.)When Skane was part of Denmark, Lund University was its own state, with the power to try and sentence students or professors who broke the law or cheated on tests. One of the small libraries is in a building that was once the student prison, and one student was actually executed!

3.)Domkyrkan cathedral was supposedly built by a giant, who is now buried in the crypt underneath the cathedral.

4.) Domkyrkan has a very rare, endangered species of fern growing in the cracks in its walls.

5.)The mound surrounded by runestones in front of the university building is actually a mass grave for rats that the medical students used to use for experiments.

Here is our entertaining ghost tour guide giving us the gruesome and grisly history of our haunted university.

The next day my Intro to Scandinavian Culture class had an excursion around Lund to the Kulturen Museet and the Historiska Museet. We also had a traditional Swedish sittning in the evening.

My professor (Dr. Andreas Onnerfors) in front of an old pagan runestone. Both Christian and pagan runestones have been found in the area.

Kuturen is a big place, with a two-level indoor museum and a large outdoor area with restored houses and churches. The best thing about the outdoor part is that in all the little buildings you can touch and play with everything! Some of them even have clothes for you to try on:

Here I am as a 18th century Swedish farmer.

Asami and Hannah are my 18th century Swedish wives.

Here I am in a refurbished Victorian-era home that used to belong to a Lund University professor. I'm dreaming about my Swedish Mr. Darcy (Mr. Darcysson?)

Inside the old church, which is still active for weddings and baptisms.

The historic toy exhibit.

The sittning that night was really fun. According to tradition, at a sittning you get all dressed up, sit around a long table, alternating men and women, give a small gift to the person on your left, eat traditional Swedish food, drink a lot of shnapps and sing a lot of songs. We weren't required to get dressed up for this one, and we had too many women to alternate all the way around, and we didn't give each other gifts, and I opted for cheap red wine instead of schnapps. But the food was delicious, and we did drink and sing a lot. It was really fun.
The main course: lax smorgas (salmon open-faced sandwich)
My professor got a bit sloshed and taught us mycket Swedish drinking songs. Skol!

Rum Improvements

2006-10-04T15:03:00.000-07:00

Woohoo! My room is less plain and depressing than it used to be! Here are some of my new cheery fixtures:
Muppets poster from on-campus poster sale!

Cornelius!

Random ocean scene, also from the poster sale!

Swedish plant I haven't named yet!

More Prettiness

2006-10-04T14:18:00.000-07:00

Hey folks! I am way behind on this blog. I've got so much to share. . . guess I better get started.
I have more beauty to brag about! My new favorite place in Lund is the Botanisk Tradgarden, which is the University's botanical garden. I actually have a class in one of the buildings there, and I sometimes go there to eat lunch when I'm on my own. On nice days it's really heavenly, as you can see.

Oslo

2006-09-20T15:34:00.000-07:00

So last weekend was the trip to Oslo; fun stuff. Yasemin, Lucas, Will and I took the train to Helsingborg on Saturday to meet our cruise ferry, the Crown of Scandinavia. It was really nice to be out on the water, especially at sunset. Here's my best photo of the sunset on the North Sea: Pretty gorgeous, eh? The strip of land you see is Denmark.
Here is a picture of our teeeeeny tiny cabin. We were on Deck 2, below everyone else, even below the cars. The motor was right underneath us. The beds were quite comfortable though, and we didn't have to spend much time in the cabin anyway, since the ship had some bars and a 'discoteque.' From left to right is Lucas, Will, and Yasemin. (But I'm sure you could have figured that out on your own.)

The next morning we were in Norway:

Fjords!
Oslo!

In Oslo one of the very few things that was free was Vigelands Parken, an sculpture garden with a bunch of statues done my the Norweigian artist Gustav Vigeland. There were sculptures lining a big walkway, at the end of which was a huge monolith surrounded by more sculptures.

These were a few of my favorite sculptures. There were others that were much darker and creepier. It was a pretty neat place, though.

We didn't have time for the viking museum, unfortunately, but we did go to the National Gallery (where we saw one of Munch's original "Scream" paintings), the Nobel Peace Center (which was awesome), and Oslo Radhuset (city hall), where they give out the Nobel peace prize.

It was a fun weekend, but I think if I ever go back to Norway it will be to see more of the countryside, which I've heard is absolutely breathtaking. Especially the fjords; we didn't get to see any of the real fjordy fjords from the ship so I may try to arrange a time for that. I guess we'll have to wait and see. For now, I'm just practicing Swedish and going to classes and partying with my pals and getting ready for London!

Swedish is a Funny Language

2006-09-15T23:52:00.000-07:00

Beautiful Sverige

2006-09-14T13:11:00.000-07:00

It has been indescribably gorgeous lately; I couldn't have asked for better weather. Sunshine and blue sky and perfect temperatures and gentle breezes. Also, the air is much cleaner here which I think makes sunny days look like heaven. I took these pictures on campus yesterday at lunchtime:
And this is a picture of the sunset a few evenings ago:

This evening I went for a walk out by the nature preserve where there's a creek and some sheepies and I got some more nice pictures:

Anyway, that's about it, I just wanted to brag a bit about how pretty it is here. I guess I should enjoy it while I can. My classes seem pretty cool, and not too stressful. I'm going to Oslo this weekend on a cruise ferry with Lucas, a British girl named Yasmine, and another Canadian guy I have yet to meet. I'm pretty excited about that. It also sounds like there's a trip to London in the works. Perty exciting stuff! But for now I have to go study myself to sleep. God kvall!

Ikeatastic!

2006-09-11T05:31:00.000-07:00

Saturday was our UC field trip and the day I'd been waiting for: the first Ikea and the Ikea museum! Ikea Ikea Ikea Ikea!!! I was so excited I thought I would have an Ikea-gasm and die. I didn't die. It was AWESOME, though, for Ikea lovers like me. Just take a look: The first Ikea EVER!!
This is Richard, store manager at Ikea Almhult (The first Ikea EVER). He has also modeled for several of their catalogs (honestly).
We got to go behind the scenes to the meeting room and watch a presentation all about Ikea. Ikeas have the best-decorated break rooms and office space. And I learned the Ikea motto: "To create a better everyday life for the many people." How adorable is that?
Since it was a Saturday, Ikea had its brass band playing out front, of course.
The Ikea musuem displayed staff uniforms....
...and the various logos through the years. The museum also had several rooms set up with Ikea furniture through the decades (i.e. there was a 1940s room, 1950s room, and so on. ) I took WAY too many pictures inside the museum to post them all here. If you are seriously interested in historical Ikea furniture, you'll have to contact me yourself. :P
Oh! Another super cool thing I learned is that the Ikea Almhult store is where they shoot all the catalog photos!! When my friends and I heard that we decided to take a few catalog shots of our own, as seen above (me) and below (Aya and Kevin).
I suppose it's a bit pathetic that I was so intensely thrilled by all this Ikeaness. Is it possible that Ikea is some Nazi-like brainwashing cult? Because I was experiencing some serious euphoria within those walls. Maybe it's just because Ikea is awesomely awesome in every way. And I've been to the mother-ship. My life is complete; I can die now.

The Korridor

2006-09-09T11:59:00.000-07:00

Last night was our Korridor Party. It was actually really fun, and a good way for us to all get to know each other. I wasn't sure if I would survive the "drink in every room" tradition, but I did somehow. We went out to Blekingska Nation afterwards, then back home for the afterparty. I had a lot of fun. I lost my voice. L to R: Helena (Swedish), Jessica (Swedish), Love's girlfriend (she doesn't actually live on the korridor), Bram (Dutch), Johannes (Swedish), and Andreas (Swedish)
The guys in the middle are David and Love (pronounced something like "loo-vah"), both Swedish. Funny how they sit with their legs crossed.
Annika (German), David, Hoa (Vietnamese), and Christoffer (Swedish). When you order pizza in Sweden, everyone gets their own pizza, which I think we should start doing in the U.S.
Hoa, Edward (Swedish-dig his pink hat), Bram, Love, Johannes, and Love's gf.
Johannes, Hoa, Annika, Andreas (Swedish--also a linguistics student), and David.

My Food, My Drinks, My Room

2006-09-08T08:54:00.000-07:00

I am having a very Swedish snack right now: cereal with yogurt poured over it instead of milk. It's quite delicious. It took me a while to figure out that the yougurt actually comes in milk cartons here. I was a bit freaked out the first time I watched one of my korridor mates sit down to a bowl of cereal and pour what I thought was milk over it, coming out in slow, thick glops. It's a good idea, though. It's my new breakfast.
Today is SOOOOOOOO sunny!!! It's gorgeous and I am loving it! Especially since it has been quite rainy and cold lately. I went for a long walk today to stock up on some Vitamin D before the sun goes away again.
Tonight is our korridor's welcome party. Everyone has to prepare a cocktail for all the other people (I think there are 15 of us) and serve it in their own room. I will be serving very weak greyhounds as I have only a little over half a small bottle of vodka left and I was too lazy to go to System Bolaget today. System Bolaget is the only store where you can buy liquor here, and it's about 2 km away. And the liquor costs an arm and about 3 legs. I also only bought 1 liter of grapefruit juice, so my drinks will be pretty stingy. I'm such a bad hostess.
Since I knew there were going to be people in my room, I went to IKEA yesterday for the first time. I had to navigate my way on the buses, since the IKEA is all the way in Malmo. It was pretty scary, but I made it there and back. I loved being there, too; it felt so homey to me. Isn't that ironic? Anyway, I came back with some sheets, a blanket, a towel, some slippers, some hangers, and one of those rag rugs I like so much. I tidied up my room today and took some pictures for y'all:

There are more but my computer's being a poop right now and not letting me post them. Isn't my room so plain and Swedish looking? I like it, but I need more pictures on the walls. Well I better skeddaddle. Pray for more sunshine for me! Thanks.

My 2nd Trip to Copenhagen

2006-09-07T17:20:00.000-07:00

I went to Copenhagen again last weekend with about 7 other people who I knew from my Swedish class, including Aya and Mohamed, two of my closest friends here. Highlights included a tour of the canals, the art museum (which was awesome), the round tower, the renaissance fair, and watching an Ireland vs. Germany football game on TV in an Irish Pub with a bunch of Germans. My camera batteries died on this trip too, so Mohamed has promised to email some of his photos when he gets his internet set up. Until then, here are a few of my own photos from that trip:

(Above is the Danish parliament building)

Frederiksdal

2006-09-06T07:23:00.000-07:00

Frederiksdal in Helsingborg is my new favorite place in Sweden, so it deserves a post all to itself. What it is is a huge park in the middle of town, with "museums" (which are really just historically preserved Swedish houses and shops from the 16-, 17-, and 1800s) , gardens, cafes, and an outdoor theater. There are so many different gardens there. One of my favorites was the historical kitchen garden, where "a large variety of historical vegetables are grown." I mean, how cute is that? There was also a windmill, a Swedish farm house from the 1600s, and a bunch of farm animals in cute historical pastures. It's like the cutest place in the world, and it's right there in Helsingborg- who'da thunk? It was very uncrowded the day we went, and the three of us had a great time exploring the place. Kitchen Garden: This is a very happy historical squash of some kind, growing on one of many historical apple trees. I sampled two historical apples off of two different kinds of historical apple trees that day.
Sweet peas in the "Children's Fairy Tale" Garden.
I think this is the cross that Swedes dance around during their Midsommer celebration (which I plan on visiting for someday). This one was apparently from last year, and leaning outside the 17th century farmhouse.
Cameron and Aya try to master the historical art of walking on historical stilts on historical farms. Aya and I gave up and went to look in the museums; Cameron kept at it for the next hour or so, which we thought was pretty funny.
This is the windmill at one corner of the park, at one of the rare sunshiney moments.

Historical horsies! Aren't they gorgeous? We also met some historical pigs, goats, sheep, and cows. I'm telling you, it's the most adorable place I've ever been. I would want to have my wedding there, if I was ever silly enough to get married. I took way more pictures, too, but you know, I have to post pictures judiciously since I can only do a few at a time. I will have plenty to show when I get back.

Helsingborg

2006-09-04T14:05:00.000-07:00

So I went to Helsingborg last Thursday with Aya and Cameron. Helsingborg is a city on Sweden's west coast, about a 30 minute train ride from Lund. Har ar min Helsingborg photos: This is called the View Bridge. I think it's called that because when you're on the bridge you can get a nice view of the harbor. Just guessing.
This is what's left of Helsingborg Castle, located right behind the view bridge. Even this mere piece of a castle is way more castle-y than Glimmingehus was, in my opinion. The tower was very tall.
This is the view of Helsingborg and the harbor from the top of the castle tower. The land you can see across the water is Denmark, I believe, and the water is the Oresund.
A stained-glass window inside the old kyrka (church) that we went inside. This picture came out the best.
We randomly passed this statue while walking, and it struck a chord with me, prolly because I miss my kitty cats so much. I think it's such a cute statue.

This wasn't quite all we saw in Helsingborg, but I can't fit the rest of it into this post. So what I'm going to do is go to bed, and tomorrow after class post the photos of my fabulous Helsingborg discovery, which deserves a post all its own. Goodnight all!

Checking In

2006-09-03T14:10:00.000-07:00

Hi, everyone, I am still here and still alive. I have been pretty busy this week: visited Helsingborg on Thursday, a few parties on Friday, and Copenhagen again on Saturday. Mixed in with that was lots of grocery/home essentials shopping and laundry, which is actually quite complicated here. My camera batteries completely died yesterday, and my camera is no longer happy with the regular alkaline AAs, so I need to hunt down some rechargeable nickel menohydrowhatsit batteries, according to my friend Mohamed. Since today was a very stormy Sunday, I stayed home all day instead of shopping for batteries. Once I get some good batteries for my camera, I will be able to turn it on and transfer and post photos of all my recent doings. But I wanted to post today to let everyone know that I didn't fall off the face of the earth. Tomorrow I start my real classes! Yowsa. More interesting posts to come, I promise.

Svenska Fest

2006-08-30T12:10:00.000-07:00

So- last night was the end-of-Swedish-class party/bbq. It took me, Aya, her visiting friend Cameron, and a couple other people from my class about a million years to find the place where the party was. It was rainy and wet and cold, and I couldn't wait to get inside and warm up. When we finally found it, I was a little disappointed; the party was actually outdoors. I'm not kidding you--these people were actually barbecuing out on the patio while it was pouring and freezing! Once I got over the initial shock, I managed to have some fun, though. I took a bunch of pictures. Taking pictures outside at night is fun because you never k now exactly what you're taking a picture of until you've taken it. Also, you get to blind people with the flash. Here are a few of my victims: Hagen (from Germany)
Mohammed (Canada), Cameron(LA), and Walter(Germany)
Aya (San Francisco)
Here I get a taste of my own medicine.
Aya and Cameron at the bus stop. Surprisingly, we navigated the bus system back home with relatively little kerfuffle!

Gympan

2006-08-29T05:35:00.000-07:00

Last night I had the cutest Swedish cultural experience so far: free outdoor aerobics class at the community center. My korridor mate Elin (Swedish) invited me to go with her last night and when Christoffer (also Swedish) heard he laughed: "It's going to be you and 73 eighty-year-olds." He was mostly right, which was exactly what made it so cute! I wish I had taken a picture but I was too busy working my booty off along with all the old folks out on the football field as the sun was setting and the clouds were all pink and the air was just starting to get nippy. There is just something so inexplicably adorably Swedish about a bunch of elderly Swedes in gym clothes, with their hair in braids on top of their heads, jogging and kicking and hopping around to American pop music. I was just dying from the cuteness of it all. It was a good workout, too; I'm pretty sore today.
Today was my last day of introdutory Swedish; I start real Swedish courses on Monday. Tonight the people from my class are having a party to celebrate, which should be pretty fun. And I just learned there is a field trip to the original IKEA and the IKEA museum next weekend, which I am so all over. But now I need to go shell out for a cell phone :( Adjo!

Homesickness Indulgence

2006-08-27T14:33:00.000-07:00

Aside from all the people I miss, here are the things I miss most about home:

Trader Joe's
My Chester
Any store that stays open past 6 pm
Hearing people say "6 pm" instead of "18:00"
Clif bars
Greasy pizza
Concrete (really!)
A cell phone that works
My fowlers
Upright vacuum cleaners

Okay, end of pine.

Copenhagen II

2006-08-27T13:09:00.000-07:00

So Lucas and I walked our booties off all over Copenhagen, and it was pretty fun. We took a route that was supposed to be the oldest walking road in the world (according to Lucas's guidebook--I dunno, sounds a bit crazy to me), and then we went off to look for the Little Mermaid statue. On our way back to the train station, a dark cloud moved over the sun and a rainstorm of cinematic proportions had us slogging through puddles for several blocks. It was very dramatic. This was a really cool wildlife photo exhibition by Steve Bloom (?) set up in the largest square in Copenhagen. The photos went about halfway around the square, and some of them were really amazing. The weather was still gorgeous and warm at this point.
Here I am with one of the guards in front of some government building where the queen stays sometimes. I was afraid to get any closer because the guy's gun was really scary-looking.
The Little Mermaid statue. This thing is tiny (about the size of me) and just on some random rock beside a bridge. I love it; definitely one of my favorite European sights so far.
This was the BEST. ICE CREAM. EVER. Trust me. I didn't really get two, I was just holding Lucas's so he could take my picture. Look how happy and dry I am...little did I know....
Here we are at the train station, trying to look like good sports about it. Actually I think Lucas truly was a good sport; I was a bit cranky. But it was a fun day for sure. Yay!

Kobenhavn

2006-08-27T00:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Lucas and I took the train over to central Copenhagen for the day. Lucas is a good person to travel with for several reasons: a) He has traveled on his own before, so he's more "street smart" than I am, b) he has a really good guide book with walking tours and detailed maps, c) he plans everything so I don't have to , and d) he plasters the Canadian flag all over himself, so if I'm with him people might think I'm Canadian, too.
Well, me made a day of it in Copenhagen, and we had gorgeous weather for most of the day. I think I'm going to have to split the day into 2 posts because of all the pictures I have. Here is the first installment: This is Tivoli Gardens, the famous theme park, across the street from the central train station. It cost too much to get in, so we just took pictures through the fence. It did look like a fun place, though. There was even this kiddie area where toddlers can go into a pigsty and play in the mud with a bunch of potbellied pigs. (I'm not even joking.)

I don't remember exactly where this was taken, I just think it's a nice picture. Don't you?
We walked down and back up Hans Christian Anderson Blvd., and here I am cuddling up with old Hans himself.

This was the town hall, and one end of the main square. The place was really crowded. It actually reminded me a bit of Las Vegas, at least here in the busiest section. When we wandered off toward the water it was much different.
More of Copenhagen to come, but first I need to go eat breakfast!

Leif

2006-08-27T00:27:00.000-07:00

My korridor mate Leif is moving out today to finish school in Stockholm, where he grew up. Leif was the first person I met on the korridor. He took me shopping the first day I got here, read preparation instructions on Swedish food packets for me, gave me valuable tips about Sweden and Lund, and offered many Swedish insights on all things American. Some good conversations we had. Plus, he's just an all-around cool guy. So this is a little blog tribute-post to my first Swedish friend. Good luck, Leif, and thanks for everything!

Shopping and kitty-cats

2006-08-24T12:08:00.000-07:00

Hurray! A whole day full of sunshine! I much prefer Sweden this way. I think my cold is getting better, too. After my class today my friend Aya (from San Francisco) showed me a second-hand shop she found. We had fun there finding all kinds of Swedishy used trinkets and pictures and things. I got some souvenirs and things to decorate my room. Then we found another second-hand store underneath the building across the street. Finding the entrance was quite an adventure, though, and when we found it it was so cute I had to take a picture: So yeah that's basically all I did today. But at least I wasn't all by myself. Hopefully this weekend will be a bit more eventful. For now I'm going to bed. But first, here's a photo I snapped yesterday evening of a rainbow after the rain cleared up a bit:

Oh yeah! Also: I saw a non-black cat today! It was a big orange tabby, much like my Chester. A man was walking it on a leash. What is it with cats on leashes in this country?

Malmo

2006-08-23T08:16:00.000-07:00

Ugh, this cold is starting to really get me down. The weather is all rainy and yucky, too so that's not helping. I think maybe I'll spend this afternoon sleeping in my room.

Last night I went over to Malmo for the music festival they're having this week. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs were playing, which was awesome. After they were done there was a bunch of reggae stuff going on, which I guess is all the rage over here(?). Anyway, it was very fun; me dancing and rubbing elbows with and breathing my germs all over a good portion of the "Eurotrash" population. I didn't get a lot of good pictures, because my camera batteries died again. Here are the few I did take: Patrick and I wait for the train.
Malmo stortorget (which I think means "main square"....not sure.)
This was some reggae/ska band from California. They were not bad.
Me dancing (sort of).

My Plant

2006-08-22T08:11:00.000-07:00

I decided I just couldn't go another day without a house plant.

Glimmingehus

2006-08-22T05:37:00.000-07:00

Saturday's bus tour also took us the the Middle Age castle Glimmingehus, which was built in 1499. Here are the photos from that:

Our Danish tour guide is explaining that instead of toilet paper, people who lived in Nordic castles during the Middle Ages used a "butt-scraper."

View from the top floor window. Most of Skane looks like this.

Kaseberga

2006-08-22T05:08:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos from the bus tour I took last Saturday to southeast Skane:

This is Kaseberga, a small fishing village on the southern shore of Sweden somewhere. Ales Stenar, an ancient man-made stone formation on the hill behind Kaseberga. Ginormous white cows near Ales Stenar.

A fishy Swedish sign.

My sillburgare (herring burger). It was really quite delicious.

Meatballs!

2006-08-21T14:33:00.000-07:00

Yes, I have the sniffly snuffly sneezes. I managed to have a pretty good day in spite of it though. After my class I ran into Lucas, so we found some food. My new favorite Swedish food: chicken kebob. After that Lucas had a class so I set off to mail some postcards, do some shopping, and conquer the laundry system. While I was doing laundry I met a Dutch exchange student who is also studying linguistics! His name is Patrick. He said his korridor kitchen was really gross, and that none of his korridor mates were ever there, so I said he could come to my kitchen. We went to store and got.....meatballs! And pasta and gravy. We had a very Swedish meal and talked linguistics with one of my korridor mates, Andreas, who has studied liguistics himself. They tried to teach me the Swedish vowels. Not too triumphantly. After that Patrick went to a korridor party (which are not allowed but are done all the time anyway) somewhere else. I declined to go because of my snotty head. Before returning to my room I took a picture of this beautiful sunset off the balcony: It was raining earlier today, but by this time it was really nice out. I feel pretty happy to be here.

More later...

2006-08-21T06:02:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to inform everyone that I seem to have caught a Swedish head cold. But now I need to go book a laundry time and look for a shower curtain. Hej da!

Foreign Friends

2006-08-20T03:20:00.000-07:00

On Friday I didn't have any obligations after my class, so I found some food on campus (falafel for pretty cheap), found the library and housing office, found the post office, and set out to do some shopping for phone service and laptop cords. The phone thing turned out to be a big kerfuffle. I had to go to Pressbyran to by the card (Telia only sells the actual phones, apparently), I bought a Telia card but the code didn't work, so I went to the Telia shop to find out why not. I had to take a number and wait for a long time, only to be told the code I had was not a Telia code, so I went back to Pressbyran where I got a new code that still didn't work and then the paper disappeared somehow. I managed to get a refund on the card, but not on the 250 kr I had loaded it with. I decided to forget about phones for a while. I walked down to the electronics store (Kjell & Company) where they had the exact cord I needed for my laptop! Unfortunately, though, they don't sell plug adapters so I won't be able to plug in the phone charger I have even if I do get a card to work. I would probably have to buy a Swedish phone with a Swedish charger, and I'm not sure if it's worth it yet.
While I was shopping I kept running into this Canadian guy named Lucas who I had met earlier, and who lives near me, so we decided to hang out for dinner. He invited me to his korridor for spaghetti. Afterwards we hung out with one of his korridor mates Chris, a Swede who speaks English with a perfect Oxford British accent. We talked about going out to one of the nations (which from what I understand are like student-run pubs) but none of them were open until next week. So Chris showed us where there was a creek running through a sheep pasture behind our complex. We didn't see any sheep; I guess they were sleeping. It was nice to have some cool non-Americans to hang out with. Lucas took this picture of me on our way to the electronics store. This is sort of the outskirts of downtown Lund.
Lucas is a Canadian beer snob; the Swedish 3.5% beer is an insult to him. Chris is a European hottie.
Side-by-side cultural fashion comparison: the Canadian and the Swede.

Lund

2006-08-20T01:56:00.000-07:00

The next day was much better. I got up early to give myself plenty of time to find my Swedish language class, and marked out a route on the map so I wouldn't get lost. I had the first of my early morning walks through Lund, which I now love. It's a quiet town, and even quieter at 7:30 in the morning. I walk about 5 blocks down Fjielivagen, past cute little Swedish residential homes, to Trollebergsvagen, which takes me downtown. Then I pass the Grand Hotel and some swanky shops and restaurants on Klostergatan, then cross the street and walk by the ooooold Lund Cathedral, called Domkyrkan, and past the historical museum, called Kulteren. My Swedish class is held on the third floor of a building (more spiral stairs) on a square where they hold an open-air farmers market on weekdays. It's all just so quaint and European I can't get over it!This is a residential street off of Fjielevagen that I pass on my way to school. Look at the cute little European economy cars! All the houses are old and cute like these.
This is the Grand Hotel. I don't have much to say about it except that it's cool looking.
I think this is the Kulturen building. I'm not sure though. It's something historical anyway.
This is the market outside my class. I bought some apples there the other day. They were pretty good, and cheap: 3 for 7 kronor, which is less than a dollar.

So yeah, like I said, I felt better the second day because I had stuff to concentrate on. I discovered I could use my credit card at the pay phone, so I was able to call home. I started my Swedish class, which is hard as all get out. My teacher is doing the full immersion thing, so she speaks English very rarely, and when she does it isn't that clear. So it's a bit of a challenge, but still, I'm learning. After my first class I had a couple of information meetings to find and go to. I had a VERY hard time staying awake through them, so the information wasn't all that helpful. At the UC meeting I had to deal with a bunch of annoying Californians, which totally interrupted my magical European high I had going. But I did talk to some people and found out where to check my email, where to go for cell phone cards and where I could buy a Swedish cord for my laptop and charge it back up. The stores and library were closed by the time my meeting was over, but I felt better having this knowledge. For dinner I stopped by (*sheepish grin*) Burger King because it was on the way and I thought it would be pretty familiar. It wasn't. It turns out Burger King here is actually a good place to go to avoid Americans, because I was the only non-Swedish speaker there. Also, the food was different and much more expensive. The grilled chicken club I ordered was on a fresh-baked baguette with some yummy mustardy sauce on it. It cost 55kr, which is somewhere between 7 and 9 American dollars, if I'm doing the conversion right. And you have to pay extra if you want ketchup for your fries!
I got semi-lost on the way back to my room. When I found Vildanden I met a black cat who insisted on following me all the way up the stairs to the 5th floor! It was cute. Apparently all Swedish cats are black and friendly, because I've met 2 or 3 more since then in other parts of the town.

This was the sunset that kvall (evening), as seen from the balcony at the end of the korridor. I crashed at about 8:30 and slept until 2:30 am, which was actually better than the night before (9pm to 1am). My sleeping patterns are beginning to return to normal now.

The First Day

2006-08-20T00:31:00.000-07:00

So I made it to Lund, and at this point it was now about 2:30 pm on Wednesday. At the train station I waited in a long line for the vans that were to shuttle us to campus, until finally deciding with a few other students to just walk to the University building, which was only 400 meters from the station. We got there long before the students who had stayed to wait for the shuttles. This is the outside of AF Borgen (AF stands for whatever the Swedish words are for academics and foreign, and I think borgen means 'the building').
Inside the AF building. This is where all the exchange students checked in to the university, registered for the orientation program, and got our housing assignments. This took a long, loooong time. AfterI was done with that, I had to go outside and wait for a shuttle to take me to my student housing building. This also took a long, looooong time. I was dropped off outside of the apartment complex called Vildanden, found my building, and realized there was no elevator. Nobody was around, so I left my suitcase at the bottom and took my other bags up to my room on the 5th floor. Then I went back down to get my suitcase and lugged it up 4 flights of narrow spiral concrete steps. My back muscles are still sore from that episode! But I got it up to my room eventually, and I won't have to worry about that again! As long as I don't buy any furniture while I'm here, I guess.
This is what my room looked like when I first got here. (Yes, it's sideways, sorry about that. I haven't figured out how to rotate pictures after I post them. My future posts will be better, I promise!)
This is the view from my window. Apparently, it's a kindergarten playground down there.

This sticker was inside my closet door, and I just thought it was cute. The closet is a bit smelly, though. The housing is set up like this: you have a key to get into the korridor, and first you come to a little living area with a couch and tv, and a big-ish kitchen (two ovens, two ranges, two sinks, 3 regrigerators.) Then there is a long hallway of about 15 rooms. Each room has its own bathroom and shower. My room is actually much bigger than I expected. It's about the size of a dorm that would be shared by 2 people at UCSB (the only college dorms I've actually been inside.) I have a bed, a bedside table, a desk, two chairs and two floor lamps. There is also a lamp hanging from the ceiling and one sticking out of the wall by the bed. And I have plenty of floor space to do yoga, without having to move anything. What I don't have is curtains or blinds on the windows. That doesn't bother me too much though, since I'm on the 5th floor. I just have to remember to change clothes in the bathroom.
After inspecting my room I met one of my korridor mates, a Swedish guy named Leif. He's here to re-take his final exams from last semester, so he may or may not be here after next week. (Most of the Swedish students won't be here until classes start.) Leif speaks English really well but has more of an accent than some of the Swedes I've met since. I asked him if there was a store nearby where I could buy toilet paper and batteries and such, and he said he was about to go shopping and I could go along. So he showed me the ropes of grocery shopping in Lund. We have a few shops really close to where I live, which is good since I don't have a bike yet. After shopping and arranging my room a bit, and trying and failing to hook up to the internet, I left at about 8 pm to try and make my way back to campus for an informal meeting with my mentor group. However, after walking a few blocks I realized I didn't really know how to get back to campus, and that I really needed to sleep. I got back to my room and discovered that my plug adapter had died (I had exceeded its maximum voltage capacity or something), and that my computer had been running off the battery and now the battery was almost completely dead. I went to bed at about 9 o'clock, crying because I was exhausted, disoriented, I had no way to contact home and no way to look at pictures or watch comforting movies or anything.

My Journey

2006-08-19T22:16:00.000-07:00

Hej, everyone! It's me, Sarah, in Lund, Sweden! I know what everyone really wants is to see pictures, so lets get right to those and I'll fill you in on everything on the way. This is me in the bathroom on the flight from San Diego to Atlanta on Tuesday. That flight wasn't too bad, but the leg from Atlanta to Copenhagen seemed interminable. Here are some things I did in that flight:
-Sat next to a very handsome young Scandinavian man...who put on his headphones and stared out the window the whole time. :(
-Listened to two Swedish toddlers (I think they were twins) take turns screaming and crying.
-Watched Mission Impossible II in both English and Spanish. It's actually more interesting in Spanish.
-Tried to sleep during the 3 hours that the sun wasn't shining.

This is the airport in Copenhagen. I was amazed by how quiet it was! And clean. Once I found my way to the baggage claim, it wasn't too hard to find other UC students. They were loud and obnoxious and stupid, and stuck out like a sore thumb. But since I had no clue how to find the train, I decided to stick with them for a while. There were a couple of Australians with us too. We eventually found are way downstairs to the train station, bought tickets, and somehow got on the right train.

Here we are on the train to Lund. The girl on the far left and everyone on the right side is from the US. The others, from left to right, are from Germany, Mexico City, Australia and Australia. Those American girls were really annoying. I couldn't get away from them fast enough. My next post will be all about my first day after arriving in Lund.