Stockholm, Sept. 28-31

Stockholm is an incredible city. It feels like a very small city, although it stretches quite far. I believe that it is the old part of the city, Gamla Stan that gives it this amazingly quaint feeling. The ridiculously narrow, old cobblestone streets wind around the only hill in the entire city, making me feel like I’m in the middle ages. The buildings lining the streets are all painted yellows, oranges and reds, giving the old city a bright feel that must be very necessary in the cold, dark months of winter.


Getting around in Stockholm is very easy because they have a fabulous subway system (Tunnelbana), which even has art installations at each of the stops along the Blue Line. We got an easy 72 hour pass, and then were able to go anywhere on the trains for the whole weekend. We arrived in the city around noon after taking a very short flight up there (flying can actually be cheaper than taking the train in a lot of cases). We met up with Johan, a guy who I met in my corridor, but who transferred up to Stockholm for school. It was very nice to have someone to tell us about the city in greater detail than our Lonely Planet could. We followed a walking tour that the guidebook told us about, and Johan added a lot, telling us that we were standing outside of the everyday residence of the Prime Minister! We saw the building where all of the Nobel Prizes are presented, except for the Peace Prize, which is given in Oslo, Norway. The whole city is an archipelago, so everywhere we went we were crossing bridges and looking at the water.


Apparently the water here is so clean that you could drink it, although it is not suggested that you try. Johan told us a story about when Stockholm was in the running to host the Olympics and each city made a promotional film to try to lure it to their city and an official in Stockholm jumped into the water, proving that it is safe to swim in and then started drinking the water to prove how clean it is. Needless to say, we did not go swimming because the temperature was very cold on Friday. To warm up, we got some coffee at a very cute little café in one of the Torgets (squares). Friday was very successful in terms of sightseeing and it felt like we walked all over the city, even though it was only a small part.


On Saturday Maria and another friend Zane, who was also visiting Stockholm, and I snuck into a cross-country race, Lidingö Loppet, which is considered the biggest one in the world. We had been thinking about registering for it, but race-day registration was quite expensive, so we just decided to run anyway. We hiked up the trail a ways because we couldn’t start with everyone since we didn’t have numbers. I just ran a 4K loop, but Maria and Zane did the 10K loop. It was a lot of fun, but it was a little wet out, however much warmer than Friday. This ended up being the most productive thing we did all day since we spent the rest of it with a group of people from Lund who were visiting to, and trying to figure out what to do with a huge group of people can be rather challenging!



On Sunday we went to the History Museum and learned about Vikings and their crazy violence, and then went to a huge outdoor museum, Skansen, that consisted of a zoo as well as many historical buildings with people dressed up for the time periods. Maria and I spent the whole afternoon exploring Skansen, and it turned out to be the Fall Festival because it was the last day that it was open for the season. It was also Apple Day as we found out and we got to roast some apples over a fire and then eat them with cinnamon and sugar.


There was a tent with over 400 varieties of apples, amazing! Skansen is a beautiful representation of Swedish history through buildings and culture. They have artisans blowing glass, working at a book press, blacksmithing, and making the best smelling baked goods in the world.


Because it was the Fall Festival, there was a huge outdoor market place where that looked a lot like a town fair in Vermont. Maria and I had to play in the hay for a little while, of course!














I was very impressed by the fact that there were historically-dressed people washing all of the dishes from the different food stands, with water that was being heated in a very ancient looking wood-burning stove. I don’t know if everyone will find that as interesting as I do, but in the US disposable paper or plastic plates and utensils are used when dealing with that many people, or a dishwasher comes into play at some point. Another amazing feature of Skansen is the Scandinavian Animals. I got to see a bear, a reindeer, a lynx, and a lot of other amazing animals. One of the most typical Swedish souvenirs is a painted wooden horse, and Maria and I found a life-size one and had quite a hart time getting up on it, but with the help of some other tourists we managed to climb up and have them take our photo.


All in all, it was a fabulous trip, although our accommodations were pretty expensive for what they were. We flew back to Lund on Monday morning, so we really got three whole days to explore the city. I would go back to Stockholm in a second, but I am still very content with the little city of Lund!

UC Excursion to IKEA and Wanås, Sept. 15

The University of California Study Center here takes us on a few field trips throughout the semester. For our first one we went to none other than the first ever IKEA. As it turns out, this is not the most exciting of destinations, although we did get to leave Skåne, the southern-most region in Sweden, even if only by a few kilometers. This particular IKEA, although filled with all of the same merchandise, is slightly different from the cookie-cutter stores found everywhere else, given that it was the first store ever. After getting a tour of the store, and yes that means an IKEA employee walked us around the store telling us the theories behind tricking people into putting things in their cart, we got a free lunch and visited the IEKA Museum (which takes all of five minutes to see if you keep walking).

Luckily, though, there was a second part to our daylong excursion, a castle, Wanås Slot, with a huge outdoor sculpture garden.














The woods actually looked like Vermont. I felt so at home, and the art installations were pretty fun and entertaining.
































It was a huge change in scenery to be walking outside in the woods, not only from IKEA, but also from Lund, which is a lot of old buildings and very little forest. I was very happy to see this second, since I found it so much more exciting and beautiful (not that consumerism isn’t very fascinating!). I guess that I am really a country girl at heart, since seeing trees makes me feel so complete.

The beach at Bjärred

On Saturday, I woke up to see clouds outside; and a light rain was settling over everything. I still had a very strong desire to bike to the beach, though, and luckily I have friends as motivated as I am! Maria and Sarah agreed that it was still worth it to bike to the beach, even though the weather was sub-optimal. By the time we actually left, around noon, it was not raining anymore, but the clouds still covered the sky. We packed swimsuits, towels, and cameras, and set out with a biking map of Lund. We were a bit unsure about the direction of out destination, and we had to stop frequently to reorient ourselves. Finally we reached the sign pointing in the direction of Bjärred, the beach we were aiming for. From this point on, there was no bike path, only a very narrow road that looked like it stretched on for miles and miles through open farmland.

The farmhouses along the way were beautiful old stone buildings, some with traditional thatched roofs. We had to bike single file to avoid getting hit by cars as they shot past us. Finally, after biking for what seemed like much too long and coming to the conclusion that we had definitely taken the wrong road, we saw another sign for Bjärred. We could then see the ocean and the long bridge over to Copenhagen. We were biking into the wind the whole way, and we definitely got a very good workout. It took us about an hour to get to Bjärred, with a few stops along the way to take pictures.













Once we go to the little town we saw some fruit trees laden with apples and pears in someone’s driveway. There is a law in Sweden saying that you can pick fruit on other peoples property if the fruit would go to waste, so we picked away. We filled our bike baskets with apples, and had to lift Sarah up so she could get some really high ones. They tasted great and we each ate one before we continued on our way to the beach.









The sun was almost poking out of the clouds by this point and at the end of the pier we could see a patch of sun, perfectly covering the café were we aimed to have some lunch. We sat out there and ate and talked for quite a while. The café was glass on all sides so we could look out at the ocean. We dipped our feet in the water, but it was too cold to try to swim. If it had been sunny, though, we totally would have gone it!




For some reason the walk back on the pier seemed like the longest trek in the world. As you can see, it’s a very long narrow pier, and when it’s a bit cold, and very windy, it feels even longer.















The ride back home seemed very short compared to the journey there. I guess when you know that you’re going in the right direction the trip feels shorter. I am so happy that we made it to the beach, since I have been talking about that since I got here. It was not a hard ride at all, given that everything is completely flat here, so I will definitely try to do it again soon.



Amazingly, we did end up swimming once we got back home, because there was a pool party in Delphi! Somehow a bunch of people filled a pool with very hot water, and we hung out there for quite a while. Oh, Sweden!

Life in Lund

(photo of Maria and Sarah)
So far, I’ve mostly written about adventures I’ve had, and I have neglected to share the biggest adventure of all, my daily life here. I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather, so I haven’t been going out at night very much this week. My classes are only in the afternoon, so I have been able to sleep in the mornings. And for those of you who know me well, you know that I feel very unproductive when I sleep late, and I feel like I’ve been wasting my time. This has been a bit frustrating, but I just tell myself that I am doing it for health reasons. Because of my afternoon classes, I don’t get out of my dorm until one o’clock sometimes, and that limits my exploring time, since it is usually late by the time I get out of class. I will have to go exploring earlier in the day once I feel better. The city of Lund has a great gym called Gerdahallen. Everyone goes there, and I mean EVERYONE. There are young college kids working out next to 90 year-old women. Everyone here is very fit and cares deeply about their personal health. It is very motivating to be surrounded by these people. There are about 200 different work-out classes offered each week, and they are all packed. They have everything from spinning, to step, to yoga. They basically have every class imaginable, and also have a regular gym with machines and stuff and one just for women. I signed up for a membership there and I have gone there a few times so far. My first experience there was a little distressing though. I ran into my german friend on my way there to sign up for my membership. She said that she was going to a step class and that I should join here. I tried to tell her that I am really bad at things that are choreographed, and I have never done a step class before, but she wouldn’t accept my excuses. Somehow she convinced me to go with her to this Step class, which I actually think might have been an advanced class, and it was a complete disaster. I think that even if it had been in English I would have felt like the idiot in the room, but of course it was in Swedish, so I was just following the people around me. We were standing near the front of the room, of course, so everyone was surely thinking, what the hell is she doing here? The class lasted for over an hour, and I stuck with it. I kept laughing out loud, which luckily no one could hear because the music was so loud. It was a very funny experience, but I think I will avoid Step classes from now on. Yoga on the other hand, I can do in any language, and I have really enjoyed their classes so far. I will hopefully get to the yoga classes on a regular basis.
Right now I am taking Swedish Language and Population, Settlement, and Economic Geography (of Sweden). Both classes are going well. The Economic Geography class is my favorite. We will go on three field trips for it, which is very exciting! Classes here seem to be pretty disorganized and sometimes there are conflicts in my schedule and I just have to be late to the other class. My Economic Geography class meets at different times each week and in different rooms sometimes, very strange. Swedish Language is going alright. Hopefully I will be able to hold a simple conversation in a few weeks. I don’t have class on Friday, so I will try to do some traveling on my three-day weekends.

I live in a Swedish corridor, so most of the students are gone for the most part. I hang out with them sometimes at meals, when we are cooking in the kitchen. It is hard having to make all of my meals here. In Santa Cruz it was nicer because there were only a few of us sharing a kitchen, and Sophie and I really liked cooking together, but here it gets a little repetitive just making food for myself. I find that it is easiest just to make a sandwich or pasta. I have to learn to be more creative, but I am a little scared to try making their famous meatballs. I guess maybe I just have to make plans to cook with other people on a regular basis. The kitchen is also a little gross, so I am always a little hesitant to spend a lot of time there.
Sometimes I hang out with the guys in my corridor at night and watch a movie with them. It seems like they are a couple years behind us in terms of popular movies and TV shows. The show Heroes, which my housemates watched last year, is just starting to air here. It’s pretty funny to watch American shows with Swedish subtitles. According to my corridor mates, though, the translations don’t quite catch the humor most of the time. Good thing they all speak perfect English!
This is my mailbox, if anyone wants to send me a postcard or something.
My address is:
Magistratsvägen 55 C:419
226 44 Lund, Sweden

Copenhagen

Saturday was a beautiful, sunny and warm day in Lund, so it was a bummer to get on a train away from here, and I just hoped that Copenhagen would be the same. As it turned out, it was just as sunny there, and I got to explore the city sans rain. My friend from Santa Cruz, Michelle is studying there for the fall, and she met me at the train station and showed me around her beautiful city. It was great to see a big city, but it made me appreciate my little city of Lund, which is so manageable.
Although Denmark is a very small country, in the past the Danish kings controlled most of northern Europe, and the buildings and statues validate this in their grand and powerful presence. It truly is an incredible city filled with so many years of history.
Michelle took my friend Kyle and me on a biking tour of the city. We hit some very touristy places that she had not been to yet. I have found that it is much easier to see the tourist-filled places when you are showing someone else.
Michelle lives in an old house with a bunch of other international students. The building is beautiful from the outside, but as soon as we walked in the front door, we could smell years of tobacco smoke that has seeped into the walls, as well as some other funky smells that we couldn’t identify. The smell actually went away, though, as we walked up the flights of stairs to the top floor, where they are living. Their space is so small, with only a kitchen and bathroom as shared living space. Michelle has a nice big room, though, so it doesn’t feel too cramped. After lunch, we borrowed bikes from her housemates and set out to explore the city.


We saw beautiful parks, statues, old buildings, and tons of signs in Danish, which is an even more obscure language than Swedish. Michelle took us to Christiania, an area declared a “free city” by its inhabitants in 1971. Before declaring autonomy from Copenhagen, it was filled with many young and homeless people and was pretty much left alone by the government. It is now filled with many street vendors, crazy hippies, smoke shops, artist studios, and just about any drug you could think of. It is a very intriguing place, and surprisingly it is supported by most of the Danish population according to my guidebook. It is a very colorful and vibrant little walled-off part of town, but there is an ordinance against taking photographs while you are there, so I have no pictures to show you.
After Christiania, we went to Nyhavn, a beautiful harbor with many colorful buildings. This was definitely a highlight for me, and we had some amazing ice cream, so that really topped things off. It was phenomenal that it was so sunny and warm while we were there, because the weather changes so rapidly throughout the day in this part of the world.
It was a short but sweet trip to Copenhagen for day, but given that it takes less than an hour to get from Lund to there, it is a trip that I will definitely do a few more times.

Barsebäckshamn

On Sunday (Sondag), Susan took me to a place called Barsebäckshamn. It is the most beautiful little coastal village! All of the houses are so darling, and yet they are so sturdy because they have to stand up against the harsh winds that blow off of the sea. It was a particularly windy day when we were there, and the air felt like autumn. It is refreshing for me to be living in a place with seasons again, although I do miss the clear, sunny, warm days in Santa Cruz. Even though the air felt cold, there were quite a few kids swimming in the waves. A sign said that the water temperature was 18 degrees (about 65 in Fahrenheit), but the kids looked like they were just in a bath. Susan and I decided not to join them, needless to say. There is an amazing path that goes along the water and passes by the houses and we walked on that for a while. It was very windy, though, and I was feeling a little under the weather, so we went back to the little café by the harbor and had coffee and a little waffle. I feel so privileged to be shown around by a local, who knows all of the best spots! Thank you so much Ralph and Michelle, I wish you were here too to show me around!

Parties and Sightseeing

My Swedish class is going very well. I love the people in my class. There is only one other American in the class, and to me, our Swedish accents sound terrible. It sounds like all of the various European accents are so much closer to Swedish, but I have been assured that we all sound about the same. By the end of week one, I can introduce myself, count to 1000, name the days of the week, months, and seasons, I can tell the time, and name conjugate a list of verbs. It was a long week with 3.5 hours of class a day, but I have come to know the coffee shops around my classroom well, and I frequent them on our two fifteen-minute breaks. I have class in the afternoon, so I have been able to sleep in, and give myself enough time to bike down to campus. I have one more week of this class and then my regular classes will commence.
Somehow, I have not figured out the quickest way to bike down to the center, and I go a different way each time. I look forward to being confidant that I am going the right way. Last night I think I took a route that I had taken before with someone, and if I can do it again, I think I will be set. There are amazing bike paths everywhere, and it is much faster to bike than to drive or take the bus. The bike paths are very well planned, which goes to show that if cities in the US really wanted to become bike-friendly, they could do it.
On Friday night I went to the International Student Welcome Party. It was a lot of fun to be with people from all around the world. I spent most of the night with friends from my Swedish class. They are from, Holland, Germany, Austria, and France. It seems like it will be more challenging to meet people from Sweden since so many international students surround us. I am very thankful that I live in a Swedish corridor. When I got home from the party, the guys in my corridor were having a little after-party and singing Swedish drinking songs. Everyone had a little book with the words to a lot of festive drinking songs (you can’t find this happening in any international corridor). I look forward to getting to know my neighbors better, but it seems as though they are all very busy and hardly ever in their rooms, other than to sleep.
On Saturday I went on an excursion with international students. We visited a castle from the middle ages, and saw a Viking monument that looks like a little Stonehenge. My German friend Eva, and I hung out and had lunch and walked around the monument. The benches above, looking out over the ocean is where we had lunch. It was very beautiful, but I was pretty tired from a very late night, and I felt like such a tourist as I got out of the bus with my camera and a hundred other students. There are other trips planned for this fall for all of the UC students, which will be a lot of fun.
Today, Sunday, it is raining on and off, and it is pretty cold out. I was planning on going on a long bike-ride with Susan and Maria, but that plan has been ruined by the weather. I guess I have to get used to being flexible with plans.
I miss all of you very much and I would love to hear how you are all doing! Email me updates in your lives! I love you and I will post more soon.