Starting classes, the beach, crazy apartment parties, and grocery shopping failures :)

Today begins my third week in Lund and my second week of classes! Currently I am taking two courses: Evolutionary Psychology and Swedish Film. Since I wasn't expecting to be able to get into the psychology class, I was originally planning on taking three Special Area Studies courses (basically classes that focus on a very specific topic, such as The Roman Empire or History of Swedish Music). My psychology course is worth 15 credits (each SAS course is worth 7.5), so I had to drop two SAS courses. I couldn't be happier to be in psychology though - I really wanted to take something that actually applied to what I am studying at home.

I am also looking forward to Swedish Film. The class itself is at night, which isn't ideal, but we watch a film every class with an hour of discussion before and after. Last week, we watched an Ingmar Bergman film called Wild Strawberries. The film itself was odd, but some of it took place in Lund and it was really cool to recognize the Cathedral and such.

I have absolutely fallen in love with biking here. At home, I don't particularly like to bike. DU's campus is so small that it doesn't really make sense to bike and in Longmont I only tend to bike when I'm going to a friend's house nearby or when it's at night with Tyler. In Lund, I bike EVERYWHERE. I rented my bike from a shop that doubles as a cafe - the bike is brand new and I'll return it at the end of the semester and get half of my money back (as long as it's in good shape). I love walking, but biking makes getting everywhere so much easier, and there are definitely far more bikes than cars here. I'm getting more used to biking on the streets - cars respect bikes here much more than they do at home.  I'm also adjusting to biking with groups of people - it makes getting across town much quicker but sometimes it's hard to make sure everyone is still with the group. My bike also has a basket (it wasn't installed yet in the picture below), which makes getting groceries much easier.

My lovely bike (yet to be named) :)

Thanks to my bike, and to running most days, I have been exploring the city a LOT more. I still get lost (all of the little cobblestoned streets with colorful houses tend to look the same), but I have landmarks - the AF Building, the library, the Botanical Gardens - and street names - Klostergatan, Paradisgatan, Allhegona Kyrkogata, Carl Bernlundsgata (my street) - that I somewhat recognize, so that makes things a bit easier. When I go for runs, I tend to just point myself in a specific direction and run through little side streets that look interesting. Weirdly enough I tend to end up in a lot of the same spots, even when I don't mean to.

I take pictures of google maps with my phone literally any time I have to go somewhere new for class

One of my favorite streets in Lund. There's nothing particularly special about it, but I always seem to end up here on my runs. I think the building on the left is beautiful and the yellow building at the end of the street is an elementary school

Everyone I live with drinks tea and it's beginning to rub off on me. I thought I drank a lot of tea at home (thanks to Lauren working at Celestial Seasonings), but not compared to everyone here. I've found that there's something very comforting about having a warm cup of tea between my hands, especially when a friend has made it for me. I think it will be even nicer when the weather gets colder (it's already starting to cool down a lot). 

I am particularly attached to this cup :)

Last Wednesday, Regina, Alice and I took the train to Malmö - a city about 15 minutes away. It's one of the largest cities in Sweden and is even further south than Lund. We didn't really go with a plan for what to do, so we started by picking a park on the map and walking there. 

There ended up being a BEAUTIFUL botanical garden and a river running through the park. There was also a windmill off in the distance and a little dock where we sat for a bit. We had fika at a little cafe in the gardens. 

We tried (and failed) to take some pictures of the three of us in front of the windmill :)

We didn't end up actually doing much in Malmö - besides getting very lost trying to find a church on the map (which ended up actually being a giant graveyard - another failed attempt to read Swedish). We did find the most DELICIOUS hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant, where we each had gigantic pizzas and split a bottle of wine. 

At Lund, there are thirteen "nations" or student groups that you can choose to join. The nations hold events such as pubs, clubs, brunches, etc and once you're a member of one nation, you can go to the events of any nations (unlike fraternities or sororities at home). I chose to join Hallands Nation, somewhat randomly, but mostly because I got a good feel from the flyer and the people I talked to. On Friday, a group of us went to Hallands for dinner and to watch the soccer (football) game Sweden vs Ireland. Dinner was great - the pub is super cozy and the food was good, especially the dessert.

Lucia!

 Coffee and bread pudding

Cheering for Ireland! (Only because of Kate) :)

After the pub, we were able to go straight into the club, where there was dancing and actually good music. The night was SO fun - we met so many people and danced for awhile. These Swedish guys kept dancing with a group of us. Some of them seemed to be fairly drunk and they were dancing outrageously. One of them (who was probably over six feet) lifted me OVER his head while we were dancing. It was terrifying and hilarious at the same time. 

This picture is actually from one of the welcome parties, but it's hilarious because none of us have any idea who the guy on the left is. He looks very comfortable though!

On the way home, I let Linde ride my bike since she didn't have one and I rode on the back (she's a better biker than I am). Unfortunately, we rode too close to something and I hit my leg, so now I have a bruise the diameter of a baseball on my shin. I need to come up with a better story for how I got it...

This past weekend, a very large group of us went to Lomma Beach. By bus, it's about ten minutes away and by bike about 45 minutes (12km). Most people went on the bus, but a group of us (Kate, Alice, Regina, Simon, Anubhav and Yoana) biked. The ride there was beautiful - it was mostly through countryside with huge windmills. We got a bit lost and Kate got a flat (poor Jean - her bike), but we eventually made it to the beach. 

Lomma beach was a bit more rocky than Falsterbo had been, and there were less waves, but the weather was MUCH better. It was actually warm enough to lie out in swimsuits - basically tropical for Sweden. The water was incredibly shallow - even extremely far from shore it was only about knee-deep. 

 Linde had me take a picture through her sunglasses :)

The beach was extremely relaxing - we all just ate and occasionally walked out into the water. We left after a few hours and the ride back was brutal. It was against the wind and somewhat uphill and we were all exhausted by the time we got back. I think it was definitely still worth it to bike though. 

Saturday night, our building had a HUGE birthday party for three of the boys upstairs. The theme of the party was Hometown Throwdown, and you were supposed to wear things from your home country. I had packed nothing that had anything to do with the US, since DU warns us about being overly patriotic while we're abroad. Luckily, Francesco downstairs had a shirt that said USA in large letters on the front, so I wore that. Linde wore orange and painted the Dutch flag on her face, Alice wore her Team GB shirt, and Regina painted the American flag on her face. At first, there weren't many people at the party but a group of people that none of us knew all showed up at once. The party had been all over Facebook and it ended up being wild - one of my roommates guessed that there were at least 200 people in the apartment at one point. I was grateful that it wasn't on our floor, because the flat was absolutely trashed by the end of the night. I had a great time though!

Most of these pictures were taken in our flat downstairs, so you can't see how crowded it was. 

 I'm getting pretty good at grocery shopping using pictures, since I can't read anything in Swedish. The first week I bought fabric softener instead of detergent and two shampoos instead of a conditioner. I am improving slightly, though I'm still really sticking to buying the basics. I love watching people shop in our main grocery store (ICA Malmborg), because there is such a culture difference. In the US, families stock up giant shopping carts full of chips, boxes of cereal, etc. Here, adults only ever really have smaller baskets and most of what people buy seems to be more fresh produce and healthier food. I love seeing people biking with their little kids in seats on the back of the bike too.

This is what the ICA usually looks like - only without the scary guy on the left and it is usually MUCH more crowded. 

My cooking is slightly improving as well. I finally cooked a meal just for myself!

It actually tasted much better than it looks in the picture, but it was pasta with mushrooms, tomatoes, olives and sauce. 

Also made this all by myself - pasta with tomatoes, spinach, salmon and pesto. Basically I'm just trying to master pasta first. 

Alice and I bought margharita pizzas at the store and added our own ingredients on top - mine had mushrooms, spinach, and meatballs!

We have also started cooking other things like chili, quesadillas, etc. Please let me know if you have other very simple recipes :)

Living the Dream!