Flooding in Longmont, the Language Cafe, Dalby National Park and Gangsters

The weeks really do fly by here in Lund. My goal is to publish a blog post every Monday!

This past week, I have felt extremely far from home for the first time since being here. If you've been reading the news, or if you've been online really, you may have seen what's happening in my hometown. I am from Longmont, Colorado which is just outside of Boulder (a more well-known town in Colorado). As we are completely landlocked and right next to mountains, my town does not experience natural disasters. Last Thursday, my mom texted me that all schools and most roads were closed, bridges had collapsed, and hundreds of people had been evacuated due to intense flooding in the area. Colorado is a notoriously dry state, so I was shocked when I saw some of the pictures of my poor hometown and the surrounding area. The situation is so severe that President Obama approved federal disaster assistance for our county (and surrounding counties) and National Guard trucks/helicopters have been evacuating people, especially from more remote locations.

One of my favorite bike paths to run on at home

Our area received more rain in a week than it would usually receive from July-December

My family is lucky - our house has not been flooded and my parents haven't had to evacuate (we're up a hill from where most of the flooding has happened). My grandparents' basement was flooded and my Mom said that they were staying up all night with their Wet-Vac trying to minimize the damage. I feel so distant watching familiar places be washed away in the span of a week. I've talked to my friend Mackenzie, who is studying abroad in Brussels and who is originally from Longmont as well, about how helpless we feel being so far away and how sad it is to see. Right now I think it's easier to distance myself when I look at pictures of the destruction, but I think it will be devastating to return home in a few months to a town that I expected to be the same as I left it. The pictures below were sent from my Mom:

My Mom and brother in front of the military vehicles stationed at a major flood entry point (a few blocks from my house)

 About five minutes from my house - my usual route to work 

Just down the hill from my house (Bowen & 1st Ave)

On a happier note, Sweden has been great and slightly more dry (though I get to look forward to a week-long forecast of nothing but rain.) 

Classes are enjoyable, though I still feel like I attend so little actual class time during the week (I only have class on Tuesdays and Thursdays). I had my first real psychology seminar - we talked about the Wason Selection task, which I've learned about in previous psychology classes. Here is an example of the puzzle (pulled from wikipedia): Your hypothesis is that if a card has the number 2 on it, then it must have a letter B on the other side. You are given four cards - 2, 7, D and B. Which two cards must you turn over to prove or disprove your hypothesis? The answer is the cards 2 and D, because obviously you want to see if there is a B on the card that has a 2, and if the card D has a 2 on the other side, then your hypothesis is disproved. 

The interesting part of the seminar wasn't really the selection task - it was going out in groups of five or six and asking random people which cards they would need to turn over. We usually tried to first explain to people in English what the task was, but there were also two Swedish girls in my group, so they would explain further if the individual still didn't understand the task. I was one of the ones to explain in English, but I didn't feel like I was doing a very good job. We were supposed to observe which sets of cards were easier for the person to pick the right two - but mostly we just struggled to explain the task. 

In Swedish Film, we watched a film called "Korkarlen" or "The Phantom Carriage." It was based off of a book by Selma Lagerlof (a very famous author in Sweden). I thought the movie was really interesting - the ghosts and the carriage were filmed using double exposure, where the actor is first shot with a black background (so part of the film isn't exposed), then the tape is carefully rewinded and used to film again - this time with the ghost's image.

Here is an example (the actor -Victor Sjorstrum - is rising out of his body after he has been killed):

The Phantom Carriage is a silent film from 1921 and the story would pause every so often to display text on the screen of dialogue or narration. The story was similar to A Christmas Carol, where the man dies and a ghost forces him to reevaluate his life up to that point. I thought it was an entertaining film, but I think it would have been much better if it was shorter. Stopping to display words and the lack of sound (besides the soundtrack - which wasn't bad) made the film go much slower than it would have otherwise.

On Wednesday, Linde and I decided to bike to Dalby National Park, which was about 7 miles away. The weather was nice and we biked slowly - partially because a lot of the ride was uphill and partially to appreciate how scenic everything was. Like the ride to the beach, there were beautiful landscapes the whole way.

Being away from the city was incredibly peaceful. Once we got away from the road, it was like being in the middle of no where. We had a little picnic in the forest with grapes, bananas, and kanelbullar of course. The trees in the forest were absolutely amazing - their branches were spiraled and everything was incredibly green.  

 "They look like antlers!"

 Slugs!

The sun was setting on our ride back

On Friday, a group of us went to a "Language Cafe" set up by one of the middle schools in Lund for young students to practice their English with international students. It was about a 15 minute bike ride away and the school was amazing. Though it was a public school, it looked like the private schools at home - the buildings were on a campus with numerous areas for different sports. The kids in the English class had made Swedish pastries and prepared coffee for us to have while we talked to them. 

When we arrived, we were paired up and matched with students to talk to. Lucia and I were matched with Diem and Gregory, two boys who were fourteen and fifteen. Both were accompanied by helpers, since they had some kind of special needs. Gregory spoke perfect English and Diem was able to communicate to some extent - his English was still far better than my Swedish. They asked us where we were from, what we liked to do, etc. Gregory talked about how he had lived in Australia for four years, before returning back to Sweden. He talked about WWI and WWII and about how much he loves history. He also proclaimed "The United States is my favorite country!" When I asked if he had been he said no, so I suggested he visit Colorado :)

Diem was adopted from Vietnam and had lived in Sweden since he was two years old. He was extremely smiley and told us about the competitive soccer (football) team he plays for. Both boys gave us a tour around the school - we saw their music room (SO many guitars!) and art classroom.

After both Diem and Gregory had to leave (Diem had to catch a train and Gregory a taxi), we talked briefly to three of the boys that Alice and Kate had been talking to. One of the boys was SO confident - especially for a fourteen-year-old. They talked about ice hockey and places to get tickets for football matches. I REALLY want to go to a football or hockey game soon. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures at the school. 

That night a huge group of us went to a party that was at a chapel that had been turned into an accommodation. The building itself was amazing, but it was really far away - about 25 minutes by bike. On the way there Mathias directed us (looking at Google Maps on his phone while riding precariously close to everyone with no hands), but on the way back we took a wrong turn and ended up in the middle of a creepy Swedish forest. Lucia decided that she was tired - in the middle of riding through the forest - and wanted to stop, but we all yelled that this was the point in the story where we would all get murdered if we stopped moving. We ended up making it back to the apartment okay :)

Leaving the chapel party!

On Saturday, there was a party at Spoletorp South that was gangster-themed. The party itself was pretty small and a little awkward, but Alice, Regina, Yoana and I dressed up as gangsters and wrote things on our knuckles (mine just said "GANG-STER"). We tried to take a series of serious pictures, but most of them turned out ridiculous. 

After picking out our outfits, we realized that Alice was actually dressed as Kim Possible...

Bram channeling his inner girl-gangster

The result of most of our attempts

 The most convincing of our pictures - Regina with the most terrifying face as usual

This weekend we are off to Copenhagen, so expect lots of pictures on my post next Monday! 

LTD!

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!