latvija

Wow.
they spoke a lot of Latvian.


more to come...

EuroFather

Well, I hope Dad got into Copenhagen alright this morning. Tomorrow I will meet him at the train station in Lund and we will begin our mini tour of Europe. Lund-Stockholm-Riga-Prague in two weeks, then I will spend some time in a couple metropolitan East Coast areas before hopping to the other side and basking in the California-ness that my fellow students have been longing for. It rubbed off on me.

I am terribly excited to see Dad! Any piece of CA and family will surely make me happy. But unfortunately, it started raining again yesterday, which means it's raining today (though bright). I hope tomorrow the sunniness continues without the rain so Dad and I can ride bikes around town. Bikes are big here.

Packing up also makes me down since the white walls return and my dorm room is a bit more institutional.

back to the future

My time here has recently been spent planning and searching my upcoming weeks- I'm looking for hostel/hotel deals online, arranging visits from friends and affirming plans for my return to SoCal. This week is our last in the program, so we've been getting in a lot of bonding. Last night was another birthday party, and tonight we're returning to one of our favorite haunts, Lunds Nation, a student bar/sometimes restaurant that serves appropriately priced beers.

Mark's friend has left; Patrick's girlfriend has left; Ximena's boyfriend has left. Soon we will leave, too. We're planning a Lund reunion roadtrip for the winter break that starts in the south and picks up people along the way, ending our caravan in San Fransisco for a fun night. We'll see if our plans are birthed into reality- it would be really fun.

I'll miss the awesome greenbelt.

reading and apples

There's not so much to report on now- lots of people have their girlfriends or friends visiting for a little or a lot of time, so we have new people on our floor. (Kansas' girlfriend is staying for almost three weeks! but they're travelling a LOT so she won't be burdensome on our hall)

I've spent a lot of time researching on line and reading (course books on poverty but fiction too- Harry Potter, Margaret Atwood, random stuff left here by former dorm dwellers) and I'm feeling a bit dumb to be so solitarily Lundian.

I may go to the next Malmo football game, tuesday again.

I read one of my friend's blogs today about how she spent an awesome long weekend in Paris and encountered kindness from some other tourists. It was a simple yet touching snippet about the generosity of humanity-- namely, free dinner! And a request to pay it forward someday in the future. Awesome.

Thinking about Latvija and Prague....

stuff about school, since it's halfway

Our first module (first class of the two real classes we're taking, beyond introductory Swedish language and history/politics/culture) has ended today. heck yes, sucker! Too bad, I had a great time in this class, Environmental Governance. Some of the other classes seemed to have severe problems, like a terrible teacher, but we mostly all had a good time. Here's an email I sent to parents, copied here for public viewing as well.


<<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6907177.stm

I wrote a kind of big paper (about chemical regulation, thus the link) over the course of the last four days or so. I also edited someone's paper this morning before I rea through mine one last time- from 430-6 this morning. Then I had time for mine and emailed it in. I feel I did pretty well though and when we had our evaluations and critiques of them in class later today we got a chance to defend them and answer questions from some of our classmates and from our professors. The environmental governance class I've just finished had a Post 2012 Kyoto Protocol role play also, and we had "representatives" from the EU (Sweden, played by an American student), the G77 developing nations group (China), Alliance of Small Island States (Samoa), the USA, and OPEC (Saudi Arabia). Plus the IPCC and Climate Action Network were represented but they don't have voting power. Anyway, I was the Secretariat and a Swedish girl, Sara Bjork Jensen played the chair. That was fun.
I saw my paper on the way out of class today; I got an A-. The other assignments were definitely informative/educational but I really liked our class because it was taught by two main professors, both Swedish, and actually taught by guest lecturers. One of our professors was from Colorado, but the others were various Swedish profs. We mainly learned about policy and US vs EU politics of the environment. I am so glad I'm here. I'm sort of scared for the future, environmentally, but I'm excited to keep learning more about everything I'm on track to learn about, especially back at UCSB. My next class, starting Monday, is Globalization and Poverty. I bet we'll talk about the IMF World Bank WTO and "security issues". This class will be taught by a UCSC prof, so it may not be so thrilling as the last one.

love, maia >>

Hamlet and Castles

Our optional excursion to Fredricksburg Castle on Friday was pretty fun and eventful- we took a train to a ferry to cross the Oresund to Helsingor, then a train to Hillerod where the castle is. The first city is where the ferry left and the second is where the ferry landed and where Hamlet's castle is: Helsingor and Helsingborg . Pictures of Hamlet adverts and the castle:
Tanya and I took too long at the Hamlet city and we missed the group on the train to Fredricksborg Castle, but we were able to figure out where we needed to go and how to get there without contacting anyone from our program- since Tanya's phone mysteriously did not work in Denmark. damn. Why did we take so long? well, after a leisurely lunch we still had about hour before the train left, so she went into a shop to find shoes, and I went into a shop to find jeans. And we succeeded, but late.
Here's my good reason: it was a Sally's, so I had to contribute! (picture will be inserted here)

The castle was gorgeous but the tour was a bit long- Tanya and I made it for the last half hour, but we were not sad to have missed the first 40 minutes or so. Gorgeous interiors:Sweet symmetrical garden behind:View from the gardens:
A bunch of us stopped at the JFK Pub to relax for a bit after the castle tour. Weird little place with a dozen portraits of the president and a giant stuffed eagle- plus one wall is bookshelf. Classy, but strange. We sat outside, as it was a ridiculously sunny and beautiful day.
As usual, we ended up returning through Copenhagen so we got some time to play around there again. We considered seeing the Harry Potter movie but we would have to wait for a long time before it started, so we went to dinner instead. So we saw it the next day, Saturday, instead. It was so good! I recommend it. The pacing was great and the action sequences, despite being all wand based, were pretty gripping. Plus the kiss that was hyped up and I believed to be a nothing kiss, a simple peck, ended up being a substantial half minute scene. Oh Daniel Radcliffe.

We are now at the end of our first module and my final paper is due tomorrow morning, followed by a skim-through of everyone else's papers and a critique-and-defend period in the afternoon. So, obviously, whenever I have work to do I am found online. Shazam. Time to finish my historical perspective and predictions of success for the European Union's new legislation about hazardous chemicals and their management and reduction.

mon weekend a Bruxelles

yum. another good weekend:

--Thursday we left for Brussels (we flew) and checked out the EU Commission (picture of me with Tanya) and two cabinet members of the commissioner from Sweden talked with us for a couple hours. That night was a medieval parade (second picture shown) complete with many guys on stilts who fought each other, trying to knock them over. What a long fall! Some of the stilts were really high. We bought some frites and waffles.
--Friday entailed an inspiring and warped talk at NATO (sorry, the pic below is the closest we could get- no cameras allowed inside!!) complete with free swag (pins, pens, keychains, brochures...) followed by a sleepy talk with Rolf Gustavsson, a journalist/correspondent who answered our questions way too thoroughly and somehow, at the same time, didn't answer them. A walking tour of Brussels, including stops outside the palace, musical instrument museum, "best chocolatier in Belgium" (Pierre Marcolini. The free sample: mini raspberry filled eclair topped with a flake of white chocolate and "sunflower-ginger crunch"-- it was delicious) and some religious sites, brought us back to the city center- Grand Place. The Education Abroad Program took us out to dinner at Chez Leon, where we had a 25 euro limit and beyond that we had to foot the bill. Alcohol not included. This is where one of our members had horse (pictured below and let me tell you, it was pretty good), the vegan in our group ate mussels and the girl who got pasta (very cheap) could fit three people's waffles on her bill. I had a trout specialty that came with fresh pea soup and chocolate mousse.

--Saturday we left for a bus trip to The Hague for wandering and a pretty interesting talk at the International Court Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. We got to debate a human rights problem in a fictional country, representing various nations. Surprise: the vote yielded no result. Then we got to go through the Mauritshuis art museum and see some Vermeers and some other really awesome Dutch and Flemish masters- including the girl with the pearl earring, laughing boy (with brown teeth) and some cool still lifes, especially floral arrangements. When we got back to Brussels we decided to include Homo Erectus into our pub plans-a very gay bar. Only five of us ended up going in (me and four boys).--Sunday we got free time to troll around Brussels and make sure we saw the pissing boy statue and had one last waffle. There are tons of street performers in Europe, but especially in Brussels for some reason. The Grand Place had an old man (looked like Father Christmas) with an acoustic-electric guitar who was making quite a bit of money. During our stay we also saw a bunch of accordion players, a string quartet and a bassoon-oboe combo that was playing opera excerpts extremely well. I gave them the change I had at the time- two and half euro. It's tough to be an artist, probably.
--After a long bus ride and flight and getting really hot on the plane and feeling ultra claustrophobic for the first time in my memory, this picture happened at the Copenhagen airport when we were waiting for the students to buy some food (Burger King, of all places)

It was good to come home/back to Lund.

best birthday ever.

thank you, everyone who celebrated with me, ate with me, made dinner, brought good feelings and hugged me.thank you, everyone who thought of me- you're helping my birthday miracle (the ecards and emails and facebook posts and messages were so awesome).thank you, weather, for being so clear and sunny and even- dare i say it?- WARM on my birthday!
thank you, whoever it was, who invented swings, because i love them so much and they helped to make my bday even better at the bomb-ass playground a 5 minute bike ride away.
so much goodness
so much love
so many years that got celebrated last night. (21!)

THANK YOU.

danes

Yesterday four Danish friends came to visit- one of them, Jasper, is a bartender at the airport, and that's where he met one of our students. He came with some really awesome people- a beautiful loving couple and a vibrant youth, Casper. They stopped at the Carlsberg factory in Copenhagen and got two cases (60 beers) for a fun saturday night. We walked to the supermarket to turn in all our recycling and got 35 crowns back! That's almost six dollars, so we bought chips with it for snacking. By the time we were going to head out to a bar some of the students had been frequenting, Herkules, the busses had stopped running, so we walked! I got to ride on the back of Ashley's bike for part of the trip, thank god. What a fun night! I met the Danes, a few new Swedes, two Armenian guys who I had very little language in common with (tiny amounts of Swedish and twice-translated French) and we have invitations to visit some new places, like the town near Copenhagen where Casper is from.

Now it's July! I expect a lot from this month, including some fun at the dinner party we're having on tuesday for my birthday! Veggie lasagne and salad, plus berries and brownies with (soy) ice cream- yum yum. I am in love with my dormmates; we are turning into quite a little family. Last year's birthday in India was pretty fun, minus the illness that kept me from my party- but I ate a lot of ice cream, even though I was sick. I wonder what country I will be in for next year?

yay! feeling more chipper today, even though I am a bit behind on my readings (thus I am blogging. *sigh*) here come more great times!

more pics...

this is a shot of one of the houses in the colonie:
more midsommar pics:

during the boat ride in Kopenhavn I needed to document the wind turbines!! There were about 10 of them, yay!

another long lost walk (excerpts from an email)

At 2230 it was almost twilight. now it's midnight and darkish- especially due to cloudiness that has been continuing.

I took a long walk today to get home and it took about 2 hours instead of 30 minutes because I was busy getting lost. I discovered some really cool parks, including one with a long pond that had an egret or stork of some kind. we looked at each other for a while. I've been trying to find the weird birds I see on this website http://www.birds.se/new/index.asp but it hasn't helped. there's a really cool ocean beach bird that is almost all white that I want to find a good picture of. plus the egret thing. also one time I saw a bird picking grubs out of the ground and it had this awesome long orange beak. The pigeons are all really fat here, but smaller still.

I picked a big bouquet of wildflowers on my way home. Since the environment belongs to everyone our teachers encouraged us to "plocka blommor" or pick flowers. Lovely.

I was at a secondhand shop today and bought some people's old photos form the 40's, 30's and even one or two from the 20's. It's a distressing interest that I have such a fascination with other people's events and history, but I figure most of the ones I picked out were sort of artistic or messed up in an artistic way. I also got a "cigarette tin" from germany to keep them in (some research online turns out that it's a crayon/writing utensil tin instead- no wonder there's a cowboy and a traditionally dressed Dutch woman on its cover) until I mount them somehow, also a small italian mosaic brooch. pretty sweet. I will go back there to buy some old (50's-80's) postcards, too- some from sweden actually, but also some from switzerland, germany, denmark, france... cool. at least they can be decorations for a while, until I send them out to someone, sometime. I remember getting an old postcard from my brother; I'm sure I still have it back at home somewhere. I wonder if I would have wanted to go back to get those vykort (postcards) if he hadn't sent it to me a few years ago.

We have a trip to belgium coming up next week, and the program recommended bringing at least 50 Euros with us for 7 meals and maybe more for "personal expenses." I guess I'm just cheap. (Dad would say "frugal")

I can always have swedish time with the students who are still (sometimes) around. Don't worry, I'm still having fun! I've just been really mellow the past couple days, and seeing the beauty that is part of every swedes life makes me a bit sad for returning to america. they have these awesome places called "colonie" where it's a large plot of land split up into pretty small plots with really tiny houses on them (no plumbing- communal toilets for the large plot). the purpose? cultivation and gardening. you can rent one for $200 a year or buy one for $4000. beautiful. i want one. tomatoes, creeping flowers, zucchini, bushy bushy flower bushes, a swing, a tiny house... another ideal life I wish I could live someday.

pics and blurbs

A group shot of us on the walking tour of Malmo, a city only ten minutes from Lund but it's way bigger. The old man in front is one of our professors from CA named Keith. He's the spry one i referred to in my AIM sesh with Amanda (see previous posting) This was before our tour of the museum and canal boat tour.
And this windmill museum (also in Malmo) is only open whenever the flag is up, which it isn't in the picture. It's right outside of an old fortress that was used to collect toll from incoming merchant ships. The king who set that up (Eric) in 1450 was actually Danish, since the southern part of Sweden was controlled by them at the time. The fortress is the museum now, and it's very weird- the dungeon parts are damp and cool but every other part of the building is stuffy as all get out. It was built using bricks from churches that were torn down in Lund! (reformation) They have all kinds of exhibitions there.

Good times for midsommar festival outside our dorms- some of the Swedish students are still here for the summer, so they set up this party and we got invited to it since it was literally outside our door. We had herring and dilled potatoes and sour cream (Dad is thinking, yum! and actually it was quite good- I had three kinds of herring) and quiche and salad. For dessert: strawberries and strawberry banana cake. There was also vodka, rum, whisky/scotch, beers of many types and something called Festis, a juice drink, I think. I'm talking with Hilary here. We had just come downstairs, so don't think that I was completely drunk! The boys in this picture are Swedish and I don't remember their names (although I do know a few of the other ones)
This is us about to dance around the midsommar pole! It's supposed to be much taller and covered in leaves and flowers and ribbon, with two wreaths hung from the cross, but instead they found a broken bike. That's how college students do it!
We all went to Copenhagen yesterday (the day after midsommar) for another tour, including a boat tour where we got to see lots of architecture from every age (warehouses from 1870s and a theatre that isn't even open yet) plus a bunch of wind turbines along the coast! I don't have a picture of the turbines here (yet?) but here's me on the boat.The next is another shot in Copenhagen. This is one of the four guards that are constantly on watch at the old royal home, Rosenborg. The Queen/King don't live here now, but it's where the royal jewels (!) are kept very very safely, and it's a museum of King Christian the 4th who built practically everything in Copenhagen and a good bit of stuff in Sweden, too.
Today we have all been studying for our exam tomorrow (!) on all the politics and culture that we learned about last week in lectures by Keith and the other professor, Corey. That's why I'm online right now, to catch up on my blogging and procrastinate studying but really I am studying! I reviewed the Danish history for those blurbs on Copenhagen, didn't I?

There is another program of UC kids who arrived today, but they are here only for Language and Culture, and won't be getting any really useful credits for their degrees. Plus they got a week off in between school and EAP! Lucky. Oh well, we've had a great time so far. Also, our real classes start tomorrow, with the Swedish students! Some of them will be commuting everyday from Malmo, some live in Lund and some are coming from farther away and must stay in the dorms somewhere, maybe with us. There are a lot of dorms open now, but they are far from campus (30-40 minute walk or a $2 bus ride each way. I got a bike but the back tire is flat, so I still have been limited to those options until I drag it to the bike shop 20 minutes away)

another (short) exchange from facebook

"Maia! You're really studying in Sweden?? You are pretty brave; I don't know that I could take dealing with a second foreign country experience at this point--though I imagine Sweden is significantly easier to survive in than India. Still, though, a foreign country is always and adjustment. So that's all--just thought I'd say good for you, I admire you ."
(this was from a friend who studied in Hyderabad with me)

My response:
"Thank you so much for your kind words! Yes, it has been much easier to deal with the culture here- so peaceful and trusting but a bit hard to get to know. Not as difficult as India, though, especially because of the quality of their language education! nearly everyone speaks "spot-on" english, or if they don't, they want to be corrected and encouraged with idiomatic phrases.
But it is expensive compared to the States, so coming from India makes it especially hard! $8 for lunch? what?! and 17 for dinner- yikes, that's why I make my own food in the kitchen instead.
:)
I hope you are well (and fluent in Telugu!)
peace to you and all
Maia"

AIM conversation with Amanda

The following took place on Friday June 22nd from about midnight til 1am. I have deleted the nonsweden parts, noted with *** breaks, and I clenaed up the spelling (I'm a notoriously bad speller on AIM). I have consent from Amanda. I am kaiamdance.
kaiamdance: hi
kaiamdance: i'm in sweden.
kaiamdance: i got your wall post
kaiamdance: thx
kaiamdance: i love you
kaiamdance: !
Pearl AIC Jam: hey! aweomee
Pearl AIC Jam: I love you too
kaiamdance: thunder storm! at midnight... cool
Pearl AIC Jam: oh yeah! it's 6 hours ahead, derrr
Pearl AIC Jam: and it's still light out
kaiamdance: it's dark here because of cloud cover, but it should be twilight now
Pearl AIC Jam: kapeesh
*****
kaiamdance: one of my professors is about 80
Pearl AIC Jam: hahaha
kaiamdance: and he's spry!
Pearl AIC Jam: spry?
kaiamdance: he can go and go
kaiamdance: but he probably hasn't been staying up late like us, so maybe that's why
Pearl AIC Jam: hahaha, you have professors who drink with you?
kaiamdance: no, unfortunately
kaiamdance: he'd be funny
kaiamdance: but one of our guides was awesome and we want to meet up w him
kaiamdance: he showed us around this really awesome cathedral that started getting built in 1066!!!!
kaiamdance: wowzeers
kaiamdance: he's so funny, he works as an archeologist at the museum in town
Pearl AIC Jam: i would probably like him - he's blond though, right?
kaiamdance: actually no
kaiamdance: like, light brown? and wispy. he's like 40
kaiamdance: hilarious though
kaiamdance: his inflection and his stories
*****
Pearl AIC Jam: so what are you doing there? you'll only be gone 10 weeks - not 6 months, you'll be fine when you get back
kaiamdance: i know! someone asked me if i was homesick and i laughed at them
kaiamdance: and felt bad about it
Pearl AIC Jam: haha, yeah
kaiamdance: it's too western and too short of a trip to be homesick
Pearl AIC Jam: yeah
kaiamdance: plus my dad is coming at the end so ... neato
Pearl AIC Jam: is he going to let them know he's latvian?
kaiamdance: oh well, he's american
Pearl AIC Jam: i mean, i know he's American, but those roots... he could try to take over Sweden
kaiamdance: this week we're just doing history, politics and culture of sweden as an orientation
Pearl AIC Jam: i think i would really be interested in that
kaiamdance: but we're going to latvija afterwards so i can meet cousins
kaiamdance: and then to prague
kaiamdance: yay!
Pearl AIC Jam: woohoo!
Pearl AIC Jam: i would love to meet family overseas
kaiamdance: and swedish classes for this week and next week.
kaiamdance: but next week the real classes start
kaiamdance: i have one class only for one month
kaiamdance: then a different class for the next month
Pearl AIC Jam: oooh, is this a UC thing similar to India?
kaiamdance: yeah, it's UC
Pearl AIC Jam: gotcha
*******
kaiamdance: omg you should see the birds here! so weird
Pearl AIC Jam: really?!
Pearl AIC Jam: like the squirrels in india?
kaiamdance: well, they do normal bird things, but they look funny! the small ones are cute, but the crows here aren't crows- they're a bit smaller and have grey wings instead. then the water birds are crazy- i'll search a picture of them. also i went on a tour today of Malmo, a city thats bigger but only 10min away
kaiamdance: and there are SO many geese there! they were going crazy and we were all impressed.
Pearl AIC Jam: weird
Pearl AIC Jam: how's the temperature?
kaiamdance: pretty nice usually but its changeable
kaiamdance: like, its sunny and warmish in the low 70s- ideal
kaiamdance: but then windy and its cold from the wind, then its warm again. then it gets cloudy (the clouds move fast here- they're really low)
kaiamdance: and maybe a few drops of rain, then clears up
Pearl AIC Jam: ehh... sounds like cleveland
Pearl AIC Jam: cloudy?
kaiamdance: so you always have to bring a light sweater
kaiamdance: but its beautiful usually. it should be warmer then it is right now
Pearl AIC Jam: you said it was green... are the swedes tall? I want to study the people
kaiamdance: yes
kaiamdance: the swedes are tall
kaiamdance: the people are fascinating- you WOULD love this orientation course... there's a lot of interesting stuff happening due to immigration
kaiamdance: its hard to get into the country unless you're a refugee
Pearl AIC Jam: hmm... archaeology would be super cool. Vikings are not affiliated with Sweden, right?
kaiamdance: and all the immigrants aren't assimilating- they all live in the same part of the city- Rose Block.
kaiamdance: yes vikings were here- all of scandinavia
Pearl AIC Jam: they drive on the right, correct? I heard at one time they drove on the left but then decided to change it to the right, and banned driving for 24 hours
Pearl AIC Jam: ooooh, all of scand.
kaiamdance: and the teachers are swedes but they're teaching classes of 80-90% immigrants
kaiamdance: craziness
kaiamdance: i hadn't heard of the driving thing, but yes, they drive on our side, the right side.

Pearl AIC Jam: haha, our side
Pearl AIC Jam: where do they immi's come from?
kaiamdance: over 40,000 from iraq
kaiamdance: also many from balkans, israel
Pearl AIC Jam: do people think you're swedish, or are you too short?
kaiamdance: people do think i'm swedish but they quickly find out i'm not. at one store they talked to me in swedish only an i pulled it off b/c they don't talk much here (in terms of the serivce industry)
Pearl AIC Jam: yeah, i would love it there. Do the iraqi's and the jews (hahahaha) get along?
kaiamdance: not really. most of the immigrant tensions are between immigrants, not with swedes.
Pearl AIC Jam: outsiders fighting over land... that's not theirs...
kaiamdance: plus
kaiamdance: this is interesting
kaiamdance: plus the incidence of petty theft has skyrocketed
kaiamdance: and you know who does the stealing?
Pearl AIC Jam: oh my! are they racist then?
kaiamdance: the immigrants abuse the trust of the swedes and steal from them. but the media never covers that part of the story b/c they don't want to cause a problem with the people they're giving asylum to.
kaiamdance: but everyone knows it anyway
Pearl AIC Jam: mmmm
Pearl AIC Jam: i know someone who's proud to be swedish - she's a few generations into America but she's 100%
Pearl AIC Jam: i find that rare
kaiamdance: yeah
kaiamdance: sweden is really homogenous so its weird that all these immigrants are totally flooding in
Pearl AIC Jam: i like homogenity... not like hitler or anything, but you know
Pearl AIC Jam: let me clarify: i like homogenity of outsiders
Pearl AIC Jam: hahahaha
kaiamdance: you know how americans look like anyone... well swedes look like swedes. so when the third generation of a croatian guy is at a bar or something, and grew up in sweden and only know sweden and swedish life, its hard when the bar people ask "Where are you from" or "what do you eat for christmas?"
Pearl AIC Jam: yeah, understandable
kaiamdance: really strange.
Pearl AIC Jam: that's how parts of america are, though
kaiamdance: *coughthesouth*
kaiamdance: racist
kaiamdance: KKK
Pearl AIC Jam: probably not california, haha, some part of ohio...
Pearl AIC Jam: yes, yes indeed
kaiamdance: kansas

So I hope that answered some questions you might have had for me. I've been learning so much! The Mamlo tour today was wonderful; we had a tour of a museum in an old fortress/castle/tool booth, a lecture from the Croatian man I was describing, and a boat tour in the canal that runs through the city where we could see one of the old churches, a wind turbine manufacturing plant, the police station, and awesome replicas of Medieval boats. It rained a bit, though, at the end, but it didn't dampen our spirits.

facebook post (copy)

-I'm here! Lund is beautiful and has cobblestone streets and "hella" old churches (two from the medieval ages) and chemists, not drugstores... Everything is so green here- almost every residential window has a plant in it, plus there are so many trees and plants everywhere! Lots of roses in bloom... I love it. I have so many stories of history of Lund that are probably not as interesting as I think they are... stuff about nations and monarchies and the freeway that was the north sea, back when boats were the NBT (next big thing, for those "unhip")
-A bottle of Guinness in a bar costs around 5 bucks but you can get a sixer for between seven and eight. Liquor is very very expensive here and a Swedish student told us that they can rent a van and pay for gas to get to Germany and buy the alcohol there and it's still cheaper than buying it here! Wow. people go to such lengths to drink. whatever.
-Classes so far have been orientation stuff and history and massive Swedish language course, too. It's not too hard since the structure is the same as English and I have tons of experience learning mediocre language skills. : ) you know what i mean. (probably)
In terms of the sunlight thing, the sun rises around 4a but sets around 1am. It's twilight for like two hours before it's actually dark! Very odd- some people took maps after dinner and woke up thinking it was morning... but it was 11pm and the sun was just getting misty-eyed.
-I need to finish making dinner in my ultra IKEA kitchen that was provided, so I love you and will write more as soon as my internet gets set up,


peace, pace, paz, paix, fred