Leisurely Friday

I ended up studying right through lunch today so I decided to replace it with a decadent fika in the afternoon.

Kaffebrod, grapes, strawberries, dried apricots, brie and crackers, and Earl Grey.

Today also marks my first trip to System Bolaget (the state run alcohol store) since I have been in Sweden. 

Apple wine with cinnamon and vanilla; can be served hot or cold.

Although I know that TetraPak is a Swedish company, the fact that you can even buy wine in that packaging makes me think that they are a little obsessed. 

Berets and Baguettes

I find it really amusing that people here actually wear berets. It's mostly senior citizens and middle-aged guys that look like they write poetry or excel at math like in A Beautiful Mind, but it's still pretty funny to see.

One of my favorite things to do here in Lund is to walk over to the local market which happens to have an excellent bakery. I pick up a fresh mini-baguette, let the brie get a little soft, slice an apple--and occasionally add a cafe mocha. It makes for a perfect afternoon break.

How I Look After Riding My Bike Home When It's In The Mid-Forties

It's starting to get cold. 

Welcome to Swedish Fall.

The Most Northern Bar in Sweden

Cultural Similarities and Cultural Differences

Today I discovered that construction workers are the same all over the world. I was walking to class and there was a girl in some skin tight pants in front of me. A construction worker watched the girl as she walked past him and then turned to his other construction worker friend, smirked, and said, "Oh, yeah," or maybe it was, "Oh, ja."


In other news, the Swedes are apparently so antisocial that they need to be taught how to make small talk with their neighbors. Check it out here.

Fall Weekend

Saturday I decided to participate in the local and somewhat cheesy Harvest Festival in the city park. For such a widely publicized event it was smaller than I expected but it was still pretty cute. I had a Swedish waffle and then bought a bottle of applemust from a cute, old Swedish couple.

I have no idea where I was at this point but it was nice to find.

Later that night I felt very Swedish with my Swedish yellow pea soup with mustard and the applemust I bought. Pretty delicious.


Today I attempted to ride the 8-9km route over to Lomma Beach. After about 5km in, riding with the wind directly blowing against me, I started to second guess my decision to go on this bike ride in the first place. But I still really wanted to get to the beach so I kept going. At this point it's so windy that there are tears streaming down my face and I realize that I have not seen one other person on the bike path, however, I still wanted to make it to Lomma.

So I kept going and then I get 2km away and I hit a freeway. The bike path veers left away from Lomma and the only way I see to get to Lomma is crossing the freeway over this highway bridge, but there's no way to cross to the right side of the highway to get on the bridge and get over the freeway. I'm utterly perplexed now and felt I had no choice but to turn around.

The only thing that salvaged the ride was seeing these super cute Swedish cows.

Slowly Becoming Normal

I have been getting more into my academic routine in the past week. My research group and I have made some great progress on the Iceland project and I've even been emailing with the Head of Information from the Ministry for the Environment in Iceland.


On Thursday I volunteered for a study for the Literature and Language Department. It's the one time where being a monolingual English speaker was actually an advantage! However, I hope I won't be forever. Although I'm not really sure how the researcher is going to use the data I got a free movie ticket for participating! And since a movie ticket costs about $15 here in Sweden that was actually a really good use of 30 minutes.


Like the rest of the week, Friday has been a very studious day. However I did take some time to saunter through the city and do some shopping. And good news, I finally bought a hair dryer! I realized my situation was desperate when I was going to the gym just so I could dry my hair, so I gave in today and spent $50 so I wouldn't have to worry about coordinating my activities around how long it takes my hair to dry.