Thus it begins

So I am finally off -- leaving the sanctuary of Scandinavia and really getting into what Europe has to offer to me!

Tomorrow I will be leaving for Germany and will arrive in Berlin on Saturday morning! From there I will continue on to Göttingen to visit meine freundinnen Mona and Dani. After a few days, I will continue south to Lucca, Italia, where I will meet up with Lauren at Nanda's house. We will stay in Lucca a few days and then continue throughout Italy. Here is the itinerary:

Lucca
Florence (Firenze)
Venice (Venezia)
The 5 Lands (Cinque Terre)
Rome (Roma)
Naples (Napoli)
and we might also make it out to the island of Capri and Sorrento, south of Naples on the Amalfi coast.

Unfortunately I will have limited internet access. I will update as I can, but please do not expect anything until late August! Even pictures will be hard to upload from the road, but expect an onslaught of information and pictures as soon as I am back in Sverige!!

Swedes In Real Life

So I feel I need to get a couple of things straight about Swedes -- a little anthropology in what has pretty much been a travel-only blog. Let me talk about life in Sweden.

I realized how very Swedish I was a few days ago -- and have re-recognized this every other hour since. When I am biking to class in the morning, and in ten minutes I pass hundreds of quaint houses and monumental university buildings (to put UCLA in the dust), I realize that I am living as a Swede. When I am in the supermarket and have only bought a few things (which still costs $30-$50), and therefore must return in a day or two, I realize that I am living Swedish. When I pass an advertisement and can actually read it, I feel Swedish. When I pass an advertisement and it's in English, still (oddly) I feel Swedish -- for the sheer fact that English has invaded this pristine culture like influenza. Well, maybe not invaded and maybe it wasn't pristine. But it certainly is no fun when you're trying to practice your Swedish and the cashier will only respond to you in English!

But here's the thing about Swedes:

They are very polite, and yet very rude. There is no word for "please" in Swedish, and there is no need. Even to say "thank you" marks you a foreigner (I refuse, despite this, to not say "thank you" -- it's just wrong to me, a well-raised American!). Swedes are not overtly friendly -- will not immediately befriend you and show you around town like a Chicagoan would. And yet they are very nice, they will always help a tourist, no matter how American they appear!, and will always provide a word of Swedish when you ask for it (it's how I learned how to say shampoo and conditioner!)

On the same token, Swedish girls are very conservative. While comfortable with their bodies -- at any age -- they do not mind being naked in the lake or bare-chested at the beach, still they are not as sexually loose as American movies make them out to be.

Nor do they still have that lilting accent of old Swedish ("I lahf me leetle dahter, jaaaaaa!"). Some sound more American than me! This is thanks to American television. Because there are only 9 million Swedes, it is not worth the cost to dubb or to produce Swedish-speaking television. So Oprah comes on every day at 2pm, and she speaks English with Swedish subtitles. Even in Sweden.

They are, indeed, very attractive, but only about as attractive as the average American university (but possibly not UCSB, which is the most attractive by far of Californian universities, if not all American colleges). They don't dress particularly chic (read: European), either. I see the type of sandals that my dad wears a lot -- you know, the velcro straps every which way, binding in your foot, that always leave weird tan lines on your feet. Except now it's not for dads going to the zoo with their sons and daughters -- kids, teenagers, university students, all the way to grandpas wear these shoes. It's entirely unbecoming. So far I am very disappointed in Sweden's fashion sense.

So, in the end, Swedish people are just ... well, Swedish. Their obsession for punctuality and love of schnapps is only the icing on the complex social cake. More updates on this are to come, I am sure.

Some Swedish for you to learn:
supermarknad -- supermarket (ICA is a popular store)
tack -- thank you
tack så mycket -- thanks a lot (so far, I have only heard my American friends say this)
engelska -- english
Svenskarna är svensk -- Swedes are Swedish

Glimmingehus och Ales Stenar

I really must apologize, this blog is frustrating me a little bit. I feel as though my posts are lengthy and too cumbersome for my friends and family to read all the way through. And yet, I feel as though I am not really saying anything -- not painting a strong enough picture of my life here in Sverige, not detailing my stories -- or, indeed, skipping stories altogether. It is not fair to me because I want so much to tell you all, and it is not fair to you because you deserve so much more than this blog has provided. I am not sure how to remedy this situation without writing even longer posts. Please let me know what you think.

Today my class (now twice it's original size, thanks to the reinforcements of Russian and Chinese students), went on a field trip to Österlens, which contains the well preserved medieval fortress of Glimmengehus, and then on to the coast where we saw Kåseberga and Ales Stenar, the Swedish version of Stone Henge. It was a lovely drive, from the west coast of Sweden where Lund lies to the southeast coast of Sweden where the stones of Ales Stenar have stood for thousands of years. I have noticed one thing about the Swedish countryside, with its beautiful farmhouses and perfect Swedish rows of strawberries and wheat -- there is also the steeple of a church within sight. Across the rolling hills of Skåne, you can always find one of these outdated throwbacks to the time when Sweden was strictly Lutheran. Now, of course, Swedes are areligious -- more unconcerned than atheistic. They enjoy their Swedish nature and their knäckenbröd, and that is that.

Glimmengehus was my first castle. Of course, I have seen other castles, especially when I was in København, but this is the first one that I have gone inside of and gotten a proper tour of. And, of course, it is not really a castle but the house of a knight who needed a fortress to defend himself against the unhappy peasants which he taxed relentlessly -- a little Robin Hood-esque, don't you see? It was very impressive, strong stone and oak, surrounded by a moat. Our tour-guide, dressed in medieval finery (he had really cool shoes), even pointed out the various death traps which the builders put in place to surprise trespassers. The most fascinating bit was that all of the exterior and interior was original to 1499 when the fortress was built by Sir Jens Holgersens Ulfstand. So many ancient things now have been remodeled and retouched in order to "look like original" but the sheer fact that it had been messed with lends a sort of disappointment to viewing such monuments. This was definitely a sight to see!

After an unsuccessful attempt to find a bathroom with handsoap so that I could wash my hands (for some reason the medieval just seems so dirty to me!), we all got back onto our tourist buses and trekked over to Kåseberga, a small seaside fishing village which lies beside the ancient site of Ales Stenar. We stopped in Kåseberga and sampled the local delicacy -- smoked salmon and herring. I did, indeed, try some and it was very delicious! I even have pictures to prove it!

We hoofed our way up the hill to see Ales Stenar, with the monumental background of the sea. Ales Stenar is a construction of 60 stones, each about the height of a person, which is set in the shape of a ship, with keystones at each end. Archaeologists used to think that it was a viking burial ground, since other ship formations denoted viking burials in other areas. But Ales Stenar has a more remarkable purpose -- it was used to mark the midsummer and the winter solstice, as the sun would rise on which respective day precisely behind one of the keystones. It was tough to get good pictures of Ales Stenar because it was absolutely inundated with tourists. Some idiot tour-guide had actually led his group into the middle of the structure (which is a probably 60-100 meters long) and they all stood there like idiots for 20 minutes while he talked. It absolutely ruined everyone's pictures.

Actually, I had a hard time all day with people ruining my pictures. There I was, camera out in front of my face, eyes intent on an object, knees bent, shoulders rolled back, ready to snap -- and one of the Russian students would walk right in front of me so instead of taking a picture of the ancient chest of Jens Holgersens' wife, I took a picture of some Russian girls legs. How rude! Or I would be trying to take a picture of Ales Stenar, and some obnoxious tourist would walk right in front of me and stand there, entirely unaware of me about to take a picture, and refuse to get out of my shot! As much as I love traveling so far, I hate being a tourist. And I definitely hate other tourists! If only it weren't tourist season right now, maybe I would have gorgeous pictures of Ales Stenar and Glimmengehus, but alas, I have not.

For now I am exhausted, absolutely in need of a nap. I will keep you informed of my adventures, but I think that tomorrow I will sleep in late and clean my room. Quite the Swedish adventure!

Some Swedish for you to learn:
Stenar -- rocks
Sverige -- Sweden
Ryssland -- Russia
Kina -- China
Sill -- herring
Lax -- salmon
och -- and

København

Wow.

I went to Copenhagen this weekend with a few other American friends that I study with in Lund. It was absolutely astonishing. It is such a vibrant and colorful city, so very different from the quiet summertime daze of Lund. We left Friday afternoon after our first Swedish final -- I am now in Swedish 2! The trip to CPH is less than an hour.

We spent most of Friday and Saturday wandering around the city, taking in the sites and the smells (the canal is pretty rank, actually) and the people. I think we lived the Danish life for a few days. Every now and then we would spot at a particularly scenic spot and have a fika (a Swedish word, sort of like a coffee-break but more drawn-out and social) or a glass of good Danish beer, or a small snack. On Friday we went to the main square, the City Hall, the Danish Opera, and the Stadparken (city park). We watched the sunset over the canal.

Saturday we saw the Little Mermaid. She looks just like she does in all the pictures. Apparently, she's lost her head a few times. Lastly and most famously, a feminist group cut off her head with a chainsaw because they were upset that she was bare-breasted. Then they left the head in a 7-11 for authorities to find and reattach. Weird. We also went to Hans Christian Andersen's grave, the man who made the Mermaid famous in his fairy-tales. He is buried in the same cemetery as Søren Kirkegård, the philosopher who I have come to love as Johann Di'Silencio. It was actually sort of sad to walk around the Copenhagen cemetery, because a lot of the graves had been tagged. I heard that a group of hippy-artists had taken over a house near the cemetery as squatters and had used it as their artistic/hippy base for many years. The government finally kicked them out of the house, though, because it as actually government-owned. The hippies rioted, however, and went into the cemetery and tagged a bunch of the gravestones, including Hans Christian Andersen's.

Most graves had 666 scrawled across them, along with an upside-down cross. Others were even less inventive -- poor Carl Poller's grave was tagged with "er død" (is dead). They scrawled "Dansk Kultur" across HC Andersen's. It is a reminder of the audacity of the present generation -- that our problems are more important than protecting the remnants of history. I was shocked walking around Copenhagen to see that so many monuments had graffiti on them. I mean, I understand that Denmark, like Sweden, had a large graffiti culture right now and it's an artistic mark on the world (Swedish graffiti I mean, much unlike the tagging in America). But so many monuments are just destroyed by someone who wrote "It's graffiti!" in spray-paint. That can't be removed. They've ruined a piece of history that we'll never get back. Just for a laugh. It's just very sad.

We also saw the palace of the Danish royal family (no luck on meeting cute princes!) and wandered along the canal for a bit. It seems that Danes, Swedes, and Germans are pretty serious about their sailboats!

We were going to go op to Helsingør/Helsingborg (the site of the castle where Shakespeare placed Hamlet) this weekend also, but we realized that our class is going there in two weeks, so we will wait and go with the rest of the class later.

As always, check out my flickr page to see some of my photos! And if you ever get the chance, go to Copenhagen! There is a large purple tree in the Stadparken which is great for shade on warm sunny summer days!

Hejdå! (good-bye)

Some Swedish for your to learn
Kopenhamn -- Copenhagen
Öresundtåg -- "Ear-sound" Train (it connects Copenhagen to Malmö across the Öresund)
Slott -- castle
fika -- to have coffee and a snack with friends, a social gathering

Svenska Fajitas!

So I've just finished making and eating my first batch of Swedish fajitas. They're like normal fajitas, but made in Sweden ... !! They turned out pretty nicely, though the fajita mix here is a bit too spicy for me. Odd, seeing as in anything else in Sweden it is near impossible to get a good amount of spice.

But cooking here in Sweden is different, and I thought that I would dedicate a post to the odd things that the Europeans have decided to do differently from us (or that we have decided to do differently from the Europeans, I can't tell which yet). First, the stove. It is not an electric stove with wire coils, nor is it a gas stove. I will only guess that it is electric, but consists of thick metal discs set into the white stove top, whose knobs do not go lo-hi but rather from 1-5 or 1-12, depending on which burner you are using. The oven is also different, but I haven't used it yet. It seems unnecessarily small.

I have also noticed the street lights are different. Green means go and red means stop, but yellow AND red lit up at the same time mean get ready to go. Just yellow means get ready to stop. There are also separate lights for the bike paths and for pedestrians. Sometimes, the bike path totally separates from the road itself and veers off on its own course and direction, beneath tunnels and alongside horse farms, etc. There seem to be many more bikes than cars in Lund. The town has a lot of squares, and each square it seems is filled with at least 200 bicycles each. The large square by the train station must be in the thousands.

Washing machines are quite opposite. You have to sign up for a time here, since the Swedes are so concerned with orderliness and timeliness. You can only use the machines during your time slot, then you must swipe in, load your clothes (again, into an unnecessarily small washer), choose what type of detergent you want (oh yes, it's provided), and press start. If you only press start for a few seconds, the machine will only go 25 minutes. If you hold it longer, the machine will run up to 72 minutes. Though I can't imagine why. And yes, it's free. Drool all you want, UCLA, who spend $5 at a time to do laundry ... read this and weep!

Supermarkets make no sense here. Sure, they group some of the bread together, but for some reason other types of bread are clear across the store. There are hardly any frozen vegetables, by nearly 50 types of frozen meatballs. Cheese isn't sliced -- apparently, that's an American thing. I sort of appreciate sliced cheese. Thankfully, the bread is sliced.

Well, I will leave it at that. I am sure to update later. Here is some Swedish for you to learn:
limpa - bread
ost - cheese
tvätta - to wash
kläder - clothes