Now that I am leaving Sweden today, I can write this from a slightly different perspective. Southern Sweden is a beautiful place. Lund is an old university town with parks, cobblestone streets, and lots of bicycles. In the town square there is a tremendously good ice cream place that serve generous portions in fabulous waffle cones with flavors like passion fruit, mango, and Toblerone. If you decide to frequent this place more than once, it is probably a really good idea to get yourself a bike and do as the Swedes (as in walk and bike EVERYWHERE) or you will simply grow to enormous proportions. A place called Bellman's, which is down a side street somewhere- Lund is a small place so its possible to find anything if you walk around a bit- serves great traditional plates for lunch or dinner for the same 55 kr (about 7 bucks). Traditional plates means some variation of meat and potatoes. Pytt i panna is a corned beef hash sort of deal served with a fried egg on top and pickled beets. Meatballs with boiled potatoes and lingonberry sauce is also popular, you can even get it at Ikea in the states, which is also a Swedish company. Guess what is also a Swedish company? It's based in Lund.....No guesses? Well, its TetraPak. You know, the company that makes boxes for milk and juice and pretty much anything that is liquid and needs a box. The guy who started the company still works there and has made a fortune making juice boxes. He also gives half of his money to charity, and therefore everyone loves him.

 

Every year Lund has a cultural festival. It just happened to be this Saturday, September 20 and we just happened to be in town for it. However, it didn't look very cultural to me. Mostly little blond kids running around doing gymnastics or fishing around in fountains. It could very well have been a celebration of modern Swedish life. The streets were full of people and all the shops were open, so the festival made for a lively town.

 

There is also a good botanical garden here close to the university and the old church. The greenhouses are fairly impressive for a small town, with models of different habitats and even some pygmy quails to eat invading insects.

 

Like Amherst, this town more than doubles in size during the school year. Fortunately, the way the government works, everyone gets free tuition and help with living, so students tend to stay here for indefinite amounts of time. When I asked Maria how many years she has left in school, she replied that she really didn't know. Sweden, the land of career students.

 

When the students are in town, they need a social life. This is why the university has something called the 'Nations'. Nations are something like coed fraternities, but they are manditory.  Registration and academic issues are actually handled through the Nation, but the Nation's primary role is social. Originally, the Nations were actually as their name suggests. They were region-specific groups of students. For example, all the students from Stockholm would join the Stockholm nation and so on. Now they are open to anyone. Andreas, who doesn't even go to school in Lund, takes an active part in his Nation. On Wednesday night we all went to it for a big party/disco. There were two bars and a dance floor with a DJ that didn't really know what he was playing and ended up playing a strange amalgam of cheesy 80s music, hip-hop, and techno. The Nations also serve set price meals, which I would have enjoyed attending.