Lund
My experience in Lund was interesting. Something that's a little lost in all these blog posts about my travels is that I wasn't just traveling. I was actually here to go to school! Crazy, right? And I went to school in Lund, specifically at Lunds Universitet. I took four classes at Lund, split unevenly into two quarters over the course of the semester (3 classes in the first quarter and 1 class in the second).
Administration Building at Lund. Did I mention the school was founded in 1666!
Lots of beautiful and very old buildings.
In the first quarter, I took a Swedish Language class, a Scandinavian Literature class, and an Optimization Engineering class. The former two were pretty easy (I had to go to about 2/3 of the Swedish language couse, but only went to about 10% of my Lit class), and the latter was pretty hard. In fact, I had no idea what was going on for the majority of the class, but the take-home, open-notes, open-internet final really saved me and I ended up passing (quite well, too, with the equivalent of a B back home!). The class used a lot of MATLAB, which I'm very much out of practice with, unlike the Swedes in class with me, who use it regularly in most of their engineering classes. I was at quite a disadvantage from the get-go.
Lund Library, a beautiful building in the center of campus. Notice the weather --
it's like this about 75% of the year and 90%+ of the days in winter. Rough.
In the second quarter, I took a Regression class that used a lot of R programming. Once again, this was a difficult class, but I was able to skip most of the classes as the notes were very thorough and always posted online. Despite not actually going to class except for once or twice, I worked pretty hard in this class, as there were three projects over the course of the semester, all of which were intended to be completed in groups. However, as I was always on the road, I ended up doing all the projects solo. Lots of cramming (as well as lots of cramming for the 30-minute high-pressure oral exam), but I ended up passing the class!
Some green space in central Lund, you can even see the Cathedral poking out behind it!
While "passing" in the US isn't really a spectacular achievement (it would mean getting a D... not exactly the best grade), over here it's all about passing versus not passing, so simply "passing" is the goal and it carries a lot more weight than passing in the US. So, because of that, I was very happy to have successfully passed all four of my classes and to be transferring my credits home!
A green tree right outside my apartment in Lund. I remember coming back to Lund
for the first time in over a month (lots of travelling), and noticing this. It was leaf-less when I left!
Outside of class, I never hugely connected with the Swedish culture due to always being on the move. Despite having "studied abroad in Sweden", I really only spent about 1/5 of my time there (and in the last couple months I was only there for a few nights overall). The major takeaways from living in Sweden are:
- The weather in Sweden is really, really rough. For the first two months I was there (January and February), I saw the sun once. Literally once. Every other day the entire sky was covered by a grey mass of clouds.
- The people are really friendly, but not as warm as I'm used to in the US. It's an important distinction, but where people in Sweden are just as nice and helpful, they're not the type that will make small talk for the sake of making small talk (whether that be at a bus station, in an elevator, on the train).
- Swedish students love raving (dark room with a DJ and loud EDM music). In fact it's basically the only type of party they have. Not exactly my forte, and after trying it out, I decided I much rather the US college's much more social-centered party scene.
- They're incredibly well dressed and at the front of the European fashion scene. I didn't see better fashion anywhere in Europe
- They love coffee (and got me very much into it as well). They have something they call "fika" which is simply grabbing a sweet, a coffee, and relaxing, and it's a huge part of their culture. In all of my classes, there would be a fika break in the middle where students would grab coffee, a sweet, and relax for 15 minutes.
There's more than this, but it's what immediately came to mind. As I said, I didn't spend that much time in Sweden (and when I was there, I was usually cramped in my room cramming for my next test or project). Other students that studied abroad with me barely left, and were totally integrated into Swedish society. It's a tradeoff that I've thought a lot about, but in the end I'm glad I travelled so much at the cost of larger immersion into Swedish culture.
Lund Cathedral on one of the few days with pretty weather!
As a quick note, the city of Lund is really cute. It's mostly a college town, and very much defined the the University, but it has a great downtown, which charming side streets that criss cross each other, lots of greenery, and a beautiful large Cathedral. It's a beautiful city, but one that can easily be seen in an afternoon (which I did the day before my flight to Málaga).
Copenhagen
Unlike Lund, Copenhagen had a ton to do! The Danish capital was littered with history and culture, and I really loved the opportunity to easily explore it since Mackenzie was living there and it was so close to Lund (45 minutes by train).
Looking out over Copenhagen from the Round Tower, the oldest functioning
observatory in Europe!
We spent many days doing all of the touristy things in Copenhagen, making sure to hit the Round Tower, Christiania (Copenhagen's hippy haven), Nyhavn, Frederik's Church, the Little Mermaid Statue, the many palaces of the city, Paper Island (great indoor cultural food hall), and multiple parks.
Nyhavn (New Harbor) at sunset
Frederik's Church, boasting the largest dome in Scandinavia!
Beyond the classic destinations that most tourists see, we also were able to:
- Watch a ballet performance by the Royal Danish Ballet
- Spend a free night at Tivoli (Copenhagen's theme park) thanks to Mackenzie host (who works there)
Tivoli's beautifully lit up entrance on the night we went!
- Experience a Danish birthday celebration (including the creamiest chocolate milk I've ever had, which is apparently a birthday thing over there)
- Celebrate May Day, when all the locals in Copenhagen flocked to Fælledparken to celebrate
Celebrating May Day in Fælledparken -- not many non-Danes here!
Graffiti next to the entrance to hippy Christinia
Copenhagen was great. The people were (as far as I can tell) very culturally similar. Neither Swedes nor Danes would likely agree with this statement, but I stand by it nonetheless. They were similar in the way that someone from Vancouver is likely pretty similar to someone from Seattle. Regardless, Copenhagen was an awesome place for Mackenzie to study abroad in, and I was lucky to be able to experience it so much through her!
Stockholm
The only real "trip" out of these three! I'll keep it short and sweet, as this was now almost five months ago at least and I barely remember it except through looking at the photos.
Looking back over the skyline of Stockholm from Södermalm
Mackenzie and I started the trip early morning on a Saturday, around 6:30 AM, and were in Stockholm four hours later. We started the day by walking through Gamle Stan, the Old Town, down the many side streets, as we made our way to Södermalm for our free tour. Once there, we met our lively tour guide (who was actually from Zagreb, Croatia), who brought us around the cool island neighborhood for the next couple hours. The tour consisted mostly of ghost stories and the like, and he told us about the Stockholm Witch Trials, among a variety of other spooky stories.
Back on ground level, now with Södermalm behind us!
After finishing the tour of Södermalm, we headed back to the center of historic Stockholm, Gamle Stan, where we strolled around some more before being reunited with our guide from earlier and doing the free walking tour of Gamle Stan. Still very energetic (but with many of the same jokes), we were led around Gamle Stan and told of the city's (and country's) rich history.
Stortorget, Stockholm's main square, at night! Very pretty colorful houses.
It reminded us of Bruges!
One of the favorite stops was next to an old Viking rune stone, which, because it had been too early to move at the time, was part of the foundation for one of the buildings in the middle of Stockholm! The rune stone was over a thousand years old, and was just casually sitting alongside an alley way in the middle of Gamle Stan -- pretty cool!
Viking-era runestone casually built into the foundation of this building!
By the time the tour was over, it was time for us to head back to the train, which we took back to Lund. In hindsight, it would've been nice to stay at least a couple days in Stockholm, as we really only had time to cram in a couple free tours without much free time to ourselves, but hindsight is always 20/20. The two tours really helped us to learn as much about the dynamic city as we could in the short 8 hours we were there!
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