Welcome to the published part of my life!

Since I am in Sweden, summer is somehow different then somewhere else in the world. It’s not by definition sunny, the weather changes very often and very fast and its not getting really warm. But some days, including last Saturday, are different. They are sunny, blue sky and its warm, at least on the Swedish scale.

(The pixel close to the horizon is me with water roughly up to my upper legs)

So we decided that this is the perfect opportunity to go to Lomma again for some holiday – summer – feeling. I mean you have to walk nearly till Denmark to get your bally wet, but other than that it really felt like summer to feel the sand underneath your feed.

I have to say it again – I love to live close to the beach!

Two weeks ago I finally had the chance to see the beautiful Lund University Main Building from the inside.

My roommate is playing in the University Orchestra and asked us to come to their performance in Lund. It was nothing really fancy, but it was really nice to listen to the music and enjoy the nice atmosphere of the concert hall.

It was a nice change from all the student parties I’ve been so far.

In my point of view such cultural events are always worth going to!

I told you already that there are tons of bikes in front the University buildings every day. Last week I’ve learnt that companies actually use this fact to adapt their marketing strategy.

So last week every bike got a green seat cover with some advertising for a new gummy bear brand. Unfortunately I only had a cell phone to take a picture, but you can still get how funny it was to see all this bikes with the same bright green seat cover.

People told me that this happens quite regularly here in Lund, with iterating colours.

I have to admit, that this cover is really useful, because you can just take it off when it was raining and your seat will be dry again. And obviously a lot of people share my observation. Therefore I still see many green seat covers in town. This will possibly last until the next company decides to get some advertising going. I’m already curious what colour it will be….

or a traditional “siste april” (=last of April) in Lund, precisely “Walpurgis Night” as the Germans and Americans would call it. In the  Swedisch wikipedia article a day scedule of a traditional “siste april” is given:

Traditionsenlig “siste april” i Lund

• 08.00 Sillfrukost på någon av studentnationerna.
• 10.00–13.00 Lekar och tävlingar i Stadsparken (tidigare på Centrala idrottsplatsen).
• ….

and the list goes on and on and on… But I guess what is left from the tradition is that all students go to Stadsparken (Central Park) with friends in the morning and gather there till about 3pm. What was not mentioned in the article was the huge amount of alcohol they bring, and share and drink.

People told me about this special day since I came to Sweden, but I didn’t really know what to expect.  When I actually came to the park I was astonished by the amount of people who came out for that. The whole park was packed. There was no more space at all…

The fact that it was really sunny and warm and that there was some music playing even emphasized the feeling to be at a big summer festival. I have to admit that the most people in the park weren’t really trunk. Thy just enjoyed the day and hang out together, it was really fun.

When people finally started to leave, we went to a huge outdoor party in a dorm called “Parenthesen”. It is called like this because it looks like parenthesizes. So these two buildings right next to each other form a great area for a party where the music from the huge boxes has a good acoustic, so that it sounds even louder than it already is. It felt like the whole space between the buildings and on the balconies wars taken up by people… And everybody was singing and dancing and having fun.. At 3pm… Crazy Swedish people!

For the evening of this day, the Swedish Tradition is very similar to where I come from in Germany. You have a big fire somewhere on a field or in the park and people come there to celebrate the night.
Since all of us were hungry we decided to have a barbecue in Sankt Hans backar before going to the fire. This park is really nice because it has quite big hills from which you just have  a wonderful view over Lund and big parts of Skåne.

Unfortunately it was getting really cold really soon, so after we finished the barbecue we decided not to look for the fire, but to go home to have a preparty befor the actual night party we went to afterwards in another dorm.

As you can see, the whole day consisted of partying and it was really fun. I don’t know if such a huge party would be even possible in Germany. I guess it is something so speacial because there is a storry and a tradition behind it and therefore people just follow it along.

Did I mention, that I love to live close to the beach again?! I love it, because you can just grab your bike and go there in less then an hour when the weather is nice and you feel like it. So this is what we did a couple of weeks ago, and we had a  barbecue there. After a while all the food had some crunchiness to it, but it was fun anyway

(Barbecue at the beach – Grillen am Strand )

After we spent all afternoon there most of the people left, and it was only Emma (a Swedish girl I got to know in Vancouver) and Lorenz who stayed with us to see the sun going down.

(Zwei Freunde von mir: Emma (eine Schwedin) und Lorenz (ein deutscher Austauschstudent))

We decided not to stay until the sun set completely because it was really getting chilly and we had to cycle back quite a while and Christian didn’t have light on his bike.. (You have to pay 80€ if they catch you, and they check quite frequently)

I’m already looking forwart to coming back to the beach