Tuesday 3 February 2015

A Weekend in Sweden

So in early October (forever ago!) I headed to Sweden. The main purpose was to visit an old friend, M, that lives in Lund, and on the way I stopped over in Göteborg (AKA Gothenburg) for a night, and was lucky to have a guided tour of Malmö courtesy of another friend on the way back. The awesome thing about visiting Lund/Malmö is that you can easily get back to Oslo by flying from Copenhagen - super quick and easy! 

Göteborg


I absolutely loved Göteborg. It was beautiful weather for the time I was there, and it was such a fun little city. I stayed in a teeny tiny box room in STF Göteborg city which was not cheap, but it was perfect because it was right in the centre of the city which meant everything was within walking distance and I didn't have to muck around with public transport (plus there was a decent breakfast included). 

Whilst I was in Göteborg, I visited: the Horticultural Gardens (lovely even in Autumn!); Skansen Kronan (an awesome old fortress, seen above to the right, and which gives the incredible view of the city that you see below); Rohsska Museum of Design and Applied Art (not really my thing, as it showcases furniture of Swedish design and whatnot - but it was free!); Museum of Fine Art (also free, and pretty cool as I quite like old art. They had an exhibition of Van Gogh at the time, too); City Museum (AKA Göteborgs Stadsmuseum, this was also really great and contained stuff about the city's history, the vikings, & more cool stuff); and I also walked around Haga and the surrounding area, which is a lovely old neighbourhood. I think I was only there for about 30 hours total so I managed to squeeze in a fair bit, and just walked around looking at a ton of stuff too.

I would love to go back in the summer to visit the archipelago and some of the islands out there, too. After all, it's only a bus ride away from Oslo! 



Lund

I headed to Lund via train on the Friday evening. I have to say, trains in Scandinavia are much nicer than in the UK - super clean and no graffiti in sight. Unfortunately, my timing was off a bit and my friend was really ill with one of those nasty 24 hour bugs when I first got to Lund - not much fun for her at all! But I know her family really well so her mum and brother picked me up and I went to stay in their house for the night. It was really lovely to catch up with them, I have such fond memories of them all from my childhood and now even more to think back on!


On the Saturday, M felt slightly better and we headed off to the 'Punschfesten' in the evening - literally 'Punch Party'. It's a formal dinner organised by one of the many student nations (a little bit like sororities/fraternities) which featured entertainment before, during and after the dinner, and quite a few free drinks. Yes, that meant wearing a long dress and pretending to be a little bit fancy. Of course, everything was in Swedish, but I was sat with some friends of M who were nice enough to give me a general overview of what was going on. It was a lot of fun (I didn't get back until 4am), everyone was really nice, the food was pretty good, and I got a fun insight in to what it must be like to attend Lund University where they have multiple events like this!

On Sunday we explored Lund a little bit, starting at Kulturen. Kulturen is a funky little open air museum that features traditional buildings from Sweden's history. It was really cool, nice and educational (can you tell I like history museums?) and M and I went around reading every placard in full - my favourite way to explore museums! Afterwards we checked out Lund Cathedral which is home to an Astronomical Clock that dates back to 1425. I didn't actually get to see it play, but I think this youtube video does a pretty good job... In general, Lund seems like a really lovely University town. The buildings are old and often covered with vines, there are cobbled streets and plenty of green spaces - it's idyllic!

I left for Malmö which was en route to head home on Monday, after a really lovely weekend with M. Isn't it awesome how with certain people, even if you haven't seen them for years you just click right back together with them on the next meeting? Now she's headed off for her own study abroad adventure down in Oz - I can't wait to hear about it!


Malmö

I really wasn't in Malmö for very long at all, but I lucky to get a whirlwind tour of it courtesy of my friend R, who I actually know from when I participated in the Study India program a couple of years ago! Overall, Malmö made a good impression on me (kind of just like a bigger Lund); the area of Lilla Torg was particular pretty and I liked the area photographed below a lot - you can see the bridge that connects Sweden to Denmark if you look close enough!


All in all, I had a really lovely weekend. Seeing new places is really awesome, but I think catching up with friends may be even better. I feel very lucky that being in Oslo this year has given me the opportunity to do just that! 

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