Experiences in Lund

So now I've been here a few days and I was thinking I'd give you a little taste of how its been going here:

Walking around the city has been wonderful, but I'm thinking about getting a bike sometime this week. There are bikes everywhere here- its the main for of transportation mostly because the town center has such narrow and complicated streets that its just easier to get around on a bike. Its very odd seeing all the bikes lined up all over the city- and there are only about 1 out of every 20 that are locked up. Most are just left by the bike stands. There are also strict laws about having the proper lights attached to your bike, basically you need one on the front and one in the back or else the police will fine you SEK 500 (about $70) for each missing light.

The part about the bikes laws I learned today at a general introduction meeting for all international students. There were speakers from all the different aspects of life that we have to deal with as international students (ie housing, insurance, student unions). The most interesting speaker of the whole assembly was the cop from the Lund Police Dept. He was very charismatic and confident. He told us about the laws in Sweden regarding bikes and cars, drugs and alcohol and theft. Apparetly it is legal in Lund (not the rest of Sweden) to be drunk/drink in public (however, if you drunk to the point that the police are worried about your safty they will put you in the drunk tank to sleep it off) There were several other points- if a cop is standing in front of you indicating that you should stop your bike, don't give him a high five as you fly by. My favorite, and the most comically delivered was "peeing in public is ilegal". This was followed by his discription of what were unacceptable subsitutes for toilets. As you can tell, his portion was the most entertaining part of the meeting. The rest was all stuff we'd all heard before.

After the meeting I went to my first Swedish course, which was pretty fun although I knew most of what we went over from the class I took at UCLA. It will be very helpful to know some phrases in Swedish, since every cashier I've been to since I got here thinks I'm Swedish. Sometimes I know enough.... but most times I have to put on the "deer in headlights" look and say "I'm sorry, what did you say?". Its been very odd being in a country where I don't understand everything going on around me. At the supermarket tonight I had to guess with some things, like the yogurt- I just picked the one that looked most like the one I'd had at the youth hostel. And while I was going to get some lunch meat, I couldn't read any of the labels and the one I eventually picked up (it looked like turkey) turned out to be tuna, so I stuck to things I could easily figure out. Among these things were bread, pasta, some kind of pasta sauce and frozen pizza. If there weren't pictures on the juice I would have been totally lost because the word for apple is "äpple" and the workd for orange is "apelsin" which is confusing...

I met a few people who live in my corridor tonight, they seem really nice and they said that it will be much busier when everyone moves back in over the weekend. I also used the kitchen for the first time- granted all I made was a frozen pizza, but I used it none the less! The kitchen is great, we have our own shelves in the fridge and pantry that are labeled with our room number on them. All the plates and pots and pans and stuff are for everyone to use. We have assignments for chores in the common areas- like cleaning kitchen, taking out garbage or recycling ...

Tomorrow I have the day free for the most part!! So I'll be catching up on sleep and keeping warm since I've spent the past few days wadering around Lund in the cold and going to orientations and meetings. It'll be nice to have some time to catch up on sleep and relaxation!

I'll post more pictures soon- I took my camera with me today, but the battery was dead (I may have left it on all night...) The battery is charging now, so new pictures are coming soon!