Travel Time!

The Americans in Malmo!
 Keir Quackenbush, Dan Pihl, Myself, Ben Poor, Nate Travers

This past weekend is what i have been calling the kick off to the travel season here at SVf. and here is why. this past weekend, i went to the south of sweden to malmo and copenhagen with a group of ten or eleven other students, and those that did not come with us went elsewhere in sweden, so school must have been very boring during that time. but now after that, there is going to be a series of 5 or 6 weeks where people will be traveling all about europe, and i am included in that. i will go into more detail about malmo in a minute, but i'll give you a short itinerary about my travel plans. on the third of october we, as an entire class, will be taking a trip to glass factory in viken (i think) sweden. october 7-10 i will be in london with four other friends. a week or two after that, we are taking a week-long class trip to greece, and directly following that is our fall break where all of the americans will be taking euro trips, and seeing all that we can in a weeks time. a week after that, myself and two others, are trying to make a plan to go hiking in norway for the weekend, but that is not for sure yet. i think that is the time when days will really start to blend together and time will  fly by.

Dinner on friday night.

but like i said earlier, i went to malmo, in the south of sweden this past weekend. i was in a group with five other guys, one of whom is from malmo so we were able to stay at his house for the weekend. his parents took wonderful care of us providing us with a three course dinner on friday night, and a "traditional" swedish breakfast on saturday and sunday mornings.

 we were very grateful for their hospitality, and could not have asked for a better host in martin (who was from malmo) in showing us a good time in his home city. on friday night before dinner, we took a short drive to the beach where we played around on a pier for a little while and took in the beautiful sights that were there to admire.

The pier in Malmo.

then after dinner, we went into to malmo to hang out with some of martins friends at some of his favorite spots. it was a great way to start off the weekend. the next, we went to copenhagen, in denmark, for the day. it was surprising how different the two countries are even though they are only separated by a bridge and a few miles of ocean. copenhagen had a much older feel to it than malmo, and it seemed like there were historical buildings everywhere.

Dan Pihl, Myself, Nate Travers in Copenhagen.

we wandered around the city for a long time, and found a quiet square to sit and eat dinner outside (one of the best burgers i have ever had)!

The Jack Daniels Burger!

after copenhagen, we took the train back to malmo using oresund bridge, which is beautiful. we did the same thing as the previous night. after another amazing breakfast, we set out to explore malmo before going to a soccer game in the afternoon. malmo is very charming for its size, 300,000 people. the soccer game was definitely something that i will not forget for a long time. Malmo FF played AIK Stockholm to a 1-1 tie. but the game was very exciting, and no goals were scored until the 84th minute. we chanted, and sang songs the entire game.

Chants during the game!

to finish off the weekend, we walked to a part of malmo called west harbor. this part of the city has grown rapidly since 2001 and it was the nicest and most modern part of malmo. this part of the city is where the turning torso is located, and let me tell you, it was quite the building! it turns 90 degrees as it shoots up 54 stories.

The Turning Torso shimmering at night.

this weekend was definitely a fantastic way to kick off the travel season!

Days flying by

it feels like i last posted many months ago, and i apologize, but i also didn't realize how long it had been. it is amazing how fast the time goes sometimes, but also how slow it goes. the weeks seem to fly by, but the days seem to take forever. maybe its the different things that we do to keep it interesting, or maybe its just that we are in a different country. either way, i am throughly enjoying my time here.
since the last time i put something, i have had two memorable days. the first one was organized by the school. throughout the semester, there are different "days" such as sports day!...which is the only one we have had so far. in the morning of sports day, we competed in different events that ranged from building things with legos to running around the small campus looking for large puzzle pieces. if i recall correctly, the events went in this order: lego building, free throw competition, ski race (two 15 feet long pieces of wood with ropes that were grasped with hands, and 7 people on a set of skis, racing to the finish), speed kub (lawn bowling), fika or coffee break, relay race using tiny cups to fill a bucket with water, a low element called lilly pads (get from a start to finish line using wood planks and not touching the ground, a wood plank always needs to be touched) scavenger hunt for giant puzzle pieces/complete the puzzle, and finally swedish speed scrabble. i hope that i provided an accurate description of all the events. we competed against other students at the school, but more importantly the swedes who will be coming to america in the spring. this took up the morning, and took over classes that day. bummer.
this past weekend, we had what is called a Kräftskiva or crayfish party! it reminded me very much of a labor day weekend BBQ. we started off the evening by playing a swedish lawn game called kub, which is most comparable to boche ball. we hung out outside for a while before going inside to a feast, which had been prepared at a swedes house in jonkoping. for dinner we had swedish meatballs, cut up hotdogs, cheese pie, salad, bread, and of course the star of the evening, crayfish! there were about two crayfish per person. and when i think of crayfish, i tend to think of some puny, less than an inch long lobster. but no, these where at least 3 inches long, 4 including the pinchers, and they were delicious!  we all got little paper hats with crayfish on them to wear, and we had a song book of short swedish drinking songs. it was a very fun evening of friends and fellowship.


until next time