Lundaspexarna 1942

In late November I was invited by a Swedish chemistry student (following a discussion about band) to participate in a spex. Basically a spex translated is a farce, which makes sense as this was basically a comedy play with all male actors. Lundaspexarna was the name of this particular spex group and the show we put on was called 1942. I was in the orchestra and spent most of my time in the pit but for the final act we were actully on stage and played Glen Miller tunes which explains why we were also dressed up and wearing rediculous amount of stage makeup! Most of the people in the orchestra actually study at the Malmö Music Academy and are very talented players. The rehearsals and even the performances were lots of fun and drinking took place during both (really a new concept: drinking while performing = hilarious :-) The crowd loved the performances which are quite laid back as you might have guessed from the previous statement. When the audience really likes something they will clap until that section is repeated (sometimes even up to four times but shorter and shorter segments each time). I did not understand much but many of the bits were in German and English as the setting was World War II. Once in a lifetime experience: Playing the German and American National Anthem in the same song! The whole week of the spex was quite crazy actually. There were dinners and parties planned throughout. One of the last nights it was the orchestra's turn to serve the three course dinner which took place at 2 in the morning. I ended up serving the main dish with about five others to about 200 guests and performers. During the dinner the actors took turns entertaining the crowd by singing old tunes from different performances. Unfortuately I had to leave early (4:30 am) as I still had a paper to write...

Stockholm

This is the capitol of the beautiful country that I am living in for a year. I travelled via X2000 fast train very early Thursday morning with Emilie, Mel, Kara and Emma (pictured left to right below) on November 17th. The five of us stayed at Emilie's house in Barkarby, a suburb of Stockholm, where we all saw our first snow since arriving in Sweden! Our first excursion into the city included a visit to Skansen, Scandinavia's largest open air museum, where we saw Nordic animals such as reindeer and elk. The one in the picture with me is a female elk and I will remember it as the first elk I saw in Sweden :-) Heading out for our second day, I took the picture of my travel companions in Emilie's neighborhood on our way to the train station. After a fun filled day of walking around Gamla Stan and the islands of Stockholm we payed a visit to the Stockholm Ice Bar in the Nordic Sea Hotel. The experience was incredible! They gave us very thickly insulated coats as it was -7 C inside and served the beverages in glasses made entirely of ice. I had what was called an Absolute Swede and it was good but quite expensive...but well worth the experience! It's just not an opportunity you have every day. There is so much more to tell about my visit in Stockholm including a visit to the Vasa Museum, the Nobel Prize banquet hall, the excellent cafes and so much more, but I guess if you want to hear more about it you'll just have to ask :-)