Vänern och Vättern

This was our last big trip together in Sweden. Together with Eva, Emilie, Kara, Mel and I travelled to the two biggest lakes in the country. The weather was absolutely beautiful and the driving was very pleasant. We stopped several times along the long lake and eventually made it to our cabin on the south tip of lake Vänern. The cabin was one of those picturesque little wooden houses painted red with the white trim. After exploring the area a bit we took a drive around and had a picnic near the quarry in the picture above right. To the left of it is a view right out from our cottage. The photo below is one of my favorites that I took in Lidskoeping.

These photos below are from the drive up to the lakes and the first stop we took. The little fishing village we stopped at had some gorgeous vistas and sitting out on the pier was really relaxing.

This might have been the first and only proper castle that we saw on all our excursions in Sweden. Many of the castles we saw may have been labelled so but compared to the ones you might see in Germany you could hardly call many of them castles. This white one below was recently repainted so it looked very nice.

Around the Sound

This trip also called Oeresundrundt is a 200 SEK train ticket that is valid for two days of travel in areas of Denmark and Sweden that border the Baltic Sea. I had wanted to do this trip for a long time but wanted to wait until the weather was a bit warmer and there was more color. Spring came late but fortunately it had arrived by the last week of May! My best friend Eva from Welzheim, Germany came to visit me and I decided it would be a good idea to take the trip with her. The first day we travelled up the Swedish coast to Helsingborg and took the ferry across to Helsingoer. Here we walked around the cute little town with picturesque little streets like the one with the colorful houses I posted. From there we continued on to two or three more stops where we passed by beautiful Rape fields (the yellow flowers above). We visited the Queen's summer residence and mistakenly entered the premises which had no gate or anything to indicate they were off limits. This discovery was made after the lone guard who neither of us had noticed popped out of hiding and briefly shouted 'NO ENTRY!'. Eva and I nearly had a heart attack, but after a brief laugh we moved on and took a walk through the gardens. The final stop was at this Danish castle. I don't recall the name but the little town was cute but by now Eva and I were exhausted so we headed home.

The second day we stayed in Sweden and travelled first to Helsingborg for some sightseeing and shopping. We had a lovely lax salad lunch with coffee at this adorable little cafe and from there continued to Malmoe. Here we indulged in a little more shopping and took a brief stroll through the center before heading home and enjoying a relaxing evening.

Karneval 19-21 Maj

Building the Karneval Området began on May 5th and lasted through the 18th. The volunteers were required to work 6 four hour shifts in addition to all day the weekend before the Karneval. The work was a lot of fun and the weather was absolutely fantastic. Some of the work I did involved covering electric cable and placing it undergroud. I had also helped with putting up the fences around the grounds and in the sections, but my favorite work was the afternoon I spent with Sofia, Johan and Tuomas putting up the lights in our area. (See photo below)
Sofia was originally supposed to work in a different section, but after they neglected to call her I convinced her to join my section and I'm glad she did. I had someone to go with to all the workers events so that was fun :)
The hard work we did during the day was then rewarded either by a nice lunch or dinner cooked by the volunteers working in the kitchen. The deck pictured below was also built by the workers and had plenty of use during the three weeks prior to Karneval and later during the Karneval. After a long day of work we might have some games in the neighboring tent before going upstairs to enjoy the lovely evening with a few drinks on the deck.
The Lundakarneval themed 'Dualkarneval' took place 19-21 of Maj. Opening evening I had some time off from the work and met up with Kara, Mel and Emilie at some of the tents. In the photo I'm being silly with a Lundavöl beer can on my head :) The Karneval was pretty fun but I was really glad I did the work as I really got to know some nice people and spend some time doing stuff other than school work. In the evenings there were always concerts on the main stage in front of the white university building. Two off the highlight bands were The Sounds and The Ark. I enjoyed The Sounds, who come from Helsingborg, but I really got into the more rock sound of The Ark on the last evening. Many of their songs were played in the clubs at Lund so it the songs had a lot of good memories attached to them. Around Karneval time there was also a lot happening in the clubs so here is another good picture of Kara and me at Wermlands, our member nation for the spring term.

I have quite a few pictures of Karneval but the one below is of the parade that took place Saturday and Sunday. I don't know why these particular guys are dressed in blue, but I can say that the green tarps they are wearing is what me and several others in the group put on the fences for decoration and to keep people from climbing them! I missed the parade on Saturday, but watched it on the student channel while eating breakfast at home. Sunday Emilie and I met up at hers and watched the whole parade from a spot near Mårtenstorget.

All and all the Lundakarneval was a success and a pretty big deal since it only happens every 4 years. The weather may not have been perfect on some of the Karneval evenings but all the time spent working on it before the three days made up for the less than ideal weather during the weekend.

Österlen

Taking another opportunity at a road trip organized through the international office, I signed up for a trip to the Southwestern part of Sweden. We went to two of the places I had visited on my very first trip in Sweden which were Ales Stenar and Glimminghus. In addition to this we went to Dag Hammarskjoelds Backacra and to Stenshuvud National Park which is where these two pictures were taken. The one on top is of the wood anemones and the bottom one of the highest point in the park. Its strange to think that this was May 6 and spring had still not arrived! Southern Sweden had a very long winter and there was snow basically until the end of March. This trip was a bit rushed because after this park which was our fourth stop we went to the Gunilla Mann gallery. She has comical like painting always containing a bicyle, a cat and a woman somewhere. It wasn't my kind of art but we did all get a large postcard of a painting depicting Lund so that was pretty neat. The other good part was that we had apple cake and coffee available to us at the gallery before being rushed off to get home because the schedule was supposed to have us back by like 1800. This park was my favorite of all the days activities and really the reason I went on the trip.