Copenhagen

On August 14th I took my first trip to Copenhagen. Copenhagen is the capital and largest city in Denmark, and is only about an hour long train ride away from Lund. It rained for the majority of the day, but that didn't take away much from the beauty of the city. There are numerous canals that run through the city, surrounded by old, historical buildings. I'll post some pictures so you can see for yourself how nice Copenhagen is. 

Lomma Beach

On August 13 after Swedish class, some of us decided to bike to the beach. Lomma Beach is about 10 km (6 miles) away from Lund. I took about 30 minutes to bike out there and it was a beautiful ride! Once you get out of the main part of Lund, the scenery changes from a city to fields and fields of farmland.

The beach in Lomma is absolutely stunning! It has gorgeous white sand with rose bushes growing along the edge in a path leading towards the water.There were a lot of bees in the sand, though, so we had to watch our step.

The water was a bit chilly, but not nearly as cold as one might expect for the Baltic Sea, and it was very clear. From the beach we could see the city of Malmo (on the left) and the Öresund Bridge (the train bridge that connects Sweden and Denmark).

Swedish Language

On August 4 I started my mandatory intensive language class with all the other UC students. Class was Monday-Friday from 9-12:30, and lasted for about 2 1/2 weeks. My teacher would only speak Swedish which was frustrating at times, but it helped us get immersed into the language quickly. We mostly focused on learning to conjugate verbs, which is helpful, but I didn't feel like I learned enough common words and phrases to try to communicate in Swedish. Here are some simple words and phrases that I use that most:

Hur är det?----- How are you?
Jag  är trött ---- I am tired
Bra ----------- Good
Jag vet inte ----- I don't know
Jag förstår inte-- I don't understand
Tack! ---------- Thank you! 
Hej ------------ Hello
Hejdå ---------- Goodbye

Other than that, we learned a bunch of random words and verbs. Hopefully I'll learn more and be able to communicate in some Swedish by the end of the semester.

Lund

I arrived in Lund on August 2 after a long day of traveling. I left LAX around 6am, flew to Washington DC, then to Copenhagen, Denmark, then took a train about 1 hour into Lund. Lund is an amazing town! It's located in Skåne, the county of southern Sweden closest to Denmark. The city was founded around the year 1000 when the southern part of Sweden still belonged to Denmark. The buildings and streets in town look very old. In the center of town is Lunds Domkyrkas (Lund Cathedral), which is huge and gorgeous.   

The town has many cobblestone streets lined with cute, colorful buildings, shops and houses. When I first arrived, I got lost down these streets everyday since they tend to all look the same.

Lund Universitet, the university I'm attending, is spread throughout the town. The university was established in 1666 and is one of the biggest institutions in Sweden. There is no real central point of campus since the university buildings are spread throughout the town.

This is where the International Housing Office and the UC Advisor's office are located.

This is the main university library, although each major department has a separate library.

This is one of the administrative buildings with a gorgeous fountain in front. 

This is the AF Building, which is like the student union. It contains one of the bookstores, a cafe, and a large study area where many students hang out.

Hello!

I've decided that it's time for me to start blogging about my adventures in Sweden. I've been living in Lund for about 3.5 months now, and I absolutely love it here! Since not too much is going on right now other than just studying, I'll begin posting blogs about my previous adventures from when I first arrived in Sweden. Hopefully by the time I'm done with that I'll have something current to write about =)