Sweden!

I've spent the last couple of days in Sweden! Every core class takes a short trip this week to different places in Denmark, Sweden, and Germany, and mine went to Kullen and Malmø. 

Monday:

We first went to Helsingør, which is a bit north of Copenhagen. It was freezing cold and raining, but we were able to tour Kronborg, the castle that Shakespeare's Hamlet takes place in. Despite the rain, it was gorgeous! 

We walked around Helsingør in the rain for a bit and went inside a church and Sancta Maria Abbey. 

Courtyard at the convent

After Helsingør, we took a 15 minute ferry ride to Helsingborg, Sweden. We drove around the countryside over to Kullen to hike to Ladonia. Ladonia is a micronation created by Lars Vilks. In the 1980s, he started piecing driftwood together to create a giant fort on the beach. Sweden said that the architecture wasn't allowed on a nature reserve, so Vilks fought with them in court until he was allowed to declare it a micronation in 1996. You can become a citizen of Ladonia for free online or pay $30 to get a title of nobility! (Already submitted my application to become a citizen!)

My class was really excited about it, until we saw the hike. These pictures won't do it justice, but we had to climb over a mile down an extremely steep rocky mountainside that was covered in ice, snow, and slush! It was the most ridiculous thing I've ever done! I must have fallen over half a dozen times, but miraculously, no one got seriously injured.

When we FINALLY reached Ladonia, the hike through it was almost as bad as coming down the mountain! There were a few forts, and you had to go through makeshift tunnels to get to them. Wood was nailed together randomly with lots of nails sticking out, and it's amazing that it's held up for so long! The forts were like any kid's dream, and the view on the beach was positively beautiful! 

We made the trek back up the mountain and back to humanity. We were treated to coffee, tea, and cakes at a little restaurant in Kullen, and they were delicious! The pictures don't do them justice!

After teatime (fika in Swedish), we made our way to our hostel, which seems to be an old mansion estate. The owners cooked a typical Scandinavian dish of fish and potatoes, which was great as usual! We watched a Scandinavian movie after dinner with some ice cream, and I got to try pear ice cream for the first time. It tasted like banana Laffy Taffy for some reason.

Tuesday:

We left the hostel and headed off to Malmø! An architecture professor at DIS gave us a tour of some parts of Malmø, and it looked a lot like the old parts of Copenhagen because it used to be part of Denmark a couple of hundred years ago.

We walked to the harbor where more modern buildings and homes were. The view was gorgeous but absolutely FREEZING with the wind! We got to see the bridge to Denmark that turns into a tunnel halfway across so boats can go through the water (we got to go across the bridge on Wednesday!) The houses were very modern and artsy, and our guide told us that the neighborhood we were in is actually used as a house catalog for the rest of Sweden.

This is the bridge that connects Sweden and Denmark

We took a break for lunch, and I went to Max Burgers with some of my friends. Max is a really popular hamburger place in Sweden, kind of like McDonald's. We all got the cheapest thing on the menu: the junior burger! It was really good though, and it wasn't as greasy as most fast food places in the U.S.

After lunch, we toured Sydsvenskan, one of the largest newspapers in Sweden. We were going to see a video about how the newspapers were printed, but it was all in Swedish so we just asked our guide some questions. The office was really neat and casual, and all of the reporters we spoke to were really nice!

We checked into our hostel (not quite as nice as the mansion from the night before) and headed off to a comedy workshop with a Swedish comedian. It didn't go quite as well as planned, so we didn't really learn anything, much to my professor's disappointment. Dinner afterwards was absolutely delicious! We had the most tender beef I've ever eaten with potatoes and French custard for dessert!

As a class, we went to a bar after dinner, and my professor treated us all to a beer (a very Danish thing to do). 

Wednesday:

Bright and early, we left to go to SVT, one of the most popular news networks in Sweden. They gave us the grand tour, and we had a discussion with our guides about multiculturalism in Sweden. One of the videographers came in after and showed us a video he and some others put together about how some of the most popular songs came into being and what made them so popular. The main clip he showed us was the one he did when he interviewed Jonathan Cain from Journey about the history of the piano music in Don't Stop Believin'!!! For those who know me well, Journey is my ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE band, Don't Stop Believin' is one of my favourite songs, and the piano is my favourite instrument! Needless to say, my day was made after seeing that video!

We ate a delicious lunch of falafel wraps (very popular in Scandinavia) and toured more of Malmø while eating delicious baklava. It was freezing and snowing, but we got to tour a neat park, which was quite different from typical American parks. Instead of your usual playground equipment, there was a boat, petting zoo, little ice rink, some small roller coasters, and a giant night club built to look like the Taj Mahal. What we didn't see were people because they were smart and stayed indoors to keep warm!

On our last stop, we went to a synagogue and spoke to the rabbi about antisemitism in Malmø since there is a large and growing Arab population. The synagogue was beautiful, and we had a pretty interesting discussion. Then we finally left to head back to Copenhagen over the huge bridge that connects Sweden and Denmark!