So I arrived to Lund just fine! I took a flight to DC, had a 2 hour layover, and then boarded the next one to Copenhagen. Hah, I think the title of this post goes without saying. Literally, it was SO easy to point out which passengers were Danish/Swedish when I boarded the international flight. There was no confusion there that every tall, tan, and blonde superhuman within the close vicinity of our gate was indeed Scandinavian. I think I read somewhere that (to paraphrase) 'it is such a stereotype that most swedes are tall and blonde, when in fact the majority are actually brunettes'. While they may have some statistical data to support their claim, all I have to say to that is 'bullshiiitttt'. Every single blonde, well-above-averaged height person I saw was either carrying their red EU passports that read "Danmark" or "Sverige" on them. And all of them were beautiful. Like i mean both the men and women. BEAUTIFUL. I might as well have been an oompa loompa compared to them. Yet because of my blonde and tall characteristics all the flight attendants (all of whom were danish) went on to speak danish to me the entire flight...[Danish looks similar to Swedish on paper, and many swedes from Lund or other parts of Skåne can understand danish as well. Though swedes from other regions sometimes have trouble]. Anyways, I just went along with it. I understood the gist of what they were asking in terms of "did I want something to drink?" or "which meal would I like to have?" or "do you want to sleep or be woken up for breakfast?" To all of which I responded with simple swedish phrases that I know. It was probably good practice for me because upon arriving bright and early in Lund, there was nothing but hundreds of blondes, to which I fit in quite nicely.
Yet because of that, everyone assumes I'm from there and spin off in their quick swedish to which sometimes I got by, but many times gave a look of bewilderment and nicely said "Förlåt, jag kan bara prata lite svenska. Kan du prata engelska?" (translation: 'sorry, I can only speak a little swedish, can you speak english?") Of course, everybody in sweden I've ever met has always been so friendly, and they smile and help me out. (Though they are very modest and always say "a little", when in fact their english is FAR better than my swedish. Oh well, after the program I should be set).
Anyways upon arriving to Copenhagen airport I went to the kiosk at the airport and bought a train ticket to Lund. I had done it before when my cousins had picked me up from the airport there once so it wasn't a problem. Figuring out which train to take was a different story--I bought a ticket to Lund central station, but none of the monitors said that they were going to Lund. Thankfully the lady next to me was super nice and said I needed to get on the one that said "Helsingborg-->Göteborg". Like I was supposed to know that Lund was a stop in between all that?? I got to the city fine at like 8am in to morning and asked anyone I saw how to get to my hotel. Course it wasn't far, but I still had to haul my suitcase for about 4 blocks across cobblestone streets...lets just say the noise wasn't subtle. haha. The hotel let me check in early which was great and I took a shower and then walked around town. The location of the hotel is great, literally right above the town square, yet like all typical european hotels everything is very space conscious. By that i mean freaking TINY. like my room might as well be harry potter's cupboard under that stairs haha but honestly it is perfect for one night and I don't mind. The bathroom is shared with the floor (which is to be expected, since they are usually shared in europe). I walked around, took money out of the ATM, and went to local cell phone store where a girl helped me out. She was so sweet and had just gotten back from studying in san diego! Her english was great, and it was comforting to talk to someone who understood me well. I got myself a local phone number and then walked around grabbed something to eat and sat in the front of the university center for a while to read. By 3pm I was exhausted and went back to my hotel to take a nap. When I woke up it was still light out, I couldn't believe it was Tuesday morning already. Nope. It was only 10 pm the same night. Figures, it's almost midsummer so it stays light out super late. Now the time is like 11:30pm, and I'm wide awake. Shoot.
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