Lund, Sweden

Day two in Lund. The ride over to Sweden from Denmark was short, only about 45mins, but so far Sweden seems more different from Copenhagen than I had imagined. To be fair, most of the differences are because Lund is a small town and Copenhagen is a big city. But Lund is much quieter, more quaint, more sleepy and laid-back.

That's a good thing for a day or so, but I'm starting to fear that I'm going to run out of things to do here. The town of Lund is small enough that it doesn't seem to partcularly geared towards tourists, so that means that even though I've had some enjoyable conversations with a few locals, there's not very much to do. There are very few restaraunts and cafes, and although there are quite a few cute little shops, they all seem to be women's clothing stores. They're all eerily similar clothing stores, too, with nothing that I'm remotely interested in buying. They're interesting to browse through for a short while, since the styles are so different from what we're used to in the states. There's lots of knits, sweater ponchos are big, and winter coats seem to be shaped like peapods:

There's also a much more significant language barrier in Lund. In Copenhagen, everyone spoke fluent English and all of the signs and menus were in English as well. In Lund, everything is in Swedish. When we try to talk to people here, they're very nice and helpful, but switching to English is sometimes a struggle for them. (Our fault for not speaking Swedish, of course. I don't want to be one of those American tourists that expects everyone to speak in English. It's just very nice when it happens.)  Ordering food off of a Swedish menu is more of less a matter of finding a single word that you think you recognize, and taking a leap of faith that whatever comes your way will be edible.

The few restaurants that I've seen here fall into three categories:

1) Kabab stands

2) Pizza restaurants

3) sushi joints

Other than that, there's not much to choose from. Matt and I walked around the town last night at 8pm looking for a place to eat, and it felt like the town had been completely shut down for *hours.* Everything was shuttered, and there were very few people around. When we finally found a sushi restaurant that was still open, we were the only people in the place. (The sushi, however, was mind-blowingly delicious. Some of the best I've ever had.)

Today, I asked one of the locals what she recommended that I see while in Lund. She thought for a moment, shook her head, and said, "Um....Copenhagen?" So, even people that live here seem to be resigned to the fact that there's not much to do in Lund. In a lot of ways, Lund reminds me of Whitehaven, a little town in the UK about 15 miles from where we lived in Maryport. It's the kind of town that you might visit to do your weekly shopping if you lived in a nearby *smaller* town, but not the kind of place you'd travel to all the way from the US Sweden specifically to see.

 Our room at the stately Grand Hotel.

View from our hotel.

 Lund

The big attraction in Lund: some sort of church.

Don't get me wrong... I'm still very glad to get a chance to see Sweden. It's wonderful to be here, and even just having the luxury of lazing around my hotel is absolutely fabulous. I think, though, that the switch to Paris will be a welcome one. More to see, more to do, more to eat.

I do have one exciting thing on the agenda today: At 2pm, I'm going to head down to Matt's nuclear conference to watch him give a presentation to his colleagues. I'm really looking forward to seeing Matt in action. I'll probably only understand 1/2 of the things he's going to talk about, but still... I'm sure to be proud of him, and happy for the chance to see him in his element.