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Wednesday 2 March 2016

Winter in Sweden


After the enthusiastic responses on my Autumn in Sweden post, it's time for the sequel: Winter in Sweden! It actually feels odd to be writing this, as I barely spent any time in Sweden in the winter. I returned to the Netherlands prematurely at the start of December because of my father's bad health. So it was halfway January when my brother, Conrad and I rode back to Lund to pick up our stuff and hand in the keys of out apartment. Although it wasn't exactly like a vacation (we had four days), I was happy I had to chance to say goodbye to the town one last time after having had to leave it in such a rush.

When we arrived after a 12-hour drive, Sweden had decided to give us the full winter experience. Everything was looking super pretty with all the snow. But as it was -6 degrees Celsius, we spent our morning after arrival anxiously watching instructive movies of people defrosting their cars.


It turned out it was all unnecessary and the car was fine, but seeing the picture above that I took somewhere along the road through Germany the previous day, you may get an idea of why we were concerned. Miraculously, despite the snow storms, we made the trip without delay. But back to Lund.


In the morning we went outside for some groceries and found my neighbourhood, Klostergården, looking like this. Even though it was quite cold, a decent amount of people were taking a hike. Some children were sleighing in the park.


I got to steal my brother's camera to make pretty pictures - no more crappy phone pictures, yay! - after which he kept teasing me for being obsessed with moss and snow. I don't care - I just love those details of little bulbs of snow following the contour of the bricks. The street lantern looks like a little toadstool growing on the wall.


More pictures of snow in Klostergården. They really do have the cutest street lanterns here in Lund. You may have guessed by now that snow makes me happy (and cold).


In between the moving and cleaning, we somehow found the time to show my brother around town. Here Conrad and I are visiting the odd but cute little shop where they sell the brilliant combination of second hand study books, bicycles and tea with cake.


A visit to Lund isn't complete without stopping by the cathedral, where the cellar used to host a real Swedish mummy, bishop Winstrup. (His mummification was more or less an accident as a result of the dry environment in the cellar, but hey, it is a mummy!) Once a year or so, Winstrup is displayed for the public. Of course I happened to be ill on that day, grrr.


We also dropped by my favourite 16th century wall, of which my building archaeology course let me draw every single brick. 'Favourite' may sound a bit cynical in that regard, but I honestly still love it to bits. I look at it and know why this brick is there and when that one was put there. In fact, you can see many different walls as they were used by their different owners with their own particular wishes through the centuries.


I wanted to end the day with hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmallows (they have that everywhere in Lund and I love it!) in my favourite hangout, Mormors Bageri ("Grandma's bakery"), but it was packed with people. Luckily we found a spot in the cute cafe next door, Ebbas Skafferi ("Ebba's pantry"), where I instantly started teasing my brother by abusing his camera to shoot Instragram-style pictures. I just had to, though, the food looked downright fantastic, and it tasted even better.

It is a strange feeling. Walking through the town I came to call home, I felt happy and sad at the same time. Happy because of enjoying it; sad because it was the last time. I will miss Lund so very much. The cosy town, the dancing, the university... all of it. I have only lived here for 3,5 months and it wasn't all of it easy, but I never wanted to leave anymore. I guess that is what saying goodbye is about: transforming time into a powerful, happy memory.

15 comments :

  1. Beautiful photos - I am so jealous. I can't remember the last time we had snow in England. Also, did you honestly draw every brick? My god, how long did that take?

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    1. Two afternoons. I thought that wasn't too bad, honestly. And I know how you feel; we don't have a lot of snow here in the Netherlands either, although this year wasn't too bad. I think it snowed twice.

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  2. Thanks for sharing the pictures, they are pretty cool! (No pun intended!)

    Like you I also have a bit of obsession with snow since I never seem it. So I am a bit jealous of you right now. Then again, I am pretty sure if I ever get to see snow I will be amused by it for 5 minutes then get annoyed because it is too cold.

    Now I want to go live in there too. It looks like such a nice place!

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    1. This conversation just took place:

      Me: "Awww, Rakuno has never seen snow." :(

      Certain Swede: "That's not sad. Where he lives, it's always nice weather. I'd swap every day!"

      As long as I've known him, Conrad has always detested snow. When asked why, he rants that it only looks pretty the first day and then you have to endure the brown dregs cars and people transform it into for the rest of the winter. Also, when it (inevitably, in Sweden) begins to freeze, the bicycle tracks, footprints etc in the snow freeze up, making the road a hazardous place to move on.

      When he moved to the Netherlands, he was so happy that the winters were warmer! Of course, then he started complaining about the wind... ;)

      I hope you get to see snow at some point in your life! :)

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  3. Those are some very cute pictures and I can completely understand why you will miss Lund.

    I get the "Why are you taking pictures of this?" teasing a lot too ("It's just trees on a road!" - "But they are pretty trees!"), though less so these days since I don't have as much time to idle and just admire the world around me. :(

    Fun fact: In the row with three pictures, the one on the very right instantly made me think that I've definitely taken a very similar-looking picture in Vienna before... so I looked through my old albums, and I was right! Then I realised that that particular photo is now ten years old and felt really old. :P

    The drawing every brick thing sounds really intriguing! What are you supposed to learn from that? Are there really that many different bricks in that wall?

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    1. Wow, that absolutely must have been the same cultivated species of tree! Great minds... ;)

      I hope you still have time to admire the world around you every now and then, even though you are busy. I don't find enough of that, either. Perhaps that's why studying abroad was so refreshing for me: everything is new, so you tend to notice the small things that you might otherwise overlook.

      We distinguished about 30 different building phases in that wall, so yes, there is actually a lot to see for the trained eye! You can't see them that well from this angle, though. I used my drawing to show the different phases in our presentation and the paper we had to hand in. Because it was digital, I could easily switch layers on and off, so it turned out to be a handy tool to illustrate the narrative. I did get a bit dizzy from all the drawing, though.

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  4. I'm jealous of all the snow, as we never got much of any here this year! We did get a few weeks of -6C (ish, we did have a couple of nights where it got down to -10C to -15C.)

    And Lund in Winter does look wonderful.

    Are you finished with grad school in Sweden?

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    1. You had comparable temperatures to Southern Sweden then! It doesn't get that cold in the Netherlands (-6 in the night would be exceptional). Chapeau for posting that in Celsius!

      Not sure about the American terminology, but I had arranged to do a course in Sweden as part of the research master program archaeology that I follow in Amsterdam.

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    2. Ah, so it was just a brief "study abroad" experience.

      /jealous

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  5. Beautiful photos! I love the architecture...quite different from the northeast US where I am. And I agree with you - I could photograph frost and little bulbs of snow all day!

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    1. I haven't been to the US (would like to, though!), so I'll have to trust you on that. But I have noticed that architecture gives such a different feeling to places. Here in Europe, it's very different per country (even though they are so very small compared to the US). One of the things I did miss a little bit abroad was the landscape and architecture of the Netherlands. Somehow those really call out "home" to me - odd how that works.

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  6. It looks like a freakin' fairytale! Absolutely gorgeous, I'm happy you got to enjoy a few days of winter there before having to say goodbye<3 And your Instagram-style photos are spot-on, haha! If my food ever looked delicious and adorable as that pie, I'd totally Gram it=P

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    1. Lund has such a cute old town centre; when I cycled through it to university, it sometimes actually felt like I was living in a fairytale. I'm happy to hear I managed to catch something of that in this blog post. :)

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  7. My grandfather immigrated from Sweden, so I've always wanted to go and visit it. It looks like a picture book.

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    1. I hope your wish comes true one day. I've certainly fallen a bit in love with Sweden in the past few years.

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