So I have been in Sweden for...almost two weeks! The picture is of my two good friends Emily and Rocky who I am staying with here in Lund. Lund is a cool place, a presently sleepy college town, with lots of history and lovely old Swedish buildings, parks, and art. Lund is on the southern tip of Sweden and we've been having a blast exploring skåne (county?) and catching up after two and half years... (I met Emily in Peru when we were both volunteers with Ayni, and rocky her boyfriend has been living in Sweden for the last year.)

So far we have danced like rock stars to our favorite Peruvian music, gone camping, swam in the (cold!) Baltic sea, visited Stonehenge-like ruins, sipped on famous kivik apple juice (oddly pronounced shi-vick), gone second hand shopping (found the coolest emerald green velvet jacket for 1 euro!), hosted a dinner party, dreamed and chatted during walks and over cups of tea, and visited Coppenhagen to take dance classes her friend teaches (hip hop and sensual dance) as well as go out salsa dancing. It’s been forever since I've been salsa-ing, and it probably showed but oh well! It was still fun.

Emily and rocky have left for five days to visit family in Norway and I am house sitting. So I have their quaint downtown apartment all to myself and have decided to turn these five days into a little personal retreat...reading, meditation, yoga, cooking simple meals, taking baths, catching up on this blog and, oh yeah, figuring out where I am going next! I THINK I'm still going to Spain to throw tomatoes, and then maybe morocco... but I had wanted to travel overland from there to Tunisia but 5 minutes of research proved that to be a bad idea (Algeria which is between morocco and Tunisia is having border conflicts on both sides and general not-so-fantastic things happening elsewhere (see mom I do my research!)). And my wild idea of jaunting off to India or Africa from Europe is going to be a little harder than I thought too since I need malaria meds and visas and things like that. Oh yeah and imp also going to be broke soon. So what does this all mean? Who knows?

Everyday I learn something new about Sweden that blows my mind. Here are a few of them.

1. Allemansrätten.

In English it is something like "the right of public access." basically it means that anyone is Sweden (citizens or visitors) have unrestricted access to the country's nature. You can camp, walk, swim, pick flowers, mushrooms or berries, climb (pretty much anything except hunt) ANYWHERE you want, regardless whether the land is public or private. You can stay 24 hours in any spot, and just have to leave it as you found it. There is no such thing as a private beach; therefore you can camp anywhere along the water you want. And it’s all free. As an American who is used to the whole "National Park Service" this seems as crazy as it does sweet!

2. You get FREE Swedish classes if you move to Sweden. Plus free classes in other things like business, computers, English and more.

3. Gooey cake. This is basically like a brownie poured into a round pan and not cooked all the way through so it stays chocolaty and gooey. Hence the name.

4. You can sit and read or sleep in a park and not be harassed by men!

5. If you have a baby in Sweden you can take 1 YEAR maternity leave and get 80% of your salary!

There's more but I can't think of them all now... will post again later.

Pämelitå

Wednesday, August 15, 2007