Back indoors after two beautiful days of rare sunlight! The first was spent biking outside of the city again, this time further than I'd previously gone.



















A few days earlier, I had gone outside of the city with my fiddle, which allowed me to play without disturbing certain studious corridor-mates. Besides which, the act of biking out into the fields (a distance of 3-5 kilometers) is completely energizing, to say nothing of being out in the sun (or under the clouds) and fiddling almost utterly alone. I think twice a car came through, but in general the place tends to be very isolated. This is very good. The first time I went out, it was evening. Perfect. Windy, chill, quiet. I returned back just after dark. This second time going out with the fiddle was in the late morning to early afternoon.




































This below is a picture of what the streets look like. Yesterday saw another trip to the open air market - really good cheap vegetables and fruit, as well as kurdish and arabic foods.















Cooking! A good deal of time revolves around cooking. There is no dining service here on campus so every student cooks for him/herself. For me, this generally entails throwing a lot of vegetables in a pan and cooking them. Alternatively, my schmarren has been approved by my lovely hallmates. This was, unfortunately, not the case with the falafel that I attempted the other day. (Even if I thought it was a riotous success).















Systembolaget, the government run alcohol shop. The government here essentially holds a monopoly on all alcohol sales, so this is the only shop that is really allowed to sell liquor. I've been dancing around purchasing some amaretto but the price has kept me away for now. Maybe in a couple of weeks/...days I'll get around to it.















Well, this has all been very rambling. I wish I could say that I've done enormous, concrete things, but in essence life here has been quiet in a wonderful way. My corridor-mates and I spend a long time talking, drinking tea. They're all from Sweden, one girl and three boys. Marian and I went back to the woods and went walking again - lloovely. This involved the precarious operation of fitting two people on one bike with a backpack full of pears picked from a local tree. Bah, it worked out very well I think! This time it was very late at night and unfortunately we ran out of woods too fast, got briefly lost coming back but made it out eventually.
My friends and I went to the Gustavium, a museum of the university that's free for students. The picture in the previous post of the anatomical theater is from there - it's the room where the first scientific autopsies were performed in all of Sweden. I think it may be upwards of 300 years old, although certainly remodeled recently... The museum houses some very neat artifacts - the first celsius thermometer, drawings from Carl Linneaus's sketch books, the notes of a student from the 15th century. Sundry swedeny things.















I want to be this chick.



End thoughts: