I’ve survived one week! In the last few days I’ve conquered Swedish laundry machines and drying cabinets, cooked real food for the first time in my new corridor, watched a game of basketball between Lund and Helsingborg, went on a tour of Lund Cathedral, and found both a place to practice piano and a possible choir to join.

I definitely miss more American laundry machines…I’m not a fan of drying cabinets so far. Forgot fabric softener so my clothes are a bit like sandpaper now. Learning experience I guess. On the food front, I’ve just been trying some simple things so far. No dishwasher in the corridor (they use the word corridor to mean kind of apartment, not hallway!) so washing everything by hand is definitely a pain.

The basketball game was a pre-season game organized by the International Desk here at the university, and Lund won! It was a mix of ages, looked like everything from about 15 to maybe 28. They had a light dinner of noodles for students after the game, but I didn’t register in time for that so I didn’t want to take someone else’s food! The bike ride back was all uphill…who knew someone could bike as slowly as I did.

The tour of the cathedral this afternoon was also organized by the International Desk, and it was led by one of the ministers of the cathedral. It has quite a history! Very powerful to sit in a place that has been around since the 11th century. The organ is the largest church organ in Scandinavia, and there are free recitals of sorts every Saturday at 10am, so I will be taking advantage of that soon! The new bishop of Lund is also being installed this Saturday so I may go to that service to see something entirely different from what I’m used to. But now that I think about it it will probably be in Swedish so I may have to rely on visual cues…

I found out about Odeum this morning – it is a music center at the university. I knew about the Malmö Academy of Music previously so I had assumed all music things took place there but I was wrong! Turns out there was a free orchestra concert I missed last Friday too. Next time I guess. I got in contact with someone there who works with a local music school to hand out keys for students to practice on the pianos in the school too! Glad to know I’ll have a place to practice and won’t go crazy from lack of playing all fall.

Tack för läsning! (Thanks for reading!)