Impressions

I woke up to a beautiful morning. Beautiful enough to make me regret choosing to spend the day studying rather than go hiking in Kullaberg, a nature reserve situated between forest and sea, as was the original plan. It is a solitudinous day, marked by pillowy clouds sleepily drifting across a once blue sky, painting it a familiar new shade: "Lund gray".

Some time has passed since my first encounter with this color. Enough time to make friends, do a laudable amount of traveling, studying, pseudo-painting and pseudo-partying, and seeing the sights both well-known and taken for granted by the natives. Our bright eyes in the beginning, shining on our faces between our screams of "look at this place" and "see how old these buildings are" and "have you been here yet" and "would you like to come with me then, tonight" and "can it really cost that much" and "i can't wait for everything to begin" have shaded over a bit. My focus is starting to settle. The diaphragm has opened even wider, letting in enough light to expose even the darkest days. And the days will get darker, and colder, and shorter--every Swede has assured me that is a promise. I find myself at once apprehensive and excited, just like in the beginning.

The Swedes are definitely more reserved than I’m used to from an American context. I do not mean unfriendly, but they are like flowers in a cold spring: slow to open up, though well-appreciated when they finally do. Lund is charming in its age; such long histories are missing in America.

Although I’ve been here only two months, I’m already taking for granted the cobblestone streets, lack of cars, the stemroses growing from the sidewalks. They are a part of a very different and very lovely landscape and soundscape.

Compared to home, there are far fewer people and there is much more preservation of nature, and open expanses of land are abundant. Simply biking outside this small town brings you to seemingly endless fields of wheat and turnips, dotted by stretches of forest. This country is nothing if not scenic.

Things are so expensive here.

Nothing is censored in Sweden…the word “fucking” is present without a second thought on a poster in a train station, or in songs on the radio, or on the most basic cable channels. 1,500 Swedes and I were collectively flashed by a singing group of sixty-year-olds whilst they played their ukuleles (an impressive feat of multitasking, now that I think about it), and it was only I and my fellow American that found ourselves expressing an inkling of discreet shock.

And I'm cheating here, since this isn't a first impression; rather, it's the opposite of an impression, since I've given it much thought and mulling over: I find Swedish liberalism to be somewhat paradoxical, but that is a story for another time.