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@2019lundexchange
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somewhere in budapest a moody cloud reigns over.
The present: April 18th, 2019
It is Easter weekend and it will be my first Easter away from my family. Up until recently, all my relatives gather at my grandparent's house for Easter. My grandmother cooks everything because that's how she likes it. There is always laughter, even more arguing, a lot of love and appreciation. My favourite dishes that my grandma makes are her macaroni pie and curry goat.
Here in sweden, most people go home so its just me and a few other international students on the floor. Today is my floormate Anchita’s birthday so we are going to have a floor dinner and eat cake!
I just got back from the last trip of my exchange, Barcelona! It is a beautiful city to walk around in but the views from above are not that spectacular. We went to the beach 3 times and it was the first time I had stepped foot on a beach in 5 years. The rose of the trip was the seafood paella at the restaurant across from our Airbnb. The thorn of the trip was renting scooters and driving around Barcelona. I feared for my life and my mental health could not handle the stress I was put under from being forced onto the 250cc bike (I still don't know what 250cc means). Also, the police stopped us and I thought we were going to have to live out the rest of our days in a Spanish prison.
March Break Madness (2019)
It’s Pisces season folks and that means...nothing because I don't believe in astrological signs. However, Mercury is supposedly in retrograde so I can blame all my wild actions on that!
It was hard celebrating my birthday away from all my friends and family. My exchange birthday was great though because of my exchange wife, Camille. She baked me a cake and took me out to brunch at Vasgota Nation.
Let me define a few terms:
Exchange wife = a person who you become extremely close with within a short amount of time due to both being on exchange. Any word can go in front wife though: you can have a work wife, a school wife or even a sports wife. They are your go to, your confidant, your person.
Nation = Lund University has an extraordinary student life network. There are things called nations and they are student-run organizations that host different activities during the week like cooking classes, soccer games, and lunches. the nations are also the only type of nightlife that Lund has. All the clubs are at different nations that each offer a different experience and only Lund university students can get in.
March was a big month for travelling. Everyone had time off class to study for exams and since I had no exams that meant I had time off to explore Europe. From March 15 to 24th I visited Prague, Vienna and Budapest. I’m going to keep each play by play of the cities to under 100 words because I'm not some travel blogger.
Prague March 15 - 18
Two words: red roofs. I was surprised by Prague. I honestly thought Prague was a place with lots of beaches. Prague sounds like a place where people go for their summer vacation to get away from the cold. It is the opposite of that. They have great medieval style architecture. Lots of tourist traps like the ice bar and museum of torture. The rose of the trip was going to a chocolate museum that oddly had a section just for chocolate in the shape of male and female genitalia. The thorn of the trip was that it rained most of the time.
Vienna March 18-20
Three words: less touristy Paris. There is a big Parisian influence in Vienna when it comes to architecture. I loved Vienna for that reason, it reminded me of being in Paris but it was less crowded. The architecture makes Vienna an elegant city to walk around in. Our hostel was right in front of the famous Naschmarkt so we had great cheap food every day. We were boujee on a budget in Vienna. we saw an opera for 3 euros but we had to stand the whole time and most of the time I was looking at the tall man's shoulder in front of me. We also saw a concert but again we were in the standing room area packed together like sardines. But it was all worth it for the cheap memories. The rose of the trip was seeing the opera-folks I love a good opera! The thorn of the trip was that the man in our hostel was snoring so loud it was reaching noise levels of 90 decibels, we downloaded an app and checked! For reference, a lawnmower reaches noise levels of 90 dB which is not a healthy noise level for your ears.
Budapest March 20-24
One word: budabest! The sun was shining every day we were in Budapest. It was even shining on the day that we got a $170 fine for not validating our train tickets. We were only in Budapest for 2 hours before we got kicked off our train and were forced to pay 24,000 HUF on the spot. Not even my Canadian charm could get us out of the situation. We stayed at the hive hostel which is in an amazing area with lots of bars and cheap food places that are all walking distance. Hive hotel, however, is not a place for people who want to sleep. The club right below the hostel closes at 6 in the morning and there is no sound insulation in the rooms so bring drugs that will knock you out. The rose of the trip was going to the Széchenyi Thermal Bath at 6 am. Who wouldn't want to start their day of soaking in a hot mineral bath? The thorn of the trip is that I didn't take enough pictures. Another thorn is that you had to pay to walk around in the fisherman bastion which I think is dumb. They charge you to walk up a few stairs to get a view of Budapest that you could get for free somewhere else.
Fun fact: I ate kebab almost every night on that 10-day trip. I probably still have kebab in my system!
The story so far…
Time is either moving super slow or at the speed of light, there is no in between when on exchange. I am actually going to try and update this every week so let's go back to February and work our way to the present day!
February:
My first trip outside of Scandinavia was Paris! The drive from the airport to our hostel made me legit scream. As soon as I saw the Eiffel Tower lit up like a star in the middle of the city I knew I was in love with Paris. I’m reluctant to write too much about Paris because my words will not do it justice. We did the typical touristy things: saw the Eiffel tower (during the day and night), lounged at the Jardin du Luxembourg, eat macarons at Le place Du Concords, and of course eat lots of baguettes!
Paris is a city where you can walk in any of the 12 districts and see something to gawk at. The rose for the Paris trip was randomly stumbling upon a street market in the Bastille district and trying all the free cheese samples and the thorn of the trip was overpaying for mediocre food.
Don’t make the same mistake as me people: Somehow we decided to eat in all the tourist traps. Our first breakfast in Paris was a 40 Euro ‘English Breakfast’ which consisted of eggs and dry bread!
DO’s of Paris:
DO get Parisian sandwiches and eat them in front of the Palais Luxembourg.
DO walk down the Av. des Champs-Élysées.
DO get macarons from Ladurée and then take a nap in Jardin Champs-Élysées.
DO spend 6 hours in the Louvre. Make sure to see Napoleon's apartment, it's wild!
DO see a concert in Paris. We saw Louis The Child and the venue was so small and Freddie took my friend's phone and filmed us!
DONT’s of Paris:
DON’T eat near any landmarks, monuments, or commons areas visited by tourists (obviously).
That's it, that's my only DON’T because that's the only mistake you can make in Paris.
Rest in Peace Notre Dame.
Week 1 - Week 5(ish)
Week 5 and I’m finally settled into my new home and ready to start documenting this trip!
Major Milestones:
Made a friend on my floor!
Slept on the floor for the first 2 weeks
Got a bed in Week 3!
Visited Stockholm
Lund is a quaint city with cobblestone streets and beautifully coloured houses. Even though the main attraction is the Cathedral in the city centre there's never a boring day here.
I arrived at my empty room on January 15th and was immediately flustered. I had no bed, no wifi and my phone was not working. I was lucky enough to meet a kind french exchange student on my floor who helped me get settled in and took me around the city on my first day.
In Week 2 I travelled to Stockholm and that was the first time a slept on a bed which was nice. Stockholm made me feel like I was in Toronto again because it is busy and a bit more modern compared to Lund. We visited the Royal Palace, saw the changing of the guard and I realized how poor I am! A highlight of Stockholm is definitely the ABBA museum. You can record your own song in a studio and dance with holographic members of the band.
I’m going to Paris this week just in time for Valentine's day!
À bientôt!
Week 1 - 3
On January 14th, 2019 an aspiring engineer will embark on a journey like no other.
let's say YES to burning this ad down
dont hate on ASMR
me: i don't want a boyfriend. i love being single. love my alone time
also me: *listens to ASMR boyfriend roleplay to sleep*