A welcome return to Lund

It has been 14 months since I graduated from Lund University and it has been wonderful to see the town again. Lund is such a beautiful town and is Sweden's second oldest, founded around 990 when Skåne (the region of southern Sweden) was part of Denmark. Lund has a long history of being a place of education and Lund University, established in 1666 as part of a Swedification strategy of Skåne following its acquisition by Sweden, is the second oldest university in Sweden (the oldest being Uppsala University est. 1477). As it is currently summer holidays the bicycle traffic has been refreshingly quiet, but this will no doubt change when the 40,000 students return next week from their summer holidays.

Bicycles are a way of life in Lund and they will become terribly expensive when all the naive international student arrive next week. Some Swedes make a lot of money each year by purchasing bicycles on the cheap when the students finish at the end of the academic year and then sell them at a huge profit at the start of the following academic year in August. Some students get around this problem by simply stealing bicycles, but thankfully I never had my bicycle stolen. In fact, yesterday I met up with a friend of mine who I gave my squeaky death-trap of a bicycle to before I left, and he was actually able to give it back to me.

It was a truly emotional reunion for me and my bicycle, as I had spent so much time trying to do ongoing bicycle repairs. These were often of little avail as I spent more money on repairs than the bicycle originally cost me. I remember buying it from a guy in a park for around 700 kronor ($120 Aus) who said to me "If you have any problems or change your mind, you can return it and change it for another bike within the first week". Within the first week I managed to brake the back tyre and snap the rear axle, joyriding my way home from the International Students' Welcome Party. Unfortunately for him, I kept him to his word and he had to make the first of what would become many repairs.

Apart from spending time relaxing in Lund, Katri and I also spent the day in Malmö on Sunday and made a trip to Lomma Beach on Tuesday as it was damn hot (by Swedish standards at least). Unfortunately we weren't the only people to think that hot days are good days to go to the beach, as the small patch of white sand was extremely crowded. Tomorrow morning I will catch the train to Oslo and find out where I will be living for the next 5 months. It's sad to leave Katri yet again, but at least this time Oslo is only a 7 hour train ride away from Lund, which surely beats 20 hours on a plane to Perth!