Some Things That Happened To Me

In Rotary we change host families at least once during the year. I think it's so we can get a broader perspective of the culture or something. Most people get two or three, although I'm already on my second and I'm switching again in Feburary.

I changed host families on December 1st to a family who lives in the nearby village of Glemmingebro (Gleh-min-geh-broo), or just Glemminge. It takes about 20 minutes to get to school in Ystad.

The town is known for about three things. The first is a massive rock in the middle of a field with a crack in it. It's called Klövasten, or Cleaved Stone. The second is Olof Viktors cafe, which was voted the best cafe in Sweden in 2007. I should mention that neither of these things are actually located in Glemminge itself and are just close enough to the village for them to be associated with each other. This is perhaps due to the third notible thing about Glemmingebro, and that is it's size. Or lack thereof. I think there about 370 residents. Like the rock and the cafe, most of them live in the surrounding area.

A traditional Swedish Christmas celebration is Sankta Lucia. It is usually celebrated on the 13th of December. Lunds Rotary Club decided to flaunt tradition and do a Luciafest on the 3rd. I went by train and met the others at the Grand Hotel in the middle of the city, or thereabouts.

We were a group of about 10 or so exchange students. We sat about in the lobby, meeting Rotarians and taking advantage of the free candy until Dagmar, a Rotarian, rounded us up and brought us upstairs into a large dining room where we met still more Rotarians. Dinner was turkey and potatoes. It was followed by a cake like substance that I can only describe as "cake". And "good".

Then after we had finished, a procession of singers in white dresses came in and sang some Swedisn Christmas songs. At the front was "Lucia", who had a crown of candles. At one point, the candles almost fell and there was a mad scramble to get it back on her head without burning her hair off. To their credit, the rest of the singers did a very good job of pretending like nothing was wrong.

Being Lucia is actually hazardous to your health. Not only do you have to support a candlebra with your head (getting wax dripped on you all the while), but the candles burn all the good breathing air which has caused many a Lucia to faint mid-song.

After Luciafest we wandered around Lund for a bit. While we were walking I noticed an interesting piece of honest advertising. It was a poster for perfume or something, across which was written "Utan halvnakna kvinnor skulle vi inte sälja ett skit", or "Without half-naked women, we wouldn't sell anything". Someone had written "Men hon är vacker/But she is pretty" underneath.
I am inclined to agree.

Eventually we headed to the train station. I thought I was going to be late because the next train to Malmö was leaving in four minutes so Minh and I ran to every of the six platforms before realizing it was the first one. Minh tried to run across the tracks to save time but he got yelled at by a conductor. In the end, our efforts were for nothing because another train came soon after that and I ended up sitting in the station for a half hour.

I finally came back at around 12:30 a.m. and had to wake up about five hours later for school. Huzzah.