August 21
Today I went on an excursion through southeastern Skåne. I met up with Yorran, the Australian guy who was with me throughout the check-in procedure last Wednesday. We sat next to each other and talked a lot. We saw the ‘Swedish stonehenge’ which is called Als Stenar, and is a formation of 59 (originially 60) stones arranged in an oval shape. It was by the coast. The leading theory is that it was an ancient astronomical clock. The other stop was one of the best preserved Scandinavian medieval castles, called Glimmengilhus. It is not really a castle, but rather a fortified home. From the distance it looks like a barn, and indeed it was used as one for 200 years until researchers discovered that it was actually a castle. The tour guide was quite good and knew how to talk to a bunch of college students. Here we also got a good glimpse at Scandinavian living back in those times. They have hospital records saying that people who were ill were prescribed 5 to 7 liters of beer each day. And apparently it was common to drink 10 to 12 liters. While this may sound like an awful lot (or heaven for some), keep in mind that the ‘beer’ they would drink would be nearly non-alocoholic and the reason they drank beer instead of water was that the whole area was very marshy and the water was not safe to drink. And on the bus ride back the whole bus sang a Swedish drinking song. Heh.
