August 23
I went into Malmö today, and was pleased to find that the Malmö Festival was in full swing. They had taken over the two large squares in central Malmö and setup an enormous stage there. There was live music, rides, and over hundred food and wares stands all along the streets. I had a $3 falafel that was great. I was going to go with Phillip and Helene, but Helene went on an excursion in the morning and Philip did not wake up until 12. After exploring the festival for two hours, I took a bus to the IKEA store. It was amazing. It is an enormous store, bigger than most anchor stores in malls. They had everything you could need for your home there, and it is ALL made by IKEA. I bought a floormat (should have gotten two), blanket cover, kitchen gloves, hand towels, and batteries. While riding the bus back to central Malmö, I spotted a Vodaphone store and walked out of there 30 minutes later with my Swedish cell phone. That’s one big thing checked off on my to-do list. My number is 0709-31 29 38. The phone itself costs $80. It is locked for use only with Swedish Vodaphone SIM cards, but maybe you can hack it to unlock it. Hopefully I can sell it back to someone going to Sweden in the spring.
After arriving back in Lund, I went over the kitchen at around 7pm to begin cooking for our big corridor dinner. It turned out to be a tremendous time. Christian and I first tackled the dough for the pizza, while Laure began her Greek salad and Eddy started his pasta sauce. At first we were just going to have salad, pasta, and pizza but Lishuang came and started some Chinese meatballs, Yuko and her three Japanese friends came and made some ginger pork, and Pablo made a Spanish potato omlette. We also had chips and salsa and Frieder made some French fries. Along with a bottle of red wine and some beer, it was quite a feast! The food was overall quite good, except the oven shut off halfway through Christian’s pepperoni pizza and so it was a little strange.
The best part was the company. Having German, French, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Greek, and American people all around the dinner table talking is very enjoyable. The common language for everyone is English, and I am the only one to have it a primary tongue. Many times I was asked for the correct word or way to say something. We exchanged ways to say common phrases in all the different languages. I discovered that there might be a Bridge club here in Lund, and while none of my corridor mates knows Bridge, I hope to teach them! After the long dinner winded down, Christian brought his stereo system and Powerbook in and started some music going. He can actually DJ, but alas his mixing tables are in Germany.