Week One - Lund, Sweden: Part 2

Lund was an explosion of new experiences for me. Everything was a marvel and novelty and I loved everything about it. Especially the bus system. It's more efficient than I ever would have expected. The bus times are posted at each stop and the buses are clean and comfortable. When you want to get off you just need to press one of the "stop" buttons anywhere on the bus instead of pulling a string.

I arrived at a good time in Sweden. The weather was great with a few rainy days here and there. I was able to do some sightseeing and food tasting my first week. One thing I'm going to miss, hands down, is Swedish falafel. It's like nothing you've ever experienced before. Falafel I've had in the past was dry and had a funny taste. This falafel is freshly made, nice and crunchy on the outside and still gooey on the inside. They're sold at kiosks around the city. My friend took me to their favorite falafel place and it was there I was also introduced to the strange gigantic food portions of Sweden.

12 - 13" (30- 33cm) falafel wrap for about $4 (SEK 35)

This thing was enormous (and absolutely delicious), and while my friend said the large portion sizes were new for them too, it was definitely the opposite of what I was expecting. I've always been told that America is the one with giant food portions and European portions are much smaller, but Sweden may be one of the exceptions. The drink sizes are smaller though.

The city is proudly old. The streets look like rows of townhouses, each one a different style than the next. It's colorful and fun. It really is like the travel shows. There's rows of shops on the bottom and just above them are apartments. You could see some people out on their balconies doing some people watching throughout the day.

In the center of Lund is a large ancient stone cathedral called Domkyrka. My friend likes to joke with me about it, saying: "how does it feel to see  a church that's older than your country?" Hahaha... stop.

It's grand on the outside, but the inside it breathtaking. There was huge wooden calendar/clock in one corner, a private praying area in another, rows of chairs in the center and mural with large wooden seats for (probably) the old church council.

Here's some pictures of the crypt and the mural from plainjp's instagram:

 


There's a crypt under the church but I didn't take any pictures.
There's a famous story about this church that my friend told me as we walked around. Here's a short version of that story:

A man was going to build the church when he met a giant that said he could build it for him. The only condition was that the man had to guess the giant's name before the church was finished. If he couldn't, then the giant would steal his eyes. 

So the giant began building the church and the man guessed names, but none of the names were correct. Finally, the man got worried and went for a walk. He overheard a giant mother singing to its child that its father Fin would bring home a man's eyes for it to play with soon. 

The priest ran back to the giant, who was had just laid the final stone of the church, and shouted "Fin! You're name is Fin!" The troll got mad and ran into the church to tear it down, but as he ran he got smaller and smaller. When he went to pick up a pillar of the church to tear it down he turned to stone himself.

There's a carving of the giant on one of the pillars in the crypt (whole story here). As my friend finished telling the story to me, we were just walking up to that pillar. I give them kudos points for nifty story-telling.

Next week: Runes and a play