Conference turris::scandia

475.0. "Lund & Malm�, Sk�ne, Sweden" by TLE::INSINGA (Aron Insinga, zk2-3/n30 office 3n50) Wed Jul 03 1991 17:09

Last week I returned from a business trip to Lund, Sweden, and I thought that
this section of my trip report might be of interest to the readers of this
notesfile.  (I used to read this notesfile too, but I have unfortunately been
too busy to keep up with it for quite some time now.)  I got to Lund by flying
from Boston through Brussels (on Sabena) to Copenhagen, where I changed flights
to the hovercraft over to Malm�.  From there I took the privately-run train to
Lund.  I was just there for the weekends before and after the week-long meeting,
plus the Monday after the meeting.  I had a nice time and plan to return
someday.  (And maybe next time I'll have my genealogy act together enough to
spend some time trying to track down more about my ancestors who emigrated from
Sweden to Delaware in the 17th century; this time, I didn't even try.)  By the
way, I stayed in the Concordia hotel in Lund for most of the trip, but I spent a
couple of nights at the Sara Winn hotel in Malm�; I can recommend both of them.
The time for postcards, letters, and one of the 2 boxes of books & laundry which
I shipped back to the US was 9 days.  (I hope the other box arrives soon...)

					- Aron Insinga



            Lund, Sweden is a nice little medieval unversity city, dating back
            to at least the 10th century (although the university is not quite
            that old). It has lots of twisty, cobble-stone streets. Classes
            had ended, and the meeting was in the week ending on a major hol-
            iday (Midsummer Eve) so the city was not very crowded, and the
            streets were often nearly empty. Next to the Grand Hotel was a
            restaurant specializing in cheap and filling salads right around
            the corner from the hotel and I had most lunches there. There were
            also some good restaurants nearby with seafood and even venison.
            Partly due to the exchange rate being up over 6.3SEK/US$, select-
            ing a cheaper hotel a couple of blocks from the meeting, and an
            excellent breakfast buffet being included with the hotel room,
            the only difference between the cost of this trip and the one to
            Palo Alto was in the plane ticket, which I found quite surpris-
            ing. (However, I spent much more of my own money here buying books
            and mailing them home than I did in Palo Alto!)

            The function room in the Grand Hotel was a bit too small for the
            number of attendees, but we survived.

            In Lund, I walked a lot. (A lot!) In Malm�, which is much larger
            and where it was raining more, I used the busses. I also made use
            of taxis, trains, ferrys, and hovercraft. Some people also used
            the hydrofoil, although I didn't get a chance to. (It's not the
            original, real hydrofoil, which they got rid of due to high main-
            tainence costs; it is a twin-hull boat which apparently does do
            some hydroplaning.) The ferrys between Copenhagen and Malm� are
            named "Hamlet" & "Ophelia". The hovercraft are named "Freja" &
            "Idun" - names from Scandinavian mythology. They are operated by
            SAS just as if they were airplanes, complete with drinks and meals
            and flight numbers, and are very convenient. You can check your
            baggage in Boston and pick it up in Malm�, not bothering with cus-
            toms or having to lug it around until you get all the way to Swe-
            den. The hovercraft terminal in Malm� is small and there is very
            little waiting.

            Turning traveler's checks into currency was more difficult and
            expensive than anticipated. Even my hotel, which took American
            Express charge cards, wouldn't take their traveler's checks. The
            exchanges in the airport and central train station in Copenhagen
            turned out to be the worse places; banks and FOREX (especially
            if you get a Malm� Card, a tourist pass for busses & museums) were
            the best places. Another good alternative would have been the lo-
            cal American Express agent down in Malm�, if I had arrived dur-
            ing business hours.

            I learned a few phrases and words in Swedish, but almost every-
            one spoke very good English, so communicating was surprisingly
            easy. Apparently English is now required in school from the 4th
            grade on, and many TV shows and movies are from the US and UK,
            usually with subtitles.

            As I said before, the meeting ended on Midsummer Eve. Bjarne said
            that celebration of this has been documented to go back at least
            4,000 years. The remaining committee members were invited to a
            traditional dinner (new potatoes cooked in dill and several types
            of pickled herring, which was all very tasty) in a small func-
            tion room of the apartment complex of the meeting host, Dag Br�ck.
            Afterwards, some of us wandered down to the park. In a large open
            area, the Midsummer Stand (a sort of Maypole) was erected. There
            was a band, and people in 19th century folk costumes did folk dances
            which looked to me like they were similar to American square dances.
            Later, some of the audience got involved in ring dances around
            the Midsummer Stand. Finally, the band switched to more modern
            music and people moved over to the nearby dance floor under lights
            for more modern dances.

            The weather was cool and rainy, making a return to 100�F temper-
            atures in the US a real shock. We were too far south to see the
            Midnight Sun, but the sun didn't set until late at night (about
            11pm?) and rose early in the morning (about 1am?), making it dif-
            ficult to sleep.

            The oddest meal that I had was a pizza with a very thin, crispy
            crust (like Scandinavian flat bread!) and bacon and a soft, baked,
            sunny side up egg on top. It tasted much better than it sounds.
            Meatballs were available at a fast food stand near the harbor and
            were served with sweet lingonberry sauce. (I guess the gravy which
            we associate with Swedish meatballs is for the winter.) Bottles
            of raspberry juice were available at that stand and were very nice.
            I had lingon drink with the aforementioned salads near the Grand
            Hotel. I even tried the McDonald's in Lund-the food seemed the
            same as in the US. The only things that I ate that I didn't re-
            ally like were frozen, microwaved foods (a hamburger and a shrimp
            quiche), which I should have expected.

            The National Museum in Copenhagen had some wonderful displays of
            Bronze Age and Viking Age artifacts. Unfortunately, I didn't have
            much more than an hour there, so I didn't get to see much else
            of the museum. In Lund, Kulturen is a very nice museum, mostly
            consisting of furnished houses and other buildings from through-
            out the past few centuries, some of which were on their origi-
            nal foundations, and some of which had been brought from around
            southern Sweden. There were also some fine displays of thousand-
            year-old artifacts from excavations in Lund and clothing (and uni-
            forms and weapons) from the past couple of hundred years. Malm�-
            mus is an old fortress with several different museums housed in-
            side of it and the building on the facing block, including mu-
            seums of transportation, maritime history, ethnography, natural
            history, and local history from the stone ages through the mid-
            dle ages. I took the bus down to the museum in Limhamm, which was
            not really worthwhile, (an old fisherman's cottage and some stone
            age tools) although finding the DIGITAL logo in front of a nearby
            building under construction made me feel at home.

    How was you flight on sabena?  How does it compare to going through
    London?  We fly to Copenhagen once a year and are always looking for
    the best flight schedule and one that does not go through Kennedy.
    We have had bad experiences with Northwest!!!!!
    Dottie

    Re: .1:
    
    Dottie,
    
    The author of the base note is on vacation until 28 August. I just
    didn't want you to presume that he was ignoring your question.

    From: [email protected]
    Newsgroups: clari.news.trouble,clari.news.europe,clari.news.demonstration,
	clari.news.group.jews
    Subject: Swedish police kill neo-Nazi skinhead during riot
    Date: 30 Nov 91 23:01:39 GMT
 
 
	STOCKHOLM, Sweden (UPI) -- Police in the Swedish city of Malmo shot
and killed one youth and wounded another Saturday as authorities clashed
with neo-Nazi skinheads.
	Officials said they feared additional violence might occur over the
weekend in the nearby city of Lund, where skinheads plan to commemorate
the death of their idol, ancient Swedish warrior-king Karl XII.
	Skinheads are young, self-avowed racists who display their identity
by shaving their heads and wearing similar clothing.
	There are skinhead movements in many European countries, as well as
in the United States.
	Saturday's killing occurred outside a discotheque, after police
responded to a call of a woman being harassed by skinheads.
	A police spokesman said a mob surrounded two officers arriving at the
scene, forcing policemen to shoot into the crowd after trying to
disperse the skinheads by firing in the air.
	The officers hit and wounded two of the neo-Nazi youths, one of whom
died shortly afterward.
	On Saturday, authorities stationed hundreds of police in the
university town of Lund, where officials expected skinheads to gather at
the statue of King Karl XII. 
	Police feared the rally could spark clashes between skinheads and
anti-racist demonstrators, who planned to hold a counter-demonstration.

    
    
    	Hi,
    
    
    	There was a lot of fighting between 300 skinheads and
    	5000 people demonstrating against fascism in Stockholm 
    	on Saturday. Nobody was hurt though. 
    
    	I don't live in Sweden anymore, but I understand that the
    	news about the skinhead who got killed by the police was
    	received coldly by the swedish people.
    
    	Lena