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  • Day 47

    Lund, Skåne, Sweden

    June 18, 2016 in Sweden ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    Days 45-46:

    After an early morning, a long travel day, junk food, and surprisingly good train croissants, we finally made it back to Sweden. We were met by Jason's mom's second cousin, Lena, and her daughter Clara at the train station, who were surprised by the massive amount of items we have collected along our way. Happy to climb into a car as opposed to walking somewhere, we made it back to their flat, where we were greeted by Lena's husband, Anders. Their son, Balder, who is visiting from Göteborg came home later on. We ate delicious homemade fish soup, had long conversations, and really enjoyed the night. We went out to a trendy bar with Balder for his birthday for a drink, then realized that a 19 hour day was sufficient and headed back. Despite a crazy cat, we slept well and were ready to explore in the morning... afternoon.

    After some sorely missed Swedish coffee, we were off to see what Lund has to offer. First, we came upon the Botanical Gardens, lined with trees from all over the world. It was really interesting seeing the plants organized by relation, especially. We figured our tour of European churches wouldn't be complete without seeing the most visited cathedral in Sweden, so that was the next stop. The current, standing building was finished in 1145. The original was built sometime in the 1080s, along with the cathedral school, which is the oldest school in Sweden.

    At that time, Lund was a part of Denmark, though, which we found out has the oldest national flag. Legend has it that the Danish people were losing a war, their leader prayed, the flag fell from heaven, they kept the flag and won the war. Again, legend definitely has it better than truth, so why not. We went down to the crypt to look around and we noticed this strange figure on one of the pillars that was drawing a lot of attention. Turns out it is Finn the Giant. An old legend says that the giant troll offered his services to a man building a church with the condition that by the time the task is completed, the man must figure out his name or he'll take his heart and eyes. With just a pillar tp complete, the man was nervous, so went out to the fields and layed down. He heard a troll woman singing and mentions Finn coming home tomorrow. The man rushes back and called out to Finn. The troll got mad and grabbed the pillar to tear down the church, but was turned to stone in his attempt. It was undoubtedly carved, but trolls turning to stone make such a better story!

    From there we went to a falafel window, because literally (seriously, literally) everyone was eating food from the same place. It was incredible, but something to do with the wind and some sort of pollen we've only experienced in Europe has given Jason some serious allergies. So we went back, took a nap, picked up a pizza, and watched Euro 2016 until bedtime. It has been a good couple of recovery days.
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