Around the apartment.

Here’s what I’ve noticed in the past two days:

Our trash/reycling center seems to have… burnt down.

My only-moderately-surprised roomate said, “again?!”. Apparently this has happened twice before. There’s a major pyro on the loose.

We have some kids around the apartment complex that like to run randomly into our house and bang on pianos, guitars, drums and grab flutes and run around the block with them causing an unholy racket. I’ll be reading in my room and all of a sudden there’s a bunch of kids screaming in my living room and then there’s terrible flute-playing and a kid throwing drumsticks at me. They wanted in today, so they started banging on the windows. No dice. I got a mugshot.

I’m gonna try to get the bike fully loaded and get to the forests tomorrow morning. Lunch in Höör. Pizza in Hässleholm for dinner. Camping in the forests and drawing pictures until I fall asleep. This is my first test of my bike touring system. It should go pretty smoothly – I’ll pass enough towns where I can buy anything in forgot along the way. I even gave my chain and cassette a good degreasing and relubing, and bought a nice new helmet to replace the ill-fitting one I’ve been borrowing from my roomate. I bought a not-worth-20-dollars detailed cycling map of northern Skåne. I have two tarps all ready to go. I even bought granola for the breakfast. Let’s hope I make it back alive on Thursday.

Biking to Landskrona!

I decided I wanted to bike to Helsingborg the other day. 45 miles or so, decent ride, doable, right? Wrong. The wind was REDICULOUS, the bike ways weren’t clearly marked and so I had a bigtime hang up in Löddeköpinge. I almost couldn’t find my way out of freakin’ Bjarred! I know, CRAZY, RIGHT??!! I only made it Landskrona. Here’s some pictures.

Back to Dalby. Then into Malmö!

On the 14th, I decided to not give up and actually find the damned rock quarry in Dalby. It turns out that the previous day, I turned around maybe a hundred meters too soon. So I found the quarry, and as an added bonus, there was a sweet forest right there too. BUT DON’T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT.

More bike rides in Lunds Kommun.

On the 12th, I rode the stretch out to Dalby. It was the first really cloudy day I’ve had since arriving in Sweden, and the wind kicked my ass across the flat stretch of 10kms between towns that seemed to last forever because I was standing on my pedals and not moving anywhere. It was fun! And cold!

Bike rides.

I have a lot of pictures from the past couple of days that I’m going to divide into seperate blog posts. Here’s a little ride I did on the 11th of this fine May.

Lösgodis.

The best candy on earth. Strawberry pistols.

Lördag.

I didn’t really do much of anything today. Whoops.

I did check out the AFB Festivalen tonight – it was basically a big party in a park, with everyone bringing their own drinks (I personally have not made a trip to Systembolaget yet). I watched a band called Lillasyster play – everyone seemed very into them. Many were singing along with the band, and even more were headbanging and dancing. I appreciated their enthusiasm a whole lot more than I did the band, who was ripping off 1999 numetal in a bad, bad way.

Anyways, why can’t the US have a show like MTV Scandinavia’s “Flashed”?

100% topless girls riding mechanical bulls to the tune of American rap music! Party time.

Yesterday’s bike ride.

Today I woke up at 1PM, despite thinking that I was immune to jet lag. Here’s some pictures of my rides yesterday through town and out to the beach and up the coast.

I’m in Sweden.

I spent probably about 20 hours of pure, straight travel time between the 7th and the 8th. Things that happened during those hectic days:

• I bought a peach and an Odwalla from Grant’s Marketplace before coming home and attempting to eat all my remaining cereal and bacon.
• I was accosted by Jehovah’s Witnesses outside of my ex-house (I had just locked the door and hid the key for the last time) FOR THE LAST TIME. I didn’t even know they came into the ghetto.
• My cab driver to the airport really wants to move to Denver. Good luck!
• My bike box (with gear and camping stuff) came in at 49.0 pounds. My big checked bag came to 49.5 pounds. On the first try. There’s a 50 pound limit to checked baggage; I rule at packing.
• I sat next to the loudest, dumbest girls ever on the plan to Chicago.
• At O’ Hare International Airport, Vosges is everywhere. Thumbs up.
• I ate a Philly Cheese Steak at Gold Coast Dogs. It was OK.
• I lost my US cell phone at the check in counter at O’Hare. I was about to board the plane without it when they announced a found phone over the system. I waited until everyone else had boarded before the SAS employee showed up with my phone. Thanks! I knew it was gone, but as I am practically going to be just throwing it out when I return to the US, I was only distraught over losing all my contact numbers.
• I sat next to a narcoleptic 92 year old lady for a little over 8 hours on the plane, not getting up once.
• 
• United or SAS had done quite the number to my bike box by the time it had arrived in Copenhagen. My derailleur was hanging out of a hole punched in the side (I had put a protector there and everything).
• I tried to purchase a train ticket to Sweden only to have my ATM card be rejected. That’s happened at the Copenhagen airport before with a different card. It’s my main card, so I was a little worried about how I could access my cash. Luckily, they took US dollars.
• The train conductor didn’t think that I knew how to switch trains. Shit, dude, I’ve done this before. Apparently, Mr. Direct-Me-To-The-Wrong-Platform-For-The-Next-Train-Even – Though-I-Know-Where-The-Correct-One-Is, I know your system better than you do.
• The 2 mile cab ride from Lund’s train station to my apartment cost approx. 36 US dollars. But, because I spoke better Swedish than the cabbie spoke English, I got to have my first honest-to-god Swedish conversation in a long time. I was feeling pretty proud.
• My room is pretty big, and there are a lot of instruments all over the place. Sweet. I promptly bought candy and ice cream (and found out the my CREDIT card as well didn’t seem to work – my worriedness increased).

This is pretty much the reason I came here: