Digital sightseeing

As I learned today the (freely translated) German saying "In April weather does what it wants" does not seem to exist in Swedish. However, this is exactly what the weather here currently does: It changes from sunny to grey to rain to sunny to stormy several times a day. Before I leave Sweden now for a short time I leave a few impressions of how my chosen home for the running two years looks like during the sunny part of weather chaos.

We start with a view down one of the roads of the inner city. To the very left there the entrance of the cinema, called "bio" in Swedish. To the right there is the Swede's sacred temple of alcohol, the "Systembolaget" of Lund. Systembolaget is a federal institution that sells beverages with more than 3,5 % alcohol. Except for these shops you cannot get alcoholic beverages in Sweden. The state does this to guarantee an even distribution of the same quality of alcoholic beverages throughout the whole country. As far as I know this system was established in a time when Swedes still fulfilled the cliche of heavy drinking because of the dark. ;) I am sure it had nothing to do with money.

These are two views of "Stortorget" - "large square". Besides, this is probably the largest crowd ever counted in Lund. Though I am sure it will be topped during Lunda-karnevalen in May which only takes place every fourth year. This year will be one of those. If I remeber correctly the immense crowd visible in the picture to the right was demonstrating for an establishment called "Projekt 6" which exactly promotes what the name implies. (No, it is not a club of panderers but it quite contraryly promotes education, safety and that stuff.) To the left is a picture of the rest of Stortorget.

The second but last image shows a small scene from the "botanisk trädgården" - the botanical garden in Lund. As the trädgården is still in hibernation there is not much to be shown except the ever resistant stone garden - which is already very nice, I think. There are even some early flowers where my exceptional botanical knowledge (exceptional implying more exceptions than anything else in this case) leaves me without much clue what they are called. I would go with "crocus" if I had to guess ... When in summer the trädgården is filled with more life stan stones again I will post some more and some really (as I think) impressive pictures. :)

Now with this flower I would guess some kind of water lily ... Might as well be completely off. It lives in the greenhouse so it survives winter as well as the stones in the stone garden. There are numerous other flowers, trees, cactuses and whatever else the botanist and tourist heart desires but Lund does not only consist of flowers. ;)