Chris is here

Chris, my roommate from Berkeley, is currently here visiting for a week. We've had a pretty good time so far. The weather has been very nice (ie, sunny!) and the days are rapidly getting longer. Already the sun shines brightly in my window at 7:00 and it doesn't set until after 20:00. The Spanish Guy (another exchange student living in this cooridoor; his name is ``Javiez'' but I find it unpronouncible -- hence, ``The Spanish Guy'') is off on a trip to Kiruna, and he's thoughtfully left his bicycle at our disposal.

On Saturday, Chris and I bicycled to the beach and to Malmö (≈ 20km), and I think he really enjoyed it. (although all the swedes seem to think that this is a crazy thing to do. one sceptical woman even exclaimed, "...on those cycles?") Anyway, In the spring weather the countryside and the Sound appear very beautiful, and also the countryside reminds Chris of his time living in France (a couple summers ago working at CERN). The beach was very nice too.. The water is amazingly clear and, standing out on a pier, you can see everything on the sandy bottom. And, along the shore, I counted six swans.

We saw a number of funny things too, like a real-life game of ``fußboll,'' the table-soccer game with little plastic men on rods: there were real men attached to rods... it attracted quite a crowd. (But later, the real soccer team Malmo FF went on to lose, sending thousands of angry/sad MFF fans into the streets... but that's another story.) We'd packed a nice lunch of sandwiches which we ate by the canal. I even got sunburned... I guess I have to regain my sun protection after the dark winter.

On Sunday we made a huge batch of waffles and then invited everyone around to come and eat them, which turned out to be quite fun. And last night we made a largish quantity of black beans and rice and invited Rose over for dinner, and then we all walked out to S:t Hans park, which is the highest point in Lund, and from which you can see all the way to Copenhagen on a clear day.

Today we had a nice trip to Copenhagen, with lunch in Christiana (the commune that has accomplished what People's Park has always dreamed of), then a (spectacularly successful, if you ask me) trip to the Carlsberg Brewery, and finally some of those now-famous "belgian" waffles with ice cream and chocolate sauce that they sell all over Copenhagen. Mmmmmm. Oh yeah, the Carlsberg Brewery is really interesting. The place is kind of amazing, because of all the scientific research they do there. Apparently it was there that the idea of "pH" was formulated, and where yeast was first isolated, and a number of other things. And now they study the fermentation process (or something) which nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and everything... all to make beer! (And yes, the self-guided tour includes free samples.) My new aspiration is to work there at the Carlsberg Laboratory.

So that's what we've been doing lately. Unfortunately Chris has to rush home to take care of various increasingly chaotic issues at 2018 but so far it's been pretty fun. Oh yeah, and right now I am supposedly studying for an exam I have tomorrow morning, which someone else in the korridor is also taking... and bets have been placed on our relative outcome. So I'd better get back to studying...