Sunbathing and Turpentine

Jochen has left me once more for South Africa to enjoy warm stormy weather, poo, beetles, giraffes, a swimming pool and most importantly....gin!

Well I can also have mini adventures of my own!
Last weekend we (Sam, Cinzia and myself) went on a girly road trip to Helsingborg which is about 40 minutes north of Lund by the coast and only 4 km across the water to Denmark. One of the main attractions of the town is the Kärnen (tower) which overlooks Helsingborg and the Baltic Sea. It is part of the remains from a Danish fortress (from when Skåne-the southern region, was part of Denmark) and was built in the 1310's. The view from the top of the tower is apparently amazing (we'd spent too much time eating to make it there before closing) but the view from the second level of the town or the bottom of the tower is also quite stunning. We happened to be up there at sunset which was pretty spectacular.


As you all know the Swedish winter is long, cold and in the south it is also windy. This leads to depression, alcoholism, hermitism, lack of fun-ism, and general complaining about how long and cold the winter is, followed by complaining of only one week of warm summer then back to winter. Therefore it is important to enjoy every ray of sunshine when it appears. The Swedes are professional sunbathers. There are usually benches in sunny spots along the bike paths and benches attached to the sides of buildings which when weather permits they are filled with Swedes basking in the sun and warming their backs upon the warm bricks. So when we saw sun bathing chairs in Helsingborg by the water we had to try them out. It's pretty funny to be sitting in the sun wrapped up in all the layers of woolies you can find and the temperature is definitely below zero. The rest of our adventure was spent wandering around the town, buying yummy chocolates, eating yummy food and being silly. Overall a lovely girly adventure was had.

Hopefully we will have more adventures like this as the weather gets warmer. Spring seems like it's just around the corner as it hasn't snowed for weeks and there are buds on the trees. One can only hope!

As for life in general I am still pondering the purpose of my life but I'm a happy little vegemite since I have found an art shop in Lund. Paint brushes and kanelbulle (cinnamon buns) what more could a girl want? Turpentine! That's right, good ol' turps. It appears that you cannot buy this harmful toxin in your normal supermarket but you can by acetone, what the? There is a double standards for your favourite poison. Acetone can be bought in supermarkets because you can remove your nail polish with it, but only real men buy turps! So after searching every supermarket I was given a tip (thanks Cinzia) that there was some kind of paint shop in Lund. This was a delightful surprise of it being an art supplies shop, now I really need a job to fund my habit. I mean my art habit not my turps habit, although this craving was also satiated.

So I leave you to reflect on how easy it is to obtain poisons in Australia. Please don't ingest!

(Click on photos in left side bar to see the album as usual)