May: the beginning of the end?

Hallå!
May has been such an insane month, you can’t even make it up. In the very last bits of April, my family came to visit me to catch a glimpse of what life is like in Lund. We also visited Ystad, which is a small coastal town on the southern tip of Sweden, and also drove up to Helsingborg to catch the ferry across the Øresund strait over to Helsingør, which is the Danish town with the famous castle on which Shakespeare’s Hamlet is based. It was nice to spend more time in the countryside as well in my family’s cabin, since I don’t spend so much time outside of Lund.

Wrapping up April, just short of every single student in Lund celebrated Valborg. Valborg (or ‘Walpurgis’) is the real beauty of studying in Sweden during the spring semester, as it’s the festival marking the end of winter. It’s celebrated with a 30 thousand person picnic in the park from about 7am, together with loads of booze, snacks, music, and enjoying the sun. In the afternoon, we headed across town for a barbecue and slept in the sun before heading back to the park for the city’s Valborg celebration with a choir and a bonfire. We ended the night at one of the famous Student Nation’s Valborg club nights. The day after is Labor Day in Sweden, otherwise known as ‘första maj’. The holiday is once again celebrated with a student choir and a ceremony outside the gorgeous neoclassical university building, it was even broadcasted on national TV!

May started out with my first time singing at an open mic in Sweden at Ariman, which is a bar in Lund that’s very popular among students. We also celebrated our friend’s departure from the exchange, as he was sadly leaving his Lund at the end of the week. He was the first of our close friends we’ve had to say goodbye to on this exchange, so we celebrated our last day together with a day at the beach and a surprise funeral ceremony. Saying goodbye to friends you’ve become so close to in such a close time is hard, but I’m excited to stay in touch with friends all over the world after this exchange time is over. Plus, all the more reason to go visit, right?

Around mid May, we performed our Spex student theater shows! We rehearsed non-stop before throwing three shows in a weekend: the premiere, the pub show, and the grand finale. Production week was a crazy time and it unfortunately significantly cut into my time for studying and assignments that were pressing during that same week, which was right before my final exams. I had a take-home essay exam for my gender studies course to figure out, as well as an oral and written exam for my final Swedish course (that would get me level A2 certified!). I spent the week after Spex constantly at my favorite study cafés, trying to pump out up to a thousand words each day, as well as trying to absorb close to a thousand Swedish vocabulary words. Luckily, all of my exams are over now, and I think I did quite okay (knock on wood). Then, to celebrate the end of the semester, I took a quick trip to Stockholm for a couple of nights with some friends. It truly feels like a load off my shoulders that the academic year is now also over. But on the other hand, this marks the end of studying at Lund University as well as the end of my bachelor’s degree… I’ll graduate from Utrecht University at the end of this summer after four years, which is so bittersweet :’)

May is ending now, and that means I’m going into my last month as a student here in Lund. My hopes for June are that it will be a beautiful month of gratitude, reflecting, spending time with close friends, and looking forward to what life will be like after coming back home. And on a more cheerful note, as I’m writing this I have a quick break from everything while preparing for my dear friend from home to come visit me for the weekend to celebrate the end of the year!

Will tell you more next month. Until then, vi ses!
Ana