Day trip to Malmo, Sweden

I spent a few days last week (from Wednesday-Friday) on the DL with a stomach virus so by the weekend I was itching to get out of the house. I missed class on Thursday and 2 out of 3 classes on Friday. The one I went to was international advertising and I had to go because I was giving a big group presentation about coffee purchasing in Denmark vs. the US. Riveting stuff, I know. But in between all of that my friends and I decided to take a trip to Malmo, Sweden. It's literally right there and was easy enough to get to. We met at about 10:30am at the Central Station in Copenhagen and it's about a 40 minute train ride for about $12 each way. Sort of like going to NYC or DC on NJ Transit or MARC Trains. Not bad at all, and we got into a new country! We sort of neglected the whole planning process...but my friend, Claire, had a tourist book that had a small chapter and Malmo and we stocked up on tourist maps from the tourism center at the train station.

We just decided to start walking and see if there was anything we could happen upon something interesting. We came upon St. Peter's Church, which is the oldest building in the city. It was built in the early 14th century.

This is the main tower of the church

The altar in St. Peter's

After that we walked around a little more, found some shopping and consulted the guide book. There was a chocolate factory listed so we knew this was a must-see! Unfortunately when we got there it was a bit of a bust. The chocolate was good, but the factory was really more of just a room. And there was supposed to be a museum but it was really just a few glass cases of old wrappers. We weren't discouraged though, and continued on in pursuit of museum island which also had a castle. We never got to the museums, as it was getting late in the afternoon and they close early, but we were able to see the castle (Malmohus) from the outside (there was some sort of a wedding going on inside that prevented us from going in)

This is a picture of Malmohus...taken by Claire because my pictures weren't as good. I am still waiting to see a palace-type castle...but at least this had a moat!

So we walked around the castle and found a nice area in the back with a small canal and there was also a huge windmill

Next we saw this building through the trees (photo taken by my friend, Kaitlin)

Here is where we're going to play a little game of: What do you think this is??!! We thought maybe it was a huge mansion, or some state-owned building, or another castle...but no. It's actually a casino. Kind of a let down. But we pressed forward...because after playing on the playground of the casino for like 25 minutes, it was beginning to get dark. We really wanted to see this building called the Turning Torso. Claire had seen a Discovery channel special on it or something and it was apparently an architechtual wonder when it was made. Here is a picture from far away (taken by Kaitlin):

I know it's kind of hard to see, but hopefully you get the idea. We walked towards it which should have taken another 30 minutes or so, however we got sidetracked when we saw the Maxi store, aka the closest thing to a Wal-Mart or Target here. It was great! Usually everything here is smaller. Grocery stores are usually very little, sometimes the size of a super Wawa or so....so the Maxi was a breath of freshair! I was really thirsty and I got a litre of water for 7,50 Swedish kroner, which is under $1. My friends got things like shampoo and makeup for cheaper for our travelling and there was even an aisle simply devoted to candy that we dabbled in. We finished up and continued to the Turning Torso. The point of going there was to stand at the bottom, and look directly up to see how the building was built to look like it was turned. It's kind of bizarre but here's the best picture I could get...the lighting is really weird because it was dusk but hopefully you can see it:

By the time we finished up here it was getting close to 6pm and we had been walking around in the windy freezing weather so we took a cab back to the train station to buy our tickets to get back to Copenhagen. Of course, nothing goes without an adventure with us. We got back, bought our tickets and saw we could make the 6:22pm train. The big Departures board still had x for the track number meaning that it wasn't decided yet. We waited, and waited, and realized that the next train coming from Copenhagen to Malmo was delayed. Not a problem, except then we realized that alllll of the trains coming from Copenhagen to Malmo for the next two hours were delayed. Time to investigate. I asked someone who looked important who turned out to know practically nothing except that "there may be a bus somewhere outside...a special bus..." We went outside and found a family who looked equally lost and decided to follow them. Eventually the "special bus" came, we all crowded on and we embarked on the journey back to the next train stop closer to Copenhagen. Except since this was a local bus, it took about 45 minutes. We eventually got back into Copenhagen around 8:15pm, I just missed the train back to Borup so we went to McDonalds for a McFlurry and waited for my next train at 9:12 and I was home by 10:15. It was a long day but a lot of fun. It was a trip we realized we could just walk around and take in the sights and still have fun. Today after class we spent a few hours trying to come up with some weekend trips and other travels so I'll keep you updated as they come up and as they are finalized! Hope all is well with everyone and I'll talk to you soon!

Love,
Olivia