A Swedish Sojourn

Yesterday was our first wedding anniversary, so we decided to get away for the weekend.

With Sweden so close, it's felt entirely ridiculous that, after nearly a year, I had still never been.  So, we spent the weekend in Malmö.

Malmö is just a short train ride from where we live here in Copenhagen, but it seems quite different.  Technically, Copenhagen is the older of the two cities, but since much of Copenhagen was burnt down by the Brits in 1807, there isn't much that remains here that is older than that.  Malmö, on the other hand, maintains much of it's old architecture, making it look much more like bits of Germany or Flanders in Belgium.

Those of you who know the infamous Eurovision song competition may be quite familiar with Malmö by now, as it was just held there last weekend.  Luckily, we did not get married a week earlier, or it would have been much more difficult (and much more expensive) to get a hotel room.  As it was, we managed to get a really lovely room right on Malmö's Lilla Torg, or "little square."

We were literally two doors down from a Spanish restaurant that was recommended by a colleague of my husband's, so we went there for dinner on Friday night.  On Saturday, we spent the morning wandering around town, and stumbled upon a really lovely park that was crawling with geese and ducks.  Not only that, but it seemed were just in time to see a bit of the Malmö Garden Show in the very same park.  Dinner was at a little seafood restaurant (which could have been better, to be honest), followed by a surprisingly good and creative dessert in our hotel restaurant.

Malmö really is a lovely town.  There isn't a whole lot to do, but it's got lots of beautiful architecture and a really comfortable vibe.  If I had any reason to, I could see myself living there.  And in fact, there are a lot of people who live there and work in Copenhagen, because the cost of living is so much lower.

Today, it was back to the grind with Danish class.  The first day that we met our new teacher, he said (in regards to how difficult it is to learn Danish), "Det skulle ondt!"

Translated, this means, "It should hurt!"

And boy, does it ever.

Folksy Sing-Songin' in Scandinavia

Let's talk music for a bit, shall we?  I'm a big fan of singer-songwriters who are actually good at both.  I have a serious pet peeve when it comes to folks who make their living as singers but aren't actually any good at it.  That being said, I'm encouraged that there seems to be some really great singer-singwriters coming out of Scandinavia these days.  For example, The Tallest Man on Earth, a great talent out of Sweden:

And then there's First Aid Kit, a really great duo who also happens to be out of Sweden:

Okay, so actually there's some great stuff coming out of Sweden.  Where are the great Danish singer-singwriters?  I'll need to find some.