Posting online so far has not been quite as easy as I would like, there is always so many things to do. So I originally woke up on Thursday at about 3 am. The flight coupled with the time zone changes have left with pretty weird hours. After finishing my presentation, I was working on various things to do in Malm?. The breakfast at the hostel was pretty decent, they had a variety of cereals, fruit, and eggs. However at 50 SEK, or about $8.20, the breakfast should be pretty good. I think if I had access to a fridge I would be able to get a cheaper breakfast, but that's life. The hotels here really like their meats and cheeses though for breakfast. By the time it was light enough to go walking, I stored my luggage in the hostel (I brought my backpack with me) and walked around town.

The receptionist in the hostel recommended that I go see the Twisting Torso. Evidently there are not too many tall buildings around the area due to various building restrictions so Swedes down here seem to take pride in the tower. I heard that the tower was started shortly after 9/11 and they had condos for sale that pretty much tanked, leaving the owners renting out the units. However, it is amazing the amount of construction in the area. It is perhaps due to the Oresund Bridge connecting the area to Copenhagen. Many of the housing units, appears to be mostly condos, while fairly generic, have more variety than their recent American counterparts.

I also stopped at Malm?hus, the castle which is just south of the tower. This castle doesn't seem to be anything spectacular, but maybe I was expecting something straight out of television. Some of the rooms were pretty interesting though, there were fairly preserved King and Queen chambers that I could walk through. The red side building was a cannon tower. The layout of the castle utilized a double moat system, though I was surprised that the king's chamber was facing the direction of the bridge.

I also walked around the shopping districts in town. I quickly noticed that shopping in Europe is out of my budget while in grad school and with the current exchange rate. I definitely see the Swedish influence in IKEA now.

After touring town, I needed to catch the train in Lund. A worker at the ticket counter misinformed me of which train I needed to take to Lund, but I wasn't the only misinformed, so I eventually found out where I needed to go. By the time I got to my hotel, I was so tired. I had (and have) some serious blisters on my foot and had blood on both of my socks. My shoes definitely are not made for walking as much as I did, so I'll have to be more careful.

I got an e-mail from the coordinator of the conference about meeting up for dinner, I thought that would be a pretty good idea. This leads me up to Day 4 (Friday). The conference was pretty good, I got some great feedback on my paper, which it was definitely in need of. Unfortuantely, I was exhausted and had to skip out on dinner, I ended up falling asleep for a few hours before I got up to write this. Which I think I'm getting sleepy, so I should get to bed so I can get up and tour Lund and find a place to stay tomorrow night. I may check out the hostel in town, a sleeper train.

-Trevor