A Touch of Autumn Culture

So I realize that it has been a while and I still have not put up the Paris and Scotland photos/blog. It has been incredibly busy around here (one of my classes just ended this week) and the task of trying to recap the trip and shift through the hundreds of pictures is slightly daunting.

Instead I am going to procrastinate a little longer and put up pictures that I pilfered from my friends (my camera downloading cord is MIA, and they take much better pictures than me!).

Fall is gorgeous here and is quickly becoming my favorite season. The air is a crisp 45 degrees, but I have been keeping somewhat warm by wearing all my clothes like a homeless person (I haven't resorted to stuffing crumbled newspaper...yet) and making endless amounts of cookies, breads (allows me to turn on the oven for hours!), and soups.

However, the best part about this time of year is the leaves changing colors! Almost overnight, Lund has exploded into a beautiful Vincent van Gogh painting-- with vibrant yellows, reds, and oranges nearly everywhere I look.

This is a transformation of the university library. When the last of the ivy falls to the ground, winter has arrived.

Taken in late August... times were warmer

multi-colored beauty in beginning of October
(my personal favorite)

just a week or so ago.
Already a lot of the leaves are gone.
(photos courtesy of Nora Traughber)

Seeing this building on my way to class
always makes me smile

The beautiful park where we played brennball

Lund's equivalent to the MU
(called the AF Castle)

Very idyllic spot somewhere in Lund
(should ask my friend where this is!)

Almost all the streets in the city look like this.

And now I will leave you with a beautiful van Gogh painting and Keats' Poem.

Autumn Landscape

To Autumn by John Keats

I
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

II
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

III
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.