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Letter from Lund

Our students are everywhere! Here's what 2008 Summer Student and prospective 2009/2010 Articling Student, Jonathan Laski, has been doing on exchange in Sweden:

"I am writing this message from my dorm room in Lund, now well over halfway through my time here in Sweden. It's about 5PM on Sunday and the given the latitude of this part of the world, the sun has long set and we are still weeks away from the shortest day of the year.

Sweden in general, and Lund in particular, is really a great place to live. From my studies in an "Introduction to Swedish Law" course, I learned about how the country's predisposition to left-leaning politics for much of the twentieth century has created a nation with comprehensive social security laws, very high standards on gender equality and a foreign affairs record that its citizens can be proud of. Lund University, I have come to realize, is a very well respected institution (over 400 years old and in the top 100 universities worldwide) as evidenced by such guest lecturers as Kofi Annan, several U.S. politicians and Swedish Ministers. I actually had the opportunity to attend Annan's lecture, given through the Raoul Wallenberg Institute for Human Rights Law in memory of the Swedish Foreign Affairs Minister Anna Lindh killed in 2003, and found him to be both an incredible speaker but also someone who has realized how much the UN has failed under his watch.

However, there have been less academic pursuits as well. Copenhagen is only 45 minutes away by train and I have visited its sites frequently (often doing the same things multiple times with different visitors). It is incredibly expensive, but a nice sized city, and really feels like a good mix of European and Scandinavian given its location. In the past 5 weeks I have also had the chance to visit Stockholm, Norway and several cities in Eastern Europe. Stockholm is fantastic (it has the only national park reserve located within city boundaries in the world) and a place I could see myself spending a few weeks a year (in the summer, of course). I got to Norway just in time before the daily autumn rains took over and was able to get in a few great hikes, including a famous one to Preikstolen ("Pulpit Rock"). Oslo was also a beautiful place, with an especially interesting history during WWII and an amazing exhibition called "The Places We Live" at the Nobel Peace Museum.

Now with my time winding down, I have forced myself to make a list of 10 things still to accomplish before leaving Lund in late December and will be striking one off the list this week when I give a short presentation to several UN-related clubs on STAND Canada and the situation in Darfur. As for travels, I will be stopping in a few more European destinations (Amsterdam, Paris), so will hopefully continue to strike the right balance between work and play.

All the best from Sweden,

Jonathan"