In 1259 (F25), Swedish exchange student Arvid Nilsson played with the Warriors Band. After returning to Sweden, Arvid would then become a marching-bands-coordinator for the upcoming 2026 Lundakarneval, so he invited the Warriors Band to fly to Sweden and join him. Upon realizing that the band actually miraculously had the savings to, CCWB Ben Liu put it to action!

Thus, in 1265 (S26), the Warriors Band marched their first two international marches between May 21st to May 25th 2026, and the resultant lore was so rich and plentiful that it had to be moved out of the stories page.

Sweden Campaigners

Franklin decided to skip reading the Excel sheet for luggage allowance and brought an entire checked bag which was supposed to be for someone's instrument 😭. Fortunately, Luke is so efficient that he had 0 packed bags, and Artem was so orz that he squashed the entire storage room into 1 blue bag so Shayne also had a free check in.

Shayne's free check in was ultimately used to check Christine's multitool (which failed security) into Kevin's carry-on and it apparently took 40 mins to get past security (no thanks to Kevin's bag being locked with a code that Christine and Shayne didn't know 😭).

After Callum got a wonderful night's rest on the plane, the band landed in Copenhagen! We loitered for like 30 mins at the gate enjoying the views of the tarmac in the smoking area 💀 then loitered for longer at Danish Burger King!

All luggage survived the flight 😻 -Christine

After a jumpscare of 2 TD credit cards getting declined, a BMO card was able to purchase train tickets to Lund! The train was very packed, and when we got to our stop, everyone was told to "bring everything you took onto the train". Naturally, this directive was completely ignored.

A wonderful member of one of the other bands, Bleckhornen, led us to Tarmen (their storage room, which was 10x more epic than ours by some accounts). They then recommended local restaurant Swedish Express for lunch (coincidentally, Callum also researched this place because it's TikTok famous!). Those meatballs and veggie balls were crazy good. The mashed potatoes too oh man.

The event-provided accommodation was just a high school classroom! Therefore, we needed to borrow air mattresses from our good friends at Bleckhornen, who graciously provided us with 13 air mattresses. The band, completely exhausted, started setting them up and decided not to worry about keeping track of them or taking any pictures before inflating them (foreshadowing...).

We had enough sleeping spots for everybody; however, for some reason on the first night, Franklin was found sleeping on the desks. Early in the night, he was found sitting in a chair while leaning on the desk to sleep, but early in the morning he was spotted lying down on the desks without anything to cushion him!

Showers were only available from 9:00 to 11:30 a.m., meaning that after the hot sweaty days, we were unable to shower. Some coped, some attempted to wash off in the bathrooms. Whether willingly or unwillingly, we truly represented Waterloo. (Also, to note, they were public showers with no curtains or dividers 💀.)

Breakfast was solid -Ben

On the second day, Ben and later Sri Ram tried to close one of the windows. It made a crunchy sound and then stopped moving, and the handle was 90 degrees off of the normal position. It was still open when we left.

Before settling down, everyone was instructed to remember what their mattress bag(s) + mattress(es) looked like, and were also instructed to put their bags underneath the mattresses. In true Warriors Band fashion, none of these instructions were retained, and an air mattress disappeared in the resulting mess. Chinmayi paid Bleckhornen for this loss, found the air mattress in some random bag, and got paid back but lost $5 to international bank transfer fees.

Franklin got Thai food with Chinmayi for dinner on the first day since it was vegetarian, and he got this really good curry of some flavour (that he just gambled on when he ordered since the menu was in Swedish 💀).

The curry took more than half an hour to prepare for some reason, so he and Chinmayi played Fireboy and Watergirl and Bad Ice Cream on the stairs while waiting. This took so long that the other band members ordered their pizzas, watched their pizza place somehow fail to make a pizza twice (bad dough?), and walked back to the accommodation with a courteous free pizza on top of what they ordered, all while Franklin and Chinmayi waited for their curries.

Franklin couldn't finish his curry, so he brought it with him next morning to the first march. However, he didn't have time to eat it there either, and then (unbeknownst to him) he forgot it in the instrument storage room and left it there overnight.

Franklin mourned his lost curry until he discovered it waiting for him the next day, and after a long and tiring second march he ate the curry anyway. Contrary to the band's unsupportive outlooks on his digestive health, he did not get sick at all!, although he was too busy eating the curry to check into the return flight with the band so he did not get to sit beside them on the plane.

it was near the train station after i returned from malmo by myself , i was wearing my jersey still and hear a voice behind me saying "warriors band" in an obnoxious and disbelieving tone . he then taps me and asks if i go to waterloo and i said yeah . he said he does too . i said thats cool . he said have a nice day and i said you too -Artem

At Pearson airport, Chinmayi placed Canada flags for the band to wear as capes in Franklin's extra check-in suitcase. However, before the first march, Franklin somehow lost a portion of these flags, so some members were left flagless for the march (Sri Ram somehow wore the jumbo flag).

The missing flags were recovered for the second march when Franklin found them just...in his suitcase. To his everlasting shame.

The band split up outside the instrument storage room and only a few people were at the lineup while the rest of us were wandering around Lund looking for it. We had to decline an interview from one man in the crowd, but we were a little annoyed when he said he'd only give us directions if we performed on the spot while we were already late 😭 (we never saw him again). Fortunately, another band passed by, and we followed them to glory!

Before the first march, the unthinkable happened and Franklin was found lyre-less. In a desperate attempt to read the music anyway, he borrowed egregious amounts of Mercedes's drumstick tape to tape the music book directly onto his arm.

This setup actually worked for a good while! until the tape completely slipped off from his arm's sweat. Franklin then held the book between his right hand's fingers while attempting to play the same fingerings, and eventually memorized the music mid-march.

Unfortunately, after the first march the band decided to switch 3/4 of the marching songs, so Franklin had to relearn the repertoire for the second march.

At the carnival, it was tradition for the marching bands to play a song lying down! The Warriors Band thus performed Sweet Caroline lying down in both marches.

Arvid, on the tradition of lying down:

Laying down in the carnival parade is an old student orchestra tradition. It has been done for at least 60 years during the carnival. It is also something AK (alte kamereren, the Lund orchestra I am a part of) does during other parades as well.

The main reason to do it is because it is fun. Very "Spexy". Creates a nice change of pace, especially if your instrument is heavy. This honestly could be the entire reason tbh. More than just being fun does the laying down allow the orchestra to gather up and become more of a cohesive unit once again due to most student orchestras following this sort of amoeba formation during their parades.

Many orchestras have a specific song they play when they lay down. The carnival people hate it due to it creating a accordion effect on the entire parade but due to the audience loving it (no sources needed) and them not being able to stop it lol has the tradition persisted.

The band went to a sittning after the first march, which was a huge party for all the performing bands. Franklin tried to stay in touch with some of the Swedes he met, and for some reason defaulted to LinkedIn.

I FORGOT PPL THERE HAD INSTAGRAM -Franklin

(Franklin and Chinmayi were also found completing F26 Orientation sign-up forms during this party.)

Had a shot too many at the afterparty and got really into the music and dancing. Moved around a bit too aggresively and hit Callum in the face. I deeply regret my actions and apologize profusely. -Artem

I lost too many things. I found most of them but rip coffee beans. It had notes of hazelnut and chocolate and was sourced ethically from Kenya. coffee was Roasted in Denmark (sad hamster image) -Yuna

She also left her wallet on the arrival plane and had to run back on to get it back.

On Sunday, May 24, 2026, Artem, Christine, Kevin, Richard, Rory, Shayne, Yuna, and later Ben, took the train from Lund to Copenhagen, wanting to get some more steps and sightseeing in before our flight back the following morning. An innocent and harmless idea. Some highlights include:

• Walking into a funny street with weed shops and striking a conversation about the legality of weed in Canada, and the illegality of it in Denmark, with a man standing about outside the shop!
• Weed discusser also advised where you can freshly pick "one of the strongest" psychedelic mushrooms around here ("just a few hours north in the mountains")!
• Eating yummy ice cream!
• Walking along the gorgeous waterfront!
• Catching the lovely sunset!
• Yuna buying a bag of coffee for her mom from a grocery store and then later losing it before the sun had a chance to set!
• Almost being run over by a car that was speeding up to 150 km/h as we were jaywalking!
• Eating at a fancy restaurant and Shayne being dead as a dog (sleeping)!
• Getting charged 100 DKK for "spring water" 😭
• Walking into every 7/11 they saw, and drinking some weird liquor thing that Richard got!
• Richard talking to a random group of drunk guys at 2 a.m. (see Richard talking to a random group of drunk guys)!
• Tipsily walking and singing and shouting and joking about the streets of Denmark well past midnight!
• Taking the 2:39 a.m. train back to Lund and majority of people momentarily passing out!
• Making it back to Lund as the sun was rising!

During the Copenhagen expedition, while walking down a street full of bars at 2 a.m., Richard commented "we should say hi to the next person we see" or something along those lines. About a minute later, we stopped because someone was taking a piss in front of us (in the middle of the sidewalk) and while contemplating what to do about this roadblock, we realized Richard was no longer with us.

Upon back tracking, he was talking up some drunk dudes outside a pizza place, talking about the carnival and how we came from Canada. After a brief discussion, we got back on our way and the person publicly urinating had also cleared out!

I was curious about the suspicious-looking snacks the dudes were holding outside the pizza place. Turns out it was pizza but folded in half...they made fun of me -Richard

Nobody besides Callum bothered to learn Swedish, and the only words Callum learned were to ask for alcohol.

I nominate Isabella for best Swedish accent while reading random signs, and Yuna for most opportunities taken to use Swedish by saying "tack" at all times! -Christine

Those of us left behind by the Copenhageners (Callum, Chinmayi, Franklin, Isabella, Kevin, Sri Ram, and Sunny) ended up running around Lund for a little while instead!

We started with cheap falafel for lunch, then Ben shilled for European canned coffee. Since Ben was taking a different flight from Copenhagen back home, we got some pictures with him (including one for Franklin to pine at longingly) before shipping him off to join the Copenhagen crew.

We then met up with Arvid in the Karneval grounds after he was released from his responsibilities, and went through the gift shop with basically nothing left :(. We split into two teams and played a "steal the moon" carnival game. One team finished very quickly, while the other unnamed team needed two entire attempts to complete it. We also got an extra Karneval game tent token from Arvid for the band to keep. We're not entirely sure where it went.

We then went to Arvid's apartment for the deck of cards (see Arvid's apartment).

We moved back to the Karneval to watch live music, which we approve to be really good. Franklin got on Arvid's shoulders while in the crowd to overcome his vertical disadvantage.

Arvid had to leave, so we went to a pub called Inferno for some of us to get a drink (but mostly just to sit down). After chatting for a while, most of us went back to the hostel while Chinmayi and Franklin went back to the circus (see Circus time).

Chinmayi was devastated that there were no more decks of cards left in the carnival merch store, so Arvid graciously invited the Lund goers to his apartment so he could give Chinmayi his deck of cards.

🙏 arvid my goat -Chinmayi

Chinmayi, Luke, Sunny, Sri Ram, and Franklin went upstairs to Arvid's apartment, where Arvid gave the deck of cards, the carnival's official board game, free T-shirts and medals for the band, two patches, and even carnival water bottles for the Arvid tourers present. He also showed the band a bunch of cool stuff, like his orientation cape and band overalls 🤩.

We then went up to the roof, where we could see part of the carnival and an insane view of the town 👀. We also visited his storage locker which also had some cool stuff.

arvid ure so cool -Chinmayi

Apparently, Chinmayi was the only one to buy tickets to any of the carnival shows. She bought tickets to the circus, figuring that it would have the least Swedish (foreshadowing...). She dragged Franklin to the entrance 20 mins early, except she misread the time and she was actually 10 mins late. The volunteer was nice enough to let her in anyway, and they were so nice that they didn't realize Franklin didn't have his own ticket and let him in too.

Once inside, the two quickly realized that the circus was completely in Swedish, and that there was a lot of talking at the show. But there was super cool live music and sound effects, so we approved on behalf of the band.

my favourite act in the circus was called "bottle flip" where it was a guy in a bottle costume who did a backflip -Chinmayi

The Copenhageners didn't get back to the hostel until 4 am so they woke up later on the day of the flight. They then had an issue packing the bass drum and missed the first train...and then the second train that they boarded had a track issue and was cancelled...it's safe to say that the timing was a bit rushed.

Furthermore, Franklin was part of the earlier group but decided to take a quick metro ride to Copenhagen. All would've been well if he had mobile data, but alas, he only realized how late he was running when he got McDonald's Wi-Fi while waiting for his Danish cheese sticks.

Furtherfurthermore, Franklin and the Copenhageners would reconvene and pass through airport security together. They would then browse the airport shops right before their departure time, completely unaware of an equally long (if not longer) line awaiting them at passport control. Bafflingly, Richard would exit this line to keep browsing. After crossing passport control, the group was told to run to the plane, and the wandering Richard later had to be escorted past the passport control line to avoid genuinely missing the flight.

The astute reader will have noticed that we lost Richard twice in these stories already (see Richard talking to a random group of drunk guys and Almost missing the return flight). There were somehow two more incidents of this happening:

• At Pearson: At some point before crossing security for our departure flight, we completely lost sight of him. He's quite the tall guy so frankly this was a blunder on the band's part.
• After the afterparty: The band attended an afterparty at Bleckhornen's storage room/general commons following a Swedish sittning hosted for all the performing bands. (Yes, the same one where Artem accidentally punched Callum.) When we were finally returning to our accommodation at around 2 in the morning, Richard was nowhere to be seen. We spent a few minutes searching the building before giving up entirely. Richard later returned unharmed and somehow with Artem; apparently Richard was indeed at the afterparty the entire time, and when he ran into Artem on the way back he took him drinking at a bar.

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