A Bad Day Trip

I'll admit it's been almost a month now since I last updated my noble readers on my Scandinavian adventures! The reason is embarrassingly simple: I went on a bad day trip on Saturday, July 6th, and didn't want to blog about it!

Carl Larsson's home, Sundborn in Dalarna, Sweden

The Thursday before this minor catastrophe was half term for my Swedish program, and Swedish feasting turned out to be a very interesting insight into their culture. There are many rules for how dining in Sweden must be conducted; at many formal occasions, there are even alotted bathroom breaks. Each course was punctuated by musical performances and speeches, and the many digestives offered throughout the meal were always accompanied by a drinking song! We ate a beet salad, moose meatballs, and a chocolate lingonberry moose, sitting at table for more than three hours. Afterwards, there was dancing.

Our program director has a passion for singing.

Now about the day trip. I wanted to visit the home of Carl Larsson, probably the most famous Swedish painter. He lived at the end of the 19th century, at an idyllic Dalarna farmhouse called Sundborn. Eagerly, I purchased train tickets (nearly three hours each way) and went on an adventure.

But when I arrived in Falun, the nearest city to Sundborn, there were NO busses. Only one bus travels out to Carl Larsson's home each day. There is no tourism infrastructure in place in the sleepy little province of Dalarna. After trekking around Falun for forty five minutes, I finally reach the tourist office. She sends me off in a $40 taxi.

The tour of Carl Larsson's home (no student discount) was conveniently just about to start. The only other americans are a family of five with a screaming infant. The child wails and scrapes her hands along the artifacts for the full tour, while the jovial, blond haired tour guide pretends it isn't happening. Utter nightmare. In addition, maybe it's just my bad mood at this point, but Carl Larsson's perfect country estate has an eerie, Stepford quality to it. It's all just a little too perfect, all thanks to his artistic yet clearly oppressed wife Karin.

As soon as the tour is over, I am forced to rush back to catch the single bus of the day! so of the ten hours or so that I was traveling, I only got to be at Sundborn for about 90 minutes. I have to wait two hours at the train station to get back to Uppsala.

So there is my tale of woe. The moral? Things don't always go well when traveling. Attitudes cannot always be good, and travel cannot always be smooth. But we keep going nonetheless. Never give up, never surrender!