Selma Lagerlöff

We get up, have grött, eggs and smörgås. At 20 ish we start our journey to see the home of Selma Lagerlöff. She is the 2st woman to ever win the Noble Prize. It is at least a 2 hour drive south. But, Karli is doing a project that compares two of her novels. We hope to have her be inspired from this adventure. I found information about this author at home. I researched where she was from and found out it was in Dalarna and they have her home open to the public. In the winter, several tourist destinations are closed, the home of Carl Larsson is closed for instance. According to the Internet, it is only open one day a week, Saturday and tours are given 1 to 4.

We go to Malung and find the library. The librarian there gets online and says there are tours at 2 and prints us a map of how to find her estate in Mårbacka near Sunne.

We get to Sunne and it is just a short time until we get to her home. We decide not to stop to eat anything because we are not exactly sure where it is and how much time we have. We get there and the parking lot is empty. We find a person and she tells us the doors will open in 10 minutes and then we can buy tickets. Another car shows up. There are some young adults in the car and we all begin walking around the gardens in back of the house.

The young people are from Stockholm and we wait more on the porch. We see the lady walk around to different buildings and back. She opens the ticket window. We buy tickets. She gives me a booklet printed in English and explains the tour is in Swedish but most of the info is in the booklet and to ask questions if I have any. One of the others is very friendly and talks to me about various paintings, stories, etc.

Selma lived in this home when she was a child and it was very special to her. Then the family lost the home. After she won the prize for her literature, she bought the home back.

The home has been preserved as much as possible the way it was when she lived here. In the main dining room there were 4 large portraits. The originals are owned by the church. Selma paid an art student to recreate them as closely as possible. He did a fine job but only knew how to paint one type of a nose. So you can see, all the people have the exact same nose! Still they are predominately displayed in the room.

When we go to the kitchen, they had glögg and pepparkakor for us. Nice. We are so hungry by the way. There are very modern appliances and touches in the house. Selma wanted nothing but the most up to date things in her home. The stove is very innovative for the time.

There are many references to her good friend Sophie Elkan. There is even a room dedicated to her. There are letters that were found recently that raise the question whether Selma and Sophie were involved as a couple.

We go to the bookstore and look around. We buy some postcards and look over the books. We buy one about Mårbacka that is in English. We leave about 3 and realize, once again have missed the lunch time at cafes! We always do this!

We are so hungry that we decide on the first restaurant we see... Chinese of course. We get 3 dishes and only one is very good. The sign says they have steaks, pasta and Chinese food. It is really all Asian food. The pasta is like rigatoni noodles with an Asian twist. Just a salty, saucy twist... The steak is stir fry but greasy and very, very, salty... not to our liking. The chicken stir fry with peanut sauce. It is good. We try to share but I stick to mine since I am not supposed to eat much salt. We are not impressed with Swedish Chinese food and it is quite expensive. There are many times that we are forced into it if there is nothing else. This was $15 - $20 per person.

Now we are late. It is very dark and Arvid must drive home in the dark. Roads aren't lit and cars behind us want to go fast. The further north we get, the harder the snow is falling. Visibility gets less and less. There are many places to turn out and let cars go by. Arvid does this often. You really can't believe how fast the cars drive in this stuff; really the same speed as if there is no snow!

There is a ski-shoot area close to Lima. This where you cross country ski then shoot guns at targets. I guess this is very popular in Sweden. There are cars parked all along the road, plus the big parking area inside. It really looks like a ski area.

We get home and about 20 minutes later, so does Ulla. We had stopped and gotten some yogurt, messmör, cream for coffee, and lettuce. There are so many types of milk and cream for coffee. All different % of fat. It is hard to decide what to get. The yogurt is the same difficult decision. They have great flavors of yogurt. Some fruits we have never heard of. The lettuce is fun to buy. It is sold with the roots attached. Mmmmmmmm fresh!

Ulla fixes kol dommar and potatis. This is stuffed cabbage, very good! It is from a frozen package that we have seen in the store. It looked good to Karli and I when we saw it before.

We call Erik and Britta Gun so we can visit them perhaps tomorrow. Then we call Mona Brit to arrange it. We will go to Erik's house for coffee.

We call home again more times. We can't get a hold of Richard. We are worried. We call Bren to check on him. The snow is bad at home. Bren doesn't call back. Maybe we can call again tomorrow.

It is snowing outside pretty hard. We can't wait to get up and see what the area looks like.