Hej Blog Buddies,
Wednesday, March 4rd:
On this day, we visited the place where the “Swedish icon” is made. That icon, of course, would be the Dala Horse! The factory lies a few kilometers outside of Mora, in a small town called Nusnäs.
Across the street from one another, are two competing factories that were started by two brothers over 80 years ago. The woman who gave us a tour of the factory told us that the competition is good for business; it forces each store to offer competitive prices, as well as stay up to date on the current style and designs. She also said that during the tourist season the two businesses help relieve each other of the influx of people.
When the group arrived, we all were given a tour of the three-room factory where the horses are made. In the first stage, they stamp the outline of the horse on to “waste” Pinewood (apparently the wood here is a much higher quality than most pines. This is because the soil here is not as fertile is in many places, so the pine takes a long time to grow, and therefore has much better “marbling” - - I don’t know what its called…). The stamped outline goes to someone working on a band saw that cuts a rough outline of the horse in the wood. The rough product is then sent to someone working out of his or her home that hand carves the rest of the horse. This product is sent back to the factory to be sanded. The finished wooden product is dipped in a base coating of paint, allowed to dry, and the design is finally hand painted on. After a few days to let the paint dry, the horse is ready to be sold.
It was very interesting to see this process and how quickly they could produce the horses. The traditional color is red, but over the years, they have varied their decorations and colors. This horse became the “icon” of Sweden when it was a huge success at the 1939 World’s fair in New York. But the Dala horse dates back to the early 1600s.
I also finally went to rent these “long-skates” that I’ve heard are really fun. After going to the store, and finding the one pair of bindings that fit, I went down to the lake to try them out (as I may have said in an earlier post, it has finally started to warm up here…) the path to skate on was covered in three inches of standing water! I had been waiting and waiting to try out these skates, and when I finally got a pair to use, the lake was uncooperative. So I had to return the bindings to the store for a refund, literally like 20 minutes after I got them. How unfortunate!
Thursday, March 5th:
This was an… interesting??… day. We all piled into a minibus and a car after breakfast and set out to some random, “small” settlement about 30 minutes away. When we got there, we walked around this gathering of homes that actually took up a quite expansive area, but the total structures probably numbered only in the 40’s. It was a settlement of homes (some dating back to the 11th century) that historically were only inhabited in the summer months by women and children. While the men would be home on the farm growing and tending to crops, the women and children would take the cattle into the forest to graze. In the late summer/fall the women would migrate the animals back to the farm.
These houses (some of which are lived in year-round) are not much more than ten feet by ten feet rooms built with life-sized Lincoln logs. After walking around for some time, looking at the different houses, we went back to a little campground area and made hotdogs over a fire.
After lunch, we went looking for animal tracks. We drove around the area, and whenever our guide saw something, he’d pull the bus over, and we’d all get out to look at the tracks. We saw the tracks of an otter, moose, deer, lynx, “pine martin,” and rabbits/squirrels.
I was quite tired from all this exploring, so after we got back, I took a necessarily long nap. After the nap, I went back to the handicrafts building and spent a few hours finishing my project.
Friday, March 6th:
The woman who has been coordinating our time in Mora, Anna, is a teacher of English and Swedish here at the school. As everyone on the trip (except Roland) is a native English speaker, she arranged for us to meet with her Advanced English class and discuss modern contemporary issues with them.
Granted, these students have been studying English since 1st grade, but to talk about philosophical issues in a second language, I’d imagine would be quite challenging. Some of the issues we discussed were the relationships between “success and money,” “power and violence,” and “personal responsibility and the environment.”
It was really interesting to hear the perspectives of students on these issues, both Swedish and American. Two of the students were actually immigrants from the Philippines who have lived in Sweden for three years. They offered more perspective having come from another country, but having lived in Sweden for some time. This was the type of meaningful interactions I was hoping to have with students, which has, unfortunately, been rather lacking.
I went for another run today, except this time I ran in the opposite direction on a path that follows the shore of the lake. Again, it was quite slushy, so there was some hopping over puddles and such, that needed to be done.
I spent the evening catching up on some various things that I need to do. I read some more of my book (This Side of Paradise), organized my room, and watched one of my favorite movies, Into the Wild.
Saturday, March 7th:
This was a pretty relaxed day. I got up early (for a Saturday, 9:30) and finished my journals that I had neglected throughout the week.
After handing them in, several of us went on a wild goose chase, trying to find the house of a teacher from the school. We were invited over for Fika (a Swedish verb that means to drink coffee and chat). All we were told was that they lived in a yellow house on campus. But which of the four yellow houses, we didn’t know. We ended up going to all four with no luck. After consulting Roland, he encouraged us to go back to a house that we had already been at, as he thought it was the correct one.
When we went back, a woman and her daughter were just getting out of their car and told us we were in the right spot. We went in and were treated to ice cream, coffee, carrot cake, and brownies. We spoke almost exclusively Swedish, and I was able to manage quite well.
The couple has two daughters and both work at the Mora Folkhögskola. One of the daughters studied at Gustavus my freshman year (I didn’t know her though…) and the other daughter, will be studying at Gustavus next fall.
After going for another run : ) four of us were invited over to this woman named Kerstin’s house for dinner. She picked us up around 7pm and took us to her place. She has two sons who are adopted from Columbia. Her kids’ names were André (15 years old) and Gustaf (13 years old). André was the most outgoing Swedish person I’ve met so far. He instantly warmed up to us and talked to us about anything and everything. He is fluent in English Spanish and Swedish, but spoke mostly Swedish with us. He played guitar and sang for us, while Gustaf played piano.
We ate dinner, which was comprised of several different types of sandwiches (smörgåsar, in Swedish) and had dessert (ice cream with bananas, chocolate, and meringue balls). After four hours of food, getting to know each other, and Swedish conversation, Kerstin brought us back to the school
This was probably one of the most enjoyable nights that I’ve had here in Mora.
Sunday, March 8th:
I got up today with the intentions of running, only to look out my window to see that it had snowed about 2-3 inches. So that plan was scrapped.
I went to lunch with two others at a little restaurant that I’ve been to before. After returning back to our dorm, I spent the afternoon reading (I’m nearly finished with the book) and studying for my test tomorrow. As I’ve said before, the class is really frustrating because Lennart (the teacher) has not given us any details of what he is expecting from us. So I’ve been trying to study information as I can, but we’ll see how it goes.
Roland sent us an email saying that he has booked our tickets to Uppsala, which is our next stop (we leave Mora on Saturday morning).
Also, Co-Presidential elections are tomorrow. So tomorrow night, I should know the results!
Hejdå,
Andrew
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