International Women's Day! (Yes, it's actually a thing!)

Yesterday was International Women's Day. What exactly this is supposed to mean, we're not really sure, but of course we felt the need to celebrate. Of course, it was also Fat Tuesday so naturally I consumed a lot of godies. We had no class yesterday so Sonja and I took the opportunity to brave the Swedish bus system to get to the Carl Larsson house in Sundborn about 2 and a half hours down the road. We boarded the first bus to Falun and then grabbed the next one for the remaining 20 minutes. Buses mastered.

We arrived at about 10:30 am. Sundborn is a little village. We saw hardly any people, but the sun was shining brilliantly and the river running through town was open. Standing over the bridge listening to the rushing and lapping water made me sure that Spring is oh so close.

The tour was supposed to be in Swedish, but included in the tour was a group from New York who did not speak Swedish so the guide did her best to give a bi lingual tour. I find myself feeling guilty when things like this happen, just like I felt I was cheating when Sonja and I asked the bus drivers for directions in English. She put it quite well though when she said, "Karla, there are times to practice our Swedish, and then there are times to not get lost in the middle of nowhere Sweden. This is one of those times."

The house was beautiful. Before arriving, I had read that IKEA takes a lot of inspiration from designs in the house. Sadly photography was prohibited inside. It was so fun. We got done with the tour and realized we had about 3 hours to kill before the bus came. The only restaurant in town was a little, but delicious pizzeria. We then walked up the pathway to the town church, which Carl Larsson helped paint. There were purple paper flowers hanging in the front, a gesture surely meant to welcome warm Spring weather. Not only did we feel like we had the church to ourselves, but it felt like we had free reign of the town.

After our peaceful rest in the church, we continued down the path and sat on the bench swing overlooking the river. Both Sonja and I decided that it would be difficult to top this first ever celebrated National Women's Day.