Exploration

I had promised Alicia we would go loppis hopping while in Vännäs and the surrounding areas, and we did. My mother, who herself was dragged to auctions as a child and therefore greatly dislikes loppis, took us around to four different ones, saying "Ska de' va så ska de va'," roughly the equivalent 'If we're going to do this, we're doing to do it well.'

Diverseboa in Vännäsby 

Outside one of the loppis. You can tell my attention was suffering.  

After loppis we took Alicia to allsång (sing-along) at Slöjdarnas hus (House of Craftsmen). It was us and a room full of senior citizens. Alicia, not speaking a word of Swedish, read the words in the song pamphlet and sang along to the best of her ability. She did an admirable job. 

And then off! to the Pengsjö Museum, where we caught a glimpse of the Sweden of centuries past. The museum is mostly the collection of a single man and his family, who has gathered together quite an ensemble of guns, muskets, pistols, sables, tools, bottles, dentist equipment, books, and relics from the then-largely-unexplored country of Africa, from whose bourne a missionary had brought back pelts and weapons and tusks and various other known and unknown things.

 Outside the museum stands a group of old log cabins, collected from the area, which were once used for the specific purposes of  housing animals or holding milk cans or tools or curing meats. We ducked inside the low cabins and wondered at the darkness and the cramped living quarters.

Alicia calls this my 'pensive photographer' look.