Birthday, conference and travel

It was Tracy's birthday last Sunday. It was a big round one, but I won't say which...

To celebrate, we spent the weekend in Stockholm. I had a conference there the week before, and Tracy and Annabel joined me on Friday. We had a lovely weekend. We didn't have a map, nor a guidebook, so we just aimlessly wandered around most of the time. Johan showed us Skansen - an open-air museum - which was lovely. I think we'll make more trips there in the future. It was Annabel's 6th country - if you count her stopovers in England and Turkey. I remember when we were still in South Africa and Izak visited Stockholm, how expensive we thought things were. Now we realise that Stockholm is a cheaper place than Helsinki. It was weird though to see prices in the hundreds instead of the tens. The Swedish Krone is close to the Rand in value - so we got an idea again of how much things cost when you convert. We haven't done that in a while, and you forget that 5 € are worth over 50 rand. Five euro can't get you very much here, just about a sandwich for lunch.

I had my first international conference presentation. Somehow I didn't get all the mails and didn't know when I was speaking. So I packed two shirts and flew in a t-shirt. Turns out that I was scheduled to speak on the first afternoon, so I presented in my t-shirt and then wore shirts for the other days. The presentation went ok, and nobody threw tomatoes at me. I made some interesting new friends and good contacts.

Tonight we bought our tickets to South Africa in December. We are flying on 16 December to Johannesburg, then renting a car and visiting ouma Miemie in Bethlehem, then a couple of nights in PMB, hopefully a night in Harding and in Aliwal with our friends there, and then Knysna for Christmas and New Year. Cape Town is the final stop and we leave again on 11 January. Let us know where you are and when you are there so that we can hook up!

Annabel has started standing on her own for short periods, whenever she is busy with something she forgets that she cannot stand. It is a lot like the cartoons when someone walks over a cliff. You know the fall is coming, but you cannot tell exactly when it will happen. She is also walking with a little trolley, pushing it around on her own. Someone just has to be close because she has not found the reverse gear yet, and tends to bump into stuff.

We have been eating lots of mushrooms which Tracy picks on her daily walk with Annabel in the forest. They have come a bit late this year, but are superabundant. We went yesterday with Milla and Markus to Nuuksio, and found even more interesting varieties. Milla taught us a couple of new very nice ones. We are becoming more adventurous, although I think Tracy is more adventurous than I am, and willing to try things that might still be the death of me. There are some mushrooms in our book that are marked as both deadly and delicious at the same time. Apparently you just have to prepare them in the right way, but I am not sure I want my last meal just yet. The ones we have eaten so far have been very tasty without killing me.