kareina

In my current job search I have applied for a wide range of job types. One of the jobs I applied for is with a cleaning service, that had said that they need people for shifts in a variety of the small towns in the area, including mine. So when I applied,the week before last, I sent a CV that didn't mention things like the degrees I have, but did mention the various "service" jobs I have had over the years, and specified that I want something part time while I am studying Swedish and other classes in Swedish at the local Folkhögskola. I got an automatic reply straight away, asking me to take a test online to check my Swedish fluency, and other things. So I did. That Friday I got a call letting me know that in my village they have only two small jobs, that together add up to seven hours a week. If I am interested, can I come in to the city to discuss it on Monday? So I did, and accepted the job on the spot, went home with my uniform, and started working the next day. The job won't pay much--roughly half what we typically pay for electric/water/trash pickup, but it is only 1.2 hours five days a week at the local health care clinic, and another half hour or so two days a week at the pharmacy, so it doesn't much interfere with studies and hobbies, and is a nice gentle transition to working again after being only a student for a full year.

The first couple of days I worked with a colleague for training, and have been on my own since then. I like the job. Listen to an audio book as I clean. Last week I spent a little longer than the budgeted time, working, as I got used to it but today I was much closer to the correct time.

However, as a direct result of having a job, I just impulse bought an electric "sparkcyckle" (no idea what the English word is for these--the fancy modern skateboards with a stick and handel). Today, as I walked to work a couple of guys drove past me on theirs, up the hill faster than I can walk, no need to kick to keep going. I commented to Keldor, with whom I was talking on the phone, that I would like one. So he consulted with google, and sent me a link to a suggestion. When I got home I bought it. In three days my commute will be even faster than it already is. But now I wonder if these things work by kicking if the battery is flat, or if it only works with electricity? I guess I will find out.

A year ago November, as soon as I was accepted for my second PhD program I applied for CSN, the Swedish financial aid for students. This year in November I should have applied for the next year of CSN, but I was in Seattle and mom was dying, and I don't think I thought of it at all. I did think of it at the end of January, and logged into their web page, and clicked on their ansökan page, and saw the box that showed that they have taken my application, and somehow managed to convince myself that they didn't need anything from me at this time (I know because I made a note of it on that day). However, last year my first payment from CSN arrived in mid February, and this year none has arrived, so I went back to their page tonight, figured out that one needs to apply again, and filled in their form. When I uploaded the pdf showing I am enrolled I also uploaded one apologising for not having sent in the paperwork in November, and mentioned the part about Seattle and mom dying. Hopefully it will be fine, but, never having done this before, I have no idea if it will be or not.

In happier news I got approval from St. Mary's College at Durham for a travel bursary to help me attend the United Kingdom Archaeological Sciences UKAS 2019 24th – 26th April. This means that I ought to buy my tickets to get there. However, I have also considered attending The Early Medieval Archaeology Student Symposium 11-13 April, to get two conferences for the price of one. Easter falls in between them, so for one of the weeks in there pretty much no one will be in the department. However, with the lab being busy lately, it may not be the best time to be gone. Therefore I have written to the ore geology group to ask who wants to use the lab in the coming weeks, so that I will know which dates I dare be gone.

Today was a busy day. Before work I plugged in the car and spent 45 minutes shovelling a thin layer of nice light, fluffy snow while it warmed up. Then I went to the petrol station and fed the car, then the grocery store and got some stuff I have been needing,then to a different petrol station to buy a new little forced air heater to replace the one from inside the car (so that when I plug in the car to warm the engine it also warms the inside of the car) and some more bungee cords (when I bought some to hold the tarp on the car (now that the tractor is using the carport) earlier this winter they had one packet of three one-meter long cords, and another packet of a bunch of mixed sized cords. So I bought one of each, since I wasn't certain what size I would want. It turns out that I needed four one-meter long cords (two at each end of the car. However, the set of three I had bought were the kind with a little click open and closed latch, while the mixed set is the kind with an always open hook. This means that in a gusty wind situation (like the other day), the open loop can let go of its neighbour and the tarp can flap free. Therefore today I bought another set of three with the clasp ends, and now the tarp will stay on better.

After shopping I went to work and ran a couple of experiments. Then, as I was packing up to head home (at 13:30) Villiam stopped in to say hello on his way back from a meeting with his thesis supervisor, so I invited him back to my place for second lunch. We had a lovely lunch and afternoon, till he needed to head off for his normal Thursday gaming night, and I sat down to the computer to be useful for a while (see above). Somehow it is now 01:00 and I still need to do my yoga and get some sleep. Luckily, I am working from home tomorrow.

Many years ago, while visiting corva, she took me back-pack shopping, and I found a wonderful Camelbak pack that was everything I was looking for. Small enough to be a good every-day take with me bag and to fit under the seat in front of me on an airplane when fully loaded, yet big enough to fit everything I wanted to have within easy reach while traveling, including my laptop computer (which is rather large as laptops go).

It had handy side pockets that I could reach (awkwardly) without taking off the pack, in which I kept little plastic boxes of food (never leave home without some food! a single serving of muesli, another of nuts, or dried fruit, or hais, etc.), and my wool leg and ankel warmers (one box and one set of warmers on each side. It had a large main compartment in which I kept a wool sweater for if I got cold, and at least one sewing or nålbinding project (usually one of each) in case I needed something to do with my hands, and more recently, also half a dozen kosh balls for juggling practice.

It had a slightly smaller front compartment which had a variety of small sub-pockets, and a nice flat internal zippered compartment just big enough to keep plane or train tickets and a passport. My hearing aid box fit perfectly in one of the sub pockets, my wallet fit in the depths of that compartment, I kept a pair of chopsticks, a pen, a needle case, toothbrush, toothpaste, etc. in there.

There was a little tiny pocket at the very top of the pack in which my old sunglasses case lived, back when I didn't need glasses and so didn't have expensive prescription sunglasses. That pocket also was large enough to keep my hand-lens (a geologist should never leave home without one), a handkerchief, a silk scarf to tie around my ears if they got cold, and even a washable flannel menstrual pad, because one never knows when one's cycle might start while one is away from home.

And, being a camelback, it also had a compartment with a plastic water bag that held three liters of water. Even when fully loaded with all of the above take-with-me-everywhere everyday stuff, there was still plenty of room in the pack to add other things at need and when traveling. The computer, change of clothes, a larger sewing project, books, whatever.

However, time passes, wear and tear happens. When I was in Australia in 2011 waiting for my visa to move to Sweden I had put the emergency food in plastic bags in the side pockets, rather than plastic boxes, to cut down on bulk/weight. Sadly, some mice were living in the house I was staying at, and they thought it was easier to chew through the fabric of the side pockets to get at the food, than to pull the bags out of the tops of the pockets (the pockets didn't fasten shut, but were made of stretchy fabric, and had elastic at the top, which made it easy to access while wearing the pack). Ever since those pockets have had ugly patches over those holes made from a heavy duty string kind of nålbinded over the holes, so that it would still stretch, but not leak from the holes.

More recently the zippers on the main compartment started to die--that slow way plastic zippers have, where if you zip past a certain point it starts to open up behind the zipper, but if one pulls the zipper back down to the bottom and zips up again but not past that point, then the teeth will probably hold. Eventually there were two such spots, one on each side, meaning that often the bag would open itself up, unless I were very careful how I zipped it.

In addition, the plastic water bag was getting really old and in bad shape, and kind of gross, and I started thinking of replacing it. I checked the local camping stores early last winter, on a day I had to be in town anyway, and they had nothing like this. All the camelback packs were tiny little sports bags for athletes who want to carry water, and perhaps one energy bar. There was nothing big enough to carry even a small nålbinding project, let alone anything else.

A couple of months ago I got frustrated enough with the steadily worsening condition of the pack to look on line. Sadly, there is nothing on the pack that mentions any sort of product name, just that the manufacturer is Camelbak. So I checked their web page anyway, and looked at photos of everything, and couldn't find anything even remotely like this wonderful pack, and I gave up.

Have I mentioned that I really hate shopping? In my experience shopping goes like this:

Me: I know exactly what I want, but where do I get it?
Store #s 1 to n: here are 100's of products that are totally unlike what you are looking for.
Me: but do you have object X with features Y & Z?
Store #s 1 to n: Look! We have object W with features P & Q, and object D with features F & G.
Me: But no one caries X with feature Y, even without feature Z? I give up!

It doesn't seem to matter if I look in real stores, or on line--I seem to be the only person on the planet who wants what I am looking for, and so stores don't carry it.

This week the worsening condition of the pack became frustrating enough that I checked the Camelback web page again, and saw three packs that *might* do, even though they didn't look nearly as nice as my poor dying pack. Clicking their "where to buy" button and selecting "Sweden" gave me a handful of Swedish merchants, one of whom not only carried one of those packs, but had it in a better colour (black) than the main Camelback web page had (a shade of blue a bit too pale and too turquoise to suit me).

It claimed to be a "perfect balance of cargo and hydration in a feature-rich design", and one of the photos showed some internal pockets. So I went ahead and ordered it, and it arrived today.

I can report that it is much smaller than my old, beloved, and really kind of dead pack. I managed to transfer over almost all of the stuff that had been in the old pack. But the new one is stuffed to the gills, and it won't be possible to add anything else, ever. Even though the current nålbinding project is a fairly small one. There are no handy large mesh side pockets--instead there are two tiny ones, one with a zipper, and one without. By transferering my nuts and hais from the square plastic boxes in which they had been stored into smaller plastic spice jars, they just fit in the side pocket with a zipper, and the little wool hat and gloves (that I think I forgot to mention from the little top compartment above) completely fills the other one. I was forced to put the plastic box of muesli in the main compartment, with the kosh balls, the sweater, and the nålbinding. The leg and wrist warmers and the wallet completely fill the smallest outer most compartment, and the middle compartment, which does have some internal pockets, but no wonderful zippered passport compartment, is full of the hearing aid box, comb, tootbrush, etc.

I am going to leave the stuff in there for now, and see how I go with such a small, and over-full pack. If it really doesn't work, I suppose I could try to replace the zippers on the old one, and try to find some new mesh fabric to replace those old dead side pockets. Or perhaps add mesh side pockets to this one. Or be cruel to my future self by not carrying things with me that I might need. Or something.

When I first got off the plane in Prague the heat didn't feel *that* bad. Sure, the guy in front of my said something like "holy shit!" when it hit him, but since I had dressed for the expected heat and didn't add any layers during the flight my body was kind of cold when we landed, so I coped just fine with the walk from the plane to the bus, from the bus to the terminal, and from the terminal to the airport bus to the city center (Note: one does need Czech cash to buy tickets on the bus--go ahead and stop at the ATM on your way out of the building, or you will need to go back in for it.)

Sadly, in my pre-trip research I failed to think about the all important question "on which side of the city is the airport?". Therefore, I didn't realize when I sat down on the right hand side of the bus that it would be the sunny side for the whole way in. I took my spare shirt and held it between me and the window for the whole drive, but still, 35 C is brutal hot when sitting in a hot bus with nothing for shade save a light weight cotton shirt.

By the time we got to town and I met up with clovis_t my shirt was quite wet from sweat. We met inside the metro station, where, being under ground, the temperature is much nicer, and bought me a three-day pass for all the buses, trams, and metro lines. Then we took a tram out to the Birkenstock shop, where the proprietor spoke nearly no English. She had just enough to explain that replacing my sandals (which are in rather bad shape from years of use) was possible, but not in black (what I had on me). I managed to convince her that I wanted a wider pair than last time (I have been wearing Birkenstock, size 40, for many, many years, but last time I needed some was right after moving to Sweden, and there is no Birkenstock shop here, so I ordered a pair on line, and accidentally wound up with a slightly different model, a "narrow" pair, which mostly fit my feet, but also caused an unpleasant ridge to form on my little toe from crowding it up against its neighbors. The "normal" width I found today feels *much* better already--width matters, even in sandals. Sadly, by "not black" she meant "dark brown straps with bright blue rubber sole under the cork. I am so not going to lose these, nor mistake them for any other pair of Birks I have ever seen in Sweden. But comfort matters more than looks, so I will cope.

After a hint of sight seeing we came back to his apartment and have been hanging out. I baked a Swedish oven pancake for dinner, and clovis_t agreed that it is, in fact, as yummy to him as I expected it would be. Now I have left over pancake to take with me to class tomorrow and Sunday.

I will be sleeping in the guest-hammock. I hope that it cools down enough to make it possible to get a good night's rest before heading to the workshop.

Early this afternoon lord_kjar and I went out to purchase some supplies so that we can make a better hammer dulcimer stand than the improvised one we have been using that started life as the support for a portable table. We did, in fact, get those supplies. However, while we were out we also bought a bed.

We have been thinking of getting one for a while--we have gotten the moldy floor out of the downstairs room and re-painted it, so now it is set up ready to be a guest room, but it lacked a good bed. We still have the bed frame from the bed we have been sleeping on, but we moved the mattress to the floor months ago, rotated it 90 degrees, added an extension to the (new) foot end made of cheap foam. We have been enjoying having a larger bed to sleep on (and one where his feet don't hang over the edge. However, it felt weird to step on the foam end on my way into bed at night, since it was way squishier than the rest of the mattress. So it has been in the back of the mind that we should buy us a larger bed and put the old mattress back on its frame for the guest room downstairs.

However, beds aren't cheap, so while it sounded appealing, it also sounded expensive, and I have been thinking we would wait till we are certain that I have some sort of employment lined up (since my current contract ends at the end of this month). But while we were out we decided to stop by a bed store to see what prices were like, with no intention of buying anything today. Yah, right.

We left the store with one of those new high-tech foam mattresses that change their shape when you press on them, and then slowly revert to the original shape when you let go. If feels a bit weird, but totally comfortable to lay down on. And, because it is foam, even though it is about 30 cm thick, and king-sized (180 x 200 cm), we could fold it in half and carry it home in our car.

Expensive? Yup (a cost a bit more than 1.5 nyckleharpas), but because we bought the display model today, rather than waiting, he did sell it to us for way less than the list price (which was more than 2.5 nyckleharpas). I am looking forward to sleeping on it, and finding out if the fairly recent thing I have had where my back hurts a bit if I sleep for more than 7 hours is still an issue on the new type of mattress. I am guessing that it will no longer be a problem (and one could say I just bet a fairly hefty chunk of cash on it). And we have the guest room ready for houseguests next weekend for the Spelmanstämman event, which is a bonus.

Due to time and budget constraints I have not been as active at the Kingdom (or even Principality) level as I would like to be since moving to Nordmark, since we mostly only attend things within a three hour drive, and only do far away events once or twice a year. As a result I am long since out of the habit of planning to attend Kingdom level events, and thus it wasn't till well after the beds for 12th Night had sold out that I made the connection that I needed to be at a geology conference in Lund the only four days after 12th Night, which was being held only an one hour drive from Lund. Add to the equation that linda_linsefors parents live in Lund, and a plan was formed.

The three of us took the night train from Luleå on the evening of 1 January. This one departs Luleå at 20:00 and arrives in Stockholm at 09:20 the following morning. We then had a two hour wait to catch the "fast train" from there further south to Lund, where we arrived at 15:30, which is actually faster than we could have gotten there if we had just drove from Luleå, especially given that I need to stop and stretch often on road trips these days. Yes, Sweden is a long country!

Her parents picked us up from the train station and brought us back to their place for a yummy dinner and pleasant conversation. The next morning they took us out hiking, and in the evening we met up with some of her friends from school in town--we went to a restaurant for an early (by everyone else's standards, and quite a reasonable time by mine) dinner, and then we sat there and chatted for a couple of hours thereafter before biking back to her parent's house. The following morning was Saturday, so we got up early, put on costumes, and drove the hour out to the site.

Those of you who are in the West and some of the other Kingdoms are used to 12th Night at hotels in the middle of cities. I don't know if this is typical for Drachenwald 12th Night, but this site is a small collection of cabins in the forest in the country side (it is where Double Wars is held every year in May). Those people who were staying on site (which was most people there, I think) mostly had shared rooms with four bunk beds to a room. The main building has a kitchen and two modest sized halls. When we arrived on site one of those halls was already set up for court, but we had an hour or so to relax and get hugs from a few people before it was time to be seated.

I really enjoyed the courts at this event--it was a lovely mix of touching and heartwarming, pageantry and formality, and silly/funny moments. In between the courts I had a chance to catch up with people I haven't seen since Double Wars last May and meet some new interesting people and also admire the pretty things in the Arts and Sciences display. That evening at feast we sat with aryanhwy and her family, and I am so glad that we did--it was the most fun I have had at a feast ever. We normally just sit somewhere random, with no idea who will be seated next to us, and as a result we may or may not converse with the people who wind up there. But this time we all planned to sit together from the first, and the conversation was always entertaining. I so hope we can attend more events together in the future.

Yesterday we had a nice fika with some of linda_linsefors's family. I managed to converse with her grandfather in Swedish. I suspect that I could have used English with him, but he seemed to appreciate that I was using Swedish, and he was kind enough to speak slowly enough that I could understand him. Today we will meet her sister, and this evening lord_kjar flies back to Luleå. The next day she flies back from France, and my conference starts bright and early Wednesday morning.

There was one merchant at 12th Night, but they didn't have anything I needed. However, it looks like I will score at the conference. There is a geologist living in Trondheim whom I first met at an SCA music and dance event in Stockholm back in 2009 who does a fair bit of Viking reenactment stuff and does tablet weaving for sale. She emailed me yesterday to see if I would be at the conference, since she is going, and I replied to let her know I was already here, and then asked if she has any tablet weaving in stock. She does, and is willing to bring it with her, yay!

Thursday (4 Aug) we loaded up the car, and were most pleased to discover that the pile of things we felt important to take with us for the Visby Medieval Week not only fit in the car (or, in the case of the pavilion poles and frame for the rope bed, on the roof), but there was enough room to spare that we had a gap in the center through which one can see using the interior rear-view mirror. We got on the road by mid-day, and made it a very relaxed journey south. I did all of the driving (which is good because I will need to get a local driver's licence once my personal number and resident card arrive, and it had been long enough since I had access to a car my driving was more than a bit tense at the start of the trip, but very relaxed at the end of it), and we took frequent breaks for things like yoga, climbing a mountain (really!), walks, touring a castle and some ruins of an older one, just enjoying one another's company, and naps.

This relaxed approach got us to the Ferry Terminal around 18:00 or 19:00 on Friday, and our Ferry wasn't scheduled to depart till 03:00 on Saturday, so we relaxed some more, played a game, and had another nap till time to depart. That ferry arrives in Gotland at 08:00 on Saturday, which (probably not coincidentally) is when the gate at the SCA camp there opened for the day, so we went straight there, signed in, set up the pavilion and moved in. That day we didn't leave camp, other than a walk to the nearest grocery store (~20 minutes away) to get some fresh fruit & veg to put into our ice chest for lunches (the food plan for the camp, which we had bought into, was only for breakfast and dinner). We spent the early evening getting to know folk camped next door, who also enjoy Medieval music and dance, and didn't stay up all that late due to not getting a whole lot of sleep on the trip down.

Sunday was the big Market day in a park just inside the town walls of Visby, so we walked into town (about 40 minutes to the closest gate in the walls) and spent the day there*, arriving back in camp just on time for dinner That evening we went back into town to watch a sampler concert--all of the major performers who were to perform during the week had enough time each to do one or two songs or other form of entertainment. It was much fun!

Monday we got a ride from our neighbours into town for dancing in the park--there were at least 75 dancers present--both SCA folk (I knew one of the teachers from SCA dance events) and other people in costume, and the general public, again getting home just on time for dinner. We then spent the evening hanging out with people in the camp.

Tuesday we stayed in camp during the day because it was an SCA open camp day, where tourists were welcome to come in and see what we do and ask questions. We gave many pavilion tours to people. In general he did the talking, since most folk spoke Swedish, and I was pleased to learn that when I *know* the subject (e.g. my own pavilion and the rope bed and how they were made) I can mostly follow spoken Swedish, even though I can't yet follow most conversations. After that ended we did a second trip to the grocery store, which let SCA folk turn in warm little blue bricks for ice chests and get frozen ones in return), and spent the evening in our own tent, which was warm and dry compared to outside (but no where near as warm as it will be when we get the door closing attachments finally put on (I never needed them in California, where it is so hot I never closed the doors, preferring to encourage any breeze I could get) and the inner walls we want to add, having seen another tent that uses them). He started playing the violin as I did my evening yoga, which drew a musician friend of ours in, and they spent the evening playing tunes together on various instruments while I did enough finger loop braiding to make straps to hold the new hat onto the head.

Wednesday we returned to the day time dancing, followed by the market, where we got a few more things we had been tempted by on Sunday, again returning to camp on time for dinner, followed by the SCA court for the Principality and local Barony, after which we hurried into town to see the fire show by TriX (there seem to be lots of youtube videos of them if anyone is curious).

Thursday we went to a singing session at the library (open to the public--I counted at least 65 people there) which was much fun. I know I was the only non-Swedish speaker there by the fact that for some of the songs everyone but me laughed at some lines. I commented as much to an SCA friend, and he said that the funny bits were all about sex, to which I replied "no wonder I didn't understand--I am learning Swedish by reading children's books, I don't know those words yet". When that ended we went outside and discovered that there was a lone violin player playing Swedish folk dance music for a few dancers in the park, so we joined them, and archinonlive and I got many compliments on our dancing (I love having a partner who is so good he makes me look good, too). A couple of the people who complimented us on it are from the next town, so we told them about the beginning class we will be teaching in September, and they sound very interested. After a bit archinonlive took over playing, and I danced with the other musician instead. He is also a very good dancer, and the evening was a joy.

Friday we broke camp and loaded the car in the morning, then went to an advanced Medieval dance class during the day, followed by one last trip to the market, followed by dinner and then a feast in the SCA camp. I took a nap in the SCA crash tent from 22:30 to 01:30, while he stayed at the party, and then I got up and we went to the Ferry Terminal to begin our journey home.

Saturday the ferry reached the mainland around 06:30, and we arrived at his brother's house in Uppsala around 08:30, where we enjoyed breakfast and visiting with his family, then took a nap, and then started the long drive home. Had I been willing/able to drive straight through it would have taken 10 more hours, but I require breaks for yoga and naps, so instead we got home at 06:00 on Sunday. we took a nap, then spent the day relaxing and putting away a tiny fraction of the stuff. We also returned to their Highnesses the things we drove back for them (flying meant they didn't have room in their luggage).


( *Items that followed us home from the market )
Now for yoga and bed--I am tired after re-reading all that!

As often happens when I've been out of town and had no internet access I didn't manage to accomplish much in the way of uni work on Sunday or Monday, but instead played catch-up on correspondence. Therefore I was quite pleased to have a huge burst of motivation on Tuesday and make some good progress on work (the major task at hand has been getting data from the literature into a spreadsheet so as to be able to make graphs comparing other people's rocks with my experiments).

Today I continued with that project, but didn't work as many hours due to a trip into town. The water reservoir of my Camelbak pack developed a leak in it on the weekend and it was necessary to replace it. Therefore I caught the metro into town and went to walk across the castle grounds to a sporting goods store. However, there was some sort of holiday market going on at the castle grounds, so I decided to have a look--some of the markets I've seen here have a booth of dried fruit, and I'm out. Alas, I never found dried fruit--there was plenty of sausage etc. (no thanks!), baked goods, candy, etc., but no dried fruit in the part of the market I saw. I did stop at a boot that was deep-frying yeast-dough. They were pulling them out of the oil and rolling them in sugar. Not having a sweet tooth, but having enough Italian to manage, I asked for mine "senza zucchero". It still had a hint of sweetness as it had been set down on the paper next to where they were doing the sugar rolling, but that hint was pleasant, not overwhelming like it would have been if I'd gotten the standard sort. I rather enjoyed it--not as nice as fresh baked bread, of course, but it was nice and hot and pleasant to eat while walking in a light rain. However, I think I'm good for my fried food quota for months now.

The market was very challenging to walk through. A fairly high percentage of the crowd were carrying umbrellas, general held with the pointy bits right at eye level, and generally packed right up against several other umbrellas, making it hard to work one's way through the crowd. I prefer to walk about 10 times faster than the common speed for Italians in a market, so I was soon frustrated and made my escape to the empty parkland beyond. Enjoyed a nice stroll there before braving the market once again on my way to the store. (no luck on the fruit quest on the second try, either, though I confess to having given up sooner and making a break for the open road way after only a short stroll through the crowd the second time).

When I reached the sporting goods store I nearly turned right around and fled--it was also packed (though, fortunately, no one was carrying umbrellas inside!) and the heat was on full blast. It was necessary to remove my coat the second I entered the building, and my leg warmers had to come off soon thereafter. I wandered around a bit and the closest thing I could find to a water reservoir were some hard metal water bottles next to some backpacks. Therefore I decided to enlist some help, found an employee and asked (in Italian) if he speaks English. He said he did a little, so I attempted to explain what I wanted (it would have helped if I hadn't thrown away the leaky one--then I could have just shown him). He then brought me to another employee, who had much better English. Of course the other employee is new to the store, so while he understood what I wanted, he didn't know if/where they had it, and it was necessary to find a third employee to actually be taken to the correct well-hidden corner where they were located.

They ones they had were cheap and made of very thin plastic and lack many of the features I liked in the last one I had, but they are so much better than not having one at all, and it should last me till I can get somewhere that carries sturdier versions.

After my shopping adventure I returned to work and managed to accomplish a fair bit more. I've got tomorrow to finish up this task, and Friday I'll be on the microprobe all day. Then I've got just till the end of the month to process the new data, combine it with the old, and get a paper written...

Yesterday was a very productive work day, and the evening was fun baking cookies, cooking yummy food for today's lunch, working on a sewing project, and just hanging out with my mother.

Today I was kind of low energy and tired, so after making something resembling progress on work in the morning I decided to do something different and mom and I went shopping. Yes, you read that correctly. The two people in the family who go out of their way to avoid shopping went shopping. I took her to a toy store to look for gifts for my nieces, and we picked up a beautiful blue cashmere sweater for me. Yes, I already had one, but the one I had is the kind that opens up, and the one we bought is v-necked and closed front. So will be nice for job interview(s).

I've printed my boarding pass for this weekend's Finland adventure with mom--we fly in the morning. It will be interesting to meet family I've not met before. Mom's grandfather was the eldest of 10 children, and he moved to the US. Our contact in Finland is descended from his youngest brother, who stayed behind. Cousin Kimmo is the same generation as mom, but is younger than I, thanks to the age difference of those brothers.

I've also got my tickets for my trip to Scotland the week after mom returns to the US. I will buy a new computer while there--I am desperate for a new one--this one crashed, again, while I was trying to post this. I am so over the constant computer problems. The next one had better turn on faster than this one--it takes way, way to long to re-start every time this one has issues.

My flight to Budapest for the IMA conference was scheduled for 07:00 on Saturday morning. This means leaving my house at 04:00 to walk to the train station to catch the bus to the airport on time. Since I had a fair bit to accomplish before flying, I decided to just stay up all night, thinking "I can sleep on the plane".

Well, I did manage to sleep on the bus, but the Alps were visible for the flight, so I didn't sleep in favor of looking out the window. I got to my dorm room around 11:00 on Saturday, and spent the rest of the day alternating short naps with useful tasks like buying some food and the all-important uni work.

Since my Thursday/Friday microprobe session had discovered an important phase in one of the samples I'd inherited from a predecessor (a decade before me) it was needful to process all of that new data in record time and revise my poster for the conference this week accordingly. I managed about half of that on Saturday, and did the rest on Sunday morning. Once it was together I brought my computer over to the conference venue (no internet in our rooms, which may be part of why I managed to get the work done so quickly--no distractions other than taking naps as needed) to e-mail my new, improved, poster to the guy organizing the on-site printing. I finished that just on time to attend the opening ceremonies for the conference, and went from there into the Pest city center to meet a couchsurfing friend who had stayed with me when he and a friend visited Milan back in November.

He and I wandered around the city center a bit, looking at interesting buildings and stopping to eat reasonably priced crepes (I had a really yummy spinach-sauce filled one, he opted for the layered stack smothered with chocolate sauce) before we crossed the bridge to the Buda side of the river and climbed the "Castle" hill. They were having a Folk Festival on the "Castle" grounds this weekend, so we enjoyed wandering around looking at booths, listening to folk music, and eating kürtős kalács. As a snack food I pronounced the one I had as too sweet. I ordered the "nut" version, but the sugar-nut mix in which it was rolled, still hot from the coals, was much higher in sugar than in nuts. If I see them again, I'll ask for it plain!

I hadn't really planned on doing any shopping while in town, and when I converted cash at the airport I changed only €50.00, thinking that would be plenty for food for the week. And, indeed, based on what I've spent on *food* so far, that estimate was probably correct. However, there were temptations at the Folk Festival. My first purchase of the day was a large ball of hand-spun wool yarn (maroon colour) for 360.00Ft. Now, that might sound like a lot, but when I gave the woman my €50.00 at the airport, she gave me back 12,190.00Ft. I knew that paying €1.48 that much hand-spun wool was a good deal, so I went for it.

Quite a bit later I was admiring some lovely mugs in the perfect shade of blue, with pretty Celtic triangle spiral decorations that were very tempting, but I don't need mugs--I never use them, since I drink my water out of either a water bottle with a drinking top, or my CamelBack pack. If she'd had bowls in that style, I'd have gotten one. However, I then noticed that she had butter dishes! I love this sort of dish--they keep the butter fresh outside of the fridge, which means that it is easily spreadable. The ones have had before didn't have those two holes in them, which mean that it is important to put only a little water in the bottom of the dish, or the air can't escape when you put the lid into the base. This sort means that you can fill the water deep enough to actually be in contact with the butter, which, on a hot day, will be a very good thing for keeping the butter cold enough not to melt. From there I then checked a variety of wood merchants till I found one selling butter knives, so that I could start using the dish this week, rather than waiting till I get home. (the dish was 3,000, and the knife 250, which means I'm out just over 13 euros for the pair).

At that point I was down to about 1,700Ft. in my wallet, and thinking I should be done spending money. And then I saw the potter with the black wares. After drooling on the various size and shaped pitchers he had (I've been wanting one for feasts for ages), the cheapest of which was 2,000Ft. I wandered off, intending to go home without one, since I didn't have the cash on me. I got perhaps 100 meters before I decided to go ask at the info booth for a cash machine. Sure enough, there was one on site, so I went back and got this one:



Alas, the potter spoke no English, and I found his booth after my friend had had to depart to meet someone else, so I have no idea of what style this is. It looks historical to me, but I have no idea what century or culture, if any, apply. If any of you happen to recognize this style and can tell me anything about it, I would appreciate it.

I was also tempted by a cute pair of pointy-toed leather shoes that would have been fine for SCA events, but when I got cash I didn't get enough to cover shoes, too, and decided that I didn't *need* them. Particularly as I plan to seek out the Birkenstock shop later this week to replace my close-toed Birks, since I managed to lose one in the Dublin airport on my way home from Ireland. I didn't notice that it had come unhooked from the outside of my pack until after I'd gone through the "no return" doors, so couldn't go back and look for it. While the security guy said he looked, I don't think he was as careful about the search as I would have been.

Alas, by the time I got home from Sunday's lectures it was too late to get into the conference building to check my mail.

This morning I went to lectures on the History of Geology, and plan to attend the session on pretty minerals this evening. Right now is the poster session, and I should probably wander around that soon.

(edited to add: follow the butter dish link above to all of the photos on facebook from my trip so far, if you like that sort of thing)