Sweet dreams, vol 2.

The seminar near Helsinki turned out to be really good. Made a lot of contacts and got numerous good references to read up on... if I only had the time.

Once I was dropped back to Helsinki, I wondered around looking for the two music stores that had been pointed out to me by Mari, an ex-classmate who studies in Helsinki and whom I had agreed to meet up with later on. And, against all expectations, one of the stores actually had a 5 string acoustic bass guitar... which I spent quite a bit of time admiring. My mom wanted to buy me a graduation present and I was considering something along these lines as one of the best options. In the end, I decided against buying it though as the pricetag was a tad too high.

I then met up with Mari and we wondered around for hours, visiting an art museum and having lunch along the way. Nevertheless, we still got to the terminal an hour early... and found that the ship had been delayed by an hour too - meaning we had a two hour wait ahead of us. Her boyfriend joined us in about a half, and we found things to talk about almost all the way to the ship.

Once in Tallinn, I took a tram to Ülemiste, and, as I had missed the last bus to Tartu, headed towards the Airport in order to attempt hitchhiking to my destination.

About an hour later, a rekka driver picked me up in his small car. He explained he had seen me along the side of the road as he was driving his truck to its parking lot to exchange it for his normal car, and was quite surprised I had not been picked up in all that time.

The trip to Tartu was spent talking with the guy. He had quite a few colorful stories to tell.. about traffic in different cultures, about couples having sex against his truck and so on..

I was dropped off near to where I live, and reached home at exactly 4 A.M. Had a bath, watched some TED and practiced my bass playing.. had about half an hour of sleep too, but had to cut it short as I had a car to catch at 8.

The car contained two mycologists and a high school student and was heading for the Spring school of Theoretical Biology, held for 2 days near Pärnu - meaning a 3 hr car ride. Again, mostly spent talking, first only with the mycologists but later having the student join the discussion too.

We arrived just in time for the first coffe break, had a few cups and then went to listen to the talks...

Which, sad to say, were mostly one dissapointment after another, at least on the first day. Thankfully, all three talks of the second day were considerably better. Bad talks meant I had plenty of time to look around in the auditorium, though. Quite a few familiar faces, from quite a few different places too. One girl form a PhD course, one from my Psych classes, a guy from CS winter schools, a girl from an educational conference in Tallinn and a few professors I knew from some earlier public lectures. Oh, and of course S. and T.

After lunch, I had a chance to get another 3 hours of sleep before the next batch of talks. Which I gladly took and which refreshed me just enough to last the evening til 1.30 A.M. Which, once the dinner ended, was mostly spent alternating between a hot tub and a sauna, in mixed company. And quite enjoyed the rest that followed.