will notify r imminent and eminent arrivalbig m of you

The title of this post is a haiku, written by a New-York-based poet whose future is pregnant with great potential, having been knocked up by the wandering stud of literary stardom. The poem itself is notable for its stark beauty, and the way it captures the hurried and fractured nature of our lives, resembling, as it does and they do, a day in the life of our parents' generation reflected in a broken mirror. Broken glass is pointy and dangerous, and if the roads of our lives have many forks, then they're those big sharp two-pronged forks that you use when carving a roast. But, when we chew down on the succulent cut of lamb thus produced and look a little closer, each individual shard of the broken mirror has a purity and clarity to it, and the ensemble together creates a mirror-ball-like effect not seen since the hey day of the Bee Gees.

I'm going to assume that you know what I mean by that.

Mandy and Dean came up to Umeå to visit me a few weeks ago, and in an admirable display of travel planning, Hal(liday) hopped aboard at the last minute.

Photos here

After a couple of days here enjoying Umeå and in particular Nydala (how's the serenity?) we took the ferry to Finland, rented a car, and headed inland and southish. Along the way we managed to hook up with some of my Umeå International Idiot friends (Kukka, Annika, and Marjukka) and see some really stunning countryside.



Marjukka deserves special mention for providing us with three nights of accomodation, fantastic traditional Finnish cuisine, and several nature tours.

Now, most of you probably don't know this, but this trip had a long and troubled gestation period (matched only by the african elephant among land animals). It was originally planned for September LAST year, then postponed to April this year, but finally happened in September this year. It was also originally to include St Petersburg, but the whole Russian visa thing turned out to be rediculously painful, and instead we jumped straight to Estonia.

We did, however, see Russia from across the river when in Estonia. We also saw a lot of remnants of the Soviet regime, including a derelict submarine training base:





And a secret closed city, didn't appear on any maps, where they extracted uranium from shale.

Tallinn old city is gorgeous, as everyone says:



and we had a great time there, but couldn't really raise a smile from the locals, as much as we (mainly Hal) tried.

Plenty more that could be said about the trip, but I really can't be arsed right now. Maybe later.

In a couple of weeks my boss and I head to America for a conference (in Sandy Aygo again), and a number of meetings/presentations at some US universities (Princeton, Michigan, UI Chicago, UI Urbana Champagne, and UC Santa Barbara) and I should be able to drop in again on Mat and KT in NYC for some oversized hamburgers, although I just heard to my dismay that the chip packet dejectedly eating its own head has disappeared. I will also most likely spend some time with our old family friends Joe and Marietta in Princeton (Joe is the only person I know with their own wikipedia page).

Last but not least, my flights to Australia are now fully booked. After brief sojourn in Korea, I'll be touching down in Sydney at 9.35am on the 30th of November. I will probably go straight to Melbourne, and up to Ararat for Mat & KT's wedding, then come back to Sydney on or around the 2nd of Dec. I will fly back to Umeå on the 3rd of Feb.