We got together with all of our Estonian friends for a grill night at a public picnic spot. I completely forgot about my camera and didn’t even take out the camera bag from my big bag. So, no photos of us eating all the good stuff, nor of the beach volleyball or badminton games, or anything.

All I have is two phone photos of the grill, which looked rather sad and worn. The bench on the far side of the picnic table had collapsed, and the grill itself was rusty and graffiti-ed. But once we got going, we forgot all about that.

Visited Ahhaa science centre with a bunch of friends of various ages. Their interactive exhibits captured everyone’s attention for hours.

The current temporary exhibition was AI-themed. We got to try out AI attempting to deduce our emotions, recognize images, drive a toy car, etc. Very well done.

The exhibition also included a kind of a poll about visitors’ views on AI. Would you trust an AI diagnosis? Fly an AI-piloted flight? Would you be more inclined to forgive a human or an AI for a mistake they made?

I’ve got mixed feelings about this. It’s easy to be distracted by LLMs and other generative AI, and forget about all the other kinds of AI out there, doing more workmanlike tasks. I rather like AI analysing X-ray images and sifting through tons of data to find anomalies.

The statement I was most positive about was “I can imagine AI teaching me”. And I absolutely can. An AI-curated, individually adjusted learning path, instead of listening to pre-prepared hour-long videos where I find myself skipping half – yes please. Then I thought about AI teaching children, especially at a younger age, and my immediate reaction was a visceral “no”.

In the evening we gathered and played “Bang”, which has for many years been our go-to game for large groups. I might be growing just a little bit tired of it, but we only play it for a few evenings each summer, and it’s become a firm tradition by now.

Our Tartu trip has yet again coincided with the Hansa market. We shopped for honey and artisanal karask bread, and browsed all sorts of other interesting stalls.

There are things that are a natural part of life in Estonia that barely exist in Sweden. I spend the entire year missing some of them.

Honey is one of them. Technically, yes, of course you can buy honey in Sweden. Except that most supermarkets offer you “solid honey” and “liquid honey” with little more detail, and both are from “a mixture of EU and non-EU sources”. Whereas an Estonian supermarket will have an entire end shelf with several brands of artisanal honey gathered from specified plant species, and fresh honeycomb, and flavoured honey, and more.

Women’s clothing is another such thing. And again, yes, Swedish stores sell women’s clothing, but it’s all either very dull or very “fast fashion”. It doesn’t take many minutes walking around Tartu to notice the differences in how women dress here. They wear colour and patterns! Of all my summer dresses, only one is Swedish. The rest I’ve bought in either Estonia or London. Every single clothing-oriented market stall has all kinds of interesting dresses. Linen dresses with embroidery! Spiral cut skirts! Dresses with lace detail! Sadly I have all the dresses I need right now and can’t justify buying any more.

On the ferry to Estonia. Taking the cheaper and faster cargo-oriented ferry again this time, from Kapellskär to Paldiski.

We keep going back and forth between our two travel alternatives. One year we take the Tallink ferry, effectively a floating hotel which leaves from Stockholm proper at six in the evening and arrives in central Tallinn at ten in the morning and does their best to sell us expensive buffet meals and tax-free shopping in the meantime. The next year we think of all the wasted time onboard and all the expensive meals, and we swing for DFDS, which has a bare-bones ferry (though clean and tidy and in good shape) which leaves at nine in the evening and arrives at eight in the morning, and puts all the focus on just getting us there. And after those trips we sigh about having to drive all the way to Kapellskär, and the thin cabin walls and the fact that there aren’t even any lounges to hang around.

The so-called sun deck is in reality a smoking deck.

The last meter of the deck before the railing is roped off and marked as “restricted area”. Did people use to, I don’t know, spit on the car deck below? Can’t have nice things because some people are idiots.

This morning we had our usual conference talk and team coding session. Then after lunch our team activity for the day was a hike – either around Monte Isola, or to the top. Both options were very tempting but, as another photographically inclined colleague pointed out, from the top you only get one kind of views, whereas the walk around the island will offer more photo opportunities.

The island is surrounded by a ring road, mostly trafficked by mopeds. The south and west coasts have small villages dotted along the road, with the hotels and restaurants clustered at the south-eastern tip. The north had fewer, and the east mostly held the industrial underbelly: ferry quays, a recycling centre, a fire station.

When we got back it was time to pack up and prepare for the trip home.

I still struggle to fully take in the reality of the historic castle that we stayed in. There’s just… a giant centuries-old, hand-woven tapestry in the dining hall. Just hanging there, for anyone to poke at.

It’s quite worn and faded, and has been painstakingly restored at some point.

A similarly aged painting hangs in a random hallway corner. I’d expect museum lighting and a label, but it gets no particular attention.

I thought at first that it might be a modern painting, done in an old style to fit in, but with the ragged canvas and flaking paint, it really isn’t.

Some of the guest rooms/apartments were ex-ballrooms, complete with painted ceilings, candelabras, fireplaces and antique furniture.

Conference day two, with Active Solution on Monte Isola and in Iseo.

The morning was dedicated to knowledge activities, just like yesterday. A talk, and then coding together in small teams. The weather was pretty fabulous again and we could sit and code outside in the garden behind the castle, without layers of sweaters. There was even a power outlet hidden in the stone wall – as if this spot was made for developers.

In the afternoon we went on a e-bike tour. All forty-plus of us. It meant a very slow pace and plenty of stopping, so that the group could gather up and cross larger roads with as little traffic disruption as possible.

The tour started in central Iseo, right where we got off the boat from Monte Isola, but soon took us out of town onto more rural lanes.

This was my first time using an e-bike. I’m not sure I like it very much. It felt strange to not have any resistance at all when pedalling – I felt that I didn’t get any proper contact with the bike, and it felt a bit unstable and unsafe. In the end I ended up turning off the electric feature on the flat, and only switched it on very briefly for going uphill, where I would normally have shifted into a lower gear. It felt good to feel the bike. I can imagine that e-bikes would be very convenient for commuting – there’s no way you’d work up a sweat, so there’s no need to shower and change when you get to the office.

More waiting – but with very pretty views and beautiful spring sunshine. Did I mention that Stockholm was barely above freezing when we left? Here it was the season for short sleeves and sun lotion.

Our destination was the Bersi Serlini vineyard.

We got a tour of the winery and a brief lecture about their history and process, learning most importantly that Franciacorta sparkling wines are definitely not prosecco.

A walk through their somewhat spooky cellars.

Afterwards there was a wine tasting, where we got to try out four different varieties of Bersi Serlini sparkling wines. They were… nice? I rarely consume any alcohol at all, and when I do drink wine then dry sparkling wine is probably the kind I am least interested in.

Afterwards we cycled back to Iseo. Had a half-hour of free time for a brief walk around.

Excellent pizza dinner at Pizzeria La Filanda. All the pizzas were served to share, and I was most happy to see that at least half of them were vegetarian, so I enjoyed this meal a lot.

Conference trip with Active Solution to Monte Isola in Italy.

tretton37 used to have annual conferences for the whole company, until everything went downhill. Active Solution isn’t going downhill so I got to go on a three-day conference trip.

Monte Isola is a pretty little island in Lake Iseo in northern Italy, an hour east of Milano. We flew to Milano, were transported by bus to Iseo on the coast of the lake, and then by boat to the island.

The island is basically a hilltop sticking out of the lake. There’s a ring of villages along the lake shore, connected by a road, and as soon as you leave the road, it’s all uphill.

We’re staying in Castello Oldofredi, an actual castle, parts of which date back to the late-medieval era.

Here’s us, listening to a talk about new features in the latest versions of .NET, in a vaulted renaissance hall.

After the talk, we had collaborative coding sessions. Most teams opted to sit out on the terrace. Quite a difference to the +3°C and light snow we left behind us in Stockholm.

Afterwards there was more enjoying of the spring sun.

For me, being so new to the company, the biggest benefit of the trip was to get to know the people. I make a point to go to the office once a week, but it tends to be the same faces there every week. Now I could put faces to the names I’ve seen, talk to the people I’ve seen only at a distance, and meet people from the other offices as well.

The latest issue of Utemagasinet (“Outdoors magazine”) had a section where various contributors described their outdoor memories, based on a series of prompts. It made me think, and then I decided to do the same.

And I realize again just how bad my long-term memory is at storing experiences. Eric and I went to all sorts of places before we had children – Wales, Lake District, Scotland – but since I haven’t looked at photos of those trips in many years, I only have rather hazy mental images of them. I am very grateful for this blog.

Anyway, here goes.

Day trip: The last day of our trip to Mercantour. This was our first outdoorsy trip with the kids, and on the last day we went up to a mountain pass where we got our first taste of high alpine landscape. Dramatic views, everybody super impressed, until the afternoon thunderstorm with heavy hail. We all still have strong memories of that day.

Week trip: Padjelanta on skis. My own hikes are usually long weekends so they don’t quite qualify. All my ski tours have been lovely but this one was wilder and more fun than most. In the middle of the Padjelanta national park, we were sometimes the only group in a hut.

Of the weekend trips, I still have very fond memories of the Kinnekulle hike. Most of my hikes have been to mountainous areas, or in various pine forests, but this was a beautiful lowland hike in a completely different landscape. I’ve been thinking of going back there during a different season.

Accommodation: The cave house on Gran Canaria, or perhaps the yurt in Mercantour, which I unfortunately have no photos of.

Highest peak: In 2005 Eric and I climbed the Kilimanjaro. That was BTB, Before The Blog, so I have no post to link to, but here’s a photo from my archives:

Worst weather: Actually not the day with hail and thunder, but a gale in Skarvheimen. High wind, wet snow. The only time I’ve felt truly miserable due to the weather. No visibility, exhausting skiing. By the end of it I was numb with exhaustion and chilled all the way through.

Camp site: Nothing immediately stands out as “the greatest”, because many of the sites near Stockholm are rather similar to each other. The camping site at Trehörningen in Paradiset nature reserve is beautiful, and so is the one by Finnsjön on Sörmlandsleden stage 18. Especially when I am the only one there.

View: Actually not Kilimanjaro. It was a high peak and the views were expansive, but not the most interesting ones. The land around the peak is quite flat and barren. And at the very top I was feeling pretty awful with altitude sickness. No, the best views I can remember were from Viševnik. Only 2000 metres compared to Kilimanjaro’s 5900, but with rather more scenic views. Or perhaps the Centenario SAT via ferrata route, which is right above Riva del Garda.

Here’s Eric’s photo of a very young-looking me on that route, with Riva del Garda far below us, in 2004:

A time when I was afraid: The gale in Skarvheimen. I remember having the realization that this is how people die in the mountains. It doesn’t even take any extreme temperatures – just a bad combination of them, and a long day, and a lack of visibility.

Swim: Many of the swims in the lakes near Stockholm have been pleasant, but the dip in a bog lake in Soomaa felt unlike everything else. The top layer was warm, but beneath it the water was very cold, so I had the strong sense how large the invisible waters were that the tiny little pool connected to.

Food: The outdoor food above all other outdoor foods is porridge, especially with newly picked lingonberries.

On the ferry from Stockholm to Tallinn. I liked the DFDS experience last year, but Ingrid especially missed the buffet dinner, so we’re back on Tallink this year again.

The dinner is nice but the waiting before and after is boring as heck. There’s activities for the youngest kids, and adults can hang out in a bar if they like, but there is nothing at all for either teenagers or adult non-drinkers. How about a nice lounge with armchairs and music? A movie theatre?

Got woken up at 7:30 this morning by some kind of repetitive yowling. I’m guessing it was the house cat who was feeling amorous.

In the morning, a drive from Riva del Garda to Milan through torrents of rain. Literally rivers of rain pouring out from parking lots, through gaps in garden walls, etc.

Ran across the remains of a traffic incident, and people chasing a deer kid in the road, which was probably related.

The Milan airport is Armani-branded.