lovely linköping

i'm sitting at an internet cafe in linköping, sweden right now. my conference ended today around 2pm, and since then i've just been hanging out with my friends jt and cyndy (from san fran). since my flight to london leaves at 6am tomorrow morning and leaves from a town between here and stockholm (i thought i was flying directly out of stockholm, but that's not the case), i've decided to just stay here for the day and then take the bus (at 3:45am...ick) to the tiny airport (about an hour and a half away, apparently). jt and cyndy are going to let me crash at their hotel room until then. my journey from berlin to linkoping was an absolute disaster. here's a summary:

• left berlin hostel at 7:30am to walk to subway station, took subway to main train station (20 minutes)
• took train from berlin to sassnitz (also in germany), switching trains once at a small town in between (4 hours)
• discovered that the ferry service from sassnitz to trelleborg, sweden is no longer in service. crapped my pants.
• after cleansing my tender buttocks, i learned that the ferry service just down the coast goes to trelleborg, so i take a taxi there (10 minutes)
• although my eurailpass guide says that this ferry is supposed to be free for eurailpass holders the ferry people kindly inform me that it is note. i fork over 11 euro and hop on the boat. the ferry ride was actually pretty cool, and i did some work during the journey. (3 hours, 34 minutes)
• arrive in trelleborg and discover that, despite what my eurailpass map says, there is no train from trelleborg to linkoping. crapped my pants again.
• discovered that the nearest town (malmo) has train to linkoping, walk to bus station and take regional bus to malmo (30 minutes)
• take high-speed train from malmo to linkoping (2 hours, 45 minutes)
• arrive in linkoping and take bus to my hostel (10 minutes)

not a good time. i left my hostel in berlin at 7:30am and didn't arrive at my hostel in linkoping until about 11:00pm. once i arrived at my hostel, though, i was pleasantly surprised. it was a small, private hostel (just a big house that had been divided into multiple rooms/apartments, really), and the owner said that there had been a bit of a mix up (at which point i began to crap my pants once again....by now, however, i had wised up and was wearing adult diapers and had no qualms about sullying myself shamelessly). rather than staying in one of the dorm-style rooms, she had to put me in the basement...which meant i had this entire huge basement apartment to myself, complete with two beds, a couple of couches, a tv, a small desk, a kitchen with fridge and microwave, and my own bathroom. plus, since it was her mix-up, she still only charged me the price of the shared room. sweet, sweet deal. it was especially neat because it made me feel like i was living in linkoping a bit. so the great accomodations cheered me up after the miserable, long, expensive travel day. also, it was nice, cool, and rainy when i arrived, and i went for a long walk around town. the conference was absolutely great. i got to hang out with lots of my old psychology friends, as well as meet many new people. last night a bunch of us went out dancing and drinking, and i didn't get back to my swingin' swedish basement bachelor's pad until about 5:30. i was hanging out mostly with my crazy irish friends and some people i knew from nevada (along with a bunch of swedish psychologists, of course). great fun. i also made lots of good professional connections. i had dinner with a couple of guys who work at the oregon research institute, where they do really cool work influencing public policy with regard to public health issues, education, etc. their work is based on the same pragmatic, contextualistic theoretical perspective as my own research, and i'd love to do some post-doctoral research with them. both of my talks went pretty well, and i received pretty good feedback on them. my talk on using functional contextualism as the philosophical basis for developing an empirical science of learning and instruction went over particularly well, and i got numerous requests from people to have me send them my paper. actually, the oregon guys were at my talk, too, and i think i made a good impression on them with it. another woman also wants me to submit my paper to a small journal on behavioral development she edits. i also saw lots of really amazing talks and presentations, and developed a much better sense about the direction i want my career and research to take. i'm really glad i came. okay, my friend jt is waiting so i should probably quit rambling. i'm off to london tomorrow morning, and i'll be staying with my friend javier until wednesday, when i return to the states. i'll probably do one more journal entry before my entry, so don't stray far from your computers or you might miss my last exciting installment. word to your mother (and mine...hello, mom!).