Penguin, But Avoid The Whale

With the National Anthem behind me, I feel a little more able to plan for our trip to Scandinavia, which is in two weeks [edit: two days, since it took me so long to post this]

The idea of traveling started with me reaching out to a guy on Linkedin. I thought he might be the son of my cousin in Norway. He responded immediately, and now I'm in touch with the lovely cousin that I last saw in 1974. I had no immediate thoughts of going to Norway, but the same week, though, I got an invitation to speak in Stockholm. So suddenly I'm going to do three things I really love to do:

1. Communicate about the work I love by means of my boyfriend, Keynote
2. Travel with mrguy
3. See family

I learned about all of this earlier in the year, but aside from keeping in touch with family and occasionally working on the presentation, I hadn't been able to plan much until last week.

And now I'm so doing it. I kept looking for a hook to take us in any direction. This is what makes me happy. Research, finding things we could do, and then doing them or not. I found out that a band called Virkelig is playing at The Garage on the 8th (if their landlord doesn't shut them down). Then something led me to a story about an emperor penguin named Nils Olav III, which led me to a restaurant in Bergen called Pingvinen. They serve whale, which I will try not to order by mistake.
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And now, closer to the day, it's turned into old home week of sorts. The Nordic offices of the forklift company have invited me to come visit in Stockholm. And my cousin in Bergen reached out to our (80-year-old) cousin in Edinburgh, and that cousin is coming over to meet us (and to see her older sister, who is ill). The ill-sister-cousin's-son wants to meet us, and I think there is something else going on. All fabulous. I am blessed beyond belief. I feel like I've inadvertently kicked off a family reunion of sorts. 

Second one within a year.