After a long week in the conference center, a sweet day in the sunshine was called for. Yegor Malinovskiy (current Valle fellow) and I headed out on our bikes in a quest for Tyresta By, an historical (18th century) village at the edge of Tyresta National Park, just 20km south of Stockholm.
<http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Tyresta+National+Park,+Stockholm,+Sweden&sll=59.229893,18.155594&sspn=0.058489,0.241356&vpsrc=0&t=h&z=12> After a bit of circuitous route finding (Stockholm’s not quite as biker-friendly as Copenhagen), and with much gratitude to Yegor’s GIS-equiped Nokia phone, we arrived to an in-progress traditional Swedish folk music festival in the village square. This is probably the first time I’ve seen an actual hurdy-gurdy, outside of a lutherie publication. This was a marvelous welcome after a challenging afternoon.
After a wee respite in the square, where we watched the various groups perform–some with harmonicas–and our heads filled with fiddles, we headed into the woods. While the forest here was logged once, it’s been a long time, and the understory is rather clear and undisturbed in large portions of the park. It’s covered by mainly sphagnum moss and huckleberry. There’s a plethora of mushroom varieties in Sweden, and mushroom hunting has to be a national pastime. Luckily, Yegor’s a keen mushroom hunter, having spent many summers at his grandfather’s rural cabin, outside Moscow, growing up. We harvested almost a kilo of delicious porccini mushrooms, which made for an excellent omlette this morning, and no doubt Yegor’s bounty will make for a copious white sauce with pasta.
dtresilience 