Christmas 2009 with the Martinis in Italy!

Chelsea came visit me over Christmas Break, which seems to be becoming a bit of a tradition, lucky for me! We were invited to spend Christmas with Daniela Martini and her family, who treated us as their own and spoiled us so much with all their wonderful food and friendship that I'm never going to be able to order a coffee without hoping for a tiny cup of espresso or eat another breadstick without thinking of those long, thin flakey works of art they always put on the table.

We drove to Italy (thanks for the GPS for Christmas, Dad!) and we left from Oberursel and headed south to Freiburg, Germany for a few days (I actually came a bit late due to an emergency kiddy surgery), home of the German Green Party and some great sustainable community projects.

We spent another night in Zurich - this is the view from our hostel room. The city wasn't actually on fire, but it's surrounded by mountains and is besides a large lake and it just might be "on fire".

We drove through some serious mountains in Switzerland, the GPS liked to take us the back way somtimes, especially on dark, snowy nights.

The "freeways" in Switzerland is mostly 2-lane, curvy roads with lots of tunels and switchbacks. STS9, podcasts from Seattle radio station KEXP, and Vampire Weekend got us through.

We stopped along the way at various architectural accomplishments of interest to Chelsea - like this chapel in the tiny town of Sumitvej designed by Peter Zumthur. We also treated ourselves to a day (5 hours in the water, we were absolute prunes) at the thermal baths in Vals, another design by Peter Zumthur -

Therme Vals (photo http://www.therme-vals.ch/en/spa/

Therme Vals (photo http://www.therme-vals.ch/en/spa/)

We couchsurfed with Tom, a carpenter in Mels, about 20 minutes away from Vals, located in a beautiful valley. We wandered around the little side roads which zig-zagged up the mountains, through little towns with traditional wood houses like this one...doesn't it just make ya want to put slippers on and drink hot tea?

And when we made it to Chiere, Italy, we were welcomed with big hugs by Emanuela and Vittorio, Daniela's sister and brother in law, in their big beautiful house in the countryside. We stayed with them for our time in Italy and ate cookies for breakfast every morning.

Christmas Eve dinner with the Martinis at Dani's parents' house! (Me, Dani, Vittorio, Michele, Magda, and Manu) We ate so much spectacular food...but that was only just a start!

Modeling our new Christmas hats (Chelsea, Dani, and I all had the same idea somehow)

Chelsea and Silvana preparing Christmas dinner in the kitchen - check out that great alien necklace!

Manu sets the table for Christmas dinner

We ate for 4 hours...

Thank you so much for letting us be part of your family for Christmas!

The Post-Christmas-Dinner YaYas. .

Dessert = chocolate mousse, tiramisu, popcorn cake, sweet bruchette, lemonchella, and a tiny coffee.

Manu and I take in some fresh air at Superga.

We visited Auntie Rita and Uncle Ernesto, who are 80 years old and live on a farm in Chiere (the town grew up around them) and, until 2 years ago, kept milk cows. She insisted we take this home-grown squash home with us and was prepared to hack it to bits to give us a part, if we couldn't take the whole thing, because this one was the best. We left with two comparably smaller beasts.

Auntie Rita's bike. She's never ridden in a car before. She bikes or walks or drives her tractor everywhere.

Vittorio and Chelsea snowboaring and skiing Val Tournanche in Val d'Aosta

Chowing down on cheesy polenta and wine after hitting the slopes (a variation of beer and sausages in Germany)!

A woman stirring polenta in the mechanical nativity scene hand-made by a man in Dani's village. It filled a small chapel behind their main church.

Footbridge from the Lingotto center (where they used to test-drive Ferraris on the roof) and the Olympic Village from the 2006 games.

Eataly!

Dani, me, Chelsea, and Silvana in front.

Red Sea Ecological Dive Trip

In November I took my Higher Level Biology students on an ecological diving trip in the Red Sea. They all completed PADI dive certification this fall and were ready to go by the time we got to Hurghada, Egypt. We spent a week diving, studying reef ecology, and the impacts of tourism, development, and overfishing on the Red Sea. The students practiced underwater data collection techniques and designed their own investigations - this is a little part of our trip. (much of the video/photos were taken by Sven Kahlbrock and Pete Sinclair)

Katze leiter!

behold - the cat ladder - bringing access and enjoyment to world one feline at a time.

Above the Clouds; Back to the Roots

During Fall Break, I went on a little road trip with my father and Diane. We spent some time hiking in the Dolomites in Northern Italy, meandered through Austria and the Czech Republic, and had our first experiences in Poland. We ate Perogi in Krakow and visited Glebowice, where my father's father's father was born and where we found more Gorkiewicz gravestones than the number of Gorkiewiczs I have known in my entire life.

Kayaking in the Stockholm Archipellago

Hannah and I went on a 10 day trip to Sweden in the beginning of August. We spent most of our time kayaking in the Stockholm Archipelago, a vast array of islands radiating out from the capital city into the Baltic Sea. Neither one of us had been to Sweden before, but we felt right at home as soon as we stepped off the plane - we found ourselves surrounded by a boreal ecosystem so similar to Marquette, Michigan (where we both went to college) it was surprising to hear people speaking a different language.

Here is a map of our trip:
http://maps.google.com/maps?tab=ml


Our outfitter, Horisont Kajak, was located in Norråva, just outside of Stockholm, but we journeyed by train, train, bus, plane, bus, walking, bus, walking to get there...a but of an epic journey. But here we are organizing our gear - how can we fit it all into two small kayaks?

The view the first morning from inside the tent on Brannh Island.

Hannah and the kayaks after night 1.

Perhaps the hardest part of the whole trip: closing the kayak hatches! (the neoprene required finesse)

Great cliff jumping! (you're not suprised, are you? I know, one of my life passions.)



The Baltic sea turns out to be a great place for swimming because the Brackish waters don't leave your hair standing on end at the end of the day and has just enough salt to cook tasty pasta (Annie's Pasta, ahem!)

Testing out Hannah's fancy new underwater camera on a little jelly fish..."my brain is just a jellyfish in the ocean of my head"

Note to Pelican Camera Case manufacturer:
when case is thrown off a cliff, the latch pops open and the camera falls out & sinks.

Seemed like every Swede in Stockholm either owned a sailboat or a little cabin perched on a rocky ledge in the archipellago.

Waiting to play our nightly card game that nobody knew the name of (it was a good one)

Allmansrätten, or “Every Man’s Right”, is a law in Sweden that enables everyone to camp wherever they want for one night, on public or private property, as long as it is not within sight of a house or on agricultural land. This allowed us to set up our tents wherever we found ourselves when we felt like stopping for the day. Really great camping!

We saw dozens of sailboats tied up to the rocks, people just hanging out enjoying the short summer. The weather was spectacular while we were there - sunny and warm every day, with only a slight breeze on one of the days and riduculously calm waters. Sounds like this may not be typical weather for Sweden.

Hannah out for a little evening paddle.

Behold - the Yucky Swim Dock

(As we headed farther from Stockholm, the islands became farther apart (in the beginning it seemed more like river paddling than being out in the ocean) and the aquatic vegetation changed: more algae and weeds growing on the edges of islands. Swimming was sometimes a little...yucky.

Ah, so you can read Swedish, too?

Along our paddle we wandered through a few small towns. This is some type of drinking well.

We slept on the beach this night, real close to the water. Good thing there wasn't much of a tide!

These three-wheeled motorized bike things were pretty popular on the islands for hauling stuff and people where cars couldn't go.

The best ham and cheese sandwich I've ever eaten in Sandhamn (Sweden's equivalent to Mackinac Island...except no horses). This bakery also had these pastries very similar to cinnamon rolls except with cardamon - they were out of this world!

The little touristy village of Sandhamn

We ocassionally saw cruise ships passing through the islands - a few were taller than the isalnds and you could see the smoke stacks poking above the treeline as they passed behind them!

Back at the outfitter - unpacking after 7 days of bliss.

Part 2: Stockholm

After a mild fiasco involving missing our bus and hitching, we ended up back in Stockholm for a couple days and took some time to walk around the city, gawk at the totally-80's-outfits, and eat balls of chocolate rolled in coconut (just think of a grapefuit-sized no-bake cookie rolled in coconut)

We visited the Vasa museum - wow! the Vasa was a swedish war ship which sank in the Stockholm harbor in 1628 and was re-discovered in th 1900's and raised. An archaeologist's dream: they found wooden food containers, chests filled with wollen clothing, 300-year-old sails, and elaborate wooden carvings.

French hotdog, anyone?

Look at that hot dancing outfit!

Fashion mistake: if you aren't wearing Roman-style shoes in Stockholm, you are nobody.

Fashion mistake: if your waitsline falls below your ribcage, forget it!