Sean & Alix

Do you remember the commercial? You got your chocolate in my peanut butter! No, you got your peanut butter in my chocolate. Individually, each is great, but together they become the ultimate candy treat. We feel much the same about our friends Alix and Sean. Alix is Elena's friend from her college days and Washington University. Sean is my friend from college days at the University of Wisconsin. Each was somehow single in early January of this year. A mere four months later, they are now engaged to be married. We had the honor of introducing them. First at our wedding nearly 12 years ago (Alix was unavailable at the time); then about 10 years later (Sean was living and working in Hawaii and was not in a good position for trips to Chicago); and finally, after Sean took a new job in Madison and finally got settled, the third time was the charm.

Before getting together, each of our friends had planned trips to visit us in May; once they got together, what could be better than a honeymoon preview. So, they had 3 days in London, 3 days in Paris and 4 days with us. On Friday afternoon Elena and Alix went up to Tubingen, a picturesque city about 2 hours from here in Germany, where Elena and Alix spend their junior year in college. They visited some of their favorite haunts and consumed some good beverages. Back at the Zurich ranch, Sean and I proceeded over movie night with the boys (Homeward Bound 2: the Formulaic Sequal). The next morning we packed up a rental car and drove up to meet the girls. We had a nice picnic and introduced the boys and Sean to the city that looms so large in the memory of Elena and Alix. We came back on Sunday and, after arranging a sitter for the boys (thanks Edna), we had a last night out on the town including a stellar dinner and some time by the lake.

We are overjoyed by Sean and Alix's happiness and wish them the best as they begin to arrange their life together (when will you have the wedding plans ready???)

Weekend in Paris

I was fortunate enough to be invited to give a seminar in Paris this past week. It was a long weekend as Monday was a holiday (Pentacost is a day off in most of Europe). So, Elena, Gertraud (our invaluable French speaker), the boys and I all got on the TGV on Friday and made a long weekend of it in gay Paris. The boys had been clamoring to ride this superfast train since we arrived on the continent last summer and, at last, we had the excuse to do it.

We had ideal weather, with sun and upper 70s every single day. Our hotel, chosen by my host Stephan (the guy in with dark hair and glasses in several pictures below), was in the heart of the latin quarter and walking distance to Notre Dame and many other great locations. One of our favorite was Luxembourg Park, which features some great picnic real estate, a cool merry go round where Elliot is using a stick to try to capture brass rings, and the huge statue of a head.

Sicily: Week 2, Catania Orange Farm

For a change of scenery, we spent the 2nd week at an agri-tourism place near Catania, which is one of the 2 cities on Sicily to warrant its own airport. The apartment was part of an old orange farm near Catania (a little nearer Catania than we originally thought, in fact, as we could see the interstate highway and a local Volvo dealership from the place). The boys loved to get up in the morning and go pick oranges. Also, they often helped squeeze the orange juice we would have with breakfast each morning.

Sicily: Week 1, Capo D'Orlando

Each year we try to travel with Elena's parents to the seaside for a vacation - most years it is to somewhere in the Mid Atlantic. This year, of course, our options were a bit richer as we are in Europe. Elena's mom, who has recently added Italian to her polyglotonous portfolio, suggested going to Sicily. After 2 weeks there, I applaud her for her choice.

Verona, Venice & Bellinzona

Five hours in a car... From our home in Columbus, this will get us to Urbana, Illinois, Knoxville, Tennessee, Buffalo, New York and, for the exotic taste, somewhere in Ontario, Canada. From our abode in Zurich, however, we can get to Lyon, Dijon, Milan, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Munich, Bonn and Verona (Italy, not Wisconsin). Things are closer in Europe; so we decided to leverage this and hopped in a rental car and go to visit our friend Angelo in Verona, Italy.

Angelo was at Maryland with us in graduate school and was kind enough to host us during our visit to Italy back in 1998. He was a spectacular host once again, setting up a seminar for me at his department at the University of Verona and found a wonderful bed and breakfast in fair Verona.

The first picture is us coming up on the Gotthard tunnel in southern Switzerland, which is among the longest tunnels in the world at just over 10 miles (although it probably only took us 10-12 minutes to travel through, it seemed much longer as Elena was prevented from her outloud reading of Harry Potter during that time).

After a nasty traffic jam on the outskirts of Verona, Angelo met us with 2 of his 3 kids to provide us an escort to the bed and breakfast. The next day, I gave a seminar at the University while Elena and the boys explored Verona on a wet Friday.

The boys found a street performer who made balloon swords and belt holsters (see picture). These proved useful later in the day as we went to the famous Verona coliseum - one of the largest Roman coliseums still standing (see picture).
The next picture shows the arc of the river round the old city of Verona as we crossed it that night to accompany Angelo and his family to a really cool local agri-tourismo restaurant outside the city. Their 3 kids and our 2 boys had a rowdy time playing together during breaks in the meal (unfortunately, we both forgot cameras and have no pictures!)

The next day we took the short hour or so drive over to Venice - or at least the big parking lot that is outside of Venice since we rented a car rather than a boat. The first picture is the boys riding the water taxi into the city. Elena and I passed the monastery on San Giorgio island where we spend a few nights back in 1998 for a conference in Venice.

Lunch was the first order of business upon arrival. Elena forced the boys to pass up the touristy places off San Marcos square for a smaller place deeper into the island (technically, Venice is 118 islands, and each has at least one church). Isaac has an adventurous palate, as can be seen in the picture where he is eating his dish of cuttle fish and octopus in black squid sauce with polenta.
We then took the expensive but unforgettable gondola ride through the many canals. Our gondaleer, Pieter, was one of 450 gondolas licensed to work; his gondola was passed down from his grandfather.

We walked around the city some more and took in a beautiful basilica and got a picture of the Grand Canal from the famous Rialto bridge. At one point, the boys found confetti (perhaps left over from Carnival, which had only been a few weeks prior to our visit) and decided there was no time like the present for a celebration of their own.

Apparently, the pigeons of San Marcos square are nearly as famous as the city; vendors sell bird food and the fowl are more than happy to perch upon you in order to get a mouthful.

We went back to Verona for the night and headed back to Switzerland the next day, though we stopped at the southern Swiss city of Bellinzona for the afternoon. This strategically critical city (at least in the middle ages), located at a passage in the Alps, features 3 castles within an easy walk of each other. We walked around 2 of them, including down a long wall that extend a kilometer from the castle to the heart of the modern town. We hope to return before our time in Switzerland is up.