Turkish Delight

After spending two weeks touring around the western half of Turkey, I learned three things: 1-Turkey is hot in July; 2-There are a lot of beautiful historic and natural sites there; and 3-the Turks are really friendly

Here's a quick summary of our trip with some thoughts...
Days 1-3: Istanbul - toured the Blue Mosque (photo), Hagia Sofia & Topkapi Palace, sailed on the Bosporus Strait between two continents, and enjoyed great food and people watching on Istiklal Caddesi in the Taksim/Begoylu section of the city
Days 4-5: Ephesus & Pamukkale - toured one of the oldest preserved cities in the world (Ephesus or "Efes"), saw the house where the Virgin Mary supposedly lived her final days, and walked in hot spring calcium deposits that covered a whole mountainside, making it look like a ski slope (Pamukkale means "cotton castle" in Turkish)
Days 6-10: beach days in Ölüdeniz and Antayla - very hot and very relaxing
Days 11-13: Cappadocia - beautiful landscapes of "fairy chimneys" and colorful valleys; stayed in a "cave hotel" which was literally a hotel of caves!; saw a whirling dervish show
Day 14: Istanbul - bargained in the Grand Bazaar, enjoyed beers at a rooftop bar with a direct view of the Blue Mosque and the Marmara Sea while Kristina experienced a Turkish bath

Biking the Zugerberg

Mountain biking is relatively popular here in Switzerland, I'm guessing because the country is like 75% covered with Alps. Sitting above the town of Zug is a small (by Swiss standards) mountain called the Zugerberg. It offers beautiful views of the town, the lake, and the surrounding peaks, like the Rigi and Pilatus. We've taken several visitors to the top of the Zugerberg by car, to give them a small taste of beautiful Swiss views. While driving up the Zugerberg, we've always marveled at the crazy souls who were biking their ways up. Something like 600 vertical meters (the Zugerberg's peak is over 1000m) is a long way to go without a car, ski lift or airplane. Seemed crazy to think how difficult it would be to get all the way to the top on a bike. Crazy.
Well, this past Wednesday, inspired by a colleague, I made the self-propelled journey up the windy trails to the top of the Zugerberg. Phil, a teacher friend from school, who lives on the side of the hill (mountain?) invited me and another friend, Mark, to bike up the Zugerberg last Wednesday evening. The journey started out relatively painless, as I realized the advantages of a bike with 27 gear combinations. There were some steeper parts, which burned the legs, and some longer, less-steep parts, some of which offered ridiculous views of Zug and Zugersee. About 2/3 of the way up, we got drenched by a 15 minute thunderstorm, but were able to resume our trip with sore legs the rest of the way up. Once at the top, we rested for a few minutes before taking the fun part of the trip: the downhill. Though a bit trickier given the recent rain, we got to enjoy the downhill at decent speeds and with beautiful views of the town below (kinda like the pic above).
The plan is to make this a weekly event. I hope my legs can handle it...

A Swiss Day

jigsawed some play props...played a tiring hour of handball during 8th grade PE...biked into Zurich...sat on a bench looking over Zurichsee and the snowcovered Alps...used the extra flap in my new Freitag bag to fit all the groceries from Coop. Tired and happy.

Skiing in Champery

In an effort to keep track of specific places visited, foods eaten and drinks drunk, (and because sometimes I have no idea what to write about, but I know I could document cool experiences) I've decided to ad a bit of format to my vacation-related posts. I figure "Hotel, Restaurant/Food/Drink, Cool Stuff Seen/Heard/Enjoyed" should do it. So here goes:

Spent last weekend in Champery, a town in southwestern Switzerland near the ski resort of Port du Soleil.

Hotel: Le Chalet de Champery, cozy little chalet, made infinitely better by the open bar sans barkeepers all weekend
Food/Drink: Enjoyed good food all weekend, but the aforementioned open bar made drinks the highlight: enjoyed some decent ports, and took my first shot of Appenzell, a Swiss digestiv. Tasted a bit like anisette (sp?), with a medicin-y aftertaste. Then at lunch Sunday, after a few wines, got a free shot of 43% abv pear schnapps. Apparently "no thanks, I'm driving" means "give me a shot of 86 proof liquor" in French.
Oh, also had an awesome meringue dessert at lunch Sunday...see the deliciousness in the pic above
Cool Stuff Seen/Heard/Enjoyed: again, the aforementioned open bar; skied some nice bump runs

Vote for Beaver Stadium

Click here to vote for Beaver Stadium against Texas A&M's Kyle Field. Don't know too much about the site or the competition, but anytime PSU's competing, it's worth a click.

Benelux Minus the "ne"

Just back from a weekend in Belgium & Luxembourg. Decided to drive the 8+ hours each way, as plane tickets were steep (CHF600 for an hour flight) and Kristina was already scheduled to fly up for the week with her job. Long drive for just a weekend, but in the end, worth it. A few thoughts:
-loved the drive through Switzerland, France, Luxembourg & Belgium; lots of beautiful countryside with some interesting sights along the way--plenty of castles & wind farms captured my attention
-laughed as I passed a little French town called Bitche...and I just laughed again as I typed it
-Antwerp is a pretty lively little city; we arrived around 11pm Friday night and immediately felt a fun/hip/alive vibe
-enjoyed two strong beers (~9% abv) after breakfast on Saturday...when in Belgium...
-drank some AWESOME Belgian beers...Westmalle Trappist Tripel, Kapittel, Grimbergen, Brugge Tripel, a fruity Kriek, and a few others; definitely heading back to Belgium at some point just to enjoy the beers again...
-first time ever in Luxembourg, and probably the last; not too exciting; interesting-looking old "walled" city though
-the yellow street lights in Lux & Belgium made the highways look like airport runways on Mars
-Brugge is a fun little town near the northern coast; sometimes referred to as "the Venice of the north" is what I hear...

Frantic February

It's been a hectic month here in the Zurich area...after returning from a teaching conference in Paris two weeks ago, I've been working daily to figure out how to implement all the new ideas I discovered into my teaching/school. So far, so good, I'd say.
Boys basketball and playing bball on my own has also kept me busy.
Booked three different trips (Brussels in March, Copenhagen in May, and Scotland/Ireland for a golf vacation with my college buddies in October). Very exciting.
And finally, I found out this week that I could be teaching math AND humanities next year, an opportunity I'm VERY excited about. Nothing is set yet, but just to know the possibility is out there has got me "juvenated" (credit to Bill Simmons for that one).

Right now I'm getting ready to meet my family at the Zurich Flughafen before heading down to Zermatt for a week of skiing and checking out the Matterhorn. I need a break after the whirlwind last 2+weeks. Hope to post some photos after the trip.

Ning, Jing and Social Networking as a Collaborative Ed Tool

Went to the European League of Middle Level Educators (ELMLE) Conference in Paris last weekend, and my brain is overflowing with seemingly awesome new ideas. But I'm in a place right now where I'm not exactly sure how to use them all in my 6th & 7th grade math classes...so I'm just throwing all the ideas out there for the kids to play with, and hopefully some of these new ideas will stick. Here are a few...
Ning - This is a social networking site (similar to Facebook in layout) where you invite "friends" to collaborate with you in various projects. On the recommendation of Alan November (novemberlearning.com), a developmental psychologist and education professor, I created Nings for each of my 4 middle school math classes with the intent of creating and sharing content on our site. Just threw them out there to see how they react...here's hoping for some positive results over the next few weeks...
Jing - jingproject.com offers a free download of screencast software that can be used to create instant "vodcasts" of work created in classrooms. Hopefully I'll get clearance to download this app onto our school computers. I see big possibilities with this tool...
Google docs - I was familiar prior to the concert, but had only used it for personal stuff (mostly sharing football stats with friends...), but I've learned tons of possibilities for using this collaborative tool in education...again, we'll see how willing some colleagues are to implement this into our practices.

Tons more ideas, but I'm tired from staying up until 4am watching the Steelers win the Super Bowl, so I'm going to bed. More to come...

Davos

Yesterday, Kristina and I spent the day skiing with three other friends at Davos in eastern Switzerland. We had a beautiful, clear day, and Davos is a resort with quite a lot of terrain, so we had a great day. Finished the day with beers at a great apres ski bar, and fondue in the town of Klosters. Ahh, Switzerland...

All Good Holidays Must Come to An End

Tomorrow is my first day back at school since Dec 19. I feel rested and ready to get back. Kristina and I spent this weekend at the resort of Engelberg, about an hour south of Zurich. We skied yesterday, hiked up an alp today, took a break in the snow (hence the photo), and then sledded down on those old wooden toboggans. It was cold all weekend, but clear skies gave us plenty of sun and some great views. Fun weekend.
Then we came home and had fondue for dinner before watching the Eagles beat the Giants. Now we're watching the Steelers, though I'm not sure we'll be able to stay up the whole game...

License Plates

Playing the license plate game on road trips is one of my favorite pasttimes. Pretty sure I've seen all 50 US plates, plus a bunch of Canadian plates. Living in Europe, we see mostly Swiss (obviously) and EU plates, which all look the same. But today while walking through Thalwil, I saw the rarest plate I've ever seen from...the Republic of San Marino. How cool!

Langlauf Loipe

As I was completing my second (and final) lap of a 3.5 km cross-country ski course this morning, I reflected on all the cool outdoor experiences I've had over the past few months here in Switzerland; swimming in Zurichsee during the summer, completing a "black" high ropes course (the toughest one at the park where we took our 8th graders during an October Field Week), conquering an indoor wall climbing on the same trip, playing ice hockey, sledding (or "sledging") down a 12 km trail at Engelberg, running a half marathon through the streets of Luzern, hiking some of the higher peaks in Switzerland, touring the Jungfrauhoch, biking through the towns around Zurichsee, and alpine and cross-country skiing in some of the most beautiful terrain I've ever seen.

My latest adventure, cross-country skiing (or "Langlauf" as they call it here), was certainly one of the most grueling. My body aches all over right now. But in the best way. I enjoyed it so much, I'm planning to give it another go on Friday.

Switzerland certainly offers a ton of different outdoor adventure opportunities. A lot of these activities are available in the US, but less accessible and/or less popular. Just makes me appreciate living here even more. Hopefully I'll use the experience gained from trying these activities back to the US and get into a few of them back home in a few years.