Sicilian Sunset at Orange Park (near Catania)

The picture doesn't do it justice, but this is where we are staying - a little bed and breakfast villa and orchard called Orange Park about 10 km outside of Catania (Sicily).

Today was moving day - we were staying in Catania yesterday and the day before at a B&B downtown, and we just moved into a place that we'll be based out of for the next week or so.

I'll spare you the pics of the swimming pool and the rooms. Anyway, I am in love with Sicily. I might have to move here. The only things I think that I would have a problem with (based on my limited exposure so far) are the traffic and the people density... but those things bug me in Seattle too. Now when I see rural Sicily, that will be the test... :)

Tonight there are eight of us staying here. Tomorrow the other nine arrive. Tomorrow is a shopping and van rental and airport trip day. the next day is when our field work starts. We'll be exploring the eastern flank of Mt. Etna and looking at basalt deposited on top of either carbonates or evaporites. Maybe both... I'm not entirely sure. Anyway you can bet it will be hot and it will be nice when we go swimming in the Mediterranean. I'll keep you posted. :)

Kharimkotan

This is part of the 1933 landslide on Kharimkotan. We wandered around the landslide for a day and it was one of the neatest places I saw in the Kurils. Also I found about a million glass floats washed into a wrack line by the 2006 tsunami.

the airplane broke my balls

I just heard from my friend molly who took the big glass floats I found on Kharimkotan back with her in an extra luggage bag. Too bad for me only one of them made it. Well, here you can see two of them. I found three. they were heavy and I carried them for miles and miles on my back. Oh well. memories anyway.

Hmm. I don't seem to have many pics of myself in my russia pics. Well. Here I am after the Kurils standing in front of a lion at the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk Museum. I think the beard might have to come off... italy is kinda warm. breakfast time now in Catania, gotta run!