Rotary's 100th Anniversary

I had a great evening at one of Rotary's celebrations for their 100th year anniversary. The 4 clubs in the Geneva area decided to collectively donate 100,000 CHF to local organizations that work with handicapped persons.

After a number of the distinguished guests addressed us, they presented their gifts to the charitable organizations with ceremonial checks.

Moonset and Sunrise: a predawn hike up Saleve

Yeah, so I'm a little loopy. I decided to get up at 5h30 and run up the path to the top of the Saleve by moonlight to catch the sunrise. But at least I planned well. Flashlight in one hand, ice axe in the other, gore-texed out, and powerbars, water, and gatorade tucked away in my backpack, I slipped out into early morning darkness and struck out along the familiar path.



The moon was full and the skies unusually clear and full of stars. The forecasts had looked good and I hoped for clear skies all the way to the Alps. Visions of Mt. Blanc and the rest in sunrise splendor spurred me on as I tromped up the mountain path.

My ice axe doubled as a staff on steep, snow-covered slopes along the ascent, and frequent layers of ice on the stone steps helped me to more fully grasp the importance of handrails along the way.

I beat the sun in my race to the top and took a few moments to catch my breath and drink some water. Luckily, it wasn't windy, but nonetheless pretty darn cold for a kid who's lived in Louisiana and Madagascar--around -16 C. So I really shouldn't have been as surprised as I was when I took off my outer layer to find that much of that liquid formerly known as gatorade had frozen on my fleece jacket. And even after taking a few pictures of the sunrise, my camera hand was feeling quite numb and didn't get warmed back up until I ran a good 15 minutes back down the mountainside, with my gloves on, of course.

Unfortunately, the Alps were blocked from my view by a cloud, but here is a series of dawn to sunrise photos anyway.

Snowfield at early dawn
Sun has risen, but behind the clouds


Sun rise from atop the Saleve

Morning has broken!

A shot of Veyrier in the cool morning mountain's shadow. I hurried back down the mountain, but stopped to look out over Monnetier and the Petit Saleve. A bit further down, I could already see the light at the end of the frozen tunnel, and was soon back home and enjoying a hot shower at about the same time I usually get up.

An Architecture of Glistening Atoms

Frozen rampart on the lake where most of these shots were taken

A close-up of the same.

icicle view

Ice framed lake and sky

Ice framed lake and sky 2

icicles



Quite a few people had turned out to take pictures, including a Filipino from the WTO. We laughed about the climate differences between his own country and Switzerland, and then he offered to take my photograph.

I went back by a few days later, as the ice began to melt in the sun.

Sushi!

I volunteer with the youth group at my church. I teach classes to a group of 12-14 yr old boys on Sunday and we also get together for activities on Wednesday evenings. One of the young men's favorite activities is to play soccer, basketball or just hang out in a nearby school gym.

On the 2nd of February, we had a sushi-making activity, which was a blast. Here, Gabriella shows us how to roll a sushi and then how to slice it. Tony and the youth had fun spreading the rice on the seaweed paper. And here's my first successful sushi.



The grand finale to our activity was a surprise visit by a sushi chef from Japan who just happened to be in Geneva and at our church that same hour! He rolled one of the kids creations and then masterfully sliced it.

We all applauded his work and he smiled and took a small bow. It was great fun, but I think I ate 3 too many sushi (everyone wanted me to taste theirs, including the sneaks who slathered on way too much wasabi sauce!).