A new year has started and our first two months were already filled with adventures and changes in our lives.
After coming back from our skiing vacation with the family in Switzerland, I signed up for a Captains Course. The course included theory classes for three weekends Friday-Sunday. Jolanda decided that California has much better weather and spent most of January there. After the successful completion of the course Jolanda came back to Jersey and we borrowed a friends car to drive up north to spend some time with our friends Upstate NY.
On the up to the Adirondacs we visited our friends Noelva and Alex, they invited us to stay a day at City Island in the Bronx. We have not seen them for a while and it was a good chance to catch up in the new year. As we have probably mentioned in previous posts, Alex owns his own island. Since I took my drone with me I could take some nice pictures of their house and the island.
On the way up we also stayed in AirBnB at Hudson a beautiful little town right next to ….. you guessed it: Hudson River. The apartment included a fire place and a bathtub in the middle of the biggest bathroom ever. This was a nice surprise from Jolanda for my birthday.
The next day we went all the way up to the Adirondacks to meet our friends Ewa and Bill, also Luna was there for her vacation from us. We had a couple of very nice days to go snowshoeing, cross country skiing and just enjoying the quiet country side.
Unfortunately during my stay I learned that my consulting gig came to a sudden end. I was told one day after my birthday that my last day with Citi was on my birthday. I never experienced that before, but hey: life must go on and there are a lot of opportunities which might be much more interesting. I’m still very excited to work with Columbia University and helping to teach coding at the Enterprise Risk Management program. It looks like that I’m getting my own course as well, also I will be assisting in the Machine Learning class, which is one of my favorite topics.
In February I got the chance to give a presentation of Risk Management practices to chemical students in Switzerland (EMPA). A friend of mine is a professor at the institute and thought it might be something different and refreshing for the students.
One of my highlights was to catch up with our friends Barbara and Jeff in their apartment in NYC. We had a fabulous evening and a lot to catch up as we have not seen each other for the last two years. They are a role model to us: being so active, sportive socially engaged, delightful and positive. We aspire to become like them.
One weekend our old “flatmates” Sabrina, Alex, Lucas our youngest god child and Natalie came for an overnight stay on our boat. Everyone had so much fun and Luna of course was the main attraction. Natalie was just born when we lived together at the Upper West side.
Without much rest we were off to Jamaica, Jolanda still did not like the weather in Jersey so she decided to stay 3 weeks with her friend Vicki in Jamaica, I came along for the first week. Despite working, we had a really good time and even got to go scubadiving for a day. We also visited the Montego Yacht Club and Jolanda got a chance to sail with a local team in a race after I left. In Jamaica sailing seems to be a full contact sport, the boat from Jolanda had a few battle scars afterwards, but she enjoyed it very much and she can’t wait to sail in Jamaica again.
Also we need to mention that we bought a pickup camper, this one had been owned by Alex our friend and he did not use it very much. We will do some trips with the camper which will take too long to go by boat, especially the training days for the Ocean Race in Maryland. It is astonishing how much space there is in the camper. It even comes with a toilette and shower!
Our first trip with the camper was to Annapolis where I had to refresh my CPR practice. I strongly recommend the course to everyone and there might be a provider just around the corner. Luckily our friend Joe was teaching the course so we could go out in the evening with him and his wife Rebecca. Jolanda also saw on Facebook that one of our good friends Looney from Maine is in town and arranged a catch up. Looney did a road trip with her friend. We had a fabulous evening with everybody.
More adventures coming soon, we already packing our bags….
As always, lots of variety in your life. Travel, sports, sunshine, catch up with friends. And now even a camper. Cool.