Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all had a very nice and joyful Christmas and got to share it with the people that matter most to you. I hope Santa also brought you everything that was on your Christmas lists. I spent my Christmas in Torino, Italy. It was nice seeing some places in Italy that I had never visited before, but it was definitely not a normal Christmas for me. This year, without my family and those I care about around me, the 25^th of December was just another day. I spent the day walking around Torino taking pictures. The weather was beautiful, so that made walking pretty pleasant. I definitely had a cool experience on Christmas Eve. The friend I was staying with drove me up to a small village in the Alps, on the Italian-French border. At this village, we followed a live nativity scene, as it ascended up the mountain, through the old village. I think every person living in that village (probably about 200) was following the procession, and there was singing and dancing the entire way. We all stopped frequently for some mulled wine, punch, and other goodies being distributed by “innkeepers” and other people from the village. At midnight, we arrived at a small church high up the mountain, where we attended mass. It was really special and an experience I will never forget.

After Torino, I traveled to Aosta, where I spent a few days. Aosta is a unique region that borders France, Italy, and Switzerland, and is probably most famous for being in the shadow of Mont Blanc. The area is beautiful and there are castles everywhere you look. I visited three castles while I was there and also visited the ski village of Courmayeur, which was really nice, but also made me a little homesick.

After Aosta, I went back to Torino and spent New Year's Eve there. Unfortunately, I got sick a few days before that and didn't really feel like celebrating too much, so I mostly just reflected on the last year. This last year has been a year of firsts for me. Right before last New Year’s, I caught malaria for the first time (and hopefully the last!), I had to fly for almost 34 straight hours back to the U.S. from Madagascar, but then I got to spend Christmas at home, which is all I could ever want. I traveled to Poland for the first time and spent an extended period in Europe for the first time. I learned my first words in Polish, German, Czech, Norwegian, and Austrian. I fell deeply in love for the first time (and hopefully not the last time!), but then had my heart completely broken for the first time also (hopefully the last time, but I doubt it!). I met the wonderful people at Holy Cross Ministries and got the incredible opportunity to work as a teacher over the summer with the cute (most of the time) Hispanic children in Park City. I received my first recognition of “Scary Story Master” (sorry Mark, maybe next time:). I saw Stockholm, Oslo, Bergen, Prague, Vienna, Torino, and Aosta for the first time. I went hiking in the awesome Tatra Mountains for the first time and also had my first wolf reply to one of my howls! On a lighter side, I did my laundry in a cereal bowl for the first time (it took a looooong time), opened my first wine bottle with an axe (don’t ask me how, because I don’t know, and definitely don't ask me to try it again), and bought my first $12 beer (thanks Oslo). I saw my first live performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in a 12^th century church in Stockholm (I get chills just thinking about it!), ate rabbit for the first time in a Prague restaurant, visited my first European Christmas markets in Vienna, where I also tasted mulled wine for the first time. I drank coffee with honey in it for the first time (those crazy Italians!), bought and wore my first scarf (I am still unsure of how I look in it), saw Mont Blanc for the first time, and spent my first Christmas away from my family. I saw my brother move away from home for the first time and become the first member of our family to kick butt in the San Francisco Police Academy.

I met some incredible people this last year: the people at HCM, including Sister Mary Ann, Alma, Magali, Jesus, Miriam, Laura, and Molly, the biologists I have been working with in Poland, Robert and Sabina, my ex-girlfriend Ania (I know, but I was still lucky to have met her), Krystyna and Łucaś, whose home I normally stay in while working in Poland, Michael in Stockholm, Magnus and his roommates in Oslo, Kevin and Bashar in Bergen, Andrew on the train in Norway, Claude in Geneva, Alicja and Sabina in Krakow, Slaven in Prague, Lija in Vienna, and Andrea in Torino. Thinking back on it, I guess quite a bit happened this last year. Some times were incredibly happy, and other times were incredibly sad. But without sadness, we wouldn’t know what happiness is. Those sad times help us to really appreciate and savor those happy times.

So what do I hope for this next year? Well, I think it will be hard to top this last year, but it may happen. I would like to see my first wolf in Poland, but unfortunately time is running out. I would like to see my brother in a SFPD uniform. I would like to meet my new cousin (Congrats Tim and Alli!). I would like to visit Raphelle and Tim in their new house, reinforce my position as the “Scary Story Master,” finally graduate with my master's degree, visit Yellowstone numerous times, where my soul is renewed and my spirit is at peace, fall in love again, see everyone in my family filled with happiness, maintain and strengthen the relationships I have made this last year, and constantly be reminded of how lucky I am and of what is truly important in life. If all of those things happen, I will be one very happy guy. In fact, I will be very happy if just those last three things come true. I know I am forgetting a few things, but they will remind me in their own good time.

I wish all of you the happiest year imaginable, and may all that you wish and hope for come to pass. Thank you for making this last year one that I will never forget and that I will always look back on fondly.