My books 2018

I read a lot these last 12 months - 91 books, which is considerably more than in the years before. Last year I read 60 books, in 2016 I read 69 books, in 2015 I read 73 books, in 2014 I read 69 book.

I set my reading goal to 52 books again but I reached that number already in the middle of the year. I am not sure why I read so much. I knit less, I had two weeks of extra holidays, I was on sick leave for two weeks in June, maybe those are all factors that helped.  I never had a baisse all year, I basically kept reading all year long and when I started a good book I often finished it within a day or two.

There were quite a lot of rereads this year, because I was spending too much money for new books and also because I like reading good books a second time.

My favourites of 2018 were:

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
The Winston Brothers Series by Penny Reid
Every Note Played by Lisa Genova
Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
Whisper Me This by Kerry Anne King
Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
Allie and Bea by Katherine Ryan Hyde
All We Ever Wanted by Emily Griffin
Burry Your Dead by Louise Penny
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

I loved diving into different lives, travelling along with interesting people and falling in love with handsome strangers ;-)

Beautiful fall

Life's been very busy the last few weeks. Ever since school started I had a lot of parent teacher meetings and I'm in the middle of the teacher evaluation we have every four years, which means a few visits in the class room and quite a lot of nerve racking while preparing the perfect lesson that will also work ;-)

So I was very happy to get an extra free day today. All our students were off to have a look at a profession, most went with either their mother or their father, but there were also other possibilites to spend this Zukunftstag (future day). This gave us a whole day of freedom.

I decided to go for a walk through the woods before heading to school (there is always enough stuff to be done even without students) It was such a great way to spend a bit of time, the colours were amazing and the sun was out. There were quite a few other walkers, mostly older people with dogs. I wished I could do that more often...

Massa Lubrense - Sorrento Coast

After the two nights in Naples we took the ferry to Sorrento. We only spent 45 minutes on the water and sadly there wasn't any space outdoors but it was still fun to see Naples disappear behind us.

In Sorrento we took the local bus, got off it too early so we had to walk along the coast with our suitcases for about 30 minutes (we could have waited for the next bus, but that didn't seem interesting enough. Still we were very happy to see our hotel for the next few days, it was quite hot and also the location was amazing.

From our room we could enjoy the sea and the view to Capri all day long and in the evenings we watched these stunning sunsets. We also went swimming in the pool and just relaxed. I tried to hike but I guess it's not an Italian concept, people in their cars were looking rather puzzled when they tried not to run me down while I was walking along the road.

On our last day at the coast we booked a boat trip to the Amalfi Coast. The guy at reception told us to go for the more expensive but also more exclusive prestige tour and he was so right. We spent the day on this small yacht with five Canadians, one guy from Belgium and one from Spain together with two Italian captains/tour guide and it was the best day of the whole trip.

 In the beginning I was a bit scared that I'd get seasick because the sea was quite rough and we also got really wet, but it was ok. We had a break in Amalfi and another one a bit later in Positano. Both of these places are very cute, steeply built into the rocks but also very touristy and busy. It was nice to visit but frankly the best part was to hop back on our small, private boat and drive off again.

We also had the chance to go swimming twice and the sea was so refreshing and just before we got back we had a final break for a home made limoncello. Yannick didn't actually realize that the limoncello is actually an aperitivo but he had fun drinking it anways. These four days next to the sea felt like the best way to spend a few days and I am super glad we went to the lovely Delfino hotel.

Naples

Quite spontaneously I decided that I didn't want to spend my sick leave on the sofa (I had to have an operation before the fall holidays and luckily everything went well and I feel fine) Instead I checked out airports that are within a two hour radius, in a place I'd never been before and with an affordable flight. I stumbled upon Naples and it didn't take long to make up my mind and book two flights.

We splurged on front row seats which gave us speedy boarding (I felt so weird boarding first) and quite a bit of leg room. After less than two hours we touched down in Italy (fortunately we didn't actually fly to Nepal which is what Yannick was expecting - I have no idea what they teach those kids in Geography ;-)

We were picked up by our B&B hostess at the airport and learnt right away that traffic rules are for tourists. In Naples nobody follows them, nobody don't wear seat belts, traffic lights are mostly ignored, you just have to dive into the middle of the cars to cross the street and it's totally common for four people to be on the same tiny vespa, everybody without helmets.

I found getting around quite tiring but also very interesting. The contrast between the run down houses, the badly kept up streets, the garbage and on the other hand all these amazing super old buildings was stunning.

It was also much warmer than I expected, it felt like another bit of summer with high temperatures up to 30 degrees. We took it slowly and had lots of down time in your B&B room and quite a few coffees and ice creams in between.

We stayed for two nights in Naples, then we left for four nights the Sorrento Coast and came back afterwards for one more day in Naples because our flight back left super early the next day. I am so glad that I felt confident enough to go away, it was so worth it.

Tschiertschen for a day

Shortly after the summer holidays were over, I managed to go to the mountains for a day. I was happy to spend time with Eveline, who I'd met it Formentera in Spring, to enjoy the light and the air of the alps and to just be outside for a few hours.

Canada

At the end of July up to the beginning of August Antonia and I spent 19 days on the road in Canada. We started in Montreal, drove north - west into the wilderness, came down along Manitoulin Island, did a detour to Niagara Falls and ended our road trip in Toronto. We had an amazing time with so many impressions. Here are just a few of them:

Montreal - inside Notre Dame

Montreal  - on Mont Royal

Dressing up at Upper Canada Village

Gananoque - our guest house

Gananoque - Thousand Islands Boat Tour

Algonquin Highlands - Little Hawk Lake

Grand Tappattoo - Otter Lake

using the free canoes

 Manitoulin Island - Manitowaning Harbour

 Manitoulin Island  - Cup and Saucer Trail

 Christine -  best new person of this trip!

Owen Sound

Niagara Falls

 view from our flat in Toronto

 flying drones with Lukas and Melissa

 Toronto from the distance

too soon we had to go back home