Who we are

We are Anna and Pascal, an Italian-Swiss couple ready to leave Europe for a while. We are both geoscientists and met at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology - ETH Zurich, where we both recently completed a PhD. Anna focuses on the transport of sediment in alpine rivers, Pascal investigates debris-covered glaciers. Also if you are not interested in what river bring transport or you never saw a glacier: in this blog you will find nice pictures and hopefully interesting information on these topics and other amazing places.

Where we come from

Anna comes from Rotzo, a nice mountain village located on an elevated plain in northeastern Italy, Veneto Region. The only little city close by is called Asiago, famous as a recreation area for summer and winter sports and for its special cheeses, like “tosela”. It might be because it is made with milk from local farmers, including Anna’s uncles Marilla and Antonio, or because we had it on our first date, but we really love it!

Thanks to the support of Anna’s parents, Santina and Fiorenzo, we have a really cute place to stay in Rotzo for our holidays and family-visiting. During our stay abroad, the house, called “Casa Pekar”, is available for hosting guests, check it out if you plan a vacation in beautiful Rotzo! It is an old house that Anna’s dad renovated himself. Although it has always been only a hobby for him, Fiorenzo really has impressive building skills. He recently restored the facade of an old building indicating the elevation of the village … we found it so cool that we took a picture in front of it on a memorable day!

Pascal grew up in Rutschwil, a small village close to the city of Winterthur in northeastern Switzerland. The pretty landscape surrounding it is characterised by agricultural areas, forests - and other villages like this one. Rutschwil is embedded in smooth hills shaped by past ice age glaciers. In the transition time from Zurich to our new destination, we were lucky (and happy) enough to spend the entire spring 2018 in the house of Pascal’s parents in Rutschwil. It’s an old farm house in the middle of the village. Nelly and Willi maintain it in such a nice and cozy way that we felt extremely comfortable there!

Where we move to

Supported by the Swiss National Research Foundation (SNF), Pascal has the opportunity to work for a couple of years on Alaskan glaciers at the University of Alaska. And Anna too! Therefore, we are soon moving to Fairbanks, Alaska!!!

Lots of questions have raised in our minds:
Will we feel too-far and lost in such a remote and big country?
Does it ever get dark in summer when sunrise follows sunset by about two hours only? Will we be able to sleep with basically 24-hours of daylight? And will we maintain a good mood with only few sunlight hours in winter?
Does it really get to -40°C? How is actually living at -40°C? Are we really going to wear those pairs of shorts that we are planning to pack? Are there really so many mosquitos in summer?
And what about bears? Will we hang around with bear-spray always ready in our pocket? Or will we ever see one of them?

With this blog we want to fill the white space on our imaginary map and try to get to the bottom of these questions in the coming months. You are warmly invited to follow us on our little adventures by reading our very-irregularily published blog posts.