highest peak on Ischgl This winter (of 2014) we did our annual big Alpine ski trip to Ischgl in Austria from Feb-15 to Feb-22. In Finland the schools have a winter vacation week, and in Southern Finland it is always the week number 8, the last week of February, so that is the best opportunity to make a trip like this with children. 

This year we flew to München on Saturday Feb-15, and drove to Ischgl over the Bavarian mountains via Garmisch-Partenkirhcen then over the Inn valley and up the Patznauer valley to the village of Ischgl. We had a rented Mercedes Vito, which is just big enough for our family of six. At Ischgl we had rented an apartment with 3 bedrooms and kitchen from the house of Alp Bella. We had six days of skiing at the resort. We had two sunny days, two days with quite heavy snow and then two cloudy days. When we arrived, there was not that much snow, but during our stay the many snowfalls improved the situation a lot, and there was plenty of anckle deep power snow available. The resorts was very nice and it was a good holiday. On Saturday Feb-22 we drove back to München and flew back home.

Click here to see all the pictures from the trip. 

My daughter Camilla had today her high school "prom". In Finland this traditional event is actually literally translated to English as "The Old Ones' dance", and it is held in middle of the second year of high school end of February. This is unlike in USA, where the prom dance is held at the end of the high school. In Finland the last year students (seniors, who are called Abi's, short for Abiturients) leave school at the end of February, and therefore the second year students then become the oldest class and seniors in school, and therefore there is a good cause to celebrate this major event by performing a ballroom dance event for the parents and then for the entire school. The girls spend a great deal of effort to find a perfect dress for the event, and also boys have to dress formally. A large number of traditional dances are rehearsed and performed at the event. 

Here are pictures I took from the event.

There was a fire at my scuba club's premises. Unfortunately, a great deal of my scuba equipment happened to be there, drying after my last dive. The fire caused a great deal of damage to the equipment.

Here is a link to a longer story about it, but in Finnish language.

Below a gallery of pictures about cleaning the equipment: