October was a beautiful, warm month here during which we went for many kayak trips near our house, finding tucked away coves that surprisingly were empty and perfect for a rest and a swim, and hiking trips both close by and within a day’s drive or so on Sardegna. One of our hiking trips was a sort of pilgrimage to several Nuraghic sites around the village of Arzachena. These are bronze-age tombs and watch towers that are built of large rocks in odd formations. Some of them are well marked and include information on when they were built (over 4000 years ago!) and the significance of the structure and some you see unmarked along the side of the
road. On adventures further from home, we took a day trip to Bonafaccio, Corsica with a few friends from here, enjoying a beautiful ferry ride on the way over and clear views of the layered limestone rocky cliffs that plunge down into the sea from the walled city above. We can see these on a clear day from our porch, but seeing them up close was quite dramatic. Excited by the prospect of some French food, the focus of the day was lunch, which lasted a bit longer than we’d anticipated. It was nearly 4 hours from start to finish not because we were delighting over the much-sought-after food, but because the service was geologically slow. But, the view from the restaurant made it mostly worthwhile.
Later in the month, I started teaching a quite large and varied class of Navy personnel and dependents – 23 students ranging in age from 20-45 or so. It was quite an experience and seemed a bit like a whirlwind now that I look back at it. The students all worked very hard and everyone passed, though there were a few close calls. The lab was the most fun, as we took field trips nearly every session – one to the water treatment plant on Santo Stefano, one to Caprera for a walk with a guide from the Parco Nazionale dell' Archipelago di La Maddalena, and one to the Centro Ricerca Delfines to see the dolphin research they do here. It was a great way to connect with local organizations and for me to meet fellow nature nerds.In November, the evenings started to cool down a bit, though the days were still warm enough for many afternoon plunges. On these cool nights, we discovered that our condo is definitely not designed for the winter – no central heating and chilly tile floors throughout. This required a prompt field trip to a woodlot to supply our fire place and the procuring of a bombola, a propane heater, from friends of ours who had a spare. On the chilly nights, we sit in front of the fireplace or bombola and drink lots of tea with our Manny-heater curled up with us (though he is a bit of a bombola hog). I forgot to mention that firewood is a precious commodity here, as there aren’t too many trees, so we were lucky enough to get a tip from a friend on where to go without going completely broke.
As my biology class required several Saturday labs, some of our weekend trips were curtailed, though the field trip portions of the labs were adventures in themselves.
The big trip of November was to Spain and Portugal for Thanksgiving week. We started out by visiting friends of ours from the Navy in San Diego who are now stationed in Rota, Spain. They pointed us in the direction of good day 
trips including one to Gibraltar, where we took the cable car to the top of the rock (where a Barbary ape hopped on Chad’s back and pulled my sweater out of his backpack) and ate Moroccan food for lunch while watching cars drive by on the left side of the road past English-style pubs. If we had had more time there, we would have considered taking the ferry to Africa, just across the straits. We spent another day in one of the Pueblo Blancos (white villages) called Arcos de la Frontera – a picturesque town with winding streets of white stucco buildings adorned with flower pots of bright geraniums above cobblestone pavement. And, we had to go sherry tasting in Jerez (the namesake of "sherry"), 
touring the Tio Pepe winery and doing a sadly limited tasting afterwards. The next day, we left for Portugal, spending two days in Lisbon walking the streets and looking at the beautiful tiled facades of the old buildings, 
eating wonderful seafood including fried sardines and fish stew, visiting an 11th century castle atop the city, and listening to fado, the local music of passionate, melodic singing with guitar accompaniment. From there, we drove out of the city to Estremos, a small town with yet another castle – this one was our hotel. We arrived on a blustery day of howling winds and rain and took refuge inside the castle while we watched the storm. We climbed the castle tower and poked our heads outside only to be rewarded with vertical hair, causing us to retreat to the large living room to play games and drink the local Port while sitting in overstuffed, plush chairs. 
The meals there were fantastic – more seafood, much to my delight, and a delicious breakfast spread, both of which were in the grand dining room. In the morning, we went to the market in Estremos where we felt like brightly colored giants next to the little old women dressed in traditional black, hooded dresses. We 
bought some wonderful cheese for the roadtrip back and pottery for Christmas presents, though we were tempted by the hanging pigeons and rabbits that people were purchasing for supper. We thought our adventures were done, but we had quite an experience on our way back to Spain when we stopped at what looked like a dark little bar to get a bite to eat. We still aren’t quite sure how it happened, but soon we were drinking wine that one of the locals had bought us and sampling little roasted pigs (with the heads still on). A plate of cheese and bread followed as well as more roasted meats, followed by some sort of candied fruit, more wine, and then something that tasted a bit like grappa. As we were walking out the door, we were chased down by our new friends and spoon fed a sort of roasted nut mixture, one by one, despite our protests of being too full. And, once we were all in the car and ready to leave, a young boy from the bar ran out with earthenware pitchers for us that bore the name of the town. Needless to say, we got a bit behind schedule and were happy to arrive in Jerez just barely in time to catch our flight home.On to December – the month of parties. Living in Sardegna where there isn’t too much going on in the winter, the thing to do is to have parties. It started off with the Navy’s Christmas party, which was followed by a annual 12 Bars of Christmas pub crawl through La Maddalena (limited by the fact that there are only 12 bars to crawl to). Having survived that, we decided to host our own Christmas party here, mostly as an excuse to make fish chowder and wassail and have a Yankee swap. It was an appropriately chilly night for a fire in the fireplace and lots of toasty food and grog. Then, Christmas Eve brought another party, an all day festival of eating with friends on La Maddalena, lasting from 1pm until at least 9pm that night. We started with antipasti of all sorts and mulled wine, followed by a main course of beef roast and Yorkshire pudding, and finally chocolate mouse, pecan pie, and Mirto as our digestivo. This was good preparation for the Christmas day feast that we were invited to attend at our landlord’s house.
It is hard to describe the warmth of the scene at Andrea and Piera's house. We
arrived to find nearly twenty of their extended family members all gathered in the taverna of their house, a special room with its own fireplace and kitchen and a very long table for big gatherings. We were introduced to and kissed by everyone there and then thoughtfully seated next to those that spoke a bit of English (though we had brought our dictionary just in case). The table was filled with an array of antipasti delights from insalate di mare, smoked salmon, prosciutto, homemade bread shaped like flowers
(this was amazing), tuna and fagioli (white bean) salad, bottarga (fish eggs), grilled zucchini and eggplant, and many more dishes that I can’t remember. This was just the beginning. We weren’t sure how much more was coming and people kept serving us more. Then came Zuppa Gallurese, a wonderful warm baked dish of layered bread, Pecorino cheese, and meat broth. This was meal number two, which was followed by a palate cleanser of fresh fennel. Then came the roast animals – first porcheddu (suckling pig roasted with myrtle branches), capretto (goat), and agnello (lamb). We had to sample all of these as well. This was all accompanied by wine made by Andrea’s son and father. Then, the deserts began – first lemon sorbetto, then warm slices of fresh pineapple with cherries, cannoli made by 
Piera’s mother and tiramisu made by Andrea’s son’s fiancé. The desserts were accompanied by spumante - also homemade by Andrea’s father, and followed by grappa made by Andrea. We didn't move from our seats for over four hours! We were itching to get back home to open our presents, still sitting under the tree in our window. Although rounds of café started to come out as we were leaving, we said "basta" and made our way home. We came home to delightful gifts from near and far and some representations of gifts from afar that didn’t make it in the mail in time, which we opened in front of the fire, 
before beginning the series of many phone calls to friends and family to wish them a Merry Christmas.And now, it is January, and the beginning of a new year. Sadly, this will be our only full year spent in Sardegna. We celebrated Capo d'Anno by serving steaks and lobsters at the base to American sailors and their families. It was a festive event and much merriment was made by all the volunteers. I was particularly excited for the lobster and made sure to sample plenty of it, though it was the spiny kind, not my favorite Maine lobster. We left the festivities there to ostensibly catch the 11pm ferry home to celebrate midnight at home, but the ferry employees were apparently having their own festivities and had decided to take the evening off.
Huddled against the wind on the side of the Biglieteria for the ferry with a bottle of champagne and plastic cups, we watched the fireworks around La Maddalena (some right in front of us in the parking lot) and toasted in 2007 before catching the ferry at the stroke of midnight. Thus far, 2007 has brought howling winds, but beautiful clouds and sunsets as well – we even caught a moonset the other morning during the full moon. We look forward to many adventures this year and hope for many visitors as well.
