To take a break and enjoy the beach life a little, I spent a week in Zihuatanejo, Mexico. Its a small town on the Pacific coast, about 100 miles north of Acapulco, known for its beautiful beaches. As soon as I read the name I was excited about the trip. This was the same tropical paradise that the main character escapes to at the end of one of my favorite movies, The Shawshank Redemption. The place definitely lived to my expectations. The beaches were beautiful. The weather was great. And despite the nearby international airport and the resort town of Ixtapa only a few minutes away, the town itself was not very touristy. There were plenty of nice restaurants and shops where we could soak up the local culture.

In August 2003 my family organized a trip to return to the city of my birth, St. Petersburg, Russia, which we left in 1979 when we emigrated to Canada. This trip was important for all of us as most of us had not been back to Russia in almost 24 years. This was our chance to explore the sights of the city, visit the palaces and museums, and meet with an extended family that we hadn't seen in many years.

In July 2003, me and kimi, my girlfriend at the time, took a weekend off and visited Sequoia National Park. The park is in the mountains a few hours north of LA, and is famous for its massive redwood trees. We took a hike up to a lookout point on the top of a mountain to catch the sunset. The trees were amazing. We walked and played around the forest, which made us feel very small.

In June 2003, I went on a weekend camping trip with kimi, my girlfriend at the time, and some of her family to Joshua Tree National Park. We did a few hikes over the rocks and hills of the high desert. We also took a trail to a historic abandoned mine.

The purpose of this trip was to present my paper at the Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR) 2002 in Nice, France. Before the conference I took a trip up to Avignon and spent a couple of days exploring the Palace of the Popes and the other sites in the beautiful medieval walled city. On the train ride back to Nice I stopped in Nimes for a few hours and visited some of the Roman ruins for which the city is famous. I also stopped in Marseilles for about an hour to have dinner. After the conference I took a day to explore Nice, visiting the Chateau, the Old Town, the Modern and Contemporary Art Museum, and the Archeology Museum in Cimiez.

In the summer of 2002 I traveled to Germany to attend present my work at the conference, Solid Modeling 2002. The conference lasted 3 days and was in the city of Saarbrueken, in southwestern Germany. Before and after the conference I took a several days to travel around the surrounding area, visiting Munich, Neuschwanstein castle, Luxembourg, Trier, and Hiedelberg. On the flight back I had a couple of days to stopover in London, where I visited Westminster Abbey, and Camden Gardens, and saw A Midsummer Night's Dream at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.

After our summer internship in California finished, in August 2002, me and Vince again packed the car and drove across the USA to get back to Chapel Hill, NC. On the way back we took a more southerly route across the states, visiting some amazing parks in Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado.

In the summer of 2002, me and my friend Vince Scheib drove across the United States, from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to San Diego, California, to get to our summer internship. On the way we visited many of the national parks and tourist sites in the southwestern USA. Our laptop was stolen in Vegas and we lost our pictures from the beginning of the trip. But I still have the pictures from the last part of the trip and some great memories.

Pictures of my spring break trip to the mountains in western North Carolina with Vince Scheib and Andrew Nashel. This trip was a great break from school work and a nice chance to hike around some great scenery (when it wasn't too foggy). We visited The Blue Ridge Parkway, The Biltmore Estate, Smokey Mountains National Park, and Chimney Rock Park.

On May 18th, 2000 I flew to London. Two days later began a 49 day tour of Europe that has convinced me that a life without travel is just sitting around. In just under two months I experienced history, art, culture, drinking games, a duty free meca, a movie at the Cannes Film Festival, 4 days of sailing, a Turkish WW1 tunnel, a belly dance show, a Grande Bazaar, a moch wedding, a torture museum, a Dracula party, paragliding, white water rafting, canyon jumping, a glacier, a sex show, and the chance to meet some really great people from all over the world.

This trip was again with the Canadian Dance Tapestry. We spent two weeks in Sicily at an international folk festival. It was a great chance to see performances and meet people from groups from around the world, and also get to know quite a few of the local kids. The town of Agragento is quite beatiful and has some amazing Ancient Greek temple ruins.

On this trip, the grade 11 ancient civilizations class traveled to Greece and Italy for two weeks to see the historic sites. We visited ancient ruins all over Greece, including Athens and Delphi. In Italy we saw many ancient Roman ruins in Rome and Sorrento, as well as the Renaissance art in Florence and Rome.

These are photos from a trip that I took as a member of the Canadian Dance Tapestry. We traveled to France for a month to represent Canada at two international folk festivals. The festivals each took a week and provided a great chance to meet groups from all over the world. Between the festivals we toured the country for two weeks, performing in small towns, billeting with french families, and visiting tourist sites. It was an amazing time.

My immediate family consists of my father, my mother, my younger brother, and our cat. Even though I live far from home, I try to keep in touch with them all as much as possible, with regular phone calls, and a trip home every year for the holidays.

Baby pictures taken of me when I was still back in Russia. I was 2 years old and so you'll have to ask my parents what in the world I was wearing.

Recently, my grandfather scanned and sent me some amazing old pictures of our family members. Some of these images are almost a century old. Its very exciting for me to see this tangible connection to my past.