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Last Thursday we visited Stonehenge. It was very interesting to see, but we were a bit disappointed in the size since we were expecting it would be bigger than it actually was. 
The day was rather cloudy, cool and windy. Ok we weren't expecting tropical weather, especially considering we were in England and a couple of weeks before it had snowed six inches. 
We arrived last night from our little trip up to England. It was SO nice being computer and cell phone-free for five days. Usually we're a Macintosh household but the computer technician had bought a little Acer Aspire laptop to bring along for the trip, using it as a "navigator" versus bringing along the TomTom (he discovered big mistake), check email etc. Friday he ended up downloading a virus and disabled the laptop for the rest of the trip. I told the computer technician, maybe it isn't such a bad thing, not being constantly attached to the pc 24/7.
Last night we flew into Bergamo Orio al Serio Airport on Ryanair from Liverpool. The plane was packed, mainly of supporters of Manchester United Football team. Manchester United is playing against Inter this evening in Milan. Evidently the supporters started drinking in the airport and after the seatbelt light was off on the plane, a good share made their way to the bathroom. One supporter sexually harrassed one of the flight attendants, the police where waiting for him when we landed in Italy. The entire one hour forty five minute flight consisted of the Manchester United supporters singing and talking loudly. I even tried listening to my iPod, volume full blast and still couldn't drown out their voices. I reall felt sorry for the flight attendents for what they had to put up with last night.
This week sometime I will be posting more about my trip to England along with some photos.
On a different note, I've mentioned in the past that I have tried to remove the nofollow code from my blog, but evidently my blog is still nofollow. I'm not "fluent" in HTML, could anyone help?
This is in Vigevano Italy, taken back in 2002 shortly after I moved here. Again, with my grandfather's old 35mm camera which I still have to this day. 
Don't you just love black and white photos?!?!?
I love Black & White photos. I took these photos a little over ten years ago in an old 1880's village west of Murdo South Dakota along Interstate 90 with my grandfather's old 35 mm camera. This was before digital cameras where in-style so to speak.
I have not retouched these photos in any sense, with the minor exception of putting my blog address on the photos using Adobe ImageReady and reducing the size so the photos would fit onto my blog.
I have no "formal" photography training, with the exception of when I was in high school, my junior year, I was in photography club and also some help/training from my grandfather with black & white film. Black & White photography was a passion of my grandfather. So much so he had his own little dark room in the basement to develop his photos.
I want to develop, no pun intended, this skill into a job. Would love to actually get paid to travel the globe and take photos. My experience you ask? I have plenty of personal experience traveling around various parts and of course hiding behind the camera photographing my memories.
Wednesday the computer technician and I are off to England for five days and of course at least one camera if not two will be in tow. While I'm gone and away from the blogging/internet world, enjoy the photos. I'm going to be scheduling some posts while I am gone with more photos. So check back often!
The football/soccer season in Switzerland has started up again after having a Christmas break. Sunday was the first match of 2009, AC Bellinzona played FC Sion and won 1-0. In all honesty I have really never been much into watching sports, but we started going to AC Bellinzona matches almost a year ago and enjoy going to see the matches. At the moment AC Bellinzona's website is only in Italian, I am working on the English version now almost as we speak.
As you can tell from the photos, Sunday was a nice sunny day. Was a bit windy but frankly I did not mind, was thankful for the sun, blue skies and stunning view as always from the Bellinzona community stadium.
Italian cuisine is one of the most famous, if not THE most famous cuisine in the world. Right up there with Chinese cuisine. But does this mean that here in Italy a person does not have the choice to eat dishes other than Italian?
Well, evidently authorities in Milan and Lucca are wanting to crack down on ethnic restaurants. The ethnic restaurants that are allowed to have their doors open, according th Luca Zaia, the Minister of Agriculture and also member of the political party the Northern Legauge (Lega Nord in Italian), should only use Italian ingredients according to an article in The Times Online.
Italian cuisine is not a "unified cuisine" like some may think. What you may eat at the Olive Garden is just Americanized Italian Cuisine. When in actuality the cuisine is broken down regionally, even provincially or even down to a city level. So a typical dish in Milan, like risotto for example, will be totally different compared to a typical dish from Naples.
Another thing, some things that were thought to be Italian were actually imported. For example the San Marzano tomato, the main ingridient of Italian pasta sauces, was actually imported from Peru to the Kingdom of Naples back in the 18th century. It is rumored that Marco Polo brought spaghetti to Italy from China.
What could cause Lega Nord to try such a thing? Maybe it is because Lega Nord has voiced concerns about crime and immigration. Maybe it is because of the ever increasing numbers of kebab restaurants popping up around the country along with other ethnic restaurants opening up shop. Milan has seen a 30% increase of ethnic restaurants in one year alone.
