I’m back and finally I found the chance to put myself here to update the blog a little.
This week has been quite not interesting, due to the weather and to the fact that my team and I took a week of vacation from the school project, I have not done much.

In fact lately here in Göteborg it has been raining and, sometimes, snowing quite a lot. With the omnipresent wind helping out, going out, even to just catch a bus, is a though adventure.
About me: I am quite good physically, even if emotionally is a whole another story.

Last week I finally started searching for information about a trip I’ve longed to plan and, of course, to do: go to see the Northern Lights (For whom who are not aware of them, or simply do not know what they are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(astronomy)). They are also called Aurora, and since we are in the northern hemisphere they are called ‘Aurora Borealis’ (from Greek).

Aurora Borealis

When I still was in Canada I was planning to see them in Alaska, but due to the circumstances I did not manage to perform such trip.
Now that I have a new chance, I will try to not miss it, even though it appears to be harder than expected.
In fact even if to see them it is not necessary to go to another country, the place which is highly suggested: Porjus (in Jokkmokk), is some 22 hours away (by train). While by plane they are merely 1-2 hours, but still a quite long trip considering that I won’t leave Sweden.
The price for both the plane and the train tickets are quite high, remembering the fact that I am a jobless student, therefore accurate planning is very much needed.

I am also reading and trying to learn as much as possible about how to shoot the Northern Lights properly and in a good way as well as ways to protect the camera from the low temperatures.
Sadly all my equipment is back home and I did not have the chance to get it yet, so it would be quite hard anyway.

Even if for this year I would not be able to go there myself, I found an interesting website: http://uk.jokkmokk.jp/
It is a great website: some people places several cameras around Porjus (apparently indoor in front of a window facing a quite large field or anyway having a nice vista of the sky) and their pictures are uploaded and updated hourly. There is also an archive of all the past pictures they shoot.
It is also possible to watch the video (the same pictures in sequence) to see the change of the sky.

Even though sometimes the pictures are quite bad (since the cameras are indoor sometimes the reflection of the window does not allow to see the sky, but instead you can clearly see what there is inside the room; and another issue, this time not their fault, since the camera is pointing outside, there might be some cars passing by at the exact same time when the picture is taken, so the front-light of the car might bother and ruin an otherwise great picture). I noticed that, if the sky is not covered (which lately sadly is a quite common event), to see the Northern Lights is quite easy. They usually appear in all their beauty around 01:00AM and they end at 04:00AM.

Aurora Borealis 24th October 2011 in Porjus

If you have the time, take a look it is totally worth it!
Luckily I will manage to plan a proper trip and find an easy and cheap way to get there; even if the train idea was very appealing (seeing the whole country by train, its forests and countryside), spending 2 whole days just to travel there, and at then end not spending so much less, I believe it is not a quite economic option, therefore I think I will choose the quick way in order to have more time to visit the area myself.

Anyway, if anyone of you, has any sort of experience with both Northern Lights and pictures taken in rigid weathers and suggestions on how to protect the cameras effectively, please feel free to comment down here.

Extras:

Here it is the Extra section.

As usual, I am going to share a song I specifically liked in these last period and which I have been listening to while writing this post:

[Frida Kahlo - The Floating Bed]

The sounds in this song really bring me back to my happy childhood when I used to play Monkey Island. Isn’t it? It really sounds like one of the many soundtracks of that magnificent series of video games.

In this period of international instability, crisis, famine, exploitation and crimes against the humanity, I want to end this post with a quite known saying from the Native Americans (the real ones), that as it seems not everybody has fully understood (referring to the ones who think they are the owners of the world, Our world).

Only when the last tree has been cut down; Only when the last river has been poisoned; Only when the last fish has been caught; Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.

I wish you now a good evening as well as a good weekend.
And remember, if you liked it, please share it with your friends .

Peace,

Nesh

how is it going? Have you seen? I managed to write another article, this time without waiting for weeks, WOHOHOOO!
Just some news from Sweden and myself: I finally found a part-time job as web developer, just for a project now, but hopefully everything will work out fine; if so, it is very likely to become a permanent position.

Here it is getting colder, but I am still looking forward to something more; I really miss the Canadian winter. Even though I have been reassured that there will not be much snow, I have been told by many people that ‘it will get f*$%ing cold here’.
I guess I will need to wait and see it myself.

For the rest, I have been working on a school project lately and with some work I am on my way to accomplish my task.

Oh, right! I was forgetting, next week there will be the first meeting of the photography group I am going to join, and on the 25th of November I will, if everything stays like this, going to take pictures of an event for a magazine! Yay!
I have been lazy lately, concerning photography in an artistic way, so I am looking forward to have a place and thus a determined period of the week for focusing on this. And also having the chance to take pictures for a magazine will give me, first of all, experience in people photography.
Yesterday, there has been the Halloween Party at Chalmers (the other University in Göteborg). The party itself was alright but the people made it great.

You perhaps might be wondering about my costume, well… My first plan was to make (sew and so on) my own Super Mario costume (yeah I know, you might be thinking: ‘what’s cool about that’, but I liked the idea to be the only Super Mario to be able to say ‘Mamma mia’ with the right accent ), but due to problems during the way (mostly because the result of the hat did not satisfied me), I opted for the easy and quick way: the  ’undead/zombie/vampire/whatever costume’. It came out nicer that I thought, thanks to a friend who made my make-up last-minute. Taaack again!  [Tack in Swedish means 'Thanks', Ed.]
I will conclude this short and pictureless with the now usual Extra section.

Extras:

This video is a live performance of Jake Newton’s “Terrible Dream”.
I have discovered him quite randomly on the website ‘pledgemusic.com’ and after having listened to some of his tracks I was convinced he was someone to support, and so I did, I pledged and helped him to make his record. [In which he succeeded, for more info: http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/jakenewton-lets-make-a-record]

I like this song for its simplicity and the whole picture created by the lyrics.
I really like how J.N. describes what he feels for the partner while he is in the world of the dreams; a place where, supposedly, only the pure essence of the self comes out of the armor and says what he really believes. In fact, there are many statements that can be considered somehow ‘extreme’ (“Without your love the world is void of everything”) and sometimes such feelings can be expressed just in our own dreams.

And the song ends in a gloomy and bitter finale where he just woke up next to, we can assume, her and she is, indeed, not aware of what just happened and gives only an apparently cold comment about him talking during his sleep. I used the word gloomy and bitter because I can imagine that probably he will not (or cannot) completely tell his dream and therefore she will never know.

This week I have had the chance to see a very interesting interview of Tiziano Terzani, an Italian author and journalist.
I liked a sentence he said; here it is, of course the translated version: “There is a nice word in Italian, that suits more than the word ‘happy’, and it is accontentarsi (to able to be content). Only a man who is content of what he has can truly be happy. Because this system founded on the pursuit of a desire: that there is always a desire that for you is unreachable, makes everybody unhappy”.

After seeing that short video, I am going to watch the full version of the interview, this man seems very interesting.
For more information about his life:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiziano_Terzani
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiziano_Terzani

This is it for now,
hoping to see you soon.

Peace,

Nesh

how are you keeping?
Finally I found some time and will to start writing again. I have been quite busy, mostly because of the university (which involves parties of course), but also quite lazy. My laziness increased when I noticed that all the links to my pictures, I published on the blog, were broken…
Today I was ready to upload them all again (this time on flickr), but I gladly found out that they were *magically* back. Nevertheless I wanted to back them up, and so I did.

Well, I shall talk about Sweden.
Right now I live in Sweden and more precisely in Göteborg.

For those who do not know where it is, here is the map:

I am attending an IT bachelor degree at the Goteborgs Universitet.

Lately I have stayed mainly in the city, but last week I went to Ireland to meet a friend I really missed.

I have found an accommodation and maybe soon a job as well.
I am looking forward to start working on the photography group of the university, I have not been practicing a lot lately. But I have many projects I want to attempt.

This post does not contain as many interesting pictures as the others, but I wanted to catch up with what happened so far.

As usual I will end the post with a nice song I have found out lately, no aphorism today  :

[ Björn Olsson - Låt i H moll]

I found this song in a funny video and it got stuck in my head for its apparent simpleness. The author is ‘Björn Olsson’, he is Swedish and from Goteborg!
Check him out, you wont regret it: http://www.bjornolssonmusic.com/

Peace,

Nesh

PS. I sadly noticed all my picture thumbnails have disappeared… I’ll upload them on flickr and update the links, so for the moment just hold on!

on this solitary sunny day I am going to add a new location to my experiences and travels around Ireland.
Today Galway is the destination.

The City of Galway (or Cathair na Gaillimhe in Irish), located in County Galway, is a very active and gorgeous city on the west coast of Ireland.
Some friends, also colleagues, and me were long planning to go there for having some fun as well as visiting the city; we ended up going for St.Paddy’s weekend and my birthday.

We, my friends Chris, Cedric and me, left straight after work and took a bus which brought us to Galway.
After a quick stop to the hostel, a quite nice hostel located almost in the city center, we headed to the High Street at the King Head’s pub. There we had a drink and met a friend of Chris and Cedric, Ciara; she joined us for the night as well as for the weekend.

[The aforementioned pub, picture taken the day after, of course]

After that pub I can’t remember any other name of pub or else; after some pubs we went to a club and had some fun there, touching bold people’s heads (who was there knows ).

The day after, when the three of us woke up, we went out for getting some food and for going around the city a while, before meeting up with Ciara and, later on, with her roomie.

[Going to the city center]

Galway is also famous for its beaches; they would be great if there was a different weather. As you could have noticed from the previous picture, the weather was cloudy (what a news ).

[The 'Latin Quartier']

These two days have been amazing, spend some nice time in Galway with two very good friends and met a new one. This weekend helped me a lot to go through the bad birthday ‘party’ I had and I also want to thank them for this. Thaaaaankss .

I will definitely go back and hopefully find a good weather this time .

I know, I have not written much, the next time I will describe it better; the reason is that we did not visit the city that much, so I want to keep it for the next time.

Extras:

Lately I have been listening to this track and it caught me for its melody and lyrics.

[Black - Water on Snow]

I have been waiting for long for being able to post this video that, in my opinion, is incredible: its composition, how it has been shot and the project itself.
For whom does not know it, it is called 50people 1 question.
Many people and crews made similar or followed the same project: basically taking a city and asking to 50 random people a single question which can go from ‘What is your one dream’ to something more personal and sometimes hard to share like ‘What is your biggest regret?’ (question asked in this version shot in Galway).
The project is mostly born for showing how people react to such questions as well as how they answer (if they do). From the several footages that can be found on the net, it is easy to spot a vein of surprise and shyness when people have to answer in front of their friends or partners; while people by themselves seems to be more open and sincere (of course I am only talking about those people who are kept on the release version).

The video below (with all the others that can be found on youtube, for instance) can be watched just for having a good time but it could also help many people to think, asking themselves the same question sincerely and with the same sincerity give an answer.

[Link to the Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/50people1question ]

And I want to end with an aphorism plus another one, which it makes 2 aphorisms:

“Sometimes I wonder why birds always choose to stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere in the world, then I ask myself the same question.”

And the ‘another one’:

“The lover is a monotheist who knows that other people worship different gods but cannot himself imagine that there could be other gods. “

~Theodor Reik, Of Love and Lust, 1957
I wish you had a nice time reading this last article, I invite you to read all the previous ones (if you had not done it yet) whenever you feel like.

I wish you a wonderful day and may tomorrow be the begin of an even better new part of your lives.

Peace,
Nesh

once again back to tell and show bits of the places I visit.
Today’s destination is ‘Limerick’.

Some facts from Wikipedia.org:

Limerick, in Irish ‘Luimneach‘, is the third largest city in Ireland (The republic) and the second largest city in the county of Munster (mid and southwest of Ireland).

The day I planned to visit Limerick I felt sick, a painful headache and cold, but, as I had already bought the bus tickets, I was almost forced to go there anyway.

For this post I mostly tell the trip using the pictures I have taken as not much really happened, also maybe because of my temporary impaired health conditions.

[St. John's Cathedral]

In Limerick there is a place where many people come to buy and sell local products, the ‘Milk Market’. It was a nice place, there many interesting goods (mostly food) as well as people performing for some spare change.

[Invisible Man in 'The Drummer']
(Yes he is invisible)

From the Milk Market, I then moved more into the ‘Downtown’.
Limerick to me looks a relatively small city with all the characteristics of a big one: a large number of shops, fast-food restaurants and, o’ course, pubs and clubs.

[Richard Harris' Statue. The text says: 'Peace not war'. And I say: 'He could not be more right.']

[Let's takea 'Tacsai']

The Downtown:

Walking randomly away from the center I found an interesting area of Limerick, I believe it is called the ‘Medieval area’ or something like that; on the King’s Island.

I also spotted my first Masonic building. (I might have been other of them, but this is the first time I see one after reading something about that topic)

[Sylvester O'Halloran Bridge on the River Shannon]

And a picture from just outside the downtown:

After this trip, I can without no doubts that Limerick is an interesting city but, honestly, I would live there. To me, it has way too much the feel of a chaotic city. But it can be a fun place on a weekend with some good pal.

I cannot end this post without mentioning at least once the ‘Limericks’.
For more info : Limericks.

From the same source (wikipedia.org)

There was a Young Person of Smyrna
Whose grandmother threatened to burn her;

But she seized on the cat,

and said ‘Granny, burn that!

You incongruous old woman of Smyrna!’

Extras:

As the last time, I want to also give something extra with this post and not only (hopefully) some good minutes of pictures, descriptions and stories about the place I visit.

So, I will start with a nice song I have found yesterday watching the American TV series ‘Dead Like me’.
I liked it and this I’d like to share it with you

[Metisse - Boom Boom Ba]

I also had the chance to watch/listen to a very interesting and thoughtful speech of Robert Kennedy about violence (it has Italian subtitles as there might be some Italian reader):
I am amazed by the speeches done by RK and JFK, they are so far away (mentally) from the USA known by the rest of the world that it kinda makes sense that after a while they were nothing but an annoyance for the US government.

And the post, finally, ends with a quote I find very inspiring and might help people getting out of their daily grey routine:

 Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

~Attributed to Mark Twain

I wish you a good weekend.
And bear in mind that any day is the right day for changing your own way of thinking and stepping out the ‘normality’, the same normality that kills many and many dreams every single day. Dreams do not like doing all the way by their own, you must show them you want to meet them.

Peace,
Nesh

Today, as usual, it rained for a while throughout the whole day, for this reason I found enough time to upload the last pictures from my camera and update my journey around Ireland.
In this post, as written in the title, I will be showing some pictures of Ennis, a town not far from Shannon, which is, in my honest opinion, a very beautiful town. It is very colourful  and active village.

Below you will be able to find pictures of the town as well as a video of a musician I found in the town center.

[Old Ground Hotel, on the way to the center. I loved the tree; a beautiful and huge tree]

[Another picture of the Hotel, it looked so good that I couldn't not take a picture of it]

Continues…

[Sculpture in front of a church]

[A view of a street of Ennis, as you can see: very colourful, active and traditional-looking]

[This is a speciality of Ireland: Bacon, cabbage, mashed potatoes with parsley sauce and fries. Pretty tasty.]

 [Beautiful view of the river passing through the town]

How I mentioned before, during this day, I met a musician in the streets of Ennis.
I have been mesmerized by his simple, yet powerful, music. I was walking full of thoughts when I passed by a man playing his banjo, at first I just passed by, but then I suddenly found myself smiling for the sensations I got from the notes he was playing and I felt like I had to go back and spend some of my time there; and so I did.

After a while, when he was in break, I went next to him and introduced myself and thanked him for the music, with some change, and asked him his name. It was John.

I also recorded a video, but in some parts the quality is low, both of the video and the audio. Just try to enjoy it anyway .

For more info about Ennis, I put a link on the first time I mention it.

Extras:

From now I will try to put some extra contents at the end of my posts, just for sharing them with you, Reader.

While writing this post I was listening to this song (see below). I listened it for the first time today, and I think it is a nice song. Give it a try .

Here is a very interesting video. Just watch it, it might open your eyes. Extracted from the movie ‘The Contestant’ (El concursante):

And I end with a Charlie Chaplin’s aphorism:

“I have forgiven mistakes that were indeed almost unforgivable. I’ve tried to replace people who were irreplaceable.
I’ve acted on impulse. I’ve been disappointed on other people when I never thought that could be possible. But I have also disappointed someone.I’ve embraced someone to protect them. I have laughed at inappropriate occasions. I’ve made friends that are now friends for life. I’ve loved and I’ve been loved. But I have also been rejected and I have been loved without loving the person back.I’ve screamed and jumped for joy. I’ve lived for love alone and made vows of eternal love. I’ve had my heart-broken many, many times!I’ve cried while listening to music and looking at old pictures. I’ve called someone just to hear their voice on the other side. I have fallen in love with a smile. At times, I thought I would die because I missed someone so much. At other times, I felt very afraid that I might lose someone very special (which ended up happening anyway.) But I have lived! And I still continue living everyday. I’m not just passing through life… and you shouldn’t either. Live! The best thing in life is to go ahead with all your plans and your dreams, to embrace life and to live everyday with passion, to lose and still keep the faith and to win while been grateful. All of this because the world belongs to those who dare to go after what they want. And because life is really too short to be someone insignificant.”

Charlie Chaplin

I wish you a great day as well as a great life.

Be part of your change, be your own change.

Love and peace,

Nesh

I will start then with Shannon, the place I live at the moment in.

On the 6th of January I arrived in Ireland, after the Christmas break in Italy.
Dublin welcomed me with a nice rainy day.
After having waited few hours at the airport for getting a bus going to Limerick, I finally reached Shannon with the help of the taxi hired by the company.

The first week I stayed in a B&B, very nice and comfortable.
During that week I looked for a place and luckily after only few days I found a nice apartment right in the city center, 20 mins away from the workplace by walk.
The only way to quickly show and describe the town is to show you the pictures I have taken.

So, here are some pictures. Enjoy:

[Main Street, next to the Sky Court (the Mall in the city center)]

[Here was where I stayed the first week, in the B&B]

[The river]

[The river walk]

The town is not very big, but it is enjoyable with a good weather.
Finally after 2 months of rain everyday (1-2 hours), the weather is starting to be more friendly and to be more sunny.
Looking forward to have nice parties outside and to travel even more.

For now this is it, but I will post some more pictures about the other towns I have visited .

I wish you peace-

Thanks for reading.

Nesh

I finally figured out how to view the pics on FB in the old way, so I take the good news and update once again the blog with a previous trip I did.
The word ‘trip’ is maybe incorrect, maybe pit stop would suit it better, since I stayed there half a day, but I still could see a good part of the city centre of Paris.
I basically planned to pick two flights far from each other in order to have the time to visit Paris.
I did not realize that the airport in Paris was so far from the city itself. So, I stayed something like 4 hours in total.

I expected Paris to be waaay better, you know the ‘city of love’, so romantic and wonderful. I can’t say it was ugly, but all those rumors and reviews gave me different eyes. I can say that it was pretty crowded and full of life, way more than in Rome, but I would not say it is the best city in Europe. In fact, the city centre was filled of people trying to sell souvenirs of the Eiffel Tower and France. Every 50m you could see someone with at least a hundred of these little towers.

I just leave you with some pics of the capital of France, Paris!

This is a quick post, mostly for showing Paris, not really for telling, since I walked and ran the whole time. But it was a nice day and very interesting too.

I’ll be back soon with new pictures and new places to show you.

Referring to what’s happening in our World:

“no snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible” Voltaire

I wish you peace people,

Nesh

I know I know, I am ashamed of myself… 4 months of delay… But I have been quite busy lately, but I will try to catch up and explain the reasons why it took me ages to write something again.

The third part of my holiday is located in Sweden, and it lasted 7 days, from Oct 4 to Oct 11.
I chose Sweden for many reasons: for visiting a dear friend, who lives there, visiting the country, and checking out the universities and the campuses, since one of my plans is to start studying in Sweden.

My first stop: Stockholm.

[View of Stockholm]

After landing in Nyköping and a couple of hours, I managed to reach my first destination: Stockholm.
I have been gladly impressed by the city. It is a wonderful city, well kept and the people I met were open and friendly and with an extremely good English.

[Stockholm Downtown]

I wandered around Stockholm and I first went to visit my first University, the Stockholm University, where I got some depliants and some general info about studying in Sweden. I also met a wonderful
person while going around the University, we spent only few hours together but we became quickly friends, and we still are in touch. She is a very pretty, smart and funny movie director and she studies and lives in Stockholm. She came with me around Stockholm looking for a hidden University, when we found it, it was closed :O.

[Stockholm Downtown]

I also met another girl, a Russian girl, who is a friend of some Russian friends I met in Canada; she kindly hosted me for a couple of days at her place.
In Stockholm, the day I arrived there was also a manifestation against racism, for me it was even more important, it showed me another type of culture, more open-minded and not-xenophobic, very different from the Italian situation in these last years.
In fact a racist politic party got some spots in the Parlament, and people were against that. The manifestation lasted many hours, and I followed the crowd in front of the Parliament.

And then, after a while, we reached the Parlament, and the cops where waiting for us:

[SD: The name of the racist party

After that, I went around a little bit Stockholm, and then I went to Uppsala, for visiting the city and also visiting a university.

Second stop: Uppsala.

[As the sign says: Welcome to Uppsala]

Upssala is a quite small village, the most important thing is the university, the oldest university in Sweden. Uppsala is very nice and it looks very antique.
I’ll let the pictures speak:

[The cathedral]

In that day, they were filming a movie in the center of the village “The girl with the dragon tattoo”, the streets in the downtown were blocked, but people were allowed to watch.
That day was pretty windy, but it was also sunny, this allowed me to take some good shots.

My thirds stop: Lund.

Lund I spent most of my time; there I finally met my old friend from Canada. The day after I arrived was his birthday, perfect timing
I had the chance to meet his girlfriend and go around the city. I really enjoyed the time there, we played some chess while drinking a beer (he indeed kicked my ass, he is very good at it) and then met many people around.
The only thing I can say it: I loved Lund!

In fact, I was pretty upset when, after going to the university, I found out that no English courses are available at Bachelor level. I would have liked to live in the same town as my friend.

But I have applied for other universities not far from the city, so I can easily reach him using the train, if I will be accepted into any university.

Here are some pics from the old Lund:

I didn’t take many pics of Lund, mostly because of the weather and also because I just stayed with my friend.
After Lund, before going back to the airport, I visited the last city: Vaxjo.

Last destination: Vaxjo.

Basically, I went to Vaxjo for visiting the university, and of course the city itself.
I really liked, it has 2 lakes, an active downtown, and a very interesting style. It looks both old and active. It also has a castle not far from the campus, and very nice parks. It is a very nice town.
But I let you judge from the pictures:

[I love this picture]

That’s it.
For now, this is the Sweden I have discovered. A small amount, but for a week I have been satisfied for what I learnt, saw and visited. I also met many good people and meet again my good friend.

Soon, I am going to post something about the next trip I did (Paris) and then I’ll finally start talking about Ireland (the place I am at the moment).
As I said I am ashamed for the lateness, but slowly I can catch up.

What I wish you is always peace and a lot of love, it is necessary to love in this world, where some people are trying to making it colder day after day.

“Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right” - Henry Ford

And an extra one, I find very beautiful, from Carl Sagan: ” The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it. But the way those atoms are put together”

Peace,

Nesh