Well, I can only say that don’t even think of going there if you want to avoid the crowds. I’ve never seen so many people on the pistes, and most of them didn’t seem to know even the basic rules of skiing. Pistes were very dangerous because of so many careless skiers. This year there was not much snow so I couldn’t go so much off-piste. The village is nice but they really have to deal with the people problem. Before they do that, I’ll just go somewhere else.

But it’s never easy – not even with Ubuntu. I tried to configure ING Home’Bank application to access my bank account, and after a couple of hours I was ready to give up, until I found out other people had problems with it too. The good thing is that the community is always there to share the problems and to help.

I also bought a new camera, Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18, and an mp3 player, Cowon iAudio7. I’m very happy with both of them: if you need an easy to carry SLR-like bridge camera (with 18 times optical zoom!) that takes good photos, this is what you need. As for the mp3 player, an 8 Gb iAudio7 is cheaper than iPod Nano, and it supports the file formats I need (namely OGG, FLAC, and mp3, of course).

In fact, it’s much more relaxing to take photos and listen to music than writing to blog (this is my third post this year) ;-)

The photos are from Chamonix Mont-Blanc, France (indescribable), North Karelia region in Eastern Finland (one of my favourite places in Finland) and Barcelona and its surroundings. Barcelona — the city of Antoni Gaudí­ i Cornet — is an amazing place, with the Eixample district designed with a strict grid pattern, cut by wide avenues diagonally. Surrounding small towns and beaches are nice too, especially Sitges, Castelldefels and Ocata.

See photos by tags: Chamonix, Finland, Barcelona

That’s all for now. I’m thinking of buying a new camera, but I’m not yet sure which one — Canon G9? Having a new toy might even encourage me to teach myself the basics of digital photography. If only I had the time!

This weekend I went through most of my old photos (mostly from holidays) taken during the last 2–3 years (all taken with a Sony DSC-W1 digital camera). I selected some 100 shots that I liked the most, and started uploading them. Feel free to go and see for yourself!

Photo sets (Riviera, Gothenburg, Helsingborg)

By tags (Belgium, Berlin, Paris)

More photos to come

Over the next coming days, I’ll upload some more photos. Take a look at the thumbnails below; these photos are taken in Barcelona, Chamonix and Finland.