"No ham today"

It's almost like the song, except that the song was about milk and that my love hasn't gone away... So, actually it's not like the song... At all! But, whatever, the main thing is, there wasn't any ham. Do you have any idea what I'm talking about? No? I wonder why...

Last Sunday, we went on a trip to Parma, because on Sundays you have to take a trip. Seriously, it's like a rule, you don't stay indoors or in Milan on Sundays. You take your family, stuff them in your car or a train, drive out into la campagna (the country) or la montagna (the mountains) and enjoy a lovely day in the sun, the rain or the snow, as long you're away from Milan's polluted air. As we are desperately trying to blend in with the natives of this region, 'when in Milan, do as the Milanese', as Olaf is wont to say, we decided to join this weekly exodus and visited Parma.

Parma is gorgeous. It's so very sweet and very 'coogie, coogie, coo!'. Needless to say we both fell in love with it immediately and are planning to buy a house there once we retire. Here are some pictures.



Although Parma is a city famous for its prosciutto (parmaham) and its parmigiano (Parmesan cheese), we didn't eat any. I did have a lovely pasta with asparagus for lunch and I begged and begged and begged Olaf to spend the day eating and just eating, but he wouldn't let me. As a result I didn't have any prosciutto di parma or parmigiano in Parma. But I'll survive...

We also had another little breakthrough there, I think. Although Olaf is vehemently against us having pets and usually can't be reasoned with on this subject, we philosophized a lot about our future life including a hypothetical dog called Poes (just for the fun of it), Bello (to spike the Italians) or Lola ('Her name was Lola, she was a showdog'). He especially liked the name Lola, so who knows, we may have a dog after all... ;-)

Ciao, Fe