History
We really enjoyed a side trip for a few days exploring Seville, during our Costa del Sol snowbird escape to Spain. My main association was the vibrant and expressive Flamenco dance (video below) which emerged from this Andalusian region incorporating a blend of Gypsy, Moorish (Arabic), and Spanish cultural influences. We learned its deep cultural, architectural, and arts […]
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This is a detailed article about part of our 7-day trip to Morocco. During our time in Marrakesh we visited the market place, a Palace and a Mansion Riad. The Marrakesh market place (souk) is a super sized version of the more normal sized shopping markets in many of the Moroccan cities. The medina (old […]
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This delightful “blue” mountain town in Morocco decided to make their town stand out from all the other white towns, by encouraging their residents to use light shades of blue. Each owner adds their own embellishments to help make theirs stand out in the blue town. Chefchaouen is about 2 hours from Tangier, which is […]
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We enjoyed exploring the charming white washed town of Mijas (pronounced Mee-haas) that was up the mountain, behind where we are staying in Fuengirola, Spain during our Snowbird escape from Canadian winter. It has a maze of winding streets that are reminiscent of Venice. The lowly donkey is a historical symbol of pride for the […]
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This old Castle (el Castillo Sohail) dates back to before 1000 CE is located in Fuengirola, which is the town we are snow-birding in for a few months. Its not as fancy as some of the other castles in Spain, because the ruins are older, but the protective walls are impressive to picture in an […]
Continue ReadingMy old vintage Electronics Hobby Photos In the mid 1970’s, during my teen years, my interest in electronics resulted in my building of a totally “home brew” computer. It was based around the RCA 1802 microprocessor. I started with a basic circuit diagram as published in “Popular Electronics” magazine, who referred to it as the […]
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The popular TV series “The Last Kingdom” tells the story of a Viking ancestor in the UK during the 1000 AD era. The real life “Uhtred of Bamburgh” turns out to be an ancestor of the Canadian van Nostrands, back 29 generations ago! The TV series is historical based fiction, so it tells a somewhat […]
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I was amazed to discover a chain of Royal ancestors in my distant family history from 34 generations ago (1000 CE). The current “internet based” genealogy uses a SINGLE really big family tree which allows the work of many families to co-exist and be combined in a natural way, which is documented and supported by […]
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My DNA ancestry test revealed that many of the people who consider their ancestry to be in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and coastal Spain, actually originated from the Persian Plateau area of the Middle East, about 25,000 years ago! This northward migration happened as the Ice Age was receding and plants and animals were being […]
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Dutch ancestry originating from Denmark, to New York, to Ontario, and Nova Scotia. The north American family name vanNostrand, originated from 1638. Two Dutch brothers emigrated from Nordstrand Island, Denmark in 1638, present day Germany. The name has been spelled in various forms since then, including: van Nostrand, van Nordstrandt, Van Norstrande or Van Nostrande, […]
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