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viva barcelona! day.05

by m3ntal

sigh…well day.05 wasnt the last day of the trip, but it turned out to be the last day i took pics. sorry. we had a late start as it was, sleeping in new years day. we figured most of the stores and restaurants wouldnt be open anyhoo, so we just slept til whenever we felt like getting up. when we did finally make our way outta our hotel, we continued our montjuic romp, tho by the time we started our way up to the castle the sun was already setting. so we caught a bus back down the mountain instead that took us back to the placa de catalunya. the weather was meh too, so we looked for a place to eat. many of the restaurants were closed new years day, so we ate at some spanish fast food joint…word. after we finished, jess decides to up and disappear on me. so im like…ok, thats super. i wasnt down with heading back to the hotel just yet, so i trek’d on without her. i made my way back to the placa and took some night shots, then headed down to born, wandered over to the edge of the parc de la ciutadella, caught the subway down to port olimpic, took some pics of the giant gehry pescado, then chilled out the rest of the night at this rockin’ little crepes shop underneath the fish. i have no idea what the name of the place was, but they had a double-decker bus (mightve been a british roadmaster) parked inside their shop and converted into their kitchen. coo place.

i slept late the next day again (the last day of our trip) and never even made it out the door, instead hanging around the hotel neighborhood, munching on prosciutto, chocolate pudding, and a bottle of fanta. the following day, air france mucked our flight again, we missed our connecting flight to jfk, hung around charles du gaulle airport (not the nice terminal…one of the boring terminals) for about an hour and a half, then got to catch a nice flight sandwiched between multiple sets of loud babies…and behind an especially obnoxious brat who wailed and cried like a little dickface. his dad was a dick too, keeping his seat reclined as far back as possible and occasionally resting his arms over his head onto my television monitor…you fuck. i kicked the seat a couple times as a gentle reminder for him to move his fucking arm. on the bright side, i watched crash (excellent movie!) and just like heaven (cheeeeese).

viva barcelona!
* you can check out the full set of barcelona pics on flickr.

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viva barcelona! day.04 new years eve

by m3ntal

new years eve…woot! we made pretty good use of new years eve, heading straight to montjuic in the morning to see mies van der rohe’s barcelona pavilion, the palau nacional and the museu nacional d’art de catalunya, and the font magica firing up and lit at sundown. we headed back to the hotel afterwards before catching a last minute bus back out for new years celebrations along la rambla. new years celebrations in barcelona are akin to riots…with alcohol. so yea, the d70s was left in the hotel room (i did bring my little elph tho). we looked around for new years fun after midnight, and everybody seemed to be headed to mare magnum (there were some bars and stuff on the top floor), but we couldnt bring ourselves to club it up in…ahem…a mall. yea, call it prejudices. so we had late nite foodage and headed back to the hotel afterwards…yar.

bonus | if youre curious what the font magica show looks like (its pretty nice) i recorded 30 seconds worth on my elph. so download it if you want here (17mb). yes its on its side. no i didnt feel like re-coding the video rotated clock-wise. yes im that lazy.

* you can check out the full set of barcelona pics on flickr.

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viva barcelona! day.03

by m3ntal

first a quicky journal entry…for posterity. friday was shan-mans bday celebrations at ace bar. beer, pool, and that weird buck-hunting game…wooha. and satty was din with mink and company at klong, followed by drinks and desserts at simones. nice place, tho it looks like a grandmothers closet exploded.

BARCELONA DAY.03
rewinding a week or so now back to day.03 in barcelona (december 30th)…first on our agenda was la sagrada familia in eixample. we had a bit of a spat while in la sagrada familia and ended up splitting for the rest of the day. *shrug* third day of the trip…i suppose thats better than i anticipated. anyhoo, after finishing up la sagrada and splitting, i headed over to casa mila (la pedrera). i didnt feel like waiting in line to get in, so i snapped some pics and continued on down the passeig de gracia and chilled out at the placa de catalunya, then headed to the richard meier-designed MACBA, hung around the area, checked out an MVRDV exhibit nearby, chilled out at a small cafe called c3bar, then headed back down to port vell for some night shots…woot.

* you can check out the full set of barcelona pics on flickr.

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archive | favorites, photo journal, travelogue

viva barcelona! day.00 thru day.02

by m3ntal

ah, unlike last years blister-inducing walking marathons, i had gel insoles this year. word…much less painful. first and foremost, air france sucks. massive nuts. i hate you air france. some m3ntal notes from my latest european outing…

01. spanish girls are infinitely better looking than english girls. its not even a fair fight…
02. euros are really ugly.
03. there arent that many starbucks. wow.
04. all the spanish i learned in high school was of little use. sorry ms. thayer…
05. air france sucks.

we nearly missed our connecting flight to barcelona in paris, but our luggage wasnt so lucky. so after arriving at our hotel, we were dead tired and without our stuff. scratch day one right there. day two we spent: roaming la rambla, the bari gotic, port vell, mare magnum, the old roman walls, the liceu theater, and the museu d’història de la ciutat.

* you can check out the full set of barcelona pics on flickr.

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photo journal

soktoberfest and not much else

by m3ntal

i dont think ive ever wanted to do nothing as much as i did this weekend. it was just a combination of being pooped and under the weather, and the coincidentally crappy weather that contributed to being pooped. the only time i ever left my apartment was for tiens soktoberfest ’05 saturday nite…word. socks + beer + bratwurst = something probably ungodly…but in this case just a party and good beer. it was still shitty out that night, and the G train was being particularly uncooperative, but i hadnt seen tien in a while and shannan since she moved back to nyc. i spent the rest of the weekend essentially in the same position either on my stool in front of the computer, or on my bed dual-wielding two remotes. word.

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photo journal

oot and aboot

by m3ntal

THURSDAY
thursday nite was some fancy-pants biche de bere fashion/lighting/architecture event going down in a libeskind-designed space in nj. it sounded coo, so you know…couldnt pass it up. met up with m and we headed over to the chelsea piers, where we were shuttled over to jersey via water taxi, then limo’d to the space. limo…word. the space was filled with various light installations, and the fashion show was some kind of weird. it was coo tho, even tho the dj sucked. mingled, wined, etc…and i pretended to be some kind of important photographer and got a nice spot to take shots from. wee!

FRIDAY
kev’s headed back to cleveland (rocks!), so we all headed to his apartment to wish him off. it started pretty mellow and quiet, but then got crowded fast. people who i hadnt seen since we graduated in 2001 (some on purpose, some not) showed up…and some i didnt even know were in nyc. craziness. it was coo tho, seeing everybody again. too bad its going-away events like these that we usually get together at these days. ah well…later kev. cleveland rocks!

SATURDAY
i didnt have much planned satty, and was gonna actually marinate all day. and i did too…til around midnight when i got a call from an ooooold high school friend who happened to be in town. holy crap. i hadnt seen pete since high school, so it was definitely coo to see him after like you know…a decade. we met up at the pioneer with his friends, and just caught up with the last 10 years. hes studying to be a corporate lawyer now…motherfucking sellout. jk pete, more power to ya. the pencils on your desk will be worth more than me.

SUNDAY
yea, must be a busy weekend if i even write about sunday. met up with jess and i4 in the afternoon to swing by one of the open house new york sites in e.vil, the new york city marble graveyard on 2nd and 1st. yea, thats street, followed by ave. apparently there are a series of crypts underneath the entire lot, and that the marble plaques just mark whos in that general vicinity. super. *shiver* we then crossed the street to the russian orthodox church. me and churches…we dont fly. so yea. i split afterwards and loaded up on groceries from jasmart. met up with pho and troche later for foodage at the minca ramen factory on 5th. thats some good ramen yo. we noshed, got stuffed, then walked around for a bit. i snuck back to jasmart again to grab a bag of rice too…i didnt grab one before because that shits not light.

k, wtf do i do with these pics? pics from both the nikon and dinky canon…woot.

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photo journal

wine and cheese

by m3ntal

FRIDAY
hmm, nice way to start off the weekend. a couple of us met up at discovery wines on ave A for their open house wine sampling. they had about 8 or so tables set up, each with three different bottles to sample…yum. there were also two table set up sampling special flavored vodkas…one this fruity variant and another infused with all kinds of energy and vitamin boosters. oddly enough, the energy one tasted better. its like gatorade, except alcoholic. wouldnt do any marathons after downing that shit tho.

we headed to old-school yakitori taisho afterwards for foodage. i dont think ive been to that place in years (since oh! taisho opened). good foodage, etc. we then headed down to crash mansion to see some bands scream their bloody heads off. sitting in the front row=no good.

SATURDAY
brief drinks at movida, then a party downtown. anything non-drinking, non-party related isnt much worth mentioning. most of it involves sitting in front of the television munching on snacks. sunday was no different, even tho i said id get myself out of the apartment. i know i know…but my beds so comfortable. its already feeling like fall too…woot!

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photo journal

labor day weekend

by m3ntal

is labor day weekend over already? damnit.

SATURDAY
i met up with m and crew saturday to check out the last ps.1 summer party for this year. i hadnt been to one in forever, but it was pretty coo…and the weather was stupidly nice too. after we met up with mink and her friend and chilled out in the courtyard past sunset, we headed off to woodside for some thai food at sripraphai. yea, i googled that shit. i couldnt even pronounce the name of the restaurant, let alone remember its name. everybody split after foodage, and i roamed around w.village with mink for a bit before meeting up with alice and her crew for drinkies at opus 22. the place was packed, so we grabbed a round of shots before heading to the park…where i was rejected for wearing sneakers. whatever you bitches. alice and crew headed in anyhoo, and i strolled off towards e.vil. *yawn*

SUNDAY
i marinated most of the day away, then met up with anna and crew for a bbq din at yakiniku. yum yum, havent had japanese bbq in too long. foodage, bbq, ice cream, etc…and then we were supposed to catch a movie (either brothers grimm or forty year-old virgin) except everybody pooped out before that happened. so i strolled home and ate pizza.

LABOR DAY
word, still nice out. a group of us had originally tried to plan a bbq for labor day, but all the bbq places were ass-far away, and the logistics of carting around all the bbq paraphernalia was just poop…so we decided on a picnic instead. i met up with anna, sean, and alice at the union square whole foods where we picked up bags of foodage before hopping the A all the way up to the cloisters/tryon park. we chilled out on the grass and munched on fancy-pants prosciutto and this really good cheese alice picked out. italian…something vecchio. right. i need to head up to the cloisters more often…area is too nice.

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cin3ma + television, photo journal

test shots

by m3ntal

i finally got to play with my d70s some more this weekend. sattys original bike ride was cancelled, but i met up later in the day with fish to chill in west new york/edgewater. we bummed around mitsuwa and roamed up and down the waterside. we caught starbucks and chess…won 3 games, woot. i headed back to the city and got off on christopher st to go stroll the hudson river park and squeeze off some nite shots. all in all, love the cam. still working out some of the settings, and i also found out (tho i kinda already knew) that the cam shoots nef files…so i guess ill still have to use their software. blah. for now tho, i grabbed these from the jpg previews. the pics are nothing fancy…just trying the cam out in different lights and settings. fun fun.

oh, and before i get to the pics…just wanted to shoehorn this to the end of the post, because i dont want to make a new one (which will be all of one sentence long). new extra preview of a preview of the goblet of fire…word. very coo, if only the announcer would shut the fuck up.

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