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.

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.

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.

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.

ah…day 06, our last full day in london. time flies, and we still had a list of things we hadnt even hit yet. we wanted to get schooled, so we headed out to the trio of museums of the victoria and albert, the natural history, and the science museum…all next to each other. they were packed, but we still got edumacated…and even made a lunch pitstop at one last english pub, the hoop and toy(??). we wandered around later at nite, grabbed french foodage in soho, then headed back to our hotel to pack up. we caught our flight the next day, and got to sit two rows behind the alleged uk tween girl band girls aloud. what the fuck were they doing in coach?

day 05…our daytrip out to the countryside. we joined a bus tour to get out of london for a day and see a bit of the english countryside. the main stop was oxford, but with side trips to warwick castle and stratford-upon-avon beforehand. warwick was very touristy…in the sense that it was run by the same people as madame tussauds. kinda hokey, sometimes cheesy, but still fun. we then hit the small town of stratford-upon-avon, the birthplace of william shakespeare. again, touristy, but the town was pretty coo. we didnt stay in the town long, but still managed to trek over to the trinity church, where shakespeare is buried. after that was oxford, where we did a walking tour of the grounds. it was definitely nice to get out of the city for a day, see the rolling english countryside. definitely still have to see a real english castle one day tho. warwick didnt really do it for me. we caught din afterwards at this small okonomiyaki place called abeno-too…which served up osaka-style okonomiyakis. yum yum…

day 03…new years eve. woot! well we didnt exactly have any plans for midnight celebrations, but we headed out anyhoo to get our tourist on. new years eve was as good a day as any to check out the tower of london. the yeoman/beefeater guide gave us a nice detailed tour of the various sites and their bloody history. beheadings here, drawn and quarters there…fun shit. the armoury was pretty rockin’, as were the crown jewels (bling bling yo), but sadly no pics of the jewels. we roamed around afterwards, heading over to st. katharines dock. that particular area, holy shit nice. i personally dont know much about that neighborhood, but if i could, id live there. we continued wandering around afterwards, trying to figure out what to do at the stroke of midnight. we did figure out some party plans at the last sec, but the party turned out to be rsvp when we got there (it wasnt supposed to be), so we partied at a pub near our hotel…the prince alfred. drink, party, happy new year! 2005…word.

oh, and one pic from new years day. fish caught a soccer game, and i just wandered around london aimlessly. we met up later for yum shanghai on gerrard st.

day 02 was started early at the crack of dawn. which in london was apparently sometime around 10am. weird. the second day was interspersed with some site-seeing, shopping, and good foodage at wagamama’s. amongst the points of interest hit up were westminster abbey, churchills war room, the imperial war museum, oxford st, carnaby, the camden locks and camden market, covent market, and piccadilly circus…whew.

london rock the house! new years and then-some was spent roaming thru the streets of london, uk. roaming and roaming and roaming…argh my feet. there were actually alot of americans there over the holidays, as well as plenty of (in descending order), italians, french, and russians(?). before the pretty pictorials, some m3ntal notes about london and the uk.

01. a $2 for every £1 exchange rate really, really sucks.
02. whats up with the 2 pence?
03. the various pub names. rat and parrot, eagle and child, lamb and flag…?
04. there are alot of starbucks in london.
05. there are as many, if not more pret a mangers.
06. asian-italian girls…hawt!

onto the pics! day.01 (we landed in the morning, so essentially the same day we arrived) included: chinatown roaming, westminster/parliament, the tate modern, st. pauls, and the somerset house.

ADDENDUM
oh right, and tien…about that slide in front of the tate. maybe i skimmed the read and didnt catch the details, but that shits not ice! not only was it a pretty paltry slide (oooh….10 ft), but it was made of some kind of plastic bubble/astroturf/whatever material. no ice…blah! balls to that…