Portland, OR from Akshay Sarma on Vimeo.

Still writing the post… not finished yet.

Day 1 – Wed

I’ve been waiting to see Austin for a long time and finally put the trip together. The first attempt was a couple of years ago and would have been in the middle of the Republic of Texas motorcycle rally (not exactly my crowd). This time I went right after Austin City Limits, so I missed the crowds which was fine with me. Prior to going to Austin I had always heard what an awesome town it was, so what are my thoughts after visiting? One thing’s for sure, the city of Austin sure spent a lot of money and effort to recruit me to live there. I swear I heard someone whisper “Ssshh, he’s here, places people! Places!” when I stepped off the airplane. So I guess that means I had a good time.

As usual I rarely spend too much time researching my destination besides buying a guidebook and flipping through it while I’m en route to the destination. Usually I find myself pretty comfortable after a couple of days of walking around, and from that point onwards I rely on the locals to suggest what I should be seeing. One thing that I did read about was the bbq joints in Austin, the Salt Lick had been mentioned several times and I happened to see a Salt Lick food stand at the airport (which ended up being my first taste of barbeque). I have to say, for a airport restaurant the chopped brisket sandwich was awesome, in fact I’d have to argue that it was the best bbq I had on my entire trip (maybe I went to the wrong places, but seriously this sandwich made me happy).

After eating I took a shuttle downtown to stay at the Hilton Garden in (between 5th st and I-35). I got a great deal on Hotwire for $100/night and the location of the hotel was awesome, good decision to stay here on my part and it made getting around the city pretty convenient (yep, I spent my trip in Austin on my feet, with a few scattered bus trips – so it IS possible). After getting settled I walked down 6th st to see the bar area, keep in mind this was a Wednesday afternoon so the area was pretty much dead. As I headed West I saw the Driskill and decided to pop in and take a couple of quick pictures. The Driskill is a luxury hotel that is an institution in Austin, it was built by a cattle baron and has been known for its opulence.

After checking the lobby out I turned the corner at Congress St and headed south across the bridge. I was actually trying to find the Austin Motel and Hotel San Jose – the two places I was supposed to stay at when I originally booked my trip. It was a bit more of hike to get out there than I expected, but it gave me a better idea of exactly how far locations were on the map. On my way to the Hotel San Jose I passed the Austin Motel and had a Turbo at Jo’s café. Hotel San Jose itself had a pretty cool bar and I stopped by to have a couple of micheladas. The bar/pool area was pretty swank and I’d make a point to come back a few more times before I was going to leave (however, I think the Hilton Garden Inn was the better location to get around the city). I continued down South Congress passing Guero’s and stopped by Allens Boots, because when else was I going to check out South Western footwear? If you were going to spend $300 for a pair of boots, you need to go all out and get a pair of snakeskin’s… But that’s just not my style so after taking a quick look around I headed back out and into the city.

That night I decided to head out along 6th st to see how the night life was. I passed by most of the college bars East of Congress and went past Guadalupe to check out Woodwards. The place looked like it could be good if more people were out, but again Wednesday night didn’t turn out the crowds. Down the street I could here some music and a sizeable crowd so I went over to Key Bar, which ended up being a pretty good time. There was a sizeable patio area and large fireplace. I ended up meeting a couple of locals and found out pretty quickly how friendly Austenites are. Unlike my native Boston, you don’t have to know people before you can speak to them in a public setting over in Austin. In fact, Austin had friendlier people than most other cities, surprisingly I also ended up feeling that Austenites are even more liberal than people from Massachusetts (despite the misconception that we are all liberal, I think the locals are surprisingly conservative – remember the Boston riots?).

Day 2 – Thu

I went South the first day, so my second day in Austin I decided to travel North to see the UT campus and the Capitol building. I started walking towards the capitol, which was currently under construction. Unfortunately you can’t go inside the building but there is a visitor center next to it, however the exhibits really aren’t that interesting and it isn’t worth the trip. During my visit there was a gathering outside the capitol, it was an anti-drug rally targeted at some area middle school kids who were in attendance. Being subjected to D.A.R.E. during middle school I have my own opinions on how effective the anti drug message is, but I’ll leave that out of this post.

After moving on from the Capitol I continued North until I got to the UT campus. Right around the corner from the capitol, one can see Memorial Stadium which is probably the biggest UT landmark. When I finally reached the stadium I was able to find one corner next to the entrance where I was able to get a few pictures of the field. That weekend Texas was going to be playing at Nebraska, so I wouldn’t be able to get a ticket to watch the game.

UT’s campus is basically a city within a city, it has every possible resource for students and I’d argue that getting a public education at a school like UT is just as good as most private liberal arts schools (if not better). I used to have an argument with one of my friends about what is more important in choice of school, my argument basically is that name recognition and alumni networking are the most important factors and it just so happens that schools with well recognized D1 programs tend to have both. Sure most people know about Harvard or MIT, but most people in the country may not know that much about Amherst College, Holy Cross or Boston College. At least not compared to a UT, LSU or Florida. In those cases getting the public education might help more than going to the tougher (and in many cases more expensive) school. Honestly, I kinda wish I made a bold move like getting states residency and getting into a school like Texas, I don’t think I would have learned any less and it would definitely have been cheaper.

That night I met up with Margaret, a friend who moved from Boston just a couple of years ago back to Austin, she’s been encouraging me to visit and she had some good suggestions on places to visit. We met up at La Casada which was a swanky Tex-Mex restaurant on 2nd st with a pretty cool interior. I got there a bit early and had some food.

After La Casada she took me out to Mean Eyed Cat, which was a Johnny Cash themed bar. There was band that was playing and I remarked that for a local coverband they sounded pretty polished. Actually even the band the night before sounded really good. Austin is the live music capital of the country and the bands that roll through here (especially the local ones) are well practiced – to the point of sounding polished. At this point in the night I was practically falling asleep while standing up so I went back to the hotel.

Day 3 – Fri

I started off by going to Stubbs, a legendary BBQ joint and concert venue. Unfortunately, because Austin City Limits was the week before, the music scene in Austin was relatively quiet the week I was in town. I went to Stubbs for the BBQ, not the music – but it would have been good to catch a show. I took a picture of some of the concert posters and then sat down to eat my BBQ plate. The food was OK, but I still remember that brisket sandwich at the airport. Nothing I had topped that at Stubbs unfortunately. While I was eating I was looking around at the poster, I hadn’t really noticed all the acts that had played here before but they were a list of some of the best bands out these days. Modest Mouse, Raconteurs, Justice, Wolfmother, the list went on – it really would have been an amazing experience to see any of these bands perform at the venue.

I needed to burn some calories at this point so I took Margaret’s advice and did the Hike and Bike trail that runs along the town lake area, under the Congress St Bridge. Initially I planned on renting a bike, but instead I settled on just walking the trail instead, definitely good exercise and by the end I was completely tired.

Later in the afternoon I made another pilgrimage down to Jo’s and then to Hotel San Jose. I actually love the South Congress area of Austin, it definitely had it’s own lively scene and seemed like a pretty cool place to live. At the Hotel I had some shandys (lemon/lime drink mixed with beer) they went down pretty smooth. I met a person who recommended checking out the East Side Show Room while I was still in town. Afterwards I went back to the hotel for another siesta.

Day 4 – Sat

Today was the big UT-Nebraska game (oh yeah, BC played FSU as well..), I went to down S. Congress again to meet up with Margaret and some of her UT friends. Also my our other friend, Rich, was going to come down to catch up as well. Margaret had a spot picked out at Doc’s Motorworks in SOCO. There ended up being a decent amount of UT fans at the bar, though initially everyone was skeptical that they could pull off the win.

I ended up meeting a few of the guys over at Bazaarvoice, where Margaret works. Also Margaret’s husband, Eric was there. I was still in breakfast/hangover mode so the Bloody Mary’s were calling to me, at $5 a pop it was a deal. The crowd started getting more lively as UT started scoring and keeping the Nebraska offense in check, pretty soon it turned into a party. Rich dropped by after half time. Margaret, Rich and I all used to work for the same agency before the two of them decided to make the move down to Austin. Margaret has been trying to get me to move down or at least visit ever since, I guess the legends were true… I was having a pretty good time thus far.

I went back to the hotel and completely overslept, I didn’t get up until 11 and was late for meeting Rich and Beth at the East Side Show Room. I made the walk across I-35 in the middle of the night to the bar, strange thing about Austin is the East side of the highway is like Thunderdome. There were masses of bums and trashcan fires and zero nightlife save a couple of bars that were open. East Side Show Room was one of these bars and it had a pretty cool interior. Unfortunately it had turned out that I missed the show, an alternative marching band (wish I had those pictures, my loss). After spending time at East Side we walked into town and headed to Halcyon’s which was a coffeshop/bar – rich and I ended up having a couple of Irish coffees to cap the night.

Day 5 – Sun

I heard that Maria’s Taco Xpress was the place to go for their Gospel Brunch, which Maria’s billed as “Hippie Church”. I took the long walk down to the bus station to get to their South Lamar location. Gospel Church is basically a late brunch on Sundays usually after church where Gospel music may be played. In Maria’s case it had also become famous for attracting a local hippie population who turned the place into a grateful dead-type tailgate. The ambiance was over the top, as it probably needed to be. I heard the taco’s here were amazing, but honestly I’d say they were ok at best. The margarita’s were a good deal though. I ended up taking a bunch of pictures here, definitely a highlight of Austin – a true showcase of what “Keeping Austin Weird” really means.

On the way back into town I stopped by the Alamo Drafthouse in South Lamar. I had been told that it was a must do if I had any fret me. Basically this is the best cinema experience I have ever had. The Alamo is a independently owned chain based in the Austin area, they ser beer and a full menu during the movies. They are serious about movies here and have a strict no talking policy, there isn’t much in life that makes me want to throat-punch someone than when they talk during a movie. It was nice to find a place that was serious about putting the smack down on anyone willing to ruin the experience for everyone else. I ended up watching “The Town” (ironic, no?), it was an ok flick but I’m kind of tired of the Boston-Irish Gangster genre that has started creeping up. There should be a Alamo in every town.

That night I went back to the East Side Show Room, to make up for my late entrace the night before. I ended up having a couple of their cocktails which were pretty amazing actually. There was a three piece jazz band playing and the food was excellent. The interior of the bar reminded me of a set piece from a Juenot film it had this quirky circus/freakshow quality about it. Definitely one of the more interesting spots in Austin.

After spending some time at the bar I headed west on Sixth to go check out the Kung Fu Salon which I had seen earlier in the day. After checking Yelp! I found out that they had “free play Sundays” so that was definitely a place to check out. The Kung Fu Saloon is basically an arcade/bar that has all the classic video games of my childhood (80’s/90’s) like Street Fighter II, NBA Jam, Mortal Combat, etc. I hadn’t played some of these games since I was 13, to be honest with you I kind of got into it. They also had skeeball and in the back were large picnic tables with oversized Jenga. It’s a pretty cool idea for a bar that would work great in a place like JP (I guess the Milky Way was sort of like this) or maybe Davis Sq. Had I gone there with a group of friends I think that it would have been fun to play some shuffleboard or chill out on the Jenga tables.

On the way back to the hotel I saw that the Red Fez was playing music so I stopped in, this time the place was packed and it was a couple of DJ’s playing hip hop on the turntables. I decided to stay up until closing, I was definitely a fish out of water but it was good people watching.

Day 6 – Mon

By this point I was pretty much partied out, I spent the day just lounging in the hotel (to be completely honest… I really needed it). I dragged myself out of the hotel to check out the Whole Foods market, which is actually the corporate headquarters for the company. The place was huge and literally had everything that you could possibly want. I ended up buying my only souvenir, a microplane for parmesan (not very “Texas” but I needed one for the kitchen back home).

Later that evening I met up with Rich and Beth again to check out Max’s Wine Dive – which was one of the few remaining restaurant that I felt I had to go check out. Basically the restaurant is a wine bar that serves contemporary Southern cuisine. It was right next to my hotel and it had a reputation for fried chicken and its truffled mac n’ cheese. The food was great, the last time I had fried chicken that good was in Savannah, GA and the truffled mac n’ cheese was good but it doesn’t beat the recipe I use at home (nice try though). After parting our ways I went back to the hotel to finish packing and watching the Tennessee defense hold out against Jacksonville, thus winning my fantasy football matchup (sorry Dan).

Day 7 – Tue

Checked out of the hotel early and went to the airport. I had a great time in Austin but it was time to head home. I felt bloated from all the beer and food but there was one last pit stop I had to make before I went home… I had to grab another Brisket Sandwich from the airport Salt Lick before I got back on the plane. I had caught myself daydreaming about it ever since I first had it when I arrived in Austin. The second time was just as good as the first – honestly it was the best BBQ I had while in Austin.

I took the 6 hour drive from Boston to Montreal via the red eye Greyhound bus. Definitely not a great nights sleep, but not terrible either. When I go to Montreal the first thing that surprised me was how French it was. I mean, I knew that French was the primary language but I didn’t expect to be so immersed in the french culture and language. I actually liked that aspect of it, it truly felt like I was on vacation, not being able to understand what the billboard ads were saying and resorting to body language to figure out what people around me were saying.

The greyhound terminal was right next to the busiest metro station, luckily information design is universal and I figured out how to navigate the metro within 10 minutes. I decided to head to the Place de Armes and start walking around the city to get my bearings. I saw a very Parisian looking cafe and decided to stop in for some coffee, I also met the most jacked barrista in the entire world (see picture).

As I was walking around I crossed through Chinatown and ended up near Notre Dame. Keep in mind this was around 8:30 AM so there were hardly any people around. Lucky for me, the basilica was open an I got a chance to go inside the basilica while there were hardly any other tourists inside.

After spending a few more hours walking downtown and grabbing lunch I decided to head out to the Olympic Stadium and the Botanical Gardens. the stadium itslef is pretty much defunct, nothing much really seems to happen around the site except kids skateboarding or attempting parkour. The botanical Gardens were a bit of a miss too due to the time I went to visit. Turns out that by mid-August most of the plant life was beginning to wilt away. Still there was a cool exhibit of bonsai trees that made the gardens a worthwhile visit for a couple of hours.

After getting back into the city I decided to grab some food before heading towards the hostel for check in. I ended up going to a bar which recommended a local restaurant in Old Montreal called Chez L’Epicier. This actually ended up being the best meal I had during my stay at Montreal, so this place is definitely recommended if you have a chance to visit. I ended up ordering the carpaccio with wild mushrooms and the Foie Gras special. the carpaccio was ok, but not the best have had, the Foie Gras however might have been the one of the best dishes I’ve had in a long time. It was a pate that had a hint of banana that made it unusual. It was serve with this jellied pepper and chocolate mouse. Despite the sweetness, the dish worked out amazingly well. I would totally order it again if I had another chance.

I spent the next day walking around the city, one of the waiters at Chez L’Epicer told me to check out Kitchen Galleria which I did. They have a few locations, but the original restaurant is almost impossible to get into. I instead went to their downtown location for dinner that day. The food was good, but honestly I felt it was forgettable, especially compared to dinner the night before. he food started out with a crab and corn bisque, which was pretty good. I followed this up with a seafood tagliatelle, that had a few generous chunks of lobster tail along with scallops, shrimp and morel mushrooms.

After dinner I wandered outside and ended up sitting in a park where an event was going on. Apparently it was a free film-fest organized by local directors that were showing off their short films. The movies were being projected against a wall that was painted to look like a old TV set. People brought bottles of wine and sat outside watching movies and hanging out together. Seemed like a pretty cool scene.

The next day I decided to hike around the huge park of Mount Royal that looms over Montreal, getting there was all uphill and along the way I ended up at a cool brunch sport called La Cantina that kinda reminded me of Lime Brunch in San Francisco. I had the ham stuffed croissant along with a mimosa and a complimentary blood orange shooter. The rest of the day was spent hiking around Mount Royal and getting lost in the trails that permeate the entire park.

My last day in Montreal was spent first checking out the contemporary museum of Montreal. There were a few cool exhibits, but poverall the museaum felt pretty small. After visiting the museum I went just outside it to BraserrieT! which was a cool artsy looking bistro that looked like it came from the future. I had the Foie Gras pate with bread. After this there happened to be the Montreal Gay Pride Parade just around the corner of the museum. Montreal is far more progressive than most American cities, even the octogenarians seemed to show their support for the parade (can’t see that happening in Boston any time soon).

I had a red eye bus to catch back to Boston, giving me enough time to do a last ditch bar crawl and check out some of the places that I had missed out on during the last few days. I ended up checking out Santos, Merchant Boef and another restaurant (which I can’t remember right now). Obviously I had a great time in Montreal and I can’t wait to go back. It definitely has a very European vibe to it, a cheaper alternative than taking a transatlantic flight out to Paris.

Just received my iPhone 4, I’ll be taking some time to play around with it and especially try out the camera function (still pics and HD movies). In this post I’ll tell you about my experience with setting it up and post some pictures comparing it to a 2nd Generation Touch and a iPhone 3G.

This is my first iPhone, I had Verizon but couldn’t wait any longer until they finally got an iPhone. I ended up pre-ordering direct from the apple.com store and had it delivered. As with most people lucky enough to get through the ordering process my shipment ended up arriving a day earlier, on June 23rd – 1 day ahead of the official release date. I’m not sure how I got through, I tried around 7:30 PM EST in on June 15th and got through on the first try without a problem. I must have just made the cut-off for the June 24th shipment because Macrumors put up a post claiming the first lot sold out within a few hours of my order.

Activation was not a problem at all, it literally took me 3 minutes. First I had to prep the computer by installing the latest iTunes software (v 9.2). Once that was done I hooked up the iPhone and was brought to a screen confirming the phone number I wanted to keep and asking for my billing zip code and the last 4 digits of my social security number. After getting through that it took all of a couple of minutes before the progress bar indicated my iPhone was all set. I made a quick test call to my land line and it worked!

I haven’t had too much time to play around with the phone yet, but I did want to talk about the form factor. It’s actually pretty comfortable and the perfect size for a cell phone (compare this to the gigantic Droid X). There have been plenty of comparisons to the old iPhone, but I haven’t seen anything comparing it to a Touch. Actually it is surprising that the Touch is only slightly slimmer then the iPhone 4 at it’s thickest point. The Touch has overall a smaller form factor because of it’s beveled edge (then again it doesn’t have cell phone technology or a camera). The iPhone 4 is slightly thinner then the Touch and the iPhone 3G, it is also taller then the 3G and the Touch (but not by more than a quarter of an inch).

Another trip from 2007, this time I explored the city of Rio de Janeiro on my own, I must have been one of the few people who wanted to visit the city after watching City of God (personal favorite movie of mine). The mission on this trip was to chill out on the famous beaches, eat some famous Brazilian barbecue and catch a Brazilian soccer match.

The picture below was the very first picture I took in Brazil, it is a picture of the favelas (Brazilian ghetto) that I saw while riding in the taxi on my way to the hostel. I got a hostel near Copacabana beach, about 4 streets up for about $17/night. The hostel name was the Stone of a Beach hostel and I recommend it if you want to travel on the cheap in Rio.

The next day I went to the Christ the Redeemer statue, one of the famous landmarks of Rio. The statue is situated atop the highest mountain that is just behind/overlooking the city. You get fantastic views of the city and its two famous beaches – Copacabana and Ipanema. Rio is unlike any other city, it is right along the beach like Miami but surrounded by jungles and mountains. From the view at Christ the Redeemer it almost looks like the buildings themselves are part of the forest, growing up from the ground. Across from the beach is Sugarloaf Mountain, probably most well known to James Bond fans for the climactic battle between Bond and Jaws on top of the cable car.

On the way down from the statue we went trough the Santa Theresa neighborhood, it is an interesting mix of some of the most expensive houses and some of the poorest neighborhoods side by side. In Rio the majority of rich people live in the lowlands close to the beach, the hills are reserved for the favela shanty towns, strangely enough the poorest people have the best views in this city. Santa Theresa is one exception, the richest person in Brazil (a TV mogul) has his mansion in this hillside neighborhood, right next to some of the favelas. I noticed a lot of graffiti that looked pretty interesting as well. I’m personally interested in street art and one of my favorite graffiti artists is Os Gemeos, two twins that paint together. I was curious if any of the graffiti I had seen was their work and decided to make a stop when I had some free time to check out the art some more.

The hostel had organized a trip out to watch a soccer game at Maracana stadium, which happens to be one of the largest soccer stadiums in the world. At the time I was visiting the Brazilians were having a tournament to determine which of their many national teams would represent the country in the Pan-American games. The game that night was between two local teams from Rio and was the quarter or semi finals. Of course watching a game of Brazilian soccer was something that I couldn’t turn down. The hostel had a great set of locals who helped out with all the trips and travels, the person I was with helped us scalp ticket and told us what street food was safe to eat.

The game itself was amazing it was a high scoring affair that ended up going into overtime and requiring a penalty shoot out. Better then the game was the crowd, actually it was kinda crazy. The crowd brought Roman candles and bottle rockets and were lighting up in the stands. It looked like half the stadium was going to burn down in a inferno, imagine seeing something like that at Gillette Stadium or Fenway!

I made a trip out to see Sugar Loaf Mountain, this would give me the view of the city and Christ the Redeemer (the other panoramic shot of the city). The cable car to Sugarloaf Mountain is at Botafogo, basically the tip of the coastline, its a huge tourist attraction and there are lines to go up pretty much any day of the week. There are actually two separate cable cars to get up to the top of the mountain, the first one gets you halfway and then you ride another to get up to the summit. The views of the city are spectacular, especially at sunset and night when the lights are out.

As I mentioned before, I wanted to take some time to walk around St Theresa and takemore pictures of the grafitti that I found. The primary crew that operates in the area is called Santa Crew, they pretty much own the neighborhood and they have done some great murals. The other grafitti artists, Os Gemeos, didn’t have any work to be found in Santa Theresa, though some of the murals did have their style, as it turns out Os Gemeos primarily operates out of Sao Palo.

This was taken in St Therea as well, as you can see construction of the favelas is alive and well despite it being illegal. Supposedly the favelas have the greatest concentration of general contractors anywhere in the world, all construction, plumbing and electricity is handled by the people. Most utilities are siphoned off the main grid and thus never actually paid for. Despite regulation against construction the government does nothing to stop it, there is an implicit understanding by the wealthier classes that they need favelas – after all where do the servants, maids, janitors etc live if they were bulldozed over?

This one is from the way back machine, but it is long overdue… I went to Barcelona back in 2007 with one of my friends, it was one of those places that I had been on my to do list for a long time. I studied Spanish in high school and learned about Antonio Gaudi, ever since seeing some of the pictures of his buildings I became fascinated with visiting the actual city. I managed to get a ridiculously cheap airline ticket ( I think it was around $450) and I stayed at a hostel in downtown next to Las Ramblas ( one of the big streets, lined with shops and restaurants) for about $20/night.

Barcelona has an excellent ground transportation, their trains were the most efficient train system that I have ever used. For tourists the city runs a tour bus operation called the “bus turistic” which can’t be beat. The buses run on three different loops and cover pretty much the entire city. For the first couple of days this would be our primary mode of transportation as we explored Barcelona and got a better idea of the layout of the city.

The first night out we hit up some bars around the place we were staying at. First we went to Dos Trece, which was a cool restaurant/lounge spread over two floors. Then we went to Betty Ford”s, possibly the greatest name for a bar ever. We ended up making friends with the owner of the bar and came back over the course of our stay. Finally we ended up at Cafe Flamingo, another artsy lounge.

Barcelona definitely has a great night life, plenty of pretty cool lounges and bars. There was even one we walked into later during the trip that I swear was an excuse for a group of friends to drink at. There literally were no “regular patrons” just a bunch of friends from the same social circle that went there to hang out and drink. I forgot what the name was, it was a small place and they had covered the walls with old LP’s.

The next day we hopped back on the bus turistic and took a trip north along Las Ramblas to see some of Gaudi’s buildings. First the bus took us around the soccer stadium for Barcelona’s home team, we also saw some of the port area in Barcelona.

Actually, this was a big reason why I came to Barcelona. When I was taking Spanish in highschool I remember seeing some pictures of Casa Mila and Casa Batlo, alter during college I took a architecture course and learned more about Art Noveau movement. So finally getting a chance to see these buildings up close and in person was a big deal. Fortunately we had great weather during the trip and the pictures came out fantastic.

The first Gaudi building we saw was Casa Mila, which used to be an apartment building. The building is most known for the chimneys on it’s roof which look like… well they kinda look like penises. The inside of the building also had a museum which showcased some models of this and other Gaudi structures, as well as some detailed plans and experiments that he set up prior to building.

Out of all the Gaudi buildings this was the one I was most interested in seeing. The roof of the building looks like the back of a lizard. Actually is is the back of a dragon and the spire is supposed to represent the spear of St. John – Casa Batlo depicts the slaying of the dragon by St. John. It is interesting how futuristic these buildings look, even in 2007, Gaudi was so ahead of his time it is amazing to think that these were all built at the turn of the 19th century.

This was to be Gaudi’s masterpiece, he actually died before he was able to finish it and it is still under construction to this day. One half of the facade is the original Gaudi design and looks organic, almost cobbled together by stuff he found at the beach. The other side is the new construction which has a decidedly cubist feel to it, this is controversial since it is a huge departure from the original vision that Gaudi had for the building.

I took this picture inside the cathedral looking at the stained glass windows. Obviously it is a long exosure to get all the light to hit the sensor and properly develop the picture. I tried moving the camera while taking the picture, in this case I spun the camera around to create this whirlpool effect. I could have done this a hundred times and not have the picture come out this well… sometimes you get lucky on the first try.

Headed back to Las Ramblas for food (tapas) and then later back to Betty Fords for more drinks.

The last Gaudi attraction we saw was Park Guell which displayed Gaudi’s use of mosaic/tilework. The park was pretty beautiful with all types of construction from aqueducts that look like they were made from boulders to houses that looked like they were part of the Shire in Tolkien’s novels.

La Boqueira is the famous market in Barcelona where you can buy just about every food imaginable. I desperate wanted to get some jamon, which is probably the most prized item they sell. The most expensive are the hams from the black toed Iberian hogs, the taste is unlike just about anything else.

The last day of the trip we decided to take a break from the city and headed out to Montserrat instead. We took a train out to the mountains which took about 45 minutes, then it was a quick trip up the cablecars to get to the entrance for the mountains. Montserrat had a cathedral constructed near the top where pilgrims used to go and pray, it was also the place where the holy grail was hidden according to legend. We spent some time walking around the trails and almost didn’t make it back in time for the last train (got lucky this time).