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.

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).

*** All pics were taken with the Canon S90. ***

I went back to NYC, well over a couple of months ago. No need for a story as it was a short trip, but I wanted to post the pics I took….

These next few pics were all taken around the Greenwich Village area, around Bleecker St.

I wanted to get some good NYC pizza and had always heard that Lombardi’s was one of the best. My meal (for an individual size pizza) came out to $25 for the pie and a soda, and it was cash only. Good pizza, but for $25 I’d expect lobster or shaved truffle slices as toppings.

*** The pics for this story were taken with the Canon S90 and the Nikon D90 ***

I went down to Savannah to attend the IXDA10 convention for interaction design, basically a convention of information architects and UX designers. Also it was another opportunity for me to visit a corner of the country I hadn’t seen yet. Luckily my cousin was going to SCAD, the university that was hosting the conference, so I was able to visit the city on the cheap.

Before I get into the rest of the story there was one particular incident that I just have to mention, it illustrates that you should never judge a book by it’s cover and you never know who you are sitting next to until you make the effort to talk to them. Cutting to the chase, I started a conversation with a person met while in Savannah and found out that she was the inventor of the Snuggie. I know, not exactly the most amazing claim to fame, but still it’s kinda funny to think about it – you never know where those wacky “As Seen on TV” product come from. She was a very modest woman and almost was not going to tell me about her famous invention, when she heard that I work in advertising she couldn’t keep her secret to herself because she was interested in talking about marketing and her experience selling the product. As I mentioned, she is very modest and she likes her anonymity so I didn’t take a picture of her. In her words keeping shut and just cashing the checks has been the best decision she has made (no random people asking her for loans).

Day 1

I spent the first day in Savannah just walking around town and getting my bearings, I discovered that you can see pretty much all of downtown Savannah in about an hour.

While walking around I happened upon Lady and Sons, I’ve heard mixed things from people. Like most celebrity restaurants, people complain about lengthy waits for food that barely justified the inconvenience. I decided to ask, out of curiosity, how long the wait would take and was surprised to find myself seated within 5 minutes. I ended up ordering the chicken pot pie, which was excellent but definitely artery clogging – I can only imagine how much heavy cream and butter went into making it.

After a day of walking around I went back to my cousins apartment to catch up with him. I hadn’t had a chance to meet him yet since he was in school for the entire day. He is studying his masters in special effects at SCAD with a focus on lighting and rendering. He’s also an amazing photographer, check out his flickr page here.

Day 2

The first day of the conference was spent at the Hyatt taking a wireframing workshop. Actually it ended up being more like a contest to see what kind of ideas we could generate with a limited amount of time. We were all split into groups depending on the wireframing tool of choice that we were going to use (I’m and Omnigraffle user). After splitting up we were given information on the client, a couple of personas and some business requirements to begin working.

The client was a non-profit called Loan4Life, they provide micro loans to families that need to pay for Autism related treatments. The challenge was to build a new homepage, which would enable users to search for people who need help and to donate to these people. The session started off with a round of 8-up thumbnail sketches and a quick round of group critique. After picking elements from all the thumbnails that we liked the next step was to sketch out 1-up sketches of a few key pages and present them as a group to another group. Following this round we had to create a final wireframe in 30 minutes using the program of our choice and present the concept to the entire group.

While I didn’t particularly learn anything new, it was interesting to be able to compare my approach and skill level with other IA’s. I’m completely self taught and usually have no other people to use as references to compare my work with – so it was a welcome change to work in a group of other people who do the same thing for a living.

I wanted to take my cousin out for a meal that evening and he hadn’t been to Lady and Sons. This time he got the pot pie and I tried the bacon wrapped shrimp. The pot pie was better, either way you’re going to get a heart attack. Later on that evening there was a quick after party at a local bar, Moon River.

I stayed for a little while and then headed out to catch up with my cousin and visit some other bars that he recommended. I guess two of the big hotspots are Seed and Saya. Both were pretty cool, Saya had a very lounge feel to it with an Asian theme. Seed was more of an upscale bar.

Day 3

The second day of the conference were lectures that lasted from 10:00 to 5:00PM. All he lectures were spread out over the downtown SCAD campus in four of it’s venues, I won’t go through every lecture but subjects varied from the practical to the theoretical.

That night we had an event organized at the SCAD trustee’s garden. Among the highlights were Microsoft Surface tables, which were these touch sensitive coffee tables that you could play games on. Also they had set up an oyster-shucking table. Initially I was skeptical about the wisdom of providing open bar AND shucking knives to complete newbie’s (myself included) but I actually ended up learning how to shuck an oyster without killing myself.

Day 4

The next day I took an architectural tour of Savannah during lunch, the day ended up being kind of miserable with off and on rain. The tour itself was fantastic and was lead by the chair of architecture at SCAD. A few of the interesting facts learned were that Savannah is the largest port south of the mason Dixon line on the east coast. Also, the entire city is rested on a sand bar and the cobblestones that make up the port area were actually ballast from old ships that were loading up cargo n the 1700s. The city itself is actually elaborately panned in a series of squares with open public spaces/gardens that are laid out in a grid throughout the city.

That evening I tried the Shrimp with Grits at Vic’s on the River. The grits in this case were pretty amazing, light and creamy, they almost tasted like scrambled eggs. Actually they reminded me a lot of the spoon bread I had in California. I need the recipe, I tried duplicating the spoon bread a bunch of times and it never came out right.

That night Microsoft organized a party at the SCAD design center. I guess this is the building that the industrial design students take their cases at. There were student exhibits on display and it was amazing the amount of work that these kids put into their designs. I’ve said it before but if I could invent a time machine I’d go back and switch my major to Industrial Design.

Day 5

The final day of the conference was pretty low key for me, honestly attending sessions all day long and staying up late definitely gets to you after a while. Luckily this was sort of a half day event, it also happened to be the day of the Superbowl. Later on that evening I went out to a bar called JJ Boners (seriously) and caught the game surrounded by strangers. Actually it was pretty good because there were a bunch of Indy fans and the game ended up being kinda soul shattering for them.

Day 6

The last day of my say in Savannah was mostly spent walking round taking pictures. I was a bit obsessed with getting some pictures of the Spanish moss on the trees, an excellent time to break out the 50mm and play around with the DOF. After taking endless amounts of pictures, I headed down to the Wilkes house for what was promised to be the best food Savannah had to offer.

The Wilkes house is definitely a unique concept; basically it is southern cooking served in a communal family style. You walk in and get seated (no paying up front) you end up sitting with random strangers and get served a 10 course comfort food meal. It was an amazing experience, the first time in years that I had fried chicken. The atmosphere was completely unique and it was a fitting meal to end my trip on. I ended up taking it easy that night because of the plane I had to catch the next morning. Definitely good times though…

The last thing I did in Savannah was to get out at night and take some pics of the statues in the square. There is definitely an eery feeling about Savannah in the middle of the night, the atmosphere definitely has a ghostly quality to it.

I’ve had this tradition to catch a Bills-Patriots game for a few years now. It started back when I just got out of college, my first job was working for a subsidiary of the Kraft Group and my office was inside Gillette Stadium. Back then I used to be able to get tickets to just about any Patriots game, one of my roommates was from Buffalo so we made it a point to see the Bills play in Foxboro. My buddy, Rob, recently moved back to Buffalo and we made plans to take the trek up to visit him and see a Patriots game in Ralph Wilson Stadium.

We spent the first night at a bar called Coles, just down the street from where Rob lives (ladies, you know where he’s at). The food was decent and the bar area was a good scene. The thing to order were the burgers, I got a Cajun-something or other, it was good. The bar was pretty packed and it kinda looked like a toy store at Christmas with all of the decorations – a toy store that serve’s alcohol…

After this we went a few blocks down to another bar called JP Bullfeathers, this one had a pretty decent scene and there were plenty of girls hanging around to talk to. Actually, that’s one thing about upstate New York – the girls are pretty down to earth and approachable. Definitely way more approachable than girls in Boston. I’m not sure why that is, but I guess it’s a good reason to move. The camera got passed around a bit and at some point the ISO got bumped up to 3200… I converted a lot of the shots to B&W, also I tried split toning some of the shots to give it a slightly kodachrome look.

Finally, on the way back home we stopped by this late-night taco place. Definitely hit the spot, it brought back memories of living in Davis Sq and stumbling into Anna’s before it shut down. Something about taco’s, they just hit the spot after a night in the town.

The next day we were all fairly under the weather. Rob promised us actual-bonafide buffalo wings. Supposedly Anchor Bar is a tourist trap, the real deal (he promised) was at Gabriel’s Gate (I checked Yelp! when I got back home and I guess a lot of the locals agree). The restaurant itself is pretty cool it almost had a New Orleans vibe to it with the antique tiled ceiling. The wings were good, but I feel the need to try a few other Buffalo restaurants before I’m willing to concede any titles (maybe next time I’ll do a more thorough taste test). I also had the club sandwich which was so gigantic I was unable to finish it – I guess value is no problem over here.

Ok so here’s is probably the best story from the entire trip. Let me introduce you to “Tron”, we named him that after the Chappele Show recurring character “Tron Carter”.

While we were eating this guy walks into the bar and just starts shooting the shit with anyone. Everyone turns around to look at him because he was so loud that he made himself the center of attention. He also uttered some of the weirdest/best lines of dialogue that I have personally ever heard. My friends and I were trying to figure out if he was a pimp, a bookie, a dealer or all three combined.

So he starts off by talking about football and how much money he has on the different games. Another patron at the bar gets sucked into this conversation and then notices the watch Tron is wearing. The conversation went something like this:

Man: “That’s a nice watch you got there, what is is?”
Tron: “It’s a Omega. Look here” [Tron pulls up his sleeve]. “Platinum!” “And look at this.” [pulls out a roll of money] “Bam! Hundred dollar bills!” “Man, I’m working not to work. You dig?”

Tron then orders a drink from the bartender…

Bartender: “What do you want”
Tron: “You tell me, you the one that knows. I want you to do what you do best. I’ll do what I do best, and I want you to do what you do best”

Somehow the conversation turns to Tron’s personal life..

Tron: “I have 4 wives…. They take care of me.”

And then things get violent…

Tron: “I was there man, I saw it! I saw her when she got fucked up. Seriously man, they found her naked in the attic, she had to have 87 stitches. I seen it.”

We were all quiet while all of this was going on, but we wanted to laugh so hard. On the way out of the restaurant one of the waitresses begged us to take her with us. Apparently the guy is a regular and once he starts talking he doesn’t stop for hours. My only regret is that I didn’t (a) take a picture or (b) video tape the entire conversation. Thus you’ll have to settle for my crudely drawn illustration of Tron and imagine the scene for yourself… When we got out of the car and started driving back to Rob’s apartment, we couldn’t stop quoting Tron and cracking up about it. Seriously, I nearly pissed myself laughing. The only way it could have been better is if Tron said “Look at me America! Look how Tron is living for the citaay!”

That night we went out to a Buffalo Sabres game, this was my first time going to a NHL game ever (yep, I’ve never seen the Bruins play). Before heading into the stadium we grabbed a quick drink at the “Pearl St Grill” which was pretty big (kinda reminded me of Jillian’s but more of a sports bar). The Sabres were playing the Penguins, apparently a lot of Pittsburgh fans don’t mind the drive up to Buffalo because the stadium was rough 60-40 Sabres-Penguins fans. There were also a lot of Canadians in participation. We tease Rob about him actually being a Canadian, he didn’t help himself when the first national anthem that was played at the game was the Canadian one. The Sabres ended up loosing the game, the cool thing was that it went into a penalty shootout. After the game we went to a random dive bar with a presidential/historical theme. It was actually a good time and a pretty neat bar – though I can’t remember the name of it.

The next day we got up early to tailgate before the Bills game… The weather was in the 20’s but windchill brought the temperature further down into the teens. Of course, the idiot that I am, I forget to bring my gloves and the extra pair of socks. Luckily a guy was selling Bills glove (yes, I had to suck up my pride and buy them – it was worth it) also my buddy Greg has a pair of feet warmers that kept my toes alive (I needed those too). Tailgating is tailgating, I guess there is not much I can say about it. Well, except that a girl ended up squatting behind Ed’s car to go to the bathroom – Buffalo girls definitely are different than Boston girls.

The game itself was pretty good, we had great seats about 120 feet from the field and on one of the corners of the stadium. You could see both sides of the field easily with a perfect 3/4 view and no obstructions. I was trying my best ot be the unassuming fan of the opposing team, Chris was doing his best to be the Pats fan he is and crawl under the skin of every Bills fan that he could. A lot of people were wearing hunter orange… some of these guys own guns and I wouldn’t want to piss them off.

After the game we went back to Rob’s apartment, it was our last night so we bought some Chinese food and settled in early before the long ride home to Boston the next morning.

I decided to head out to NYC this past week because I wanted to see A Camp perform their final show of the year, also I wanted an excuse to get out and take pictures of stuff. So before I get through the rest of the post let me tell you a couple of good deals if you are heading off to NYC for the weekend.

First, if you are in Boston then definitely consider booking a trip with Lucky Star. Lucky Star is one of those low budget, Asian owned, bus companies that offer daily routes between Boston and New York. The Fung Wah used to be the king of discount service, but Lucky Star has one-upped them with internet rates as low as $1 for a one-way ticket. I ended up spending $16 for my trip ($15 to get to NYC and $1 to get back). Sure you might have to worry about the occasional bus catching fire, and breakdowns can happen (more on that later) but at fares this low you really can’t beat it with anything else.

Second, if you are traveling by yourself and you know you really don’t need to spend a boatload of cash on a hotel room you’ll barely even see then consider booking a bed at a hostel. I managed to book 2 nights at the Hostel International New York hostel, the rate was $26/night in a 10 bed shared room. While that sounds like a lot of people, keep in mind that if you are like me you’ll be out till 4:00 AM and won’t have a problem sleeping when you get back. Make sure to bring a padlock and some shower slippers and you’ll be all set for your trip. The hostel is located pretty far uptown (around 103rd and Amsterdam), and it’s only a block from the nearest MTA station.

I had not been to NYC in over 2 years; it’s an amazing city that blows you away every time you visit it. I’m from Boston, and the scale of the place is just completely different. Boston’s a great town, very tourist friendly and walkable but New York is world class on a different level. Since I had been in town before I didn’t have the rush to explore everything like I did on my previous trip. The MO this time was to see the show, eat at a few top restaurants and check out Brooklyn.

I spent most of the day just walking around and talking pictures of anything that seemed inspiring to me. I honestly felt that the muse wasn’t talking to me on the first day. I try to push myself but I have a log way to go to take my photography to the next level, sometimes the shots just don’t get composed properly or become too cliché. And then other times you get back home and look through everything during processing and every now and then a few pictures seem to leap out at you.

After a few hours of doing this I decided it was time to head towards the hostel and check in. I was determined to check out Brooklyn that night so I wanted to drop off some of the extra gear before the night. On my way to the hostel I saw a French restaurant on Broadway and I was hungry so I decided to check it out. The restaurant was called L’Express and it was decent food. I ordered the Blood Sausage as an appetizer (I grew up in Europe and hadn’t eaten one of those in ages). For the Entrée I went safe and got the Wild Mushroom Ravioli, which was good but seemed a bit under seasoned for my taste. All in all I think my dining experience was about average here.

I started walking up North again on Broadway when lo and behold the next block was one of the Les Halles restaurants owned by Anthony Bourdain. I loved Kitchen Confidential and his show enough to buy the Les Halles cookbook, which has taught me some French cooking. Even though I was practically stuffed I decided to stop in for a quick bite since I was already there. I grabbed a glass of port and decided to order something that I couldn’t make at home, which ended up being the foie gras steeped in calvados. The food was great and it had a pretty down to earth atmosphere, I was getting there right during the after hours crowd but before the place got too packed.

After the meal I continued on towards the hostel to check my stuff and take a quick shower before heading out to Brooklyn. I stopped by Times Sq to take a few pictures before heading north to the hostel.

I was told to take the L train to Williamsburg, as that was a pretty safe and hip area, keep in mind that this was on a Monday so I wasn’t expecting too much craziness. Brooklyn reminded me of Davis Sq, a up and coming part of greater Boston that I’ve been living in for the last 3 years. The bars have a neighborhood feel to them but they are pretty friendly and fun. I went to three bars while in Williamsburg: Cyn Lounge, Spike Hill and The Charleston. Out of the three I’d say the Charleston was my favorite, I liked the divvy décor and the people that were there were the kind of people I could see my self-hanging out with. Plus the atmosphere was just too cool, for every beer purchase you would get a free cheese pizza, also they were playing great music on the jukebox and awesome movies. It turns out I really like drinking a beer with my free cheese pizza, while watching Clue on mute and listening to David Bowie in the background. Good times.

I decided during the previous day that two of the “touristy” things I needed to do on this trip were (a) visit MOMA and (b) check out the NBC studio tour. As it turns out MOMA is closed on Tuesdays so it was the studio tour by default.

One of the rules of the studio tour is that you can’t take any pictures. I figured that this would be an interesting diversion because I’m always interested in learning more about production, TV and film production have been around for so long that everything is a science. I work as an interactive producer, so I kind of geek out when I can learn more about how TV shows and movies are produced (definitely some parallels and lessons that can be learned). The tour lasted about an hour and consisted on walking through the news broadcast studio, a green screen studio (very interesting) and learning about makeup/costumes for SNL. It sort of made me wish that I came on a Saturday so I could sit in for a SNL broadcast or rehearsal – something to add to the “to do” list.

After this I went to the Apple store on 5th and 57th, not much to report here…. Just buying some earphones that are designed to fail every 4 months. I also wanted to take a few pictures of the store with my D90 and the Tokina 11-16mm, last time I came here I only had a compact.

I made plans to catch up with a friend of mine at Lupa’s, one of Mario Battali’s restaurants. I had looked forward to eating here but I had also heard some mixed reviews about the food and service falling off the cliff ever since Battali became famous. Like most celeb-chef restaurants a crowd of people are lining to show up any day of the week, so service and the food sometimes takes a back seat. I guess I’m partially to blame for this since I decided to eat there, to be honest the best meals I’ve had were at local established places or up and coming restaurants that haven’t achieved fame yet.

We ended up being seated at the community table located at the front of the restaurant, initially I was worried that it would be too loud but we got through the meal without too much trouble. We were sitting next to an elderly couple that we ended up befriending, I felt like we were on a cruise making friends with the patrons – nothing wrong with it but it’s just the impression that I got.

So, back to the food… I decided to be adventurous to my detriment and ordered the test, which is headcheese. What is headcheese? It’s all the miscellaneous meat and fat from the head of a sheep or cow that is packaged into a terrine and sliced to serve (I know, sounds great). I had never had it, nor would I ever make it and Andrew Zimmerman seems to rave about the stuff (yep, bad choice). The headcheese didn’t taste foul; it just didn’t taste that great – sort of like mushy/fatty cold cuts of roast beef. For our entrée’s I ordered the pork shoulder and Lauren ordered the tortellini (a good safe option). My pork shoulder tasted good but it was mostly fat, it had an acidic taste too it like a NC style vinegar sauce. Lauren’s tortellini was good, but it seemed a bit subtle on the flavor. So I experienced a Batalli restaurant, next time I think I’ll hunt harder for an up and coming restaurant or some place satisfying and cheaper.

After a couple of drinks I parted ways with Lauren and headed off to the concert. I was going to see A Camp, a band that I had missed earlier in the year when I took my vacation to San Francisco. I got into the band because I’ve been a Cardigans fan for quite a while now but I never had a chance to see them play while they were actively touring. When I found out about Nina Persson’s side project I stated getting into her new band. I think she is a pretty awesome singer, one of her qualities is that it seems as if she is singing directly to you. I was psyched to see her perform. Here are a few select pics but if you want to know more about the show click here to read my article/review on it.

This is really Day 2.5 as I had to head home to Boston this evening. I packed my stuff up and checked out of the hostel, the first stop would be to check out MOMA and then a bite to eat before catching the bus back home. One other thing, I woke up to find my D90 completely out of batteries – it must have been on the night before while I was out at the concert. Luckily I had my S90 with my as backup camera.

Last time I didn’t have time to check out MOMA, since this was a half-day and I had done most of the super touristy things already I figured it would good to chill out and look at some art. 2 things ended up happening at MOMA that I did not expect (1) there was a Tim Burton exhibit showing off some of his photography and illustrations and (2) Tim Burton was going to be at MOMA for a book signing. I didn’t realize the second part of this until I noticed a mass of people waiting in line at the first floor of the museum. When he arrived for the book signing I caught a fleeting glimpse of him from about 200 ft away, but I wasn’t quick enough with the camera to snap his picture. Besides Tim Burton there was an awesome exhibit about the Bauhaus movement on the 6th floor – very interesting. I don’t have a ton of pictures from MOMA because some of the areas were restricted from photography.

After the museum I decided to check out Grammercy Tavern near the Flatiron area, when I got there I found out that I missed lunch and that it was formal attire required. Luckily Craftbar was around the corner from there and I figured it would be worth the stop. I ended up having the risotto balls as an appetizer and went with the veal meatballs w/ linguini as my main course (I learned a lesson about being too adventurous the night before). Both dishes were good but they didn’t bowl me over with flavor. Still couldn’t complain, I think some of my problem is that I need a little bit of spice and I was expecting the pasta to have some kick to it. Usually I don’t hesitate to pour on the Tabasco sauce, but I never really do that when dining at a fancy joint because I want to taste the dish the way it was intended. Honestly that’s kind of a stupid practice on my part.

Finally I get back to Chinatown to hop back on the Lucky Star bus. I fall asleep pretty quickly and before long we make the mandatory stop at Arby’s somewhere in the middle of CT. I swear that Lucky Star owns this Arby’s and it is a genius profit making rouse to consistently deliver 20-30 customers every hour, on the hour, to their own business for food. Pretty industrious. Either way we hop back on the bus and continue along until suddenly the driver pulls over under an overpass. Shit, I thought, the bus must be on fire or something. True to their ways, the driver never tells any of us what is going on. So we sit there waiting for 20 minutes for an explanation in broken English, some hand gestures or just obvious body language to let us know what is happening. He starts the bus again finally but we never top 20 MPH, I guess he must have blown his transmission. Finally the bus an hour behind us catches up and we all are able to transfer over to get a ride home. I wonder if Lucky Star is making a profit with these cheap fares and grueling touring schedule, I guess it all depends on limiting the amount of buses that have engine failure… Still I can’t complain, my sunk costs for this trip amount to about $68 – not bad for 2.5 days in New York.

This is probably my favorite pic from the shoot, I took it with the Tokina 11-16mm during “magic hour”. It was cold but worth it.

Three different variations of the above picture: playing with the color processing controls, black & white and the original image out of the camera.