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man a month past oh fuck nearly two months lol...and i finally get around to posting about my trip to scotland. better late than never eh.  and i even decided to give the flickr slideshow a whirl.  i don't know why i never used it for my past trips.  has it always been there?  mysteries...

the thoroughness of this recollection of the trip is suspect at best, given it's based purely on the photos taken.  i didn't bother jotting notes of my trip, since most days were taken up with drinking.  lots of drinking.  fuck, so much drinking.  i have a newfound fear of drinking with glaswegians now.

GLASGOW
i arrived wednesday morning.  max came by the airport to pick me up...him and patsy had been in scotland for a while already sorting out wedding details and concurrently having their work visas get fucked.  that's another story tho...and not even mine to tell.  so moving on...i dropped my luggage off at the hotel before we roamed glasgow.  this was my fourth time in the uk, but my first time in scotland.  the other three times were based solely in london (and a side trip to the english countryside).  we grabbed lunch with one of max's friend who works for the company both max and i used to work for (it was a scottish firm). after lunch, we went for my kilt fitting.  yea...kilt fitting.  word.  i'm in scotland for a wedding, fuck yea i'm wearing a kilt.  a nice one at that.  made of alot of wool...in the mild/warm scottish spring weather.  i would regret this later.  but for now, i just wanted a kilt.  we roamed some more afterwards, and most likely drank beer.  it's sorta fuzzy.  i was most likely groggy and jetlagged and inhaling coffee later in the evening.  anyhoo...moving onto the next day.

EDINBURGH
max and patsy had wedding details to sort out, so i took a daytrip out to edinburgh.  there was something weird about glasgow as we were walking around the day before, and i figured it out when i got to edinburgh...no asian tourists!  actually, hardly any tourists at all in glasgow.  in edinburgh tho...yea, everywhere.  definite tourist city...and rightly so.  it's very picturesque and touristy, with it's royal mile, closes, and of course, edinburgh castle.  pretty place.  tho one aspect let me down.  i was hoping they'd play up more of the haunted aspects of the castle...which they didn't.  at all.  sad.  i also decided to climb up arthur's seat, this massive hill in holyrood park.  i don't know what i was thinking...that was a bad idea.  i have enough things in my life to remind me that i'm out of shape...i didn't need a vacation to remind me too.

i got back to glasgow in the evening and we went to a house party. more drinking ensued.  

MAX AND PATSY'S WEDDING
we had lunch with max and patsy's family before the wedding in the afternoon.  from there on out it was a brief wedding reception, then nonstop drinking til i don't know what time.  3am?  4am?  i don't remember.  and that wool kilt and ensemble?  yea, that was painful.  i stripped off the wool jacket shortly after the reception, but still had on the wool kilt and wool vest.  blargh.  on the flipside tho, the sporran was totally rockin'.  i kept my wallet and iphone in there.  handy.  it's like a purse...but manlier.

POST-WEDDING
we had lunch with max's family the day after, and then roamed glasgow.  we drank more at night.  yea.

AMSTERDAM
i planned a nice one day layover in amsterdam before heading back to nyc.  it'd been years since i saw lysha and alice, and i thought it'd be a nice place to (ironically) detox after scotland.  lysha lived out in ijburg, and we just laid on the beach in front of her apartment for most of the day.  we grabbed dinner in amsterdam, then roamed the canals for a bit.  <3 amsterdam.  i also really wanted to see the old neighborhood...the amsterdam branch of the company i worked for was shuttered months prior, and the old animation space was turned into an underwear shop.  how sad.

REMAINDERS
oh, i got my niece a mini-kilt and a clan pin from edinburgh, and my brother-in-law a bottle of bowmore whisky.  you're welcome dave!
 

last full day in prague. we started it off with a trip to the mucha museum, where i learned how to pronounce mucha (hint, he's not spanish...it's moo~ch-ha). we then wandered aimlessly a bit before deciding to head up the astrological tower in the old town square. that was some awesomeness...seeing the whole city like that (and especially on the last day after we'd wandered the streets for a week). i was craving a doner (they do it a wee differently than the style imported to nyc), so got that before taking a break back at the hotel. we also got some pastries from one of the stands in wenceslas square...something called "trdelnik", then sort of slummed it (we were literally down to our last few dollars) with cheap beer, night-time photography, and an early bedtime. sad face. the next morning, we took liberal advantage of the hotel breakfast, then headed off to the airport.

bai bai prague...

continuing on!

thursday was designated 'get in shape' day...sort of. k, that's a lie. but it turned out to be a bit of a workout anyhoo...lots of climbing and stuff. elaine wanted to head up the hills we always walked by in mala strana, so we strolled that-a-ways in the morning...towards petrin hill. the area was similar to the other park system we walked up two days prior, except with extra attractions! like the eiffel tower clone (petrinska rozhledna), the hunger wall, and the mirror maze...which was this small faux-castle with a mirror maze inside and a diorama of some battle that happened on the charles bridge. fascinating stuff.

we made our way down the hill back into mala strana and decided to go see the wallenstein gardens too, which were nice and full of peacocks. we then stumbled onto the vojan gardens by accident (we were looking for bathrooms), walked past the lennon wall (dedicated to john lennon...no one really knows why), had a sausage lunch in wenceslas square, then a beer break at skorepka in stare mesto. i ordered a liter of the tuplak...of course i didnt know i was ordering a liter, but...yea, surprise! it was evening by then, so we caught the free goran bregovic concert in the old town square (very cool btw...check the youtube video above), then ate a shitty dinner at a touristy italian restaurant near the town square. your service sucked!

KUTNA HORA
wednesday was our official "day out of prague" day...yea. to kutna hora that is, a town east of prague full of "old crazy shit". we took a train out from the prague train station, and got dumped off at a station that resembled nothing in our guide book. blah...apparently we had to bus it another half an hour to the town center, on the way passing by apartment complexes and supermarkets, all the while next to a passenger that looked like a blonde doogie howser.

it took us a bit of wandering and map-hunting to get our bearings. the town was a bit oddly laid out, though they did have plenty of half-assed signs directing us in the general vicinity of what we think we wanted to see. seriously, fuckshit worst maps ever made. the town itself seemed half-abandoned...the center of it anyway. definitely a bit eery, like the townsfolks knew something the tourists didn't. "oh, don't mind the ravenous zombies that pour out of the human bone-decorated crypts and terrorize the town at night during the months of august and september"...*hops in a car and drives away..."

ST BARBARAS
we finally found our first destination, the cathedral of st. barbara. definitely wow. it's architect was the same designer as st. vitus in prague castle, but i liked this one a little better. its trademark are the 3 distinctive steeples that look like tents...i couldn't get any decent exterior photos, so you'll just have to google that. we then wandered aimlessly a bit through town, trying to figure where anything was. we eventually stumbled on the italian court, which used to be the town's mint. it was pretty quiet that day tho...just us and a few people resting on the benches.

eeery.

it was getting late in the day at this point, and we didn't want to stick around for the aforementioned zombies (jk), so we bused it halfway back to the train station since the 'prime' attraction of the town was actually in a smaller village outside of the town center called sedlec. the prime attraction in question is of course the sedlec ossuary, a creepy crypt underneath a church with chandeliers and wall decorations made from human bones. yea, creepy...but totally worth it. afterwards we treked the rest of the way back to the train station on foot and chatted up an elderly australian couple while waiting for the train to arrive.

we made it back to prague early evening, and decided between the two of us that we'd done the "czech" thing enough and needed some variety. so we headed to a thai restaurant called noi we frequently passed by whenever we wandered around mala strana. it was good stuff...they even had free wifi. score!

mashburns in the morn'...yum yum. we decided to do a bit of wandering tuesday. we started at the havelska market for some souvenirs and knick-knacks, and then spent a good deal of time hunting down two modern design stores, modernista and kubista, which were definitely not where the guides said they were at...blah. but while we were on celetna street, we perused those shops too. i even picked up something for my niece...woot. it's actually still on my shelf (i blame my sis and her laziness in making plans).

we headed north after our shopping towards the jewish quarters, but once we got there, we didn't really feel like paying to see the inside of a synagogue. *shrug* we wanted to see the old jewish cemetery, but you also had to pay to get into that as well. it must suck for those with family in there hehe. we continued northwards towards the massive metronome on the hill overlooking prague. i read in my guidebooks that the largest statue of joseph stalin used to stand on the spot where the metronome sits now, but it was torn down in the 60's...too bad. the metronome was interesting tho...and massive. like, really big. we started snapping postcard prague shots once on the the hill, and then we just continued westward, winding thru the massive parklands that eventually connected with the palace gardens of prague castle...convenient! so since we were back in hradcany, we decided to make our way to the loreto church. we got there literally right as it closed...which sucked. so we then took a stroll thru picturesque novy svet, then to the strahov monastery, which also had closed. whups. we decided instead to hang out at the brewery across from strahov, klasterni pivovar strahov, which incidentally had some pretty rockin' brews and food. we even chatted up this american couple who were from saudi arabia and were on their way to oktoberfest. rock on dudes.

after getting stuffed, we wandered down the hill, loitered around old town square, then headed back to our hotel.

whups...been busy these last few days. continuing our czech sojourn...

we had breakfast monday morning in the hotel restaurant. pretty good for your standard continental breakfast. on a side note, they called hash browns "mashburns"...i heckled, then immediately adopted this funny new vernacular. mmm...mashburns. yurrrmmm...

PRAGUE CASTLE
we immediately headed out towards prague castle. given that it's the prime attraction of the city, we thought we'd hit it up as soon as we could. prague castle isn't so much a "castle" as it is a massive complex (tho i think it's officially the largest "castle" in the world). there's no recognizable bailey, turrets, or even pronounced castle walls (there are walls...they just don't look like your typical castle walls). the most prominent silhouette of prague castle is of course st. vitus cathedral, which was pretty boss. we roamed the cathedral for a fair bit, along with a few side chapels. the castle grounds themselves were pretty nice too...old golden lane, some of the older medieval aspects left intact, the castle gardens, etc.

afterwards we had dinner at a small restaurant near the base of the charles river on the mala strana side called biskupsky dum. i had to write that down. it's not exactly something i can go back and google for. actually...i wrote down all the restaurants we went to, because half the time we couldn't even pronounce it.

we strolled thru kampa island after dinner, wandered about mala strana at night, and then had a late night dessert at cafe savoy before heading back to the hotel.

hokay...i finally finished photoshopping the shit out of my photos, and they're already up on my flickr. once they were up, i got a bit complacent and never got around to actually posting about my trip. whups...heh. but i wasn't worried, because i actually had the whole trip logged in my iphone, so there wouldn't be a need to sift thru the photos to jog my memory, or to make shit up to fill the gaps of memory...whichever the case may have been. but yay for thorough recaps! well, thorough enough anyway. the iphone keyboard blows testicles...i wasn't keen on typing away on that fucking thing...

elaine flew into nyc early saturday morning at some ungodly hour from phoenix. we hung around my apartment some before heading out for brunch before the flight. the flight itself was fairly uneventful, aside from the dude in the safety instructions video who looked like a cross between ted danson and ivan drago. "i vil brreak you...then vasten your seeet-belt".

DOBRY DEN PRAHA
we got into prague early morning sunday...like at another ungodly hour. we couldn't check into the hotel yet, so we dumped our stuff off with the hotel staff and went wandering the early morning streets. our hotel was right off of wenceslas square, so we headed up and down that for a bit, then wandered south into nove mesto, then north thru the stare mesto. we ended up crossing thru the charles bridge into mala strana, then hradcany, and almost all the way to prague castle within an hour. yea...so we had to stop ourselves, otherwise we'd have nothing to do the rest of the trip. we headed back south into mala strana and took a lunch break at a place called luka la. czech (the language) was noticeably absent in that area, and not because of tourists necessarily. maybe it was a big overseas college area or something...loooots of english spoken by the younger-than-me people we saw.

we made our way back to our hotel, the yasmin (the picture above is of the lobby...woot), and checked in. i think we passed out for a bit before heading out again late afternoon. we wandered some more along the vltava river, saw the fred and ginger building (it was just ok), late afternoon/early evening beering at potrerena husa in the smichov neighborhood, then a czech dinner at krusovicka pivnice...i had schnitzel. yum yum.

oh...pics are up on flickr already. this is my favorite photo. and i def <3 my new canon 5d mark ii....sha-weet...

i wonder if 30 is even considered the "mid-life" anymore. doubt it, right? so yer...um, im "officially" 30! official as in ive made peace with it. shit, its not that bad. actually, its just another day i get an excuse to throw a big party for myself. but i have to rewind a little bit because while ive (surprisingly) been posting, they havent actually been journal posts. whups.

for the most part i cant remember what i did...but last week greg did come up to visit noo yerk from austin. woot! the g-man was my roommate second and third year of college, and is honestly the only friend i kept from my freshman year dorms (class of '22 word!) and one of the few non-architect friends from college in general. wahoos! he came up with his friend tom, and we hit up the moma with some other friends of theirs to check out the prefab exhibit. we pretty much just bummed around central park afterwards, then headed to croxleys for stonkin' wings and to watch michael phelps win his 8th gold (which he did...yay!)

THE BIG 3-0
fast forward a wee to this past week. my official partying started friday. lysha and alice were visiting from amsterdam, so i took the day off to show them around this ginormous city. the "day off" seemed a little inconsequential tho, considering by the time we got out of brunch at delicatessen, there wouldve only been about an hour and a half left of work anyway. we had a half day and a company picnic that day (it was originally the friday before, but got rained out). fuckers. well, it was all good then because i brought lysha and alice to the great hill in central park for some bbq, frisbee, and soccer-ball kicking into sides of peoples heads. it was super.

we lazy'd around in the sun for a while, then headed back down to marisa's place so they could prep for the big partying. steph and kyoko were already at en when we arrived, followed by a long and steady stream of people showing up...wee! it was a pretty big gathering of friends from a variety of circles...cornellians, ex-coworkers, travel friends, and shit...even random coincidences (terence had reservations there that night anyway!) all coming together to get drunk with me. =) we eventually took over the entire front bar area with a ton of sake, food, and good vibes. big big big thanks to everybody who came out to have fun with me. best. berfday. evar.

as an aside. everybodys told me plenty of times before, and its not like i didnt know this already...but shit do i have a disproportionate number of female friends to male friends. it was made all the more apparent with everybody gathered in the same place for once. the night btw, actually started with five girls...and me (not that im complaining!)

THE BIG 3-0, PART DEUX
ya we're not done yet! saturday was my original party day! except alot of people either couldnt make it, couldnt afford it, or were just scared off by the whole thing...hence how friday came about. ;p burlesque, word! and not just any burlesque, this is burlesque with murray hill and the pontani sisters! and i have to say, everybody who wasnt there missed out. not only did the performances rock (miss saturn...wow), but i got a free birthday cake! it came with tassles. it was pretty good too.

pictures! yay! thanks everybody!

extra special hai fives to steph for friday, and gina and renee for saturday!

just got back from toronto...hoowee. min and ron are married, omg! k so theyve been together forever, and this wedding was a long time coming. still tho...good to see her again after all these years, along with a few other of mins friends i hadnt seen in almost 10 years (!?) shit.