Sorry for the lack of posts, but I’ve been busy this month…

Running around Chinese New Year parades

Attending Super Bowl parties

And visiting the most magical place on Earth!

Earlier this month I headed north with a bunch of friends and spent Labor Day weekend up in the glorious state of Maine. What a beautiful place! We rented a house in Rockport and with the threat of Hurricane Earl rearing his ugly head the next day, we decided to take in some local flavor by heading to the nearby candlepin bowling alley for some good ol’ fashioned fun.

I’d never been candlepin bowling before, and let me tell you, it is way more fun than regular bowling. No sticking your fingers in disgustingly grimy bowling balls — you just pick up the hand-sized balls and try to knock down the ten little pins.

The place was empty — except for a young wedding party who had rented out arcade. When the newlyweds and co left, we basically had the run of the place. We bowled for at least two hours, with the total bill coming to a whopping 20 some odd dollars.

There was a machine that would tell you your weight AND your fortune — all for just a penny!

Big props to the Oakland Park Bowling Alley for the dirt cheap prices and super entertaining time.

I have to admit, they are pretty damn cute:

The last year’s worth of bad news about Iceland (bankruptcy, volcanic ash, etc.) has saddened me quite a bit. When I visited the country in 2006 for the Iceland Airwaves festival I fell in love with the uniqueness of the landscape (from glaciers to geo-thermal heated pools) and the quirkiness of its people.

I never get so excited about dispensing travel advice about places I’ve been as I do about Iceland. It’s truly a magical place that seems like the spot where civilization ends and the wild, beautiful wilderness begins.

I hope the country can quickly rise back on its feet after all these catastrophic events have dissipated. Here’s to wishing the best to Iceland.

My Icelandic viking figurine guards the contents of my freezer. (After William Eggleston)

Hey y’all. You may have been wondering what the heck I’ve been doing over the last couple weeks (obviously it hasn’t been updating). Well, I was on a totally awesome road trip across America.

I just got back (and I’m still a little jet lagged) but here is a little taste of some of the truly amazing things I got to see in the US of A:

The table hockey game and nature paintings at the Plaza Tavern in Madison, WI:

Camping at Arches National Park in Utah:


The North Rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona:

Fans posing with Michael Jackson wax figure outside Madame Tussaud’s in Las Vegas the day after his death:

It seems that recently everyone I know has decided to go to Barcelona, Spain. I went a couple of years ago, so I’m deciding to just put all my tips about the great city all in one place for everyone to read. (Feel free to add your picks in the comments.) Check it out:

HOTELS
A hotel I really wanted to stay in was the Hotel Banys Oriental. It’s moderately priced, and is very sleek and modern, but unfortunately it was all booked up by the time I got around to securing a room. It’s in the SoHo-ish area of Barcelona, meaning hip, but slightly fancy. The area is a little bit on the more expensive side in terms of restaurants and stores, but a nice area right of La Rambla.

COOL NEIGHBORHOOD
I especially liked the El Raval area of Barcelona, which is the southwest side of La Rambla. It can get kind of dodgy at night (there was literally one street we walked down where I think it was all drunk people and prostitutes), but just stay on the main streets and know where you’re going and you’ll be good. It’s fine in the daytime as well.

Cool hip restaurants are scattered throughout the area and it’s the “ethnic” area of Barcelona–but a very up-and-coming neighborhood. In NYC terms, it’s kinda like the equivalent of the Lower East Side/Chinatown.

The contemporary art museum Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) is in the area, as well as Barcelona University which means the area has lots of young hip kids running around.

A bar I liked in El Raval was called Ambar (above), situated at the end of Rambla del Raval. When I was there they played familiar music, like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Strokes, etc. Cheap beer.

Restaurant in El Raval that I loved: Dos Trece. It’s actually owned by a SoCal transplant named Abraham and specializes in a loungey vibe.

FOOD
Some other great food spots in other parts of Barcelona include:

Can Culleretes
This restaurant has a LOT of character, the oldest dining establishment in Barcelona (est. 1786), right in the heart of the Barri Gotic.

Many reviews say the servers there are gruff, but I had a wonderful little old lady help us. The food is OK, but the atmosphere is great.

Casa Julia
This charming place is in L’Eixample and is my pick for the yummiest paella ever created. It doesn’t look like much from the street, but go upstairs, take a table and get prepared to have your culinary mind blown. I wish when I was there I did NOT order an appetizer because I was too full to finish the full cast iron skillet of paella de gambas. I still dream about returning one day. NOTE: You MUST order for two. They do not serve single portions of their paella.

FUN
My first day in Barcelona I took an awesome bike tour. We did a day bike tour with Fat Tire Bike Tours. Our guide, JJ, was a drunk Australian dude who was pretty jovial despite his hangover. I fully recommend taking one of these tours as soon as you get to the city because you really get to see the major sites of the city and see the neighborhoods. Tour ends with lunch by the beach at Beach Bar 23.

Hey everyone, I’ve been here in Los Angeles for the past couple of days. Yup, from Inauguration to Academy Award land. It’s been a bit rainy, but it’s pretty nice not to have to wear a big puffy down jacket when I go outside.

Tom Cruise’s star is under a construction site.

On my way over American astronaut Buzz Aldrin was on my flight, sitting two rows in front of me. When you have a man who landed on the moon sitting in your sight line, you feel pretty confident that if something goes wrong, and something happens to the pilots, that it’ll be OK because you know someone on board can probably manage to steer you to a safe landing.

Know this is old news now, but being there on Inauguration Day was truly amazing. To see all the millions of people out there on the Mall, so happy and enthusiastic, it was fantastic to see. Standing out there for several hours wasn’t exactly my favorite activity (it was incredibly cold!), but it was definitely worth braving the chilly temperatures to actually be there during a pivotal moment in our country’s history.

Kinda mad I didn’t wait on line to buy these OBAMA socks at Shepard Fairey’s OBEY pop-up gallery in Georgetown. Fairey was actually onhand DJing the party…but no one there seemed to know who he was!

Watching millions of people waving flags, hearing the voices of everyone cheering (and jeering when shots of Bush came on the screen), made for a memorable experience.

Mad crazy amounts of people on the Washington Monument Hill and on The Mall.

Afterwards you couldn’t go anywhere without stopping and talking to people about being down there during the swearing-in ceremony. Walking into stores, the storeclerks were eager to hear about it–getting into a cab, the cab driver wanted to chat about the experience, sitting down to lunch, all the people around us wanted to chat and trade stories about our time down there.

I know I’m not being so eloquent, but there are no words to describe how excited I was to be there as President Obama took the oath of office. It was a proud day to be an American, and a day I will never forget.

Was anyone else there on that day? How did you feel about the experience?

Hola! Arrived in DC proper today. Headed down to the We Are One concert, but clearly did not get down there at anything resembling early, so we ended up walking down to the Washington Monument and watching from there, but on the way we saw Hoda Kotb from the Today Show.

Er…you can sorta almost see something in the distance..

A nice lady had a Shepard Fairey Obama “HOPE” poster and was collecting signatures from people from all 50 states, so one of us signed it as a representative of NYC. People were all about Obama of course, folks were even excited to pose with a cardboard cutout of the President-Elect:

Got hungry and chowed down in Chinatown at Clyde’s. Some street team guy for Pepsi gave me a handful of Pepsi “HOPE” and “ALL FOR ONE” pins I didn’t want. Then headed back to our friend’s house to watch the concert on HBO.

Clyde’s had special Obama cocktails

Very excited about Tuesday. If today was any indication, people are freaking excited. Hoping to take more of the town in tomorrow. Maybe a little shopping (perhaps a stop in a local yarn store?), need to pick up some Inauguration souvenirs of course!

I took a much-needed vacation last week to Ocean City, Maryland. (I know, not as glamorous as say… the Riviera or Belize… but there was a beach!)

Sure it looks warm but it was freeeeezzziinnnnggg

I got to freeze my buttocks off by the seaside. (Beaches are not perpetually warm… even in September.) I felt the strongest winds of my life, which made the sand feel like a million little tetanus shots pricking my bare legs. The gusts of winds were so strong, that while I was riding a bike down the boardwalk, I went a length of about 30 blocks without pedaling ONCE (I kid you not!).

I saw some *interesting* things when I headed “downtown”…

Perhaps they have these kind of shirts all across beach towns in the US, but all I could say was OMGWTF?

Ate at some famous local joints like Thrasher’s (french fries), Dumser’s (ice cream), Phillips (seafood). They were all pretty good, but no match to some of my favorite New York places…and in the case of Phillips, they were no match to the mighty Smuggler’s Cove in Tannersville, PA. I became totally addicted to the Smuggler’s Cove this past summer when I happen to stop there for dinner at the recommendation of the hotel staff. Oh my. The seafood will blow your MIND. (Run, don’t walk if you ever find yourself in the area!) In fact, I was so disappointed with Phillips so-called “famously delicious” seafood that on the way back to NYC, we drove about an hour and a half out of our way just so we could get some quality seafood at the Cove. It’s THAT GOOD.

On the way back up to New York I also stopped in Washington, D.C. for a couple of days. I’ve been to D.C. a few times, but never had the opportunity to sight see, so it was such a pleasure to be able to walk around the Mall and pop into the plethora of FREE museums in the area. (Being a New Yorker, the idea of an American museum being FREE is completely mind blowing since it costs about $20 to get into places like the MoMa and the Met.)

Oh, and have you ever heard of this chain called Rita’s where they serve custard and Italian ices? Everyone kept moaning about how delicious it was, and I have to admit the black cherry Italian ice was pretty out of this world.

Here are some picys I’d like to share:

Just add a “s” and you’ve got the (Julian) Casablancas Inn…

It gets lonely on the high (mini-golf) seas…

Sunset at Fager’s Island

Still standing…

Cool public bike system. (Already adopted by European cities like Paris and Barcelona.) This was the only rack I saw while I was there.

This flight simulation machine at the National Air and Space Museum should be renamed the nausea actualization machine.

Sorry for the lack of updates, but the “end” of summer had me taking advantage of the gorgeous weather and actually going OUTSIDE instead of chaining myself to my computer.

Today for Labor Day the BSB and I headed up to Beacon, NY and took in some artwork at Dia:Beacon, then roamed around the town. Beautiful, sunny, breezy weather had me in great spirits, and a fantastic food recommendation from a family walking down Main Street saved us from culinary despair. (Brother’s Trattoria in Beacon–yum!)

Patchy grass.

Dia:Beacon


Dia:Beacon garden.

Birds. Chillin’.

Trucks.

Abandoned building.

Artist Work/Live Lofts

Waterfall.

Technicolor sunset.