Hello to all!
Just a very short post to let you know that the latest batch of photos are now up on Flickr. I'll try and post a proper blog in the next few days or so, but I am really busy with exams and papers for the end of the semester, so please bear with me!
Hope all are fine and dandy...
David M
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Jane in S'algar
Greetings all.....
Here's a picture of James and Jane (sounds like a movie title....) Jane was here for the weekend. She arrived on Friday and stayed until Monday morning. We went all over the island as she had hired a car for her trip. When she used to come here before, she had never really seen much of Menorca. It was a whistle stop trip but we got to see lots of places that we haven't been to for a while, especially the ones that are too far away to be sensibly accessed by scooter!
Hope all are well!
David
Here's a picture of James and Jane (sounds like a movie title....) Jane was here for the weekend. She arrived on Friday and stayed until Monday morning. We went all over the island as she had hired a car for her trip. When she used to come here before, she had never really seen much of Menorca. It was a whistle stop trip but we got to see lots of places that we haven't been to for a while, especially the ones that are too far away to be sensibly accessed by scooter!
Hope all are well!
David
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Barcelona Part 3.
Yes, folks there is still more! Remember the title of the first post....well, we have not told you about the prostitutes yet......
Sunday dawned a little too early, considering we had gone to bed so late (check out Barcelona Part 2 if you have NOT been paying attention). Today was to be our day for heading to the fundacion Joan Miro, an art exhibition devoted to his works. The museum is located a little way outside of Barcelona, so we donned our walking shoes and headed off on foot. After a long slog up hill, we finally arrived there, hot and sweaty about an hour later. We joined the enormous line and waited to get in. After a quick question about whether we could pay with a credit card we finally entered the exhibition. For those of you who are not familiar with the works of Miro, I highly recommend that you check out some of his works on the web. To put it bluntly, it´s weird shit. I am doing a study on his works for my art history class while I am over here, and I have been having a really hard time getting to grips with it. Still, undaunted, I slogged through the museum trying to explain some of the images to James. I was frustrated that the works were not seemingly in any particular order as the book I had been reading dealt with Miro from a chronological perspective. Still, it was intersting and although his work makes my head explode, I do feel that I am slowly getting there. The constellation period has to be my favourite so far.
After the exhibition we decided that we need to get away from culture for abit, so we headed to the Barcelona sea front! Being a sunday, there were market stalls, and squillions of people everywhere. We stopped off at an ice cream store and watched the world go by for a few hours. It was a beautiful afternoon, and just sitting on the seafront made me realise how lucky we are to be able to experience all of the things we have been doing.
Dinner that night was to be a real treat. While walking up and donw Las Ramblas we had discovered a pizza restaurant called Pizza Marzano. I had noticed that the logo bore a marked resemblance to Pizza Express, my favourite Pizza restaurant in the world. We had popped inside and asked the question¨"Are you part of Pizza Express?". With a big smile, the concierge had replied yes, so we had decided to eat there as a treat. "Wot" , I hear you say? We went to Barcelona and ate pizza? Yes, sad but true. But it´s not any old Pizza. Those of you who have eaten there before will know that, and it was a real treat to be able to have it. We headed there about 8pm and had a super meal, sitting near the windows, where we could watch the world outside. We also had a great view of the whole inside of the restaurant, so naturally we satthere critiquing everyone else as well! After all, what else is there to do?!
After dinner we just wandered off down some side streets. We still fancied a drink, and eventually we stumbled across a small wine bar (fancy that!) and headed inside. We took a table in a corner, next to a small hen party, for which I offered to take a few picture for with their cameras, and settled in for the evening. After about 1 hour, we decided that we wanted to move to a different table, which had a little more room. Having embedded ourselves there, the next thing that happened was a group of women rushing into the bar to ask for help from the bar staff. It seems that one of the group had fallen prey to one of Barcelonas many handbag/purse snatchers. This particular lady in question had had someone cut the bag strap with a craft knife while it was on her, and they had succeded in cutting her clothes to ribbons at the same time. I really felt for the group as the lady had lost everything. I am guessing that her passport was also now gone too. It's such a horrible thing to have happen to them and I do hope that they managed to get through such an awful time.
After leaving, we took a final stroll down towards our hostel. As we walked, James was approached by a prostitute who, uttering the words "Shaggy Shaggy", proceeded to rub her hands across his groin and the front of his trousers. He protested, and pointed to me and told her in Spanish that he was gay and not interested. She then left James and turned her charms to me. As she was rubbing my crotch, a companion of hers appeared on my other side and started rubbing too. I have to say that this was fairly alarming and I started to pull away, swearing at them. The two of them then linked arms with me and started to walk with me down the street. Suddenly I felt a movement in my front trouser pocket. I snatched my arms away from my paramours, only to see a hand snaking it's way into the top of my right front trouser pocket - where my wallet was, underneath a stuffing of tissues to try and protect it. While the first two ladies had been holding my arms, a third accomplice had come up behind and was attempting to pickpocket me. Well, as you can imagine I was less than happy and shook them off and swore and yelled at them all as only I can do when I am angry. They ran off denying everything and we returned to our hostel.
It was only later that we started to put the pieces together. When they had been rubbing James' crotch they had been looking to see if his wallet was there. It was not, as he had it inside his fleece pocket. That was when they came to me, and the rest of the story you know. I think it was quite likely that they were not in fact prostitutes, but in fact just very clever "dippers". I consider myself very lucky that I had stuffed my pocket with tissues, though I will find somewhere else to keep my wallet next time.
That brings us to Monday, which was our last day. We took in the outside of two more Gaudi buildings, the Casa Batllo and the Casa Milla, and spent out final afternoon lounging in the park and dozing. At 6pm it was back on the train to the airport and back to Menorca! After arriving back at Mahon airport, we picked up the scooter from the parking lot and headed home. It was a great trip, educational - in more ways than one, and a huge amount of fun. I hope that we maybe have the opportunity to head back again soon!
So there you have all the gory details. Next event on our radar is the arrival of Jane, my sister on Friday. I am trying to get all my school work completed by then so that I don't have to worry about it while she is here. And I have to take pictures! Watch this space then, and I will post sometime next week!
Big love to all,
D&J
Sunday dawned a little too early, considering we had gone to bed so late (check out Barcelona Part 2 if you have NOT been paying attention). Today was to be our day for heading to the fundacion Joan Miro, an art exhibition devoted to his works. The museum is located a little way outside of Barcelona, so we donned our walking shoes and headed off on foot. After a long slog up hill, we finally arrived there, hot and sweaty about an hour later. We joined the enormous line and waited to get in. After a quick question about whether we could pay with a credit card we finally entered the exhibition. For those of you who are not familiar with the works of Miro, I highly recommend that you check out some of his works on the web. To put it bluntly, it´s weird shit. I am doing a study on his works for my art history class while I am over here, and I have been having a really hard time getting to grips with it. Still, undaunted, I slogged through the museum trying to explain some of the images to James. I was frustrated that the works were not seemingly in any particular order as the book I had been reading dealt with Miro from a chronological perspective. Still, it was intersting and although his work makes my head explode, I do feel that I am slowly getting there. The constellation period has to be my favourite so far.
After the exhibition we decided that we need to get away from culture for abit, so we headed to the Barcelona sea front! Being a sunday, there were market stalls, and squillions of people everywhere. We stopped off at an ice cream store and watched the world go by for a few hours. It was a beautiful afternoon, and just sitting on the seafront made me realise how lucky we are to be able to experience all of the things we have been doing.
Dinner that night was to be a real treat. While walking up and donw Las Ramblas we had discovered a pizza restaurant called Pizza Marzano. I had noticed that the logo bore a marked resemblance to Pizza Express, my favourite Pizza restaurant in the world. We had popped inside and asked the question¨"Are you part of Pizza Express?". With a big smile, the concierge had replied yes, so we had decided to eat there as a treat. "Wot" , I hear you say? We went to Barcelona and ate pizza? Yes, sad but true. But it´s not any old Pizza. Those of you who have eaten there before will know that, and it was a real treat to be able to have it. We headed there about 8pm and had a super meal, sitting near the windows, where we could watch the world outside. We also had a great view of the whole inside of the restaurant, so naturally we satthere critiquing everyone else as well! After all, what else is there to do?!
After dinner we just wandered off down some side streets. We still fancied a drink, and eventually we stumbled across a small wine bar (fancy that!) and headed inside. We took a table in a corner, next to a small hen party, for which I offered to take a few picture for with their cameras, and settled in for the evening. After about 1 hour, we decided that we wanted to move to a different table, which had a little more room. Having embedded ourselves there, the next thing that happened was a group of women rushing into the bar to ask for help from the bar staff. It seems that one of the group had fallen prey to one of Barcelonas many handbag/purse snatchers. This particular lady in question had had someone cut the bag strap with a craft knife while it was on her, and they had succeded in cutting her clothes to ribbons at the same time. I really felt for the group as the lady had lost everything. I am guessing that her passport was also now gone too. It's such a horrible thing to have happen to them and I do hope that they managed to get through such an awful time.
After leaving, we took a final stroll down towards our hostel. As we walked, James was approached by a prostitute who, uttering the words "Shaggy Shaggy", proceeded to rub her hands across his groin and the front of his trousers. He protested, and pointed to me and told her in Spanish that he was gay and not interested. She then left James and turned her charms to me. As she was rubbing my crotch, a companion of hers appeared on my other side and started rubbing too. I have to say that this was fairly alarming and I started to pull away, swearing at them. The two of them then linked arms with me and started to walk with me down the street. Suddenly I felt a movement in my front trouser pocket. I snatched my arms away from my paramours, only to see a hand snaking it's way into the top of my right front trouser pocket - where my wallet was, underneath a stuffing of tissues to try and protect it. While the first two ladies had been holding my arms, a third accomplice had come up behind and was attempting to pickpocket me. Well, as you can imagine I was less than happy and shook them off and swore and yelled at them all as only I can do when I am angry. They ran off denying everything and we returned to our hostel.
It was only later that we started to put the pieces together. When they had been rubbing James' crotch they had been looking to see if his wallet was there. It was not, as he had it inside his fleece pocket. That was when they came to me, and the rest of the story you know. I think it was quite likely that they were not in fact prostitutes, but in fact just very clever "dippers". I consider myself very lucky that I had stuffed my pocket with tissues, though I will find somewhere else to keep my wallet next time.
That brings us to Monday, which was our last day. We took in the outside of two more Gaudi buildings, the Casa Batllo and the Casa Milla, and spent out final afternoon lounging in the park and dozing. At 6pm it was back on the train to the airport and back to Menorca! After arriving back at Mahon airport, we picked up the scooter from the parking lot and headed home. It was a great trip, educational - in more ways than one, and a huge amount of fun. I hope that we maybe have the opportunity to head back again soon!
So there you have all the gory details. Next event on our radar is the arrival of Jane, my sister on Friday. I am trying to get all my school work completed by then so that I don't have to worry about it while she is here. And I have to take pictures! Watch this space then, and I will post sometime next week!
Big love to all,
D&J
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Dinner with David and James!
Greetings once more! It's just like Christmas isn't it...all these blog posts, one after the other! Well, here is a treat for you all. As promised in Barcelona Part 2, we have made you a new movie. After the comments we received about the first movie, we just couldn't help ourselves, so we made another and here it is. I won't spoil the surprise; you'll have to watch it to see what it is all about!
Barcelona Part 3 will be up either at the end of this week, or the beginning of next. On Friday of this week, my sister, Jane will be coming to visit us. So we'll update you with pictures on that trip next week! And on the subject of visting, where are you all? Come see us!
On a different note, please send lots of happy photo vibes my way. The last week and a half have been difficult photo times for me. I think all photographers must go through a period of time when they take nothing but dreadful shots, and I am having one of those moments. I don't know whether I am just running out of ideas or what, but it just isn't happening at the moment and I have 5 images to deliver next monday. I seem to have lost all creativity and process. So, think happy photo thoughts and send them my way!
On with the show!
Big love,
David & James
Monday, April 7, 2008
Barcelona Part 2.
Well, here it is, the second part of the blog on our trip to Barcelona!
The next day, saturday, was to be a day of Gaudi. We got up fairly early, considering we had been partying the night before after the concert, and headed to the Palau Guell. This building is located on a little side street just off Las Ramblas and had been closed for quite a while for renovations. At the beginning of this year they had re-opened the basement and the entrance lobby. It was really quite impressive and provided a good introduction to some of Gaudi basic elements, most noticably the catenary and parabloic arch. We stayed here for about 45 minutes and then headed on our way.
Next stop was the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's huge unfinished cathedral. We had been and looked at the outside about 4 years ago, so I was eager to see what had been done since then, and this time we were going to go inside as well. On the way we stopped off at some shops to buy our lunch. One of the things that we enjoy doing when we travel is to stop at a bakers for some rolls and then find a small deli or store and buy some ham, cheese and maybe some fruit. This time we bought a nice selection of cured hams and spanish smoked cheeses, together with some blood oranges for dessert. We made our sandwiches and ate them sitting in front of the Sagrada Familia.
After lunch, we bought our entrance tickets and headed inside. I was totally unprepared for it to be a huge building site inside still. There was chaos everywhere and the scream of saw and drills was deafening. For those of you who are not aware of the Sagrada Familia, the bulding started in the late 1800's and it is still going on to day! Estimated completion is now 2020! Still, we wandered around and marvelled at the enormous columns and other visible parts. I hope that I am lucky enough to one day go inside the finished piece, but I think 2020 is WAY too optimistic! We checked out the museum downstairs, which is a must see and then headed on our way once more.
Next stop was the Park Guell. Gaudi used to walk from the Park Guell to the Sagrada Familia everyday, so I was curious to do the same thing. He was one fit man! It took us about an hour and it is all up hill. Once there we took some time to wander around and marvel at the architecture. A lot of Gaudi's work looks like something that has escaped from Disney land and this was no exception. Giant colourful chminey pots adorned the tops of the buildings, and the porcelain bench running aournd the open air theatre was very impressive as was the hall of columns underneath.
On the way back to the hostel we checked out the exterior of the Casa Vicens, Gaudi's first commision. This was quite dull compared to the others, but it still provided an insight into where his style was heading. Once we got back to the hostel, we took a shower, a short nap and then headed back out again! Dinner was a Falafel on the street from a super little cafe, recommended by Lonely Plant. You receive your pita with falafel inside and you then get to help yourself to tons of toppings and salads. Very tasty and only 3e each! Then it was off to the bars for a drink. We had a great evening visiting some of the bars for a few drinks in the gay area of Barcelona. At about 2 in the morning we started our walk back. We didn't realise that we had walked quite so far, and it was 3.15am by the tuime we finally made it back into the hostel! Still, fuelled by some wine and beer, it had been a nice walk through the nightlife of Barcelona, a city that really doens't seem to sleep much!
That was our Saturday. Sunday will follow in the next post!
Oh, and just to give you something to look forward to, we have made you another movie! Coming soon.....!
Hope all are fine and dandy!
D&J
The next day, saturday, was to be a day of Gaudi. We got up fairly early, considering we had been partying the night before after the concert, and headed to the Palau Guell. This building is located on a little side street just off Las Ramblas and had been closed for quite a while for renovations. At the beginning of this year they had re-opened the basement and the entrance lobby. It was really quite impressive and provided a good introduction to some of Gaudi basic elements, most noticably the catenary and parabloic arch. We stayed here for about 45 minutes and then headed on our way.
Next stop was the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's huge unfinished cathedral. We had been and looked at the outside about 4 years ago, so I was eager to see what had been done since then, and this time we were going to go inside as well. On the way we stopped off at some shops to buy our lunch. One of the things that we enjoy doing when we travel is to stop at a bakers for some rolls and then find a small deli or store and buy some ham, cheese and maybe some fruit. This time we bought a nice selection of cured hams and spanish smoked cheeses, together with some blood oranges for dessert. We made our sandwiches and ate them sitting in front of the Sagrada Familia.
After lunch, we bought our entrance tickets and headed inside. I was totally unprepared for it to be a huge building site inside still. There was chaos everywhere and the scream of saw and drills was deafening. For those of you who are not aware of the Sagrada Familia, the bulding started in the late 1800's and it is still going on to day! Estimated completion is now 2020! Still, we wandered around and marvelled at the enormous columns and other visible parts. I hope that I am lucky enough to one day go inside the finished piece, but I think 2020 is WAY too optimistic! We checked out the museum downstairs, which is a must see and then headed on our way once more.
Next stop was the Park Guell. Gaudi used to walk from the Park Guell to the Sagrada Familia everyday, so I was curious to do the same thing. He was one fit man! It took us about an hour and it is all up hill. Once there we took some time to wander around and marvel at the architecture. A lot of Gaudi's work looks like something that has escaped from Disney land and this was no exception. Giant colourful chminey pots adorned the tops of the buildings, and the porcelain bench running aournd the open air theatre was very impressive as was the hall of columns underneath.
On the way back to the hostel we checked out the exterior of the Casa Vicens, Gaudi's first commision. This was quite dull compared to the others, but it still provided an insight into where his style was heading. Once we got back to the hostel, we took a shower, a short nap and then headed back out again! Dinner was a Falafel on the street from a super little cafe, recommended by Lonely Plant. You receive your pita with falafel inside and you then get to help yourself to tons of toppings and salads. Very tasty and only 3e each! Then it was off to the bars for a drink. We had a great evening visiting some of the bars for a few drinks in the gay area of Barcelona. At about 2 in the morning we started our walk back. We didn't realise that we had walked quite so far, and it was 3.15am by the tuime we finally made it back into the hostel! Still, fuelled by some wine and beer, it had been a nice walk through the nightlife of Barcelona, a city that really doens't seem to sleep much!
That was our Saturday. Sunday will follow in the next post!
Oh, and just to give you something to look forward to, we have made you another movie! Coming soon.....!
Hope all are fine and dandy!
D&J
Thursday, April 3, 2008
New Images
Just a quickie to let you know that there are some new images on my flickr account. As usual, they are in the ARTO498 set. Watch this space for the second part of our Barcelona trip!
Hope all are fine and dandy.....
DM
Hope all are fine and dandy.....
DM
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