Sat 04 Jun 2011 at 12:41 am ♥ Filed under Portugal 2011, Travel
Out of the three cities we visited, I’m quite certain that Lisbon was the prettiest of the bunch. I might even go so far as to wager that Lisbon’s the prettiest city I have ever visited in Europe.1 Sorry, Barcelona, but as much as I nerd out over amazing architecture, Gaudi doesn’t really compare to the easy-breezy charm that is Lisbon. “Strolling” around the city is akin to navigating a labyrinth. Screw grid streets; Lisbon is all organically sloped hills, limestone buildings that layer on top of one another, and stone staircases that meld nicely with the narrow, cobbled alleyways. Not to mention, there’s antique trams, the castles, the oceanside views, and the egg tarts. Not once did we take the subway. After all, it would have been almost insulting to experience the city underground when all of your outside surroundings are like a photographer’s treat.
This? This was the window view from our hostel.
Happy 2011! I’ve been meaning to post this sooner but it looks like the new year decided to bite me in the ass and give me a 103° fever. I suppose that I’m not getting off to a great start with this whole new year spirit, what with me being confined to a bed for the bulk of the day.
Anyway. I’ve got 357 more days to appreciate whatever the year has to throw my way, so no matter. Instead, I’ll talk about 2010, which was actually a pretty good year. Like most years, I did an absolutely shit job at remembering — let alone keeping — my resolutions, and there are still areas in dire need of self-improvement. However, 2010 wasn’t like 2009, which got off to a fantastic start only to fizzle out come September. Nor was it like 2007, which swung to pendulum-esque extremes of highs and lows. Nor was it like 2006, which uh — plain sucked, end of story. The fact that I made it through 2010 alive and enjoyed myself along the duration of the ride is probably a Very Good Thing, because usually during intropsective times like these, I tend to launch into hyper-critical mode where I’m like THIS YEAR COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER IF I (verb) AND IF I HAD BEEN MORE (adjective). Yeah, my super-deep entries about Life and Other Facets of the Universe are, in fact, glorified Mad Libs games. What about it.
Since pictures do a better job of speaking a thousand words or whatever, and I’m feeling inarticulate at the moment, I’m going to pilfer through my Flickr and present to you my year in pictures. So, let’s do the Time Warp (…AGAIN!) and relive my 2010. It’s picture-heavy and it errs on this side of rambly, so don’t say that I didn’t warn you!
Mon 12 Apr 2010 at 11:56 am ♥ Filed under Paris 2010, Travel
Eesh, it’s been a while since I last updated. The last two weeks have been filled with problem sets, projects and this one business venture that I’ve been working on with a couple amazing people at school. We’re trying to get a student-run food truck on Columbia’s campus, because our neighborhood has a tendency to charge ridiculous prices for mediocre food. We made it to the final round of the Columbia Venture Competition and we’re hoping to secure some seed money from this! We’ll know by the end of this week if we win — fingers crossed!
Anyway, I’ll probably make a post about NOM3 (the business venture) later this week. But for now — Paris pictures! This (March 17th) was my last full day of the trip, and the inner art history geek in me had yet to check out the Louvre and the Musée de l’Orangerie.
The Louvre is massive and chock-full of famous works of art that you’ve probably seen in your history books. Like the Winged Victory of Samothrace in all its … uh, winged glory. And this one painting that I randomly found at the Louvre:
