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airplane
Fifteen minutes later, we were over the peninsula and descending to land.
egypt: part three
March 21, 2008
airplane
I also saw a couple of things that looked like ancient ruins from the air! Anyone have any idea what this is? Looks like some kind of gateway that has a modern road running through it.
egypt: part three
March 21, 2008
airplane
The view of the Red Sea from the air was gorgeous. There were so many islands and sandbars and the water was so many different shades of blue around them.
egypt: part three
March 21, 2008
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Check out the view!
egypt: part three
March 21, 2008
airplane
Taking off: 11:32am.
egypt: part three
March 21, 2008
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Ten minutes later I was on the tarmac getting ready to board a plane for a 20-minute flight (preferable to a 15-hour bus ride ANY TIME!).
egypt: part three
March 21, 2008
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We had an uneventful landing. As we taxied towards the jetway, I saw a bunch of these planes on the tarmac! Talk about an unfortunate name for an airline! They totally did it on purpose to discourage English-speakers from flying! Their slogan (in Arabic, of course) "TNT AIRLINES: NO HEATHENS ONBOARD, GUARANTEED."
egypt: part one
March 16, 2008
airplane
Beautiful chaos.
egypt: part one
March 16, 2008
airplane
Finally, the landscape changed from barren desert and we were flying over the Nile River...Cairo!
egypt: part one
March 16, 2008
airplane
..and here's the view from the plane! It's crazy when you look out an airplane window and you're like "Oh yeah, I recognize that from looking at THE GLOBE."
egypt: part one
March 16, 2008
airplane
I love when you're high enough in a plane that you can see the curvature of the earth on the horizon.


View Abu Dhabi --> Cairo in a larger map We flew northwest from Abu Dubai to Cairo. A couple hours in, I looked out my window and recognized the Suez Canal from the airplane. Here's the map version...
egypt: part one
March 16, 2008
airplane
Flying over northwestern Saudi Arabia.
egypt: part one
March 16, 2008
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And we're off!
egypt: part one
March 16, 2008
airplane
Local Time: Monday morning 9:20am. Exactly 4 hours to Cairo!
egypt: part one
March 16, 2008
airplane
...before getting back on a plane!
egypt: part one
March 16, 2008
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Check out the reeeediculous accommodations in Etihad's coach cabin! Here's the back story on why this shit is so pimp:

Abu Dhabi and Dubai are two of the Emirates (in the United Arab Emirates) and there's a competitive streak between them. The rich peeps in Abu Dhabi got tired of Dubai getting recognized worldwide for being so blinging all of the time...because they're like "BUT WE'RE RICHER THAN THEM!"

So one day some of the rich people in Abu Dhabi were lazing around one of their palaces, scheming on how to make the world realize that Dubai is a bunch of greasy bitches and then someone was like "Yo, I don't wanna front - so I'm just gonna say it. I flew back home on Emirates Airlines (the airline that Dubai started) and I gotta admit, that shit was pretty fly."

There must've been all sorts of resigned head-nodding as the rest of the crew reluctantly acknowledged Dubai's flyness. And then outta nowhere, somebody, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, if I'm not mistaken, was like "YO! I HAVE TOTALLY FUCKING GOT IT! We should start our OWN airline and spend way more money than they did. You know, let's just get silly and totally try to make Dubai's airplanes look like TRASH! Then Abu Dhabi will be the new MEGAPORT in the UAE and people will realize that Dubai is basically like Insane Clown Posse and we are totally Death Row in its Suge Night hey-day." (Ok, I'm paraphrasing here at this point, but these dudes placed an order for $8 Billion dollars worth of airplanes when they started, so you get the idea)

Any way, after the two airlines finished with their "who's got doper planes" war, they apparently proceeded to get into a price war. Which I'm guessing is the only way I was able to spend 36 hours in the air with a big seat and a personal TV with unlimited movies and tons of meals for less than $1,000.
egypt: part one
March 16, 2008
airplane
Air travel makes no sense. When I first had my "Aha!" moment to go to Egypt, I looked up direct flights from NYC to Cairo and was like "Oh no, it's like $2,000" (which was way more than I wanted to spend). So then I was like, "Well, for shit's and giggles, let me see if there are any cheaper indirect fares." The first search result said I could fly to Egypt from NYC roundtrip for under $1,000 as long as I was willing to go an extra EIGHT HOURS out of the way through Abu Dhabi BOTH TIMES

But since Faisal lives in Abu Dhabi, I figured it was like Etihad Airlines PAYING me $1,000 to visit a friend! So thanks for that Etihad! Woooo!
egypt: part one
March 16, 2008
airplane
Here's my greasy-ass hair. (And if you look closely, you'll see the beginnings of my mustache coming in that makes it look like I need someone to clean my top lip with a hot washcloth).
thailand part nine: koh tao to bangkok to nyc
August 29, 2007
airplane
Here's what Meredith's hair looked like after she took it down after almost 20 hours of airplane time.
thailand part nine: koh tao to bangkok to nyc
August 29, 2007
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Flight number two! Dubai to JFK.
thailand part nine: koh tao to bangkok to nyc
August 29, 2007
airplane
Airplane dinner!
thailand part nine: koh tao to bangkok to nyc
August 29, 2007
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We got to deplane...
thailand part nine: koh tao to bangkok to nyc
August 29, 2007
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...back to Dubai!
thailand part nine: koh tao to bangkok to nyc
August 29, 2007
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Our first flight was from Bangkok...
thailand part nine: koh tao to bangkok to nyc
August 29, 2007
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About to land.
thailand: part one - bangkok and my 31st birthday
August 06, 2007
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Sooooo excited!
thailand: part one - bangkok and my 31st birthday
August 06, 2007
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Check out the crazy rectangular farm plots around the outskirts of the city.
thailand: part one - bangkok and my 31st birthday
August 06, 2007
airplane
A scant six hours later, and we were approaching Bangkok!
thailand: part one - bangkok and my 31st birthday
August 06, 2007
airplane
Delicious Indian veggie breakfast.
thailand: part one - bangkok and my 31st birthday
August 06, 2007
airplane
Flying out over the Persian Gulf.
thailand: part one - bangkok and my 31st birthday
August 06, 2007
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Check out the view of city!
thailand: part one - bangkok and my 31st birthday
August 06, 2007
airplane
After hours and hours of delays, our plane finally left Dubai around 6:30am just as the sun was coming up!
thailand: part one - bangkok and my 31st birthday
August 06, 2007
airplane
We landed in Dubai on Wednesday around 7pm local time. We got off the plane and headed all the way across the ENORMOUS Dubai airport. We finally got over to immigration on the other side of the airport and Meredith realized that she no longer had her passport with her. Since she needed it to get on the plane, we figured that it must have just fallen out of her bag and was somewhere on the floor of the plane.

So we found a security desk and they called the gate and the woman at the gate said she'd go on the plane and look for it so we should just sit tight. Ten minutes later, she calls back and says "Well, I just went through the whole area you were sitting in and it's not there. Sorry." DOH!

We spent the next several hours trying to find someone with enough authority to let us reboard the plane and search ourselves - but we had no luck. Three hours had passed at this point and we'd just learned that our plane had been refueled and would soon be headed back to JFK. If we couldn't figure out a way to get the passport, we would end up spending the next two nights in the airport until the US Embassy opened back up, and even then, there's a chance that they'd make us fly back to NYC. Ugh.

Every time we found a new person willing to hear us out, they'd call down to the gate and they'd end up reaching the same woman and she'd just be like "I searched the plane. I'ts not there. I'm not looking again."

With the plane's departure growing ever closer, I finally figured it was time to stop dicking around with the airline and try to get in touch with Bernadette. I called her cell and she was worried sick about us because she knew that our plane had landed four hours ago (and that we were on the flight). She was worried that something had happened and we'd been arrested. (Dubai is notorious for its draconian drug laws - they sentenced a British man to FOUR YEARS IN JAIL because they found an amount of marijuana that weighed less than a single grain of sugar stuck in the sole of his shoe!).

We explained the situation to Bernadette and she was immediately like "My boss is a very powerful man in this country. I'm on the way to the airport now...I'll see what I can do."
united arab emirates part one: nyc to dubai
July 31, 2007
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Fast-forward another ten hours and it's breakfast time!
united arab emirates part one: nyc to dubai
July 31, 2007
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My eyes feel like tired!
united arab emirates part one: nyc to dubai
July 31, 2007
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Wakey wakey! Time for morning coffee!
united arab emirates part one: nyc to dubai
July 31, 2007
airplane
Delicious veggie airplane dinner!
united arab emirates part one: nyc to dubai
July 31, 2007
airplane
Fast-forward another two hours or so and we're in the air over New York City and headed for the United Arab Emirates!
united arab emirates part one: nyc to dubai
July 31, 2007
airplane
So: the flight takes off uneventfully; we've been in the air for about an hour, I'm kicking back in my seat, watching some reruns of The Office on my little Jet Blue tv set, and then a flight attendant comes down the aisle and drops off a little goodie bag o' snacks! I looked up to thank her, and although I only caught a glimpse of her before she continued down the aisle, I realized "I KNOW THAT LADY FROM SOMEWHERE!" Now mind you, I'm that guy that ALWAYS thinks he recognizes people from somewhere, but after racking my brain for a few minutes, I realized that the snack-totin' flight attendant was...
business trip to orlando
March 26, 2007
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Home sweet home!
business trip to orlando
March 26, 2007
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...I had to go back to my seat and get ready to land!
business trip to orlando
March 26, 2007
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Orlando Airport. Waiting to board. 7:34pm sunset.
business trip to orlando
March 26, 2007
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Being little rules. This little kid that was sitting in the seat in front of me was seeing the world from 30,000 feet for the first time and it was clearly blowing his tiny mind.
business trip to orlando
March 26, 2007
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And using the macro setting, background blur! Check out the crystals of frost around the little hole. Pretty neat, right?
business trip to orlando
March 26, 2007
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Then I started playing around with the camera's depth of field . Foreground blur!
business trip to orlando
March 26, 2007
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...and after a bit of futzing around, I managed to set up a custom "vivid color" profile so that all my pictures would turn out super-saturated and cartoon-y looking (which is the way I like 'em!).
business trip to orlando
March 26, 2007
airplane
As soon as the plane was in the air, I took out my cam and began dicking around with the manual settings. I was playing around with the white balance in this pic...
business trip to orlando
March 26, 2007
Time-elapse video of the plane approaching the airport and then landing in Orlando! It's really cool to see how the wing-flaps move when the film is sped up. (Features extra-special "surprise ending!")
business trip to orlando
March 26, 2007
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Best. Vacation. EVAR!
cayman islands vacation: part two
August 21, 2006
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In the most random coincidence ever, I ran into the people who used to live next-door to us when I was a little kid and we lived down in South Jersey! Melody and Wayne Holbrook were our neighbors and were good friends with my parents. We moved up to North Jersey and they moved away to Chicago and I hadn't seen them since 1985! They were standing in front of us while we were boarding the plane and I freaked them out when I was like "Are you Melody & Wayne?" They hadn't seen me since I was 9 years old! Craziness.
cayman islands vacation: part two
August 21, 2006
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It was overcast and drizzling a bit, but we didn't care. It felt great to be away somewhere! By the way, Check out the logo for the Cayman Islands' only airline!
cayman islands vacation: part one
August 21, 2006
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It's a pirate turtle with a peg leg! Awwwww! According to the internets, in 1503 Christopher Columbus was the first European to come across the Caymans and he named them Las Tortugas (the turtles) after all the sea turtles in the water around the islands. And later on in the 1800s, the islands became a popular hideout for pirates. So you know, someone there got creative, combined the two things the island is most well-known for, and VOILA! You've got yourself an airplane with a giant, peg-legged pirate turtle!
cayman islands vacation: part one
August 21, 2006
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Touchdown!
cayman islands vacation: part one
August 21, 2006
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Yay! Vacation starts!
cayman islands vacation: part one
August 21, 2006
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Coming in over George Town (the capital).
cayman islands vacation: part one
August 21, 2006
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A couple of hours later and we'd arrived! Here are a bunch of cruise ships docked in the bay.
cayman islands vacation: part one
August 21, 2006
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Two hours later and we're back on the runway, rested-up and ready to fly to Grand Cayman!
cayman islands vacation: part one
August 21, 2006
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Our flight wasn't serving lunch so we bought some food in the airport and brought it along. Pizza and (happy face! ha!) salad.
cayman islands vacation: part one
August 21, 2006
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Nap time resumed about 45 seconds after we'd boarded the plane.
cayman islands vacation: part one
August 21, 2006
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Two more hours later and I'm conked the fuck out. Meredith managed to slyly sneak my camera out of my pocket to capture me in all my gape-mouthed glory.
tara and greg's wedding in houston
March 11, 2006
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Three hours later and we're in the air and headed to Texas!
tara and greg's wedding in houston
March 11, 2006
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Low-flying jumbo jets by Newark Airport.
the october roundup
October, 2005
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And we're airborne! Japan, here we come!
random trip to japan: part one.
August 25, 2005
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Hahaha. We were all sooooo exicted!
random trip to japan: part one.
August 25, 2005
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Korea, here we come.
teaching english in korea: part one
July 28, 2005
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Fourteen hours later, we'd arrived at Incheon Airport, just outside of Seoul, Korea.
teaching english in korea: part one
July 28, 2005
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...and then checked in and headed to the gate!
teaching english in korea: part one
July 28, 2005
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26 hours after getting Mike Doyle's message, I was sitting on a plane headed to LA.
teaching english in korea: part one
July 28, 2005
airplane
Thai Airways flight from Phuket to Chang Mai? About $65! Woooo!
thailand part four: koh phi phi
April 24, 2005
airplane
About 30 seconds after this pic was taken, I conked the fuck out and slept the rest of the way to Texas.
sxsw south by southwest 2005
March 16, 2005
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Noisy!
accidental vacation in jamaica
February 16, 2005
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Booking tickets last minute apparently means two layovers. Here's us transferring over to scary jet-prop on our second flight.
accidental vacation in jamaica
February 16, 2005
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...then boarded the plane. Easy Jet, baby! Easy Jet. (Plane ticket from Budapest to Berlin? $24 a piece!!).
baltic vacation part nine: final leg of the trip
February 11, 2005
airplane
The shuttle bus drove us out onto the tarmac and right up to the plane.
baltic vacation part two: traveling solo in estonia
January 29, 2005
airplane
We then hopped on a plane and flew north, WAY north,to Lapland: the part of Finland that's in the Arctic Circle. As we stepped off the plane, I realized what cold really is. At this point it was -51 degrees CENTIGRADE! (That's -60 degress Fahrenheit.) BRRR.
baltic vacation part one: grant & jake in finland and lapland.
January 26, 2005
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Here's magic man Jake Bronstein, luxuriating in his business class seat with a glass of bubbly. For a laugh, Brian and I told him that Finns hate Jews so for the duration of the trip he was going as Jack Brownstone. Incidentally, the flight attendant was understandably cynical about our first class credentials. As I was snapping this pic he dove onto my chair to check if we were legit. Jake busted him looking, he got all scared and said he was "getting my sweatshirt so that he could hang it in the captain's locker".
baltic vacation part one: grant & jake in finland and lapland.
January 26, 2005
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After drinks, I headed to the airport (excited, but scared out of my tiny mind with the thought of leaving my entire life behind and moving out to San Francisco).
job interview in san francisco
June 22, 2004
airplane
And since we all know I'm not capable of not taking a photos for longer than like three hours max - here's a shot of the airplane.
sxsw part two: more bands and visiting tara
March 20, 2004
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We landed in sunny, warm Aruba at 4pm.
aruba vacation part 1: leaving nyc and first night in aruba
January 22, 2004
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Hello, Long Beach. Woo.
trip to cali part 1: nyc to la
December 10, 2003
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I Fatty and Chris managed to sleep most of the last leg of our trip.
european vacation part 21: heading home!
November 01, 2003
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This time we only had a less than two-hour layover in Iceland. We had a quick snack, bought some duty free booze, and decided to spend our remaining half hour relaxing in one of the nice lounges near our gate. Well, "relaxing" quickly turned into all three of us falling the fuck asleep. We awoke to the sound of our final boarding call over the loudspeaker.
european vacation part 21: heading home!
November 01, 2003
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...boarded our plane.
european vacation part 21: heading home!
November 01, 2003
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No smoking on the Concorde, thank you very much.
european vacation part 21: heading home!
November 01, 2003
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Here's another one. This one's my pensive and artsy "I'm acting like the camera's not there, but clearly I must know it is because I'm the one who took the picture" picture. Who's more emo than me? Motherfuck this photo diary nonsense, I'm gonna get me a LiveJournal. (ps - look at the two cutey patooties passed out next to me like little sleeping lambs. Teeheehee.)
european vacation part 21: heading home!
November 01, 2003
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After a few England-bound hours in the air, it was time for ANOTHER MEAL! Wooooo! Who loves airline food more than us?
european vacation part 18: leaving crete.
October 30, 2003
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Oh, conked the fuck already. That's where.

(Update: Ok, in Grant's defense I have to post something from an email he just sent clarifying why he was worried about the whole plane thing. Turns out he wasn't worried that I'd be mistaken for a a terrorist, he was worried that they were going to think I was a spy. In his email he included a link to story on the BBC news website about 14 "planespotters," people that take pictures of airplanes as a hobby, that were just convicted of "espionage" after being arrested for taking pictures of Greek military planes during an airshow there. Ka-ka-kuh-razy! Good looking out, Grizza. Sorry.)
european vacation part 18: leaving crete.
October 30, 2003
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Despite all of my SUSPICIOUS CAMERA ACTIVITY I somehow managed to make it aboard the plane. Wait, where's the Fatty?
european vacation part 18: leaving crete.
October 30, 2003
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...and boarded our Athens-bound plane. By the way, as we were walking across the tarmac and I was taking out my camera to take this pic - Here's Grant's one-sided conversation to me: "Dude, what are you doing? Don't take a picture. Dude, seriously. Put your camera away. They're going to think you're a terrorist, dude. Think about it, who takes pictures of planes up close like this? Terrorists, that's who! You think I'm kidding? I'm not. Hey, stop laughing. What? What? Stop it. STOP LAUGHING. Seriously. Stop, dude. Stop. STOP! Oh, you little bitch. That's fine just keep on taking pictures and laughing. We'll see who laughing when you're arrested for being a SUSPECTED TERRORIST." (Stomps off in a huff). Heheh.
european vacation part 18: leaving crete.
October 30, 2003
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...the center emergency row! Let's hear it for extra leg room. Awww, yeah.
european vacation part 6: sightseeing with the stoddards .
October 23, 2003
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We chatted up the totally cute Greek girls working the Olympus Airlines ticketing counter and they hooked the four of us up with...
european vacation part 6: sightseeing with the stoddards .
October 23, 2003
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Still totally exhausted, we boarded the plane confident that our three hour flight to London would give us plenty of time to catch up on some sleep before meeting up with Charlene and hitting the town for a night of partying. Little did we know...
european vacation part 3: the blue lagoon
October 21, 2003
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No sleep yet. (Oh also: at some point during the flight, the three of us watched one of those in-flight TV shows about "The Blue Lagoon," which is an Icelandic Spa Resort built around a huge geothermal pool. Other than exploring Reykjavik, we didn't have any other plans. After watching the video, we decided the Blue Lagoon looked amazing and that we'd try to fit it into our schedule if possible.
european vacation part 1: leaving nyc
October 20, 2003
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T-minus 3h 50 minutes until arrival.
european vacation part 1: leaving nyc
October 20, 2003
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9:29pm: Night portraits....somewhere over the Atlantic.
european vacation part 1: leaving nyc
October 20, 2003
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Fatty's big plan was to pop a few Tylenol PM and sleep for the entire flight. But for some reason, he didn't stay asleep. He managed to get, oh, about 25 minutes of sleep before he was awaken by the stewardess who wanted to know what we wanted for dinner.
european vacation part 1: leaving nyc
October 20, 2003
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Our Icelandic stewardess (who didn't really speak English) gave us the choice between Beef Stroganoff and Curry Chicken - We all asked for the Stroganoff but were given this dish (which was neither Stroganoff nor chicken). For about ten minutes I had Chris and Fatty convinced that it was "most likely reindeer meat." Because, you know, "that's mostly what they eat in Iceland." Maybe it was Curry Lamb? We're still not sure. Yay, Mystery Meat!
european vacation part 1: leaving nyc
October 20, 2003
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Chris uses Fatty's inflatable neck pillow to do his impression of a Greek Orthodox priest. (He's so going to hell now).
european vacation part 1: leaving nyc
October 20, 2003
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Boarding.
european vacation part 1: leaving nyc
October 20, 2003
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Shortly thereafter, I headed back to the hotel, packed up, checked out and caught a cab out to Long Beach to make my red eye flight *blech* back home to NYC.
bidness in los angeles
July 24, 2003