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a person in 235 photos

chris a

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chris a
Same thing; Different sauce.
european vacation part 13: steak dinner.
October 27, 2003
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Immediately after scaring him in the shower, we ran back inside, set up the camera and Chris hid behind the door to see if we could manage to scare him twice in ten minutes.
european vacation part 13: steak dinner.
October 27, 2003
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It was right at this wall where we received our first bit of exciting news: That the tour's almost over
european vacation part 12: knossos ruins.
October 27, 2003
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Aw, yeah. Let's hear it for culture.
european vacation part 12: knossos ruins.
October 27, 2003
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Chris jumping off the rock (and getting bonus points for coldlamping mid-air Thrasher magazine style, circa 1984).
european vacation part 11: caves of matala.
October 26, 2003
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Chris on a rock.
european vacation part 11: caves of matala.
October 26, 2003
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Chris and Grant on a rock.
european vacation part 11: caves of matala.
October 26, 2003
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All the caves were carved in the rocks by the Romans and were used as a cemetery! In the late 1960s, a bunch of hippies found them and for two years the caves caves became a commune (Joni Mitchell actually spent six months here living in one of the caves). More and more hippies kept coming until the local authorities got fed up and kicked all of their dirty, patchouli-smelling asses the fuck off the beach. ("Take your guitar and MOVE IT, Harpo! Now!"). Boo-yah!
european vacation part 11: caves of matala.
October 26, 2003
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Here's Chris demonstrating how engorged he became watching Fatty writhe around in the sand.
european vacation part 11: caves of matala.
October 26, 2003
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The beginning of sunset.
european vacation part 11: caves of matala.
October 26, 2003
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Where we proceeded to throw down group beach coldlamps, awww yeah. Check out all the rocks on the beach. The waves there made the craziest sound. Each time the water washed out back towards to ocean, it would drag all of the smaller rocks across the larger rocks on the bottom and make this bizarre, underwater rumbling noise. After a quick swim, we laid down to dry off in the sun and were all quickly lulled to sleep by the sound of the water.
european vacation part 10: agia gahlini.
October 26, 2003
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Here's us bright and early out on our front porch enjoying a breakfast of Greek yogurt and granola. Mmmmmmmm. (ps - what's up, busted dudes in the morning?)
european vacation part 10: agia gahlini.
October 26, 2003
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And for one of the main courses: Fresh octipi! Tenticliscous!
european vacation part 10: agia gahlini.
October 26, 2003
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After our busy day of swimming and napping, we headed over to one of the nearby beach restaurants for some lunch. Chris and me.
european vacation part 10: agia gahlini.
October 26, 2003
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Thanks, Kostas!
european vacation part 9: dinner with kostas vallassos.
October 25, 2003
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We wandered the streets for almost an hour trying to decide on where we wanted to eat (ok, trying to find the place that had the most hot girls dining there). The problem was, there was so many restaurants (and so many hot girls) that we couldn't make up our minds. Finally, as we neared the point of collapse from hunger, we were courted by this dude, Kostas Vallasso, and he was so friendly and funny that we decided to eat as his place.
european vacation part 9: dinner with kostas vallassos.
October 25, 2003
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Here's our condo's little porch out front.
european vacation part 9: dinner with kostas vallassos.
October 25, 2003
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Hungry boys.
european vacation part 9: dinner with kostas vallassos.
October 25, 2003
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...he brought out more white wine. Amidst all the merriment (shit-talking and recalled moments of scooter-glory), we suddenly realized that we were all completely shit-hammered. When we (slurringly) asked him, "Kostassssch, why are we schooooo drunk?" He explained that the local wines contained approximately 14% alcohol. (Which explains why these pics are starting to get as blurry as our vision was).
european vacation part 9: dinner with kostas vallassos.
October 25, 2003
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Fatty and Chris.
european vacation part 9: dinner with kostas vallassos.
October 25, 2003
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Which led to us getting hopelessly lost. With all the narrow, windy roads it took us a good 25 minutes to find our way out of town and back to the road that led home.
european vacation part 9: dinner with kostas vallassos.
October 25, 2003
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Here's us riding down a sidestreet clearly not meant for scooter traffic. Doh!
european vacation part 9: dinner with kostas vallassos.
October 25, 2003
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Afterwards we walked around the surrounding area...
european vacation part 8: scooter madness!
October 25, 2003
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And now here's our Quadrophenia inspired SCOOTERGANG shots.
european vacation part 8: scooter madness!
October 25, 2003
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How tough is the Fatty in this pic? See that drop off behind Fatty in the pic? That's actually a steep road that leads down to this little tiny part of the penninsula that goes out into the water. We drove down to explore and take a closer look.
european vacation part 8: scooter madness!
October 25, 2003
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And here's "Stone Cold Player."
european vacation part 8: scooter madness!
October 25, 2003
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First up is Chris. Here he is demonstrating the pose called "Care Free Cowboy."
european vacation part 8: scooter madness!
October 25, 2003
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After we were finished taking in the view, we decided it was high time that we took some shots of each of us pimping and coldlamping on our HOGGZ!
european vacation part 8: scooter madness!
October 25, 2003
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We parked our bikes and Chris and I set out on foot to check it out.
european vacation part 8: scooter madness!
October 25, 2003
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And my personal fave: "Kiss me, I'm Greek."
european vacation part 8: scooter madness!
October 25, 2003
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Kudos to the Fatty for managing to catch...
european vacation part 8: scooter madness!
October 25, 2003
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All these pics are from Fatty's cam. Here's Chris going for a behind the head catch.
european vacation part 8: scooter madness!
October 25, 2003
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OG: Original Greek.
european vacation part 8: scooter madness!
October 25, 2003
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While Chris and I goofed around with our cameras,
european vacation part 8: scooter madness!
October 25, 2003
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Heltmets? Check. We had originally planned on driving west to a nearby city called Hania but when we looked more carefully at the map, we realized it was over 75 km away (which is really far by scooter). So we instead decided to head to Balí, a small beach town about 35 km away.
european vacation part 8: scooter madness!
October 25, 2003
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I don't know if you know this, but Greeks drive like crazy people. Wait, that doesn't quite do it justice. More like FUH-HUH-HUH-KING CAH-RAZY PEOPLE! It makes no sense. You walk around Crete and all you see are these chilled out playas all taking it easy, sipping their coffee, taking their four-hour breaks...but all of a sudden, put one of them chilled dudes behind the wheel of a anything with a motor and all of the sudden they've GOT FUCKING PLACES TO BE SO MOVE OR BE KILLED! With that in mind, full-well knowing that renting scooters on a Greek island might lead to an early death, we decided to head to the restaurant across the street and enjoy what might very well be our last meal:
european vacation part 8: scooter madness!
October 25, 2003
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After we finished eating (around 11:30am) we walked back over to the scooter rental place next to our resort only to find this sign on the door "Be Back at 16:00!" The place had opened at 10am and by 11:30 (or maybe 11?) the guy working there needed to take a SIX AND A HALF HOUR BREAK. Greek people hate work like a fat kid hates running. After driving around in a car for awhile (and finding that most of the rental places were closed for the season) we finally found a local guy who was nice enough to have us follow him to a small rental shop he knew of down by the water. We plunked down 14 Euros each and BAM! we all got scooters. Here's Chris posing with his.
european vacation part 8: scooter madness!
October 25, 2003
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So. Tired. Must. Sleep. Soon.
european vacation part 7: first day in crete!.
October 24, 2003
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Bonus close-up! Still going (albeit slighly more red-faced)! Chris can hold himself like that for like 10 minutes. It's insane.
european vacation part 7: first day in crete!.
October 24, 2003
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After a quick lesson from Chris, Grant wowed us all with his ability to do the "It's Windy!" trick!
european vacation part 7: first day in crete!.
October 24, 2003
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After our quick half-time show, we decided to try our luck in one more bar. Upon returning from the bathroom upstairs, Fatty actually managed to capture with his camera the Force Field that was physically preventing all girls from seeing us (nevermind actually letting them get close enough to dance with us). Once he showed us this pic, we knew we'd better just call it a night.
european vacation part 7: first day in crete!.
October 24, 2003
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Chris opted for the old "Sure is windy here in Crete!" trick by hanging horizontally from the "Child Molester Zone" sign pole we'd seen earlier.
european vacation part 7: first day in crete!.
October 24, 2003
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Not wanting to make me feel bad, Chris was quick to throw down with a quick "See, not only pussies have to hang from window?" show of solidarity. What a fuggin guy, eh?
european vacation part 7: first day in crete!.
October 24, 2003
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Around midnight, we finally got motivated enough to all hop into the car and drive into downtown Rethymnon. We sat at an outdoor cafe right on the water, had some coffee and chocolate cake, then around 1am we started roaming the streets looking for some interesting bars or clubs to hit.
european vacation part 7: first day in crete!.
October 24, 2003
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Chris "The Greek" Apostalou...
european vacation part 7: first day in crete!.
October 24, 2003
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Live Show gets the thumbsdown! Here's us in the parking lot trying to assess the financial damage. Our four Russian "strippers" managed to fleece the four of us for a grand total of €120 in less than 20 minutes! And we still didn't manage to see any heines! We hopped in the car to drive the remaing 1/4 mile back to our resort, and in the moment of silence after we were finished laughing hysterically at what had just happened we all heard Grant say quietly to himself: "Hmmmmm. A hundred Euros, eh?" Hahahahaha.
european vacation part 7: first day in crete!.
October 24, 2003
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On the way back to the car a little after 3am, we found another sidewalk snack shop and decided to get something to eat. We all ended up ordering the Cretan equivalent of (my favorite bo-bo NYC food) the infamous Rosario's "Frankie and Cheese." (special shout out to the Crowley brothers, Dens & J Crowley, who have both frequently use their web pages to expound upon the most excellent deliciousness of this culinary wonder of the Lower East Side)
european vacation part 7: first day in crete!.
October 24, 2003
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Chris (being Greek) demonstrates the proper way to wear this "Can I Lick Your Clit?" souvenir from Greece.
european vacation part 7: first day in crete!.
October 24, 2003
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Here we are, four dudes surrounded by nothing but totally hot women from a Greek island who want to have NOTHING TO DO WITH US. Liberia's got nothing on us, THIS is hell on earth.
european vacation part 7: first day in crete!.
October 24, 2003
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Being that all the road signs were in Greek, we elected Chris to drive. We packed up the car, busted out the map, and started the 80 kilometer drive from Heraklion to Rethymnon.
european vacation part 7: first day in crete!.
October 24, 2003
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"Parliament!"
european vacation part 6: sightseeing with the stoddards .
October 23, 2003
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...and then got the hell off that windy-ass bridge.
european vacation part 6: sightseeing with the stoddards .
October 23, 2003
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We all ended up oversleeping and had to rush out of the door so as not to be late meeting up with Grant's parents, grandmother (Pam!) and (hot) sister, Gemma in Covent Garden. Grant was freaking out the whole ride in. He was like "We can't be late! My dad'll kill us!"
european vacation part 6: sightseeing with the stoddards .
October 23, 2003
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Chris (being a ninja and all) out of the blue decided to climb the giant, bronze lion statue. Evenutally (with much more difficulty) the rest of us managed to climb up there with him, but I can't find the picture of all four us up there (which is a good thing because a picture of the four of us snuggled up riding a lion statue would be so gay that if I posted it on the world wide net there'd be a risk that it could cause a chain reaction and turn the entire world gay).
european vacation part 6: sightseeing with the stoddards .
October 23, 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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...and grabbed the train to Heathrow to catch our 10:20pm flight and kick off the next leg of the trip: Crete!
european vacation part 6: sightseeing with the stoddards .
October 23, 2003
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...a huge Cretan man that looked like a bizarro "Ogre Version" of our good friend Ross Martin. Not willing to let him escape undocumented, we dispatched Chris (who speaks fluent Greek) to tell the giant Ross-Ogre (R'ogre, if you will) that he looked just like a friend of ours and would he mind posing for a picture. There was an uncomfortably long pause as he pondered our request (which I spent fearing he was about to crush all of our heads like grapes) but instead he gave a polite nod and posed for this fantastic pic.
european vacation part 6: sightseeing with the stoddards .
October 23, 2003
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Chris the Greek coldlamps on the Greek Street lamp.
european vacation part 6: sightseeing with the stoddards .
October 23, 2003
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...and a light schhhhnack.
european vacation part 6: sightseeing with the stoddards .
October 23, 2003
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After that, we hopped back onto the tube, headed back to Charlene's flat...
european vacation part 6: sightseeing with the stoddards .
October 23, 2003
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Hi, we're tourists.
european vacation part 6: sightseeing with the stoddards .
October 23, 2003
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Grammy Pammy, Fatty and Chris.
european vacation part 6: sightseeing with the stoddards .
October 23, 2003
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Then it was back to more sightseeing. Clark: "Look kids! Big Ben!"
european vacation part 6: sightseeing with the stoddards .
October 23, 2003
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Our schtick was apparently so convincing that they even seated us in one of the cool private rooms in the back (that we ended up sharing with Tony Chambers, the Creative Director for Wallpaper Magazine. Oooooooooh! Fancy!)
european vacation part 5: reunited with grant.
October 22, 2003
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London being London, it started raining just a few minutes after we got off the tube. We looked around for umbrellas and these were the only ones we could find. "Haaaaaaaaaaaay!"
european vacation part 5: reunited with grant.
October 22, 2003
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Fatty grabbed this pic of us too busy eating to look up. (Oh, and Charlene was with us too but for some reason she's hiding in all these pics!).
european vacation part 5: reunited with grant.
October 22, 2003
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Reunited! Grant had been in LA working on a TV show and we hadn't seen him in about a month. He arrived in London in the morning and woke our asses up. We showered, got dressed, and headed around the corner to a "builder's diner" right around the corner from her flat and we all ordered...
european vacation part 5: reunited with grant.
October 22, 2003
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Dani & Chris.
european vacation part 5: reunited with grant.
October 22, 2003
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I'm guessing this had to be a Van Halen song? (Check out Fatty pretending to play his guitar around Grant like he's in a Poison video. Hahaha.).
european vacation part 5: reunited with grant.
October 22, 2003
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Yes, Hallelujah! It's raining men!
european vacation part 5: reunited with grant.
October 22, 2003
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Charlene doing her impression of the guy who let us in.
european vacation part 5: reunited with grant.
October 22, 2003
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Group shot.
european vacation part 5: reunited with grant.
October 22, 2003
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After dinner, we stayed in Soho and upon Charlene's suggestion, decided to see if we could talk our way into the Kingly Club (which is this private, uber-exclusive, membership-only club that had only opened a few days ago). The rest of the group hung back and Charlene and I headed for the door to attempt to crash the club.
european vacation part 5: reunited with grant.
October 22, 2003
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So in the course of shooting the shit with Tony Chambers, it came up that we had wanted to sing karaoke that night but that the only place that we knew of had already closed. Tony leaned in close and in a conspirital tone told us about a private, karaoke speakeasy he knew of that operated afterhours on the second floor of a tiny, nearby sushi bar. After promising we'd keep it secret, he disclosed to us the location. (Looking back, he was probably just totally psyched to have our loud, American, clearly NOT VIP-asses out of his little private, members only backroom!)
european vacation part 5: reunited with grant.
October 22, 2003
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After a nap and some tea, we all met up later that night for pre-dinner drinks at a bar called The Social. L to R: Grant, Danni, Chris, Kate (I think), Layla, Fatty, Charlene and Grant Morris.
european vacation part 5: reunited with grant.
October 22, 2003
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Then Chris rolled his hat up into a leeeetle beret and started wandering the streets asking for directions in a feminine, French accent. I almost shit myself as Londoners elected to tromp through puddles rather than going near him and risking any type of interaction.
european vacation part 5: reunited with grant.
October 22, 2003
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Unless I can see the words on the monitor, I have no idea what anybody's singing in any of these pictures - so I'm just going to make it up. Here's Chris singing "Losing My Religion" by R.E.M.
european vacation part 5: reunited with grant.
October 22, 2003
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Chris and Grant posing in front of "the Orchard" sign. (They met back in 1999 when they both worked at The Orchard record label).
european vacation part 5: reunited with grant.
October 22, 2003
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In order to get from the parking lot to the actual building that surrounds the spa, you have to walk this long path that cuts through piles of lava rock.
european vacation part 3: the blue lagoon
October 21, 2003
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At this point not only were we ridiculously over tired, we were drunk taboot. We pleaded for Charlene to take us home and put us to bed.
european vacation part 4: london & ac/dc
October 21, 2003
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GRANT! It was one thing for Lil' Buddy to miss out on Iceland, but a free, surprise concert of his favorite live band? That was just too much.
european vacation part 4: london & ac/dc
October 21, 2003
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Chris and me. (Oh yeah, and this is an ACDC concert so prepare yourself to see nothing but tongues and "metal horns" in the rest of these pics. Sorry, I don't make the rules, I just follow them).
european vacation part 4: london & ac/dc
October 21, 2003
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Fatty and Chris waiting for the tube.Me and Charlene. We hopped the tube from Charlene's place (the Caledonian Road stop)...
european vacation part 4: london & ac/dc
October 21, 2003
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...who just a few seconds later met us outside to hook us up with free tickets...
european vacation part 4: london & ac/dc
October 21, 2003
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Charlene called her friend Layla (who works for the company that promotes Carling Beer)...
european vacation part 4: london & ac/dc
October 21, 2003
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7:54pm: We arrived at Heathrow totally cracked out. We were so tired that we decided that we were going to tell Charlene that we were up for maybe grabbing one drink but then after that we needed to get some sleep. (Time Elapsed With Only 15 minutes of Sleep: 28h 24m)
european vacation part 4: london & ac/dc
October 21, 2003
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Chris-san practices his crane kick.
european vacation part 3: the blue lagoon
October 21, 2003
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Oh, and it was really windy.
european vacation part 3: the blue lagoon
October 21, 2003
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Here's the entrance to the spa. The spa is this huge, brand new building that surrounds the 16,000 sqaure foot swimming lagoon.
european vacation part 3: the blue lagoon
October 21, 2003
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10:45am: When we had driven into Reykjavik earlier that morning the darkness had hidden the alieness of the Icelandic countryside. In the daylight, it was absolutely breathtaking. Rocky fields made up of lava rock covered in electric green moss stretched in all directions. We were so blown away that we eventually decided to pull over and take some pictures. (Time Elapsed With No Sleep: 20h 15m).
european vacation part 3: the blue lagoon
October 21, 2003
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Chris and The Fatty.
european vacation part 3: the blue lagoon
October 21, 2003
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Fatty and Chris walking back down to our car.
european vacation part 3: the blue lagoon
October 21, 2003
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Look at our cold, red, saltwater-irritated faces. Ouchie.
european vacation part 3: the blue lagoon
October 21, 2003
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We returned the rental car, made it through customs and headed to the cafeteria to grab something to eat and drink five liters of water each.
european vacation part 3: the blue lagoon
October 21, 2003
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After the museum, Smari remembered that he'd only put a few minutes of time in the meter back at the Tjorn, because he'd only been planning on being there for a few minutes. So we all headed back to the Tjorn.
european vacation part 2: reykjavik, iceland.
October 21, 2003
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Then Smari took us to the Hallgrimskirkja church, the tallest building in the city.
european vacation part 2: reykjavik, iceland.
October 21, 2003
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Chris and Smari's son (who's name I forgot!)
european vacation part 2: reykjavik, iceland.
October 21, 2003
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I should also at this point tell you all that we carried Fatty's rad little MiniDV video camera with us throughout the entire trip and we ended up shooting just over 14 hours of tape (which I'm in the process of editing into a full-length video diary). Over the next few months I'll be posting some of the choice clips from it. Woo.
european vacation part 2: reykjavik, iceland.
October 21, 2003
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8:02am (yep, still dark). We made it to downtown Reykjavik (the world's northernmost capital) and parked our teeny-tiny Eurocar in a public lot near the Tjörn, which is a big, man-made lake in the center of the oldest part of town.

We didn't manage to get a picture of him, but on the walk over to the Tjörn, this thirty-something year-old guy, who had what looked like a giant lobotomy scar running horizontally across his forehead, ran up to us and said "Where are you from?" in perfect English. "New York City," we told him. "Oh, yeah? What do you do?" Me: "I work at a software company." He then leaned in really close towards my face and asked, "A SOFTware company, or a softWARE company?" Then cackled maniacally and ran away.
european vacation part 2: reykjavik, iceland.
October 21, 2003
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Here's Chris and I trying our best to not look cold for a photo. We didn't want to pack a whole bunch of winter clothers that we'd only be using for a half-day in Iceland so all we had with us to fend of the 4°C temperatures (about 39°F) were our light jackets.
european vacation part 2: reykjavik, iceland.
October 21, 2003