Posted: February 17th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: travel | No Comments »
We stayed in the main shopping area, which runs south of the city along Luizalaan (Avenue Louise). Our hotel had two story windows and a loft space and overlooked the entrance to a car tunnel. The layout of the city reminded me of modern Boston, with the old center and plenty of underground tunnels to get around (ala the Big Dig).
The above photograph is from the Grand Place. Every Belgian city must have a cobblestoned central squre with very large and ornate buildings.
A short distance away is the Bourse, or exchange building. Rodin was involved in the sculpting of the facade. As nice as the NYSE building is, it is hard to imagine any building in America with this type of artwork on the exterior.
The above photograph is a random cathedral near town.
In addition to really good beer, the Belgians love their frites (French Fries.) I saw a funny t-shirt which read something to the effect of “Belgians invent frites…We’ll call them French Fries.” Brussels had a very French atmosphere to it, and it seems like they really just wanted to be French.
Anyways, we ate at Fritland, which had a great fritte sandwich – a roll with sliced turkey, cheese and frittes stuffed into it.
Posted: February 17th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: travel | No Comments »
I returned from my trip of Belgium last night. Tracey and I went to Brussels, Antwerp and Brugges. The best of the three, in my opinion, was Antwerp. Unfortunately, the weather in Antwerp was terrible – cold rain. Regardless, we had a good time and learned a lot.
I have a bunch of posts coming up about Belgium and the Belgians. In the meantime, please enjoy the obligatory Mannekin Pis photograph below.
Posted: February 11th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: travel | 1 Comment »
We woke up and had eggs and croissants for breakfast. Afterwards, Tracey and I decided to go for a walk in the neighborhood. It was sprinkling, but we walked over by where the French Open is played. There was a ton of practice courts, but really there wasn’t a lot of things to see from the outside.
A bit further down the block, we walked into what seemed like a garden. We stumbled upon what we think is a pretty cool place in the suburbs of Paris – the Jardin des Serres d’Auteuil. Surprisingly, we found a ton of greenhouses and spent some time walking around. It was a great place to spend some time during a rainy day, and it was fairly quiet.
Afterwards, we did some research for the rest of our trip. We’ve figured out that we will stay in a hotel in brussels for a night and we are trying to get rooms in B+Bs for the rest of the week. The only things left to figure out are our trains in Belgium and our return trip to Paris.
For dinner, we stopped in “to take some coffee” with some friends Tracey made during her jewelry browsing. They are a really amazing couple who live on a houseboat right underneath the Pont de St. Cloud! What amazing French hospitality…they had the biggest spread of French breads, croissants, and cakes. They both spoke English very well, and were gracious hosts.
Their houseboat was beautiful! I wish I had taken some photographs, but I would have felt awkward. The inside of the ship, a former vegetable shipping vessel, had the original Frigidaire doors for the coolers. They had an amazing chandalier that swayed slightly when big ships cruised by. And they had the best book library and bookcases I’ve ever seen. The whole ship looked like a floating loft space. Since both of them are in creative businesses, they both have really good design sense.
We spent a few hours drinking tea from Mariage Freres. I’d really like to stop and see that shop and buy some tea to bring back with me. We had the “Marco Polo” and it was a black tea that was very fruity. I love coffee but I am really beginning to get into tea.
Since I will be travelling in Belgium for the next few days, I may not be able to post until I get back, unless I find a cybercafe.
Posted: February 11th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: travel | No Comments »
So I made it safely to Tracey and Kelly’s Apartment in Pont-de-Saint Cloud/Boulogne. That’s in the western suburbs of Paris. It is a really nice residential neighborhood with a few shops.
On the train ride in from the airport, I saw hundreds of automobiles stacked on rail cars. I am not sure if that is normal or if there is a kink in the supply chain. The cars were all tiny – Smart Cars, Renaults, etc. We passed a gas station and I thought that the gas prices were pretty low – 1.35 Euro. I then was told that was per litre of gasoline, which makes it way more expensive.
Another interesting thing is that the advertising in the subways and elsewhere is twice as big as the ads in the US. And they aren’t afraid of showing some nudity here either.
During the day we walked around the Jardin du Luxembourg. The following picture is from the Medici Fountain.
We went to the latin quarter last night, which was a lot of fun. There is a lot of shopping and nightlife there. I was way too jetlagged to fully appreciate it. I had a great meal. Things here are ridiuclously expensive. And lastly, it is a lot like New York, and I was told the best word to know is “Pardon”.
Posted: February 9th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: technology, travel | No Comments »
Blogger has a neat feature where you can post to your blog through email. Apparently, it also allows for camera phone pictures to do true "moblogging.". I'm testing out the service with my Blackberry, which does not have a camera phone.
Today is the first day in my new shoes. I mean this literally. I purchased an uber-comfortable pair of Born Shoes a few weeks ago. I finally got a chance to wear them, and hope that they will be good for walking around Europe.
While typing the last paragraph I realized that what my Blackberry needs is a an umlaut and a few other characters.
I went to Target and found out that the Holga is working perfectly. Now I will just need to buy a slide scanner when I get back from my trip.
So, I'm on the way to the airport now, and I shoull make it to Paris by 9 AM. Unfortunately, the Blackberry won't work overseas, afaik, so no mo' moblogging.
Sent via BlackBerry
Posted: February 8th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: travel | No Comments »
This morning, I had to leave my hotel in Virginia. I woke up a few minutes late, as usual. I managed to pack my bag in less than 5 minutes. Since this is a weekly routine, I have it down like clockwork. Pack my toiletries, clean out closet, pack up laundry bag, etc.
Once I got home, I had to pack for Paris. I thought it’d take me at least half an hour, but I was able to pack it in 15 minutes. It took me a few extra minutes since I’m bringing some decaf herbal tea to Tracey, and I had to find it.
I’m pretty excited to go to Paris tomorrow. It is my first time travelling overseas in a long time. I have a passport that I got a few years ago, and it is completely empty!
Posted: February 6th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: technology, travel | No Comments »
I was surprised to hear from a friend of mine at a major airplane electronics vendor that many of their in-flight entertainment systems run on Linux. I was randomly surfing around the other day and found this picture on Flickr. There you go…an entire airplane booting up on Linux!
Even more interesting – Virgin is looking for Linux game developers to develop in-flight games for their Linux-based system.
Posted: February 5th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: business | No Comments »
A lot of people have predicted a decline of the US dollar. Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway tried to time the market and sell the dollar short, incurring a few losses. With a slowing economy and rising interest rates, a lot of people are beginning to believe the same thing.
I don’t want to try to time the market, but I think that it is reasonable to expect that there will be an intermediate decline in the US dollar. On top of that, the overseas stock markets seem to be a better value than the US markets, in terms of growth and price-to-earnings multiples.
I was thinking about purchasing something in a BRIC fund. The Economist ran a front page article about how India’s economy looks like it is overheating. I was investigating ETFs that invest in China, but it looks like China may face quite a bit of trouble as well.
So, I have decided to pull a page out of Jim Roger’s playbook and hold off until after my trip to France. I wonder if Sarkozy can implement some substantial reforms once/if he is elected president.
Posted: February 4th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: photography, sports | No Comments »
Once again, I will miss the Superbowl this year. I don’t watch football anyways, but it would have been cool to be able to sit at home on Sunday night and have a beer. I am going to head off to the airport at 5 PM, and make it to the hotel after 10 PM in Virginia. Losing an hour always screws up my sleep schedule.
I can’t have beer anyways. About two weeks ago I strained my back traveling to a client site. To help it heal, I started taking Ibuprofen. Unfortunately, the NSAIDs gave me a mild stomach irritation (Gastritis). I know that because I’ve had it once before. So now I can’t drink alcohol or coffee and I am taking Zantac (Ranitidine).
I took 8 or 9 quick photographs with the Holga and dropped them off at Target. I just want to see that the camera is working and make sure there are no leaks. I know that they will mangle the film at Target so I will have to find a better developing shop here in Minneapolis once I get back.
Posted: February 3rd, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: stuff, travel | No Comments »
So, I am back in Minneapolis, and the weather here is great. It is actually -6 degrees, but weather.com says that it feels like -24.4 degrees with wind chill. I walked to the central library to return some books, and I noticed two unusual things. First, I wasn’t wearing thermal bottoms so my legs actually started freezing on the way there. Secondly, my headphones started making crackling and popping noises. I’m not sure why.
My younger brother, Sumit, gave me a cool mp3 player for Christmas. I’ve been addicted to NPR podcasts since I got my Samsung YP-U2JZW. The headphones that came with it were absolute crap and didn’t work. Also, I found out that it wasn’t recognized by SuSE or Ubuntu because of the Microsoft DRM. I was able to find some firmware on Samsung’s site that upgraded it and allows for .mp3 and direct insert compatibility. I had to use a Windows Machine to flash it.
Since I used to volunteer at the Film School at Raw Art I’ve always wanted to buy a video camera. And I was thinking about pulling the trigger before going to France, but I figured that I didn’t want to “ruin” my vacation with a documentary project.
So in true minimalist fashion I pulled out this Holga that my older brother gave me a while ago. I haven’t used it yet, but I modded it with
a few common 35mm conversion mods – velcro, foam, etc. I’ve taken a few pics with it in 100
ASA, and will develop them tomorrow to make sure this is a feasible project for France.
Labels: Holga, Music
A short distance away is the Bourse, or exchange building. Rodin was involved in the sculpting of the facade. As nice as the NYSE building is, it is hard to imagine any building in America with this type of artwork on the exterior.
The above photograph is a random cathedral near town.
