Euro Trip Day 22: Bus ticket to Sarajevo, 24€. Watching men argue over a giant outdoor chess set: Priceless.
I’m posting early because we’re leaving for Zagreb this evening and I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to get to wifi between now and then. This morning we hit up the National Museum and the History Museum. They were both good, but the National Museum was very stark and depressing: half of it dealt solely with the war. Very well-done and eye-opening.
After that, we sat in a cafe and took refuge from the rain, then John headed home and I went wandering. Found several more of those Sarajevo Roses — I’ll post them when I get a chance.
Anyway, on a side area of the main walking street is a giant chess board, and the guys playing were so hilarious that I had to take a video — pictures just didn’t do it justice. Sorry for the camera shake — I was trying not to visibly laugh, but I wasn’t having much success. :-) The look the one guy gives the other one at the end… OMG, DYING laughing. :-D
Monday movie night
On Monday nights in the warmer season, a local group of housemates does a free informal movie night in a vacant lot next to their house. Bring a chair, bring some food to share, wait for it to get dark, and the fun begins. I’ve never been to a drive-in, but I can’t imagine it being more fun than this is. I went a few times last summer/fall, and I’m glad it’s started up again.
Waiting for the show
.
The movie man. I have to say that I freaking love my camera (ok, my 50mm lens, actually.) It was actually so dark when I took this that I couldn't have read a book... and I handheld the camera for this shot. Sweet.
.
Monday's movie.
.
Such a funny movie. :-)
.
Weekend fun: Sierra-at-Tahoe
Yesterday I met up with a coworker’s son, and we went up to Sierra-at-Tahoe to go skiing (me) and snowboarding (him). He’s a senior in high school this year, and his mom asked me to get some good pictures of him for a senior-picture type thing, and she paid for my lift ticket and rentals.
Well, I didn’t get in as much skiing as I’d planned… In fact, I really didn’t ski a whole lot. Part of it is that I was really tired yesterday (was out late on Friday) and I’m pretty out of skiing shape, and I also kinda sorta was going too fast and did a cartwheeling faceplant downhill into the mountain on my third run, which left me quite bruised and sore (and I’m still hurting today. Whoops.) But mostly, I was having a heck of an awesome time taking pictures of skiiers and snowboarders.
Tomorrow’s post will be with pictures that I took of other people, but for Laura today, here’s some of the pictures of her son. Click here for a gallery of all the pictures.
Wide angle fun, day 3: The skate park
Yesterday after work I wandered a few blocks over from my house to a skate park that’s in an old warehouse. It’s right on the way I take to the river, so I’ve noticed it before, but I’ve never actually stopped to check it out. I figured that in preparation for Saturday’s upcoming funness that I needed to practice some shots, and I decided the skate park would be a good place to do so.
I ended up going home when my camera battery gave out and I realized my spare was still on the charger at home (lame mistake!) but I figure I got a few good shots at least, so it’s a start. I definitely want to go back there sometime and take more pictures–good times. :-)
.
.
.
.
.
Flight.
[Click here for more pictures]
.
Saturday night fun
Last night I went to Scandia with some friends for mini golf and air hockey. By my recollection, it’s been almost 12 years since I’ve played mini golf, so I was more than a bit rusty, but at least I kicked butt at air hockey to make up for my poor golf performance.
Their signs amused me. Find the two funnies on this one (hint--think heaven and piranhas...)
.
Another funny sign. Nothing like a good curse to deter theft.
.
Like I said, I'm a bad golfer. (I'm the one on the far left.)
.
Fun with a long exposure and the windmill hole.
.
More long exposure fun--the Scandia Screamer ride (no, I didn't go on it.)
.
Finally, something I *am* good at--air hockey!
.
Cameraphone roundup – working backwards
While I wasn’t all that thrilled about the time change this morning, the fact that it’s sunny makes it so much nicer. This window is right behind my desk at work, and when I got here this morning, I stood for a while with my face turned up to the sun and my eyes closed, just enjoying the feeling of the warm sun on my face, glowing through my eyelids.
Sun through the window at work
.
Last night’s trivia round was “moderately hard”, according to the Trivia Master, but the questions led one team to name themselves “Moderately Hard, My Ass”. The questions killed us, and as a result we did uncharacteristically poorly (not helped by the fact that I second-guessed myself on two questions and so we missed them both!) So as a consolation, we decided to stick around and play darts. As a side note, if anyone knows someone in Sacramento who has a strong sports knowledge, we’ll buy ‘em beer if they want to be on our trivia team. We have a major hole in the sports knowledge department… Guess that’s what happens when you get a bunch of geeks together.
My trivia team: "Drinkers With a Trivia Problem"
.
Yesterday I went skiing again (I have two more free passes left, and then a coworker is going to give me one for taking senior pictures of her son, so I’m pretty set for what’s left of winter.) It was kind of a lousy skiing day, all things considered – the time change (ok, and a late Friday/Saturday night) left me groggy, I got on the road late, got to the cheap rental place late and they were out of my size skis and poles, I ended up standing in a long line to rent poles at the slope because the ones I had just weren’t going to work, it was a lot colder than I thought it was going to be, and to top it all off, then I decided I’d try something different, and after I got stuck and had to take my skis off to walk out, I ended up getting stuck almost waist-deep in the snow. Bad bad move. However, at least I got to be outside on a very lovely (albeit cold!) day, and I got a change of scenery.
In Spanish, "Sierra Nevada" means "snowy saw". Quite apt, eh?
.
