We spent the first evening browsing the nearby streets, at least until we found a clothing store – Zara, in case you’re curious – where my girl got lost amid the sales. Until they closed the shop Afterward she felt bad and vowed not to binge-shop until the end of summer, vow that lasted about… 2 days

On Sunday we met up with two of my friends from Canada – Cristi and Otilia – and they drove us to Niagara Falls. We watched the World Cup Final while having lunch at a nearby restaurant and we took lots of pictures around the area. We even had a double rainbow!

Monday at noon we went up in CN Tower and had lunch at the rotating restaurant up top. Expensive, as you can imagine, but the view was worth it. After that we mingled with the rest of the tourists visiting the tower and snapped pictures like everyone else.

Coming down, we went to the bay and took one of the ferries to the nearby islands. Toronto has three small islands right below it, one with a small amusement park and one with a tiny airport. We strolled the park for some time and then we got back to the hotel to take advantage of the swimming pool.

Tuesday we were supposed to return to NY, but because of a delay at the embassy we had to postpone it for one day. So we spent it shopping and visiting another parts of the city – Chinatown among them. Should go without saying that I stopped at the first bubble tea place and got some.

At night we took one last stroll around the hotel area, took some night pics and had a nice romantic dinner: hot dogs from a street cart, next to a water fountain. On the following day we returned to New York.

Here are the pictures from the trip:

Trip to Toronto

Cindy wanted an iPad for some time now, for both fun and work reasons – she has a lot of video lectures that she needs to watch, so she needed some portable device she can use for that. And because I like nothing more than seeing her happy – and I of all people know how happy one is when getting a cool new gadget – I got her one.

Not without some trouble, ofc, since the darn thing is completely sold out, even 3 months after its release. It’s like everybody in New York City wants one. So after trying every single Apple store in the city I ended up ordering it online. It took 2 weeks but I finally got it.

Should go without saying that my girl was extremely happy with her gift, and spent most of the time we were home playing with it. Which wasn’t that much actually, since every day we went out.

Sunday we met some of Cindy’s friends for brunch. After – since they wanted something refreshing to drink – I took them to a bubble tea place. Where we ended staying for more then 2 hours, because right when we were about to leave I met up with Linh and another friend who were craving some as well. So we switched the group of friends and had some more with them.

Later we stopped by a small “beach” on the edge of the East River for some drinks and a nice view of the sunset. The place was crowded since there aren’t many places in NYC where you can get sand, beach towels and… fake coconut trees.

On Moday afternoon Cindy had a surprise of her own reserved for me: she booked a cruise on a sail boat around the New York bay area while being served sushi from a famous chef. We were on the boat for about two hours enjoying the great view and – of course – the fish. After the sunset – which we watched by the Statue of Liberty – they took us back to the city.

Here are some pictures from that great weekend:

4th of July Weekend

On Friday night my cousin came to Astoria and we went out for some drinks at a nearby lounge. Since the place makes very good frappés (so very few places here do), I got one. Usually getting one at 11PM means that I will be up until 2-3AM, but this time I was coding all night until 6 in the morning. After only 4 hours of sleep – my cousin stayed over and had to leave before noon – I went back to coding until the evening. So yeah, a productive day (and night).

Spent the Sunday with the girlfriend: had brunch in the city, went to see West Side Story, then an exhibit on Tutankhamun, ended with romantic dinner at a wine&chocolate bar. I took some pics with my phone, but the combination of iPhone camera and low light resulted in some very heavy noise. I salvaged a couple using some filters from Lightroom and they’re up on facebook.

Reeder is so good, it changed my commute. Before I used to listen to music or read a book on the subway, but these days I sync it in the morning and read all my feeds on the way to work. Star the ones I find interesting for further study and when I’m back above the ground, another sync and it’s all in my account. I used to check out my feeds at work – took a good chunk of time, too – but now I do it on my phone, even when I’m at home. The interface is so much better – in Google Reader I either read all feeds expanded (which takes a lot of time) or have it as a list (which is hard to read for 20+ posts) – while Reeder’s list view and touch scrolling is perfect. It also integrates with Instapaper – another recent discovery – and has sharing and emailing links built-in.

Basically, if you’ve got an iPhone and have RSS feeds, get this. It’s so worth it.

After a long-awaited Memorial Weekend (= 3 day weekend, for my non-US readers), I started a very “social” week, with outings on every single night.

On Wednesday I met up with a friend that just got back from Boston and got me a new camera case (thanks, Angela!). We both have the GF-1 – I was the one who pitched it to her – and she knew I have a makeshift case (it’s actually a mini video recorder case) so she got me something more fitting. Earlier that day I had a long discussion with Mihnea about lenses (now I finally understand what all those numbers mean) and that made me very eager to get some more. I guess my next purchase will be a 14-45

On Thursday after work I met with a romanian friend that was passing through New York for a couple of days on her way back home. We never met before, but my father knew her mother and through some intricate stageplay we became friends on Facebook. I took her to Shake Shack for some “authentic” New York burgers. She loved it.

Friday was great – for two reasons: one, through some unexplained miracle, my company decided to give us summer Fridays (from now till Labor Day) which means from now on we’ll bounce at 3PM on those days. Second reason was the fact that Roxana and Slava finally tied the knot – legally at least, the ceremony and everything will take place in France at the end of August. Therefore we had a small party to celebrate – on a downtown rooftop – so make sure you check out the pictures.

Well the thing is, the second half of April was very busy, and not just because of my birthday. It went by – screwing with my head and my heart – with tumultuous consequences. A lot of drama followed – not something I want in my personal life – but what’s important is that everything is ok now. I apologize if I’m not making much sense, but at this point, if you’re reading this blog then you already know what I’m talking about…

But yeah, things are pretty awesome now: I have a wonderful girlfriend, work is going great and I’m planning a trip to France, Spain and Romania in August-September.

So, back to work!

We were five guys – me, Ethan, Cary, Sean and their friend Jo – the latter three even scored media badges since they have a blog where they review video games. Since they needed to pick up those badges earlier, they took Thursday off and jumped on a bus to Boston during the afternoon. Me and Ethan drove there at night, after work.

The Gang

Friday morning we got hit with the crappiest weather imaginable – a mixture of rain and snow – which fortunately didn’t last much. The expo doors were opening at 2PM so in the morning we went to check out a related event, an Xbox360 press conference held at the Microsoft New England Research & Development Center at MIT.

Microsoft NERD

The main spokesman for the Xbox – Major Nelson – was there to talk about 360 news and took some pictures with us. He had a Q&A session and gave the audience a bunch of prizes. Cary walked out with a copy of  Forza Motorsport 3.

In the afternoon we went to the main convention center, got our badges and swag bags. There were a huge number of people in there – the total headcount was at 60.000 – which means there were lines pretty much everywhere, especially to play the new games. We also missed most of the panels for the same reasons; the only big event we got into was the Nvidia GTX 480 launch, for which we lined up an hour before.

PAX East

My biggest achievement was sneaking in to see a private demo of Civilization V (which was completely booked as well). It looks absolutely fantastic, I can’t wait for it to come out. Ethan spent his time mostly playing Left 4 Dead 2 (which is the same thing he does every night at home) and the others went around interviewing game developers. At the end of the day we had dinner at a Cheesecake Factory near the convention center with some of Sean’s friends for Boston.

On Saturday morning I took another dose of gaming, this time with an old favorite – Magic: the Gathering. Played a couple of games on the floor which netted me some free cards in the end. I spent all my other time taking pictures of cosplayers.

Cosplayers

In the afternoon we were joined by one of Ethan’s friends from Boston. Since I wanted to check out the city anyway, I left him at the convention with my badge and took a walk in downtown Boston.

Around Boston

I walked about half the city – from the convention to the Civic Center, Theater District, Chinatown (with a stop for bubble tea ), City Hall and Cambridge Bridge. I met up with the others around 7, when we went for dinner to a famous Boston burger place. While driving back – it was already night – I realized that from Harvard bridge I could take some very nice pictures of the city at night, so after we got to the hotel I went back out to brave the freezing cold (and believe me, it was cold) and took some pictures.

Boston at Night

Sunday we took one last stroll around the expo and after lunch me and Ethan headed back to NYC. The others had interviews until late and they returned with a bus at night. Overall it was a great trip, can’t wait for next year!

Now I’m not complaining. Every once in a while work picks up and I have to crank things – and it’s still a good time. The only crappy thing about this time was the fact that I got sick on Monday evening – just a cold, nothing more serious – and I had to spend these intense working days with a hazy brain. So much for focusing. Alas, the demo turned out OK.

The weekend weather didn’t help much – it rained like hell most of the time. Spring can’t come soon enough.