Tomorrow I’m starting my 17-days-long vacation in Europe. I’ll be visiting Paris, Libourne (in the south of France), then Barcelona and Valencia in Spain and finally stop by for two days in Bucharest. See you all soon!

We left on Saturday, at noon, not without incidents. The cab company I called to send us a car somehow misplaced our reservation so we ended up hailing cabs outside on 31st street. At least we had just a few small luggage to carry around so it wasn’t that bad. At the airport we had to wait for the slowest attendant that works at AA – our self check-in kiosk timed out twice before she came to verify our papers. Alas, after an hour flight and another cab ride we were finally at our hotel.

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

Last weekend I’ve been to Boston in order to attend PAX East. For those of you who don’t know what that is – shame on you! – it’s a gaming convention put together by the guys at Penny Arcade. It takes place every year in Seattle but this time they decided to have one for the East coast – fortunately – so me and my friends could attend.

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!