So here we are, the day we drank wine from sunrise to sundown:

We started the trip in Dijon, took the highway all the way down to Beaune, than we headed futher down towards Puligny-Montrachet. That was the southern-most point of our trip, that day. From there we went to Meursault, Volnay, Pommard, Nuits-Saint-Georges and from there straight home. We had one to many glasses of wine to tell the difference anymore.

Montrachet is one of the most expensive vineyards in France. It was featured in the first season of Oz and James Big Wine Adventure (ep. 4 or 5, I believe). Here we took part in a tasting of 4 white wines (after all, we were in white-wine land) and a rosé. We chose based on selling price of the bottle on the market. I have to admit that both myself and Jo tasted the difference between the cheap (13Euros / bottle) and the expensive one (72Euros / bottle), but in-between … there wasn`t such a big gap to justify the price. They were all very good, so from my point of view … i`d probably go for 50 bottles of the fist one.

Next tasting that we really enjoyed was at a Château de Meursault. Above ground is a museum, and underground it`s the wine cellar. They have the biggest wine cellar that I have ever seen. And because people actually buy their wine, the cellar only stores 2-3 year old wine. I admit, they have a few bottles left from `76-`06 … but no more than 30-40. And imagine that what you see in the pictures below is just half o the real thing, `cause they have their proprietary bottle shape that stacks “head to toe” so you actually see just the bottles facing inside, the ones facing the walls are hidden from the view.

The tasting here was good. 7 white wines 2005-2008 and we sensed some of the subtle differences between them. Price wise … the bottles were 25-90Euros.

We ended our wine tasting adventure at Château de Clos de Vougeot where we got a lesson about red wine … the hard way.

“Have you ever tried an aged bottle of wine”
“No”
“Are you looking for a bottle of wine to drink now … or later?”
“Now”
“Than you came here for nothing”
“…”
“Well, how will you know if what i`m serving you is good for you if you haven`t tasted an old wine”
“Well … that`s why we`re here , we want to learn as much as possible”
“Young man, what we sell here today is 16 month old wine that, for you, tastes like any other red wine. You have to KNOW how this wine will develop after 20 years, after 30 years, after 40 years.”
“Yeah, sounds plausible, now … show me the wine !”
(so she did – she put 3 bottles on the table)
“Try them, tell me what you think”
“The first one is ok, the second one is bitter … ”
(this is where she lost it a bit)
“You don`t say it`s bitter … you say, it has power! character!”
“Lady … it`s bitter, cut the crap!”
(she was actually right, out of the two of us, I was the farm boy …)
“Now tell me which one would you buy, and then i`ll tell you the prices”
(there was a huge difference between the first and the last so I chose the last, but then she struck me with the price)
“The one you chose is 90 euros / bottle, and you have to store it a minimum of 20 years in a cellar at 12*C and proper humidity before you open a bottle”
“And the other ones?”
“The middle one is 45E and the first is 23E/bottle, and these you can open after 15years … but 20years is better”
(we than talked about other stuff, but I realized why an old bottle of wine costs so much … it costs 90E/bottle now, store it for 20 years and 200-400% just because you`re a fancy restaurant … and there you go … 1000$ / bottle)

Overall, that day we had a blast. Good thing we had a driver to get us everywhere … well hydrated.

We arrived in Lyon 1h before sundown so we managed to get a map from the tourist info point, and went on foot north from Place Belecour towards the Opera, and then up and down on parallel streets in between these points.

All the people were photogenic and dressed really good. It was like Paris, minus the black people (no, i`m not racist … I call them how I see them).

The city is spread on two hills and is crossed by to streams of water. It`s magnificent.

On the Fourviere hill they built a cathedral: Notre-Dame de Fourviere, it`s the most beautiful cathedral I have seen to date, and the interior … breathtaking.

I`d love to tell you more about Lyon , but words could never match the city`s beauty.

The next day we headed back home (near Dijon). We were in for a surprize …

Tomorrow I`ll tell you about Bourgogne and the wine adventure. Don`t miss it, I have allot to blabber about!

The next day we hopped in the card for a 280km on the freeway towards Chamonix.
As expected, it rained allot. We were really hoping for good weather there. There`s no worst way of visiting Chamonix than on a rainy day. We had two of them!

The first day we took the special train that takes people to The Glacier (Mer de Glace). It was just like the iPad … magical. Mostly because when we got there, sun rays were protruding through the clouds just to make everything look good. I bet that on a clear day it`s way better, but we had to be grateful for what we had.

Mont Blanc was in the clouds so we decided to visit every street the small town has. We had lunch at a fancy restaurant (hey, might never know when we come back) and ended the day at a local pub, hoping for a better weather the next day. When we arrived at the hotel I tried some long-exposure shot from the balcony. At 5am , lacking sleep, I walked out on the balcony again for some more long-exposure shots. The day was looking grim.

At around 9am we decided to use our all-access passes to go across from Mont Blanc up in the clouds, with hope that if we`re that high, we`ll see the mountain top above the cloud blanket. That didn`t happen. The clouds were to thick and all we did was get wet and freeze.

We did a last effort to get to Auguille du Midi (tallest point to reach by gondola). 3842m. It`s the point from where we would have seen Mont Blanc if it weren`t for the pesky clouds. We froze our asses up there, and it snowed like crazy.

We did the smart thing and got the first ride down and left for Lyon.

Tomorrow I`ll tell you why I love Lyon.

After our 5 days in the Netherlands, we took the Thalys train to Paris Nord, hopped on the metro towards Garre du l`Est and from there after a 3h ride, we hopped off in Dijon. We stayed at a Motel ~50km from Dijon but we spent the 1st day in France in the town renowned for it`s Mustard.

The old town is beautiful and we were blessed by 30min of sun in the afternoon … just to really enjoy the trip sipping a coffee on the street. The last picture represents a huge graffiti on a sidewall of the fish-market (Les Halles).

Tomorrow I`ll tell you a thing or two about Chamonix.

So, as you probably know I made it. I`m an architect.

So to celebrate this and a friends 30th birthday (2 in 1) we headed to the Netherlands for a week. 4 out of 5 days it rained cats and dogs, but we managed to squeeze some strolling time in between the showers.

The pictures ar here just to reboot the blog. Mainly because people wanted to see the pictures on the blog and not have to search for them on Google+ , Facebook, Picasa and where not.

Enjoy.

I mixed some of the films and I`m to lazy to fix that now. This roll was supposed to go before the one with Cosmin.
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Teach me tonight – Roots

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This concert took place at the Romanian Cultural Institute and was part of Harry Tavitian`s Teach me Tonight series, and had the sole purpose of enlightening the audience with a little bit of jazz and blues history.
Although Harry talked about the roots of blues for about 15-20min at the beginning, I`m glad he did `cause I learned some new things. Some got bored pretty fast and even shouted “Let`s get on with the music…” but clearly the concert was not for them.

Harry had two guest players Vali “Sir Blues” Racila (slide guitar, delta blues) and Marcian Petrescu (harmonica) and they were both amazing.

I actually know Vali Racila for almost 11 years now. He used to come to my home town (Bacau) collaborating with the FSC (a non-profit organization created to support the people in need). And through common friends he got to know my father, who later brought me to Vali`s “friends-only” 1h concerts at a cup of tea. I remember one day he brought me two CD`s. The first one was an Emerson, Lake and Palmer album (can`t remember precisely the name) and the other one was Buddy Guy and Junior Well Live in Chicago (1993). I listened to them both and I chose to follow the Buddy Guy way. Since then I`m a blues fan, and in 2007 when I was in Chicago, I met him at his bar. I ran and bought the exact album (The 1993 Chicago concert) and had him sign it. Only God knows were`s that album now, but I sure have the pictures to remember about it.
But I digress. Since then I tried to be at all of Vali`s concerts. Missed a few.

Marcian Petrescu is one of the best Romanian harmonica players. I actually wanted to start studying harmonica with him but I never found the time. He is the lead singer of “Trenul de Noapte” (Midnight Train) band and had the pleasure of opening  Sugar Blue`s Romanian tour concerts, last year.

The whole performance ended just under 2.5h and it was brilliant. The only spice missing from all these ingredients was “more Harry at the piano”, I mean, it was great, but you just can`t have enough piano.

More info about the event @ Harry Tavitian`s Blog -> Here and here
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Alex Galmeanu`s “Contact Lenses” Photography Exhibition

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I don`t want to say bad things about the expo `cause he might kick my ass, but I just can`t resist:

• the space was to small thus overcrowded.
• most of the pictures were wonderful, but a few of them … “what was he thinkin` showing these next to the really good ones?”  (this is my opinion and does not reflect a majority)

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Late ride home

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I snapped this one waiting for the metro one night. Dristor station 11:00 PM.

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I dedicated 12/12/2009  to the Help Portrait movement.

-basically you take your camera and use it to put a smile on someones face. Take their picture, print it and deliver it. No strings attached.

Out of everybody Cosmin moved me the most.

• He`s a single child.
• He thinks he can play basketball.
• He said he played in his high-school`s team as a pivot.
• He said he had an accident and can`t play anymore.
• When the cellphone dropped from his jacket, he almost freaked out. I asked him why and he replayed “This phone was my mom`s and she game it to me as a present for my 18th birthday. I must not break it”
• He doesn`t really understand the concept of guarding an opponent or dribbling. He just likes to shoot hoops.
• His friends call him “Smecheru`” (I`m having a hard time translating this in English) or “Sageata” (as in Arrow).

These ar just quick facts. I played some basketball with him (mostly as his ball retriever). Stayed there on the court for about 1h. after 25min a kid came by with his grand`ma to play football at the other end of the playground. Boy, that kid missed the goal from 3ft away, but when he hit the ball in our direction, he struck Cosmin in the back of the head from more than 20ft. That very moment I wanted to be Kyle and score a home-run with that kid.

When I got there I just wanted to shoot some hoops. When I left, I had a story and a new friend.

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As I said a long time ago, this entry`s purpose is to shine some light on some of the lesser photos of my Portugal trip.

Out of ~900 pictures (not counting the panoramas and the HDRs) I chose to show you 25, but there were ~60-70 pictures selected to tell the story.

I can`t post the remaining 40+ pictures but I think you can handle 10 more. (actually 9 decent ones and a dud!)

Enjoy.

(P.S. I`m trying as hard as I can to make room in my schedule to stitch those panoramas I`m blabbering about so “keep your pants on”!)

And this is how we roll … when we`re outside the country.

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Or Lisboa, as they spell it.

I chose to celebrate my 23 birthday in Lisbon because Jo was there for studies and I thought “why not?”. The target was “travel light” so I did! My backpack had my D200 + just 2 lenses (11-16/2.8 and the 50mm/1.4 AF-S),  6 t-shirts, 6 pairs of socks and enough underwear to last me a week. And o course the heavy stuff was on me: a jacket, a pair of pants, a pair of shoes and a long sleeved top. Money and passport in my wallet and I was ready to go.

Yes, no Leica! I had to shoot digital, `cause it`s just like … if you don`t use it , you lose it.

When I left home for the airport it was freaking cold and raining cats and dogs, and by the time I got there I was soaking wet. I had to go through check in, and the guy there saw me like that, and he said “dude, keep your shoes on, don`t bother, I trust you”.

And after 2h in the airport, 4h on the plane, I hopped of @ Lisbon and it was like 30*C…

The next few days flew by very quickly.

Snapped 1300 pictures (most of them are panoramas so don`t freak out. When I got back home I had to keep up with school so I ended up emptying my memory card about 4 days ago and it was then when I had the time to take a look at my photos. So in a way, I bet I would have seen my pictures faster if I would have shot film.

Ok, out of these I have selected around 60+ pictures worth a second look, and out of those I squeezed out 22, but I like “round numbers” and instead of 20 I figured 25 pictures should do the trick.

P.S. Because I don`t want to write long entrys anymore, the one with the panoramas will follow after this one. And maybe I`ll write one with “out-takes” after that.

And, with almost 11 days overdue, I present to you the Netherlands entry.

We took the Thalys train from Paris with the destination: Rotterdam. “Lucky” for us, they were working on the railroads those days so we hopped of at Utrecht, then we took a train straight to Hague. `Cause that`s were Pinka and Srj are living now. You`ll see pictures of their neighborhood at the end. And yes … they live in a red MVRDV house.

In the 5 days remaining of our trip we visited Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Delft and Hague. (if I forgot something, just let me know)

Given the fact that I`m not in a “writing allot of stuff” mood I`ll let you enjoy the pictures.

Don`t be shy and write a few words yourself … and yes, you can send this link to other people. )

P.S. The song is Red House played by Jimi Hendrix. I wanted to put another song but I can`t really get a hold of it so this one is just as good. Mainly because we stayed at our friends in a red house in Hague and as a side reason: it`s 12 bar blues and Razvan is trying to get the hang of it right now. Bro, I could only wish I could play 10% of what is Jimi doing by the time you get it together, but you`re getting it wright faster than I can learn how to improv…