Amateur Photography

Here's some of my recent amateur photographies. :)

EuroBlog 2008 - Wrap-up

Going back to reality sucks. I spent today cleaning up, doing laundry, mowing the lawn, and other household chores, including paying bills and grocery shopping. I rather be back in europe!

I stopped blogging half way through the trip and that's mostly cause I didn't have time or I was just being lazy. Anyway, we did go to Dublin, Ireland and that's a wonderful city. There, we spent the first day walking around the city trying to get lost and stumbled upon the Dublin Castle and the Jameson Distillery. While we didn't go on the tour, we did enjoy an Irish Coffee in the bar there. It was pretty one great tasting treat.

The next day we spent the majority of the day at the Dublin History Museum, called Dvblinia, and of course, the Guinness Store House museum. Let me tell ya, the Guinness tour is a total must-see. It's 7 stories that are full of interesting things from the brewing process to history of the beer, and so much more.


The next few days back in Prague were more of trying to be a normal Czech citizen than anything. I still went to do sight seeing but ended up mostly just hanging out with Scott, Cecilia, and their friends. Scott and I went to the home opener of HC Sparta hockey match and that was alot of fun. It's suprisingly cheap for beer and hot dogs. Really, really, really cheap.


Other than that, there was alot of walking and walking and walking.

Here's some other random tidbits from the trip:

• Coffee Heaven - enjoying a cup of coffee in another country is pretty much the same universally. There are people sitting around on their laptops on wifi, people reading books, and people just conversing with one another. It's a beautiful thing.
• Prague itself - for a city that was under communist control just under 20 years ago, it's quite amazing how far they've come and quickly they've been able to adapt out of it.
• Food - In both Dublin and Prague, food is heavy! Lots of meat and potatoes and bread. Carbs crazy! It's like thanksgiving at each meal!
• Beer - I think I went to the beer capitals of the world. Dublin of course for Guinness, Smithwicks, and the like, but Czech/Prague is also home of the original Pilsner Urquell, which actually is in Pilsen, nearby.... and beer in Prague is dirt cheap! Cheaper than water!
• Airport security - Heathrow security sucks, but not sure if its worse than Sea-Tac. On the other hand, Prague and Dublin's airports were reasonably quick and painless.
• Disneyland - Prague looks like Disneyland... or should I say... Disneyland looks like Prague. Just take a look for yourself.
• They like their sports. I only made it to one hockey game and while the game crowd was fairly tame, they went pretty crazy after the victory, especially on the subway train. I have video / audio clips of the crazyness.
• Prague has some of the most technically amazing shopping malls I've ever seen. The Palladium, which has 200+ shops in Old Towne Center area, is a visually stunning and ultra-modern piece of work. While it looks pretty normal on the outside, the inside is just eye-pleasing. The top floor restaurant level is super-swank, and the mall in general has a very modern decor to it.
• Our hostel in Dublin had no hot water. That sucked.
• KFC is very popular in Prague. On the other hand, Burger Kings were everywhere in Dublin.

More photos are available at http://picasaweb.google.com/ahnguyen or on my facebook.

EuroBlog 2008 - Day 2 / 3

I think this is Day 2... or Day 3. Whatever the case, I'm now on my 2nd night here in Prague after a very long journey which took me to Heathrow and a 30 minute delay. The first night here was just relaxing at Scott's place outside the old town area, while today was spent walking, somewhat aimlessly, around with Scott and Cecilia. We had lunch at a pizza place that was really good and just walked and walked thereafter.

The city is beautiful, though very well covered in graffiti, which is a bit unfortunate. It rained off and on all day, somewhat like Seattle. :) Anyway, I posted over 320 photos on picasa... so check'em out.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ahnguyen

EuroBlog 2008 - Day 1 - Part II

I never thought I'd be so happy to board an 8 hour flight, but I am! I have been sitting at Denver Airport for what seems like forever. I tried to do everything extra slow, and I still manage to have way too much free time. I sat around on the internet, then tried to extend my lunch longer with a couple beers and read the rest of photography book I bought and then walked around aimlessly.

By the time the ticket counter opened, I walked myself out of the concourse and took the tram to the main terminal to get the tickets (even though I could have just gotten them at the gate) and then thought I'd have a good time wasting wait at the security gate, except the line was practically empty, so I was back into the concourse a lot sooner than I had thought. So I proceeded to walk around again, and then back on the web, and then umm well repeat that over and over.

Now I'm less than 1 hour from take-off, so I'll be active for about 10 minutes and then followed by absolutely nothing for another 8 hours. Yay!

EuroBlog 2008 - Day 1

Day 1 - Travel Day (feelin' like the movie, The Terminal)

I left home just after 5AM PST to Sea-Tac Intl Airport and took my Alaska 737-900 flight to Denver. And now.... I sit. I arrived just after 11AM MST and my flight out of here to Heathrow isn't until 8PM MST! Yea, that's right, I have a 9 hour lay-over.

I really was considering leaving the airport and going into the city, but... the airport isnt that close to the city and I really need to conserve money for europe. Speaking of money, I have over 150 euros in hand from previous trips, and the countries I'll be visiting don't use Euro, even though they're part of the EU. Argh, I still have to deal with the hassle of converting cash. I guess if I make it to Vienna, I can spend my euro there.

So... I am just sitting here now. I should arrive in Prague, if all goes well (unlikely given I'm going through Heathrow), at 7:10PM Czech time, which I believe is a total of 26 hours of travel time. Yuck!

I brought 5 books with me to read on this trip over, of all different sorts. Unfortunately I'm half way done with 2 of them -- Into the Wild from Jon Krakauer, Canon EOS Rebel XSi Digital Field Guide by Charlotte Lowrie, The Boat by Nam Le, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami, and Prague Day by Day.

The one good thing so far is that Denver's airport has free wifi, and plenty of desk stations to plug-in at. They even have built-in USB chargers. Very nice addition.

So from this point on, I won't be writing about my trip - it'll be about... stuff.

Seahawks start Sunday. Go Hawks!

ok that's really about the only important thing to mention.



That and here's my first attempt of being amateur photographer:


http://picasaweb.google.com/ahnguyen/UnivOfWashington

First Impressions

First impressions. I never really thought much of them, but I am beginning to realize that they do mean alot. Maybe I never thought about it that hard, but they are pretty important. I'm not going to spew out a million things about the importance of all of it is, but I do want to give a first impression on a few things:

Google Chrome - the new web browser from Google has been out for about 10 hours now and it's almost won me over. It's a very simple, clean cut browser that uses minimal system memory, and runs ultra smooth and fast. This is not to say it doesn't have its fair share of start-up kinks. There are some bugs in it, but like all Google products, it's in beta! :)

Rick Nieuheisal - he's always been a solid college football coach, and he showed yet another reason why last night with a very exciting victory for his new UCLA Bruins team, as they defeated Tennessee in overtime. Talk about a turnaround second half!  He did a great job at UW and its unfortunate things happened the way they were, but he basically marks the last good to great UW teams we've had... 

Radiohead - not much of a first impression musically, but first impression of their live sonic force. i saw them over a week ago at White River Amplitheater and i have nothing but thumbs up on their performance. they did nothing to make me think any less of them, but only made me appreciate their music more. plus - they're the only band i've seen live that actually made me "move/sway" to the music naturally. no forced movements, or thought induced head bobbing - it was all instinctual and it was great!

Anyway, just a few first impressions I thought I'd share. It's these little things that keep us afloat, and sometimes I wish I could turn back time and undo some of my own first or second or even third impressions I've had on others. Although I try not to have regrets, there are certain things, people, events, etc. that still sit in the bleakest corner of my mind not wanting to leave.