Shuttercal - andytuba's Calendar

We know what you did last summer

andytuba

<em>andytuba - A wandering Delawarean</em><p style='clear: right'>Having finished a Project 365, I'm shooting for even more fun and the occasional theme week when things are less fun. Also, I swear that this year I'll program some functional apps to use with ShutterCal!</p><p>Find me on Twitter at <a href='http://twitter.com/andytuba'>@andytuba</a></p>

Name:

Andy Tuba

Location:

Madison, WI, US

Gear:

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28
Moto Droid Cameraphone

Started On:

1/1/09 (Day 617)

About Me:

andytuba - A wandering Delawarean

Having finished a Project 365, I'm shooting for even more fun and the occasional theme week when things are less fun. Also, I swear that this year I'll program some functional apps to use with ShutterCal!

Find me on Twitter at @andytuba

Sun
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Sat

They might say Ithaca is Gorges, but Lagos has an entire Atlantic Ocean. Beautiful place to sit on the beach all day and get burnt (which I did – except for my tattoo, which I remembered to sun-cream up). I hope to go back and work there next summer. If I'm lucky, I'll get to live in this little red house on the cliffs. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

1

Today, we met some Granadinas at breakfast. They were studying in Lisboa, Portugal, and brought some of their friends from school: an Italian girl, two Brasilenhas, and a Portugese-French girl. They invited us to join them at a beach down the road, so we spent the day hanging out with them: sunning, chatting, playing guitar, singing, generally enjoying life. Life? It's good. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

2

Coming back from Lagos, we dropped by Sevilla to catch the tail end of Feria. Mostly, we wanted to see ladies wearing trajes de flamenco dancing sevillanas in the street. We also found a really groovy public photo exhibit in the streets, featuring Africa. Yes, all of Africa, in España. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

3

After the cathedral visit yesterday, I stayed inside to finish up my photo shoot of the ridiculousness that is baroque architecture; afterwards, I ran into a few friends in the Plaza de Bib-Arrambla, where there's a great churretería (café where you can get churros con chocolate, and they have the best) and lots of flower vendors. My friends, Jillian, Marissa, and Megan, took about five minutes to notice I was standing ten feet away from them snapping lots of photos. Marissa noticed :D (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

4

Our ARTH - Art and Architecture in Western Europe course takes us on a lot of visitas -- how do you say it in English? ah, that's right: 'field trips' -- and today we made it out to the Cathedral of Granada. It's, um, cathedrally. It was built after the Royal Chapel (Capilla Real), where King Carlos V and Isabela la Catolica wanted their remains interred (should the chapel be finished by the time they died, which it wasn't, so they ended up in the Alhambra initially); and then one of them, I think Carlos, wanted to make a royal pantheon of dead kings and queens in that cathedral, but his son Ferdinand said that was silly business and built the pantheon in the Escoliar in Madrid instead. All that incidental history aside, the cathedral is a typical baroque building, reminded me a lot of the one in Segovia from the outside, and we saw a bunch of lienzos that were originally mounted three stories up above the cupola, but are now down on ground level for display. Blah blah, big organ split into two walls which are double-sided, shown here. Unfortunately, no services == no organ recitals, but they still look hella cool. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

5

This afternoon's visita brought us to the Monasterio de Cartuja. It is, as the name might imply, a monastary of the Cartuja Order. A little on the small side, it had but a courtyard, three medium-sized halls, and the monk's rooms (not shown); also, the church itself, which was a decent size for a simple monastary. The nave of the church hosted one large statue with six pillars decorated with pieces of mirror and, directly behind, a wall of windows with a door opening into a chapel, pictured here. As the monks lived under a vow of silence except when they might read the holy book, their other senses required stimulation (except touch, of course, thank you vow of celibacy) that they might not go crazy; hence, this fabulous-looking chapel. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

6

Coming home from the Monasterio de las Cartujas yesterday, we came out by the Plaza de Triunfo at the end of Gran Vía, where you can find both a big parque and a big flag. Lumix DMC-FZ28

7

This weekend, our director Jorge took us on our last weekend excursion out of Granada before the end of the semester. We went into the Alpujarras, which are a bunch of cute little towns up in the mountains a.k.a. up a bunch of windy roads that didn't treat everyone's stomach very well, and on to Almuñécar, a little beach town. En route to all these little towns, we stopped off at a little cascade in a very iron-rich area. It was not a water cascade: it was a rust cascade. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

8

Our weekend trip was basically a vacation from our study abroad, that is to say our extended vacation. Our director took us to a beach town, Almuñécar, which was unfortunately mostly populated by retiree tourists. Since we determined we probably couldn't find anything entertaining for us young'ns to do, we decided to make some: Beach Olympics. The ringleaders managed to find some green safety vests, who knows where, for one team to wear, along with some eggs, pool noodles, etc. We held rally races, another flavor of rally races, and an egg toss. Shown here: the end of the egg toss. (I also have a photo of a girl who got egg splooge on her ribs dripping down onto her stomach, so I had pose like Jesus H. on the cross, but decided it may be in bad taste to post that around here. If you guys really want to see it, I can show you some more of our shenanigans later this week.) (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

9

On the way back from Almuñécar, we stopped off at the Cuevas de Nerja, which is this great tourist-tour cave tour, fantastic huge caverns with lots of groovy formations. I spent so long taking pictures in there that (1) I don't really know which one to show you and (2) I didn't look at my watch until about three minutes before I had to be back on the bus to go home to Granada, so I sprinted back through the caverns (permiso, ¡tengo que correr rapido!) and grabbed a 30-second bathroom back before hopping back on our bus (which was a double-decker, incidentally, for all of 24 people.. love it!) (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

10

When we got home yesterday, we were dropped off at our regular meeting point, by the Tranvía Café (and tapas) outside the Centro Commercial Neptuno. See here, lots of my friends. Incidentally, the Tranvía Café is two old train cars, hence the name. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

11

Since our classes are supposed to cover a certain number of hours, which we aren't really scheduled for, our two options to fulfill the time requirement are Friday classes (in addition to our regular MW or TR classes) or field trips. Our lit professors opted for the field trip; I don't think they want to come in on a Friady either. Today they toko us to the Fundación Francisco Ayala, which is housed in an old Arabic mini-palace thinger. Francisco Ayala is from Granada originally, hence why the foundation is centered here; however, the building itself doesn't have any Ayala-centric significance, it was just handy. P.S. Francisco Ayala is 103 years old and still kicking. Also, he doesn't really drink water, but he takes a whiskey every evening. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

12

En route to my facultad, we typically walk past Café Fútbol, a regular old café that serves churros and chocolate that aren't too bad. (The Churrerría Alhambra over in Plaza Bib'Arrambla totally beats it, though.) Manuelo, the waiter hiding behind the potted tree, is one of the cooler camareros at the place, and he alawys works the terrace. I sat, drank café solo, ate churros, and asked for the bill. How much, Manuelo? 'Mucho.' Coño, I told him. Cool guy. P.S. The cafe is putting in new doors right now; this is one of them.

13

After we went to the Fundación the other day, we all went out for tapas with María José and Aurora, our professors. The photos of the whole group turned out a little blurry, so you get to check out my baller roommate, Akin, who is actually not a BAMF as pictured here, but a cool guy who likes to talk to a lot of people in whatever language they prefer. P.S. That is indeed an elbow named Laura next to Akin, the same one you might have seen running down a pier of stones to come sit with me. (Lumix DMC-FZ28(

14

I heard from my roommate that there's apparently a guy who does professional graffiti for businesses all over town. We were wondering how they were so good and detailed - he doesn't have to hide! There's an awful lot of graffiti all across town, some of which I put up a few months earlier, but this particular one is in a slightly different style from other work I've seen, which has more flowy modernist lines adorning the faces. What a beautiful day to photo stuff, though! (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

15

This is my token artfag 'I can play with manual focus' photo for the week. Up on the top of Centro Comercial Neptuno, that is to say, the Neptune Mall, which is down the street from my apartment, is a club called Mae West. Mae West, in addition to being notoriously pijo (snobby) and racist, has some really cool World War II-era memoriabilia and signage. The whole outside is done up to look like a South Pacific island or something, I donno, and I haven't been inside because that requires too much dressing up. I did wander around the roof though and play with manual focus. The sign that's out of focus in the back reads something like 'Disfruta / Coca-Cola / Embotellada en Venezuela.' P.S. Coke, you totally owe me. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

16

The Parque de Ciencias is a public general science museum for the masses of Granada. Out front is a huge marble ball free-rolling on a weak fountain. Inside are three pillars of stone freely rotating on an axis with a weak fountain between them as well. This demonstrates the effects of a black hole on anything near it -- and you don't even have to put in a quarter (like the one at the Franklin Institute in Philly), since the ball comes back to you. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

17

Good night! The sun setting, as seen from the top of the Centro Comercial Neptuno - the end of my photo shoot from Saturday. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

18

The last time I visited my friend Paula's place here in Granada, I left with a free apple we'd recycled from the green market, which I ate walking down Gran Vía using the knife on my Leatherman to cut it up. That was two months ago. Last Friday night, a guy from Granada, who's called Pablo, and his girlfriend walked up to me at Botellón and started chatting with my roommate and me. Saturday, I ran into him again on the street near my apartment. Monday, I ran into my friend Paula (with a cute dog) who lives in Granada and she invited me to dinner at her place Tuesday night. Tuesday, I was in her neighborhood a little early before dinner to take photos and who do I run into? Pablo and one of his friends, with that same dog. Pablo invites me to come watch a movie with him and his friends over at a bar; en route, we find some honeysuckle and he teaches me the Spanish name, madreselva (mother of the jungle). At the bar, one of Pablo's friends is showing him some incense she bought -- including honeysuckle. After the movie (Henry & June, incidentally), we walked up Gran Vía en route to Paula's and Pablo gives me a pear to eat, which I have to cut with my Leatherman. All is not coincidence. Suffice to say, this photo is from the middle of my evening, at the bar where we watched the movie; I believe it was called Entre Suelo, and I may or may not be able to find it again. Pretty sweet place, free movie nights and good music when the movie's not playing. The funniest part of the movie? Right after one of the pivotal (sex) scenes, the screensaver came up: photos of planets, to the soundtrack of Henry & June. P.S. Sorry about the bad angle, I'll try and rotate that once I get my computer up and running again. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

19

After the movie last night, I went back to my friend Paula's place to pick up the dinner she'd promised me and to say goodbye to everybody at her house. Turns out there were a good dozen people there of various nationalities, so we all sat around and ate and then had chocolate cake with sugar crystals on top and then just sat around and kvetched about social issues. Pretty good times, but I didn't get to leave until about 2 in the morning. On the way home, I walked down Gran Via; along this block are sweet skylights opening into the parking garage below street level and blue lights embedded in the pavement. I don't get it, but it looks pretty sweet. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

20

Todo el mundo se va esta semana! No, seriously, last week and this week are finals week at the CLM in Granada, so all of the Americans took to the streets last night and tonight before they head back to the States. Meredith, our best friend from across the street, came out with us to celebrate her last night in Granada, so we went to their old haunt, Dolce Vita, a shitty bar frequented by Americans and other internationals up on Elvira. Chupitos are only one euro, though, and the bartenders are cool people. This here was a delicious shot, which name I have forgotten as we got a little borracho. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

21

I think it's gonna be the last time I see this little guy in Granada. I found him today on the way back from school, taking a roundabout route through that awkward triangle demarcated by Alhamar, Recogidas, y Camino de Ronda. Also, token manual focus photo for the week. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

22

Cya, G-town. Today's our last day in the city, and not even: our flight left from Granada to Madrid at 1pm-ish, and thence to JFK at 5pm. We all met up across from Centro Comercial Neptuno, the usual spot, except for some people who were staying on this side of the ocean for a few more days (or months). These three ladies are our senoras: little Carmen (the cute saucy one, who's Akin's novia), Conchi (the professor), and Maricarmen (the one who actually feeds us and washes our clothes, most of the time); and they're flanked by my roomate Akin, on the left, and me, on the right. We're actually accustomed to seeing them in nightgowns around the apartment, so it's a bit odd to have them all out on the street at once -- appropriate, given that we're peacing. G'bye, Granada, hasta la vista! (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

23

Back in Newark, wow -- at 1 in the morning, Eastern time, 7 in the morning, Spanish time. These few maletas, mochila, and espada are all the stuff I brought back from Spain. I'm impressed it took up so little space. This is the house living room, where we don't actually spend much time except for formal parties or playing piano. Whenever I come home, I usually just drag all my stuff in here and dump it, since it's closer to the front door than my bedroom is (and usually empty). The weirdest piece of culture shock coming back into the country was the very first one: walking down the ramp towards the U.S. Customs, a woman came on the P.A. system and /it was in native New-Yorker American English./ So weird so weird so weeeeeeeird. Also, all the Spanish speakers here are from the Americas, so I'm gonna have to get used to that again .. maybe. P.S. Sorry, this is not the most artistic photo ever, but I'm god damn tired and going to bed. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

24

I came home to a combination graduation and birthday party (like when I graduated from HS on my birthday, except I have a beard now). My friend Sheri, who's my bffer Tahra's bffer since high school, used to work at a cake-making shop, so she stayed up all night and made some delicious cakes. Even though she doesn't like taking photos, mom insisted, so we have a record of this deliciousness. It was a great party. P.S. Behind the two cakes on the table are two old family jokes: the birthday cake plastic hat with LED candles and the goofy Elton John birthday sunglasses. We're supposed to wear them for a photo. We fergot. Oops. P.P.S. The photobomber behind me is Reggie, one of my boss's husbands. (I have many bosses; she has one ex-husband.) (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

25

I brought my camera with me today with the intent of doing a photoshoot, but ended up running errands after my doctor's appointment instead. To make up for it, I took photos out the car window at red lights. I think the motorcyclist I was snapping shots of noticed, though, because he looked my way and then jetted around the corner. Around the next corner was a better subject: the sign for the Newark Free Library. They remodelled back when I was in high school to put in lots of shiny glass and metal instead of the dumpy old red brick, and they got a nice new sign out front too. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

26

This week's my first back at work in a few months, so I had to dress up a little bit. As a theatre tech, I prefer black at work, but since we were supposed to look fancy, I tied on out a nice blue <s>cravat</s> borin' old tie with panda bears. Mom liked the look so much (-I guess she's enjoying having me home-) that she had dad take a photo against the sliding door in the kitchen. I get bored with 'people standing there' portraits, so I GQ-ed it. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

27

In a slight variation from my typical architecture, panorama, and scenery selections, I noticed that the living room had a lovely negative-space feel going on. I really ought to take one of those photo theory classes and learn how to look for this sort of thing better. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

28

Today is some mighty strange weather: it started out with an awful lot of cloud cover, which eventually dropped torrents of rain off and on; and now we have curious yellow clouds filtering the light to tint the whole world a little mustardy. P.S. If you happen to see my car around town, honk and say hi - or take a photo and post it on your calender :D (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

29

It's graduation day! After five years of college including a couple of winter and summer semesters and a few study abroads, it's final time for me to call it quits with undergrad classes (and good riddance). I'll enjoy the break from homework, but I'll miss college life. In the background are the football stadium, where I performed at every football game for five years (minus one where I was sick); this field is the colorguard warmup field. In the front are my parents and me, hurrah! (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

30

We're just gonna gloat in graduation for this weekend. I got a seat front and center, second row, six seats away from the camera man in the center. Also, dad found me from his seat in the visitor's side. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

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