Andrei

Sailing on San Francisco Bay

Monterey

Red and other colors of Yosemite

"We don't remember days, we remember moments"

... said someone famous, I don't remember who it was. And when after 3 days being here in San Francisco and posting my first post on the trip I can really aggree with him. So much things jsut happen and we don't remember after minutes, and others we remember also after years.
I'll probably never forget how a BA flight attendence made a hole in the paper box of an orange juice with her pen, yeah, her *pen*. She was looking around carefully making sure that no one is watching her. She was wrong...:)
The guy who got on to my door-to-door shuttle at Terminal 1 showed us a short clip about the fire and the smoke they had on the AA flight from Florida
I'll also never forget how I came down on one of the steepest streets of the city... Very careful small steps, when my thumb rumpled in my shoes.
The crowd the mission in a rap-style on Union Square alongside with a anti-I-don't-know-what demonstration of two dozens of people.
Also Andrej (my step-relative) with his convertable Honda is a perfect part of the city. He's very kind and a really good guy. He took me today to Pacifica, where he saw a so called "well-maintaned" car which he almost bought (but finally not, because the car was not *that* well-maintained, not even in a fair condition). Then he showed me the seashore, and his good friend Liza, who lives there. The ocean is very different than the Mediterranian. Much more powerful, and noisy. Much more unpredictable also.
I don't take shots, I'm sure that all shots the reader can find on the Internet are way better than what I potentially could take.
When I try to compare SF with NY, what I can see is that here people are much more open minded. In the restaurants they talk to each other, even if they didn't know previously. But maybe there is no need to compare between them.
Fun, great fun here, I'm exploring the entire city.
I'm reachable at +1-415-2836017, please consider the timezone!

Lindengracht market

Every Saturday there is a big market on Lindengracht:

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They sell excellent fruits, hand-made stroopwafles, antiques, etc... we ate stroopwafles - the best ever. Cannot describe.

We ate the traditional Dutch hering with onions, drunk some wine and coffee, were hanging out all day.
I bought some cheese in Kaasenland, bought an old Standard telephone from the 50's for 10 euros. In the evening we went to the Centraal, and said good-bye. I took the train to Schipol, and the plane back home...

IBC2010

Today we have visited together with Yuval the IBC expo. At RAI of Amsterdam on a huge area thousands of exhibitors demonstrated pre-production technologies of video, audio, broadcasting and editing technologies. I'm not any kind of expert of these things, however I enjoyed it very much. 3D was the main issue, everywhere 3D televisions, some of them are nice, but all of them really require the use of special glasses (which really sucks). Cameras recording in 3D, helicopter-style flying cameras, targeted microphones on special trolleys, and many other stuff. All the top end of the industry.
Today I successfully bought a pair of shoes, cool ones, really, thanks to my brother who found it. And I didn't buy the steering wheel...and probably I won't, but no problem with that.
After the IBC we have visited the Van Gogh Museum, which was very nice, and later on we ate in one of the city's best restaurants: Envy. That was super. We are having a great time together. Good night for now....

Amsterdam

My bro has arrived in the evening and we met at Centraal station in Amsterdam. Huge hugs, happiness. We walked in the pouring rain the flat. Some words about the flat. It is located in a building dated back to the 18th century. When entering the lobby from the street we can find some old-style statues and arm-chairs. Then need to cross the back-side garden, which is common to 4-5 houses. Green and quiet. The flat is slightly under the ground floor has some windows on the ground level. One big space is divided into 2 parts with a cupboard and an artificial wall. Kitchen, 2 beds, sofa, etc... a good one.
In the evening we walked all over the city, we were in the red-light infamous district, and we ate in the "La Paella" excellent spanish restaurant. Yuval, thanks for the tip, really I can't understand what a such glorious restaurant does in such a dubious neighborhood.
Today we walked all over Vondel Park and the Museum district. Then we went over a street in which all shops where or antiques. We saw a cool model of the Earth, the Moon, the Sun (replaced by a candle. Then the user should turn around a wheel and entire model starts moving. Only 550 Euro, only today.
Then I almost bought an old steering wheel of a boat. Well, tomorrow I might go back to buy it, not sure yet.
In the afternoon we met Szilvi and Gazsi, friends, who live here in Amsterdam. We ate excellent goat-cheese-honey sandwich in the University's cafe, and then went together to the Library, a 7-store most modern building with a very special interior design. Wonderful weather we had today, all-day sunshine. In the balcony on the 7th floor we drunk some wine and beer, ate some wok-stuff with chicken, until we ended up in a pub quite near to where we stay.
Another beautiful day in Amsterdam.
Hmm.... that steering wheel....

Arrived to Amsterdam!

I made it! Wow, what a surprise eh? KLM took me from TLV to AMS this morning. Terrible flight, very few room for each passenger.
Really. For that price they could do better. I realized the following: when someone speaks dutch to me, I'm not sure if it's English, and I just happen not to understand that, or it's Dutch, which I supposed not to understand.
At Schipol I took the train to Amsterdam Centraal, and then the tram for another 3 stops. There I met Coby and Marina, who took me to the apartment at Prinsengracht which we rented.
The flat is in a ~200 year old building in a very central location. Statues in the lobby, and a famous garden inside.

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Then I went out to meet Yuval, a friend of mine who lives here. We met in a cafe, had some talks, ate something. Then I headed to a store called Kaseland, and bought some Dutch cheese. On my way back home bought other stuff in the supermarket. At 6 will be waiting for my brother at the Centraal

Amsterdam!

tomorrow morning Amsterdam!!!!
almost 4 days with my brother :)
I'll be available on +44-78-221-38522

stay tuned!

Granada

Our last stop was Granada. I drove the car all the way up from Gibraltar. We stopped in Marbella for a dinner in a restaurant on the seashore recommended by our Lonely Planet. That was nifty. Wonderful fresh fish and seafood with excellent service. Real dining experience.
We arrived to Granada late in the night, parked the car in the city center and found a hotel around midnight or so. They we went out for a drink in a local Mojito-Bar, where special mojitos and other cocktails are done in a most professional manner. (Mojito is an originally Cuban highball (mixed drink)). That was successful! We both liked it very much.
The day after we picked up our tourist passes from an office and went up to where the Alhambra is by a bus. After getting our tickets to the Alhambra we ate in a restaurant some goat and gaspacho soup. Alla ate torilla, as usual.
The Alhambra is a beautiful garden with Alcazar and palaces inside. We saw the Nasrid Palaces, the Generalife, and of course the Alcazar itself. Must be said that it's very nice, however I had the feeling that Sevilla's Alcazar is much better maintained and renovated.
On our last day around noon I drove to Malaga, where we took the flight to Zurich and then home.

Granada pictures:

Gibraltar

Gibraltar is a very special place, because it doesn't belong to Spain, but to Britain. Our car insurance didn't take effect in Gibraltar, but I crossed the border accidentally, turned around, crossed back to Spain, parked the car in La Linea, and crossed the border by feet.
In this colony of Britain they drive on the right side, they have double-deckers where the driver sits on the left, and other strange things. Other that that it's just like Britain. They speak British English occasionally tempered by Spanish words in the most unexpected parts of the sentence.
We hired a taxi driver who took us all around for 2 hours or so. So we went up on the big rock, saw a huge cave which used to be a military base, saw the wall and the tunnel from the era of Charles V., fed the monkey colony, (almost all its 300 members), and drove back to the border through the city. The driver gave us a very detailed lecture about Gibraltar, which was really useful. He was a little bit confused if the Second World War was in the 40's or in the 50's, and asked us if we've heard about it. But other than that it was a good choice.
One more interesting thing is that when you cross the border from Spain you must cross the airport's runway. How? There is a traffic light on both sides, which turns red 10 minutes before landing or departure of an aircraft.

Map:

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Pics:

Ronda and Setenil de las Bodegas

After Sevillia I drove down to where the legendary white villages of Andalusia are. We found some villages off-the-road where we got some authentic taste of the area. Ronda is a white town, which attracts many tourists including us. We saw the museum of the bandits, who kept the whole area scared for hundreds of years. We also saw a museum on the evidences of pre-historic times in this area. On our way to find a hotel I suddenly saw a shop of Adolfo Dominguez, where I wasted around 200 euros for some cloths. I am not a fan of shopping, but they have really cool stuff. We found a hotel in the old part of the city (after having crossed the bridge) which is located in a building dated back to 1734. This was a very special experience.

Ronda:


Senetil de las Bodegas:

Sevilla

Always one of the more difficult tasks of the trip is finding your hotel in a city where you've never been, without having a proper map and with a battery-low GPS where the maps were updated 3-4 years ago. So it was in Sevilla, but finally we made it. Parked the car into the elevator which took us as a whole to -2. Alla was a little but scared, "what if we get stuck in the elevator with the car, we can't even open the doors" and similar very useful panic-agenda.
The hotel was located off-the-map, so the receptionist took the map, and draw on the counter desk the exact location of the hotel. I thought to take it with me (the counter desk), but finally I convinced myself that it was not a good idea. We took bus number 14 (oh, sir it goes every 4-5 minutes!), waited about 15 minutes, but then it took us to town really quickly.
I loved the city! Beautiful buildings, excellent cafes, huge cathedral and the highlight is the Alcazar, which is dated back to at least 1000 years ago. In the evening we went to see Flameco show with some tapas (those we ate as well).
Some pictures:

Cordoba

The ride from Toledo to Cordoba isn't much interesting, but our Audi A3 did the job very well, it's a real pleasure to drive it. Cordoba is a really nice city, it has a long history of Moore and Christian occupation. Like on all cities in Andalusia all cultures left a valuable footprint on it. We arrived in the evening hours. My camera and I don't know how to take pics in the night, but I tried:


On the next day we explored the city, visited in a typical Andalusian house:


We visited a huge mosque, which was converted to a church, and is still functioning as such: