One of the things that I wanted to do when I went to Spain this time was spend some time in the Basque region. We managed to hit Pamplona, San Sebastian and Bilbao.

Here are some shots of the sunny day at the Guggenheim in Bilbao:

Front of the museum:

You keep them around when they’re fun…
and this one, she’s fun.

Julie doing her Spain pose for me:

The back of the Guggenheim:

Just a bit down the path from the museum;
Julie finds a strange friend:

Bridging the old architecture with the new:

This building was amazing and I don’t think I have every been in a structure quite as interesting. The story behind the Guggenheim family, how this museum ended up here and impact it has had to the region is pretty neat!

My favorite piece was from the Russian collection. It was a fairly large piece 4-5 feet across and about 3+ feet tall. The piece was of men pulling a boat up the river and was done to depict a time after the Revolution in Russia where it was cheaper to use human labor to pull boats up the river than to hire horses or mules. The picture on its own was awesome but after finding that out it was even more intense.

More to come on my summer travels with Julie.

Well Mr. Blog it has been a long time since I posted but I hope to make it up to you by sharing some pictures and stories about my summer vacation.

I won’t post all the pics (or even many) tonight but I will try and get pictures and short stories relating to the pics out at a regular pace over the next couple weeks. I’ll start with a landscape shot of NYC with hopefully more panoramic shots to come if I can stitch them together properly.

I’m not very good at taking panoramic shots or stitching them together, which means they will be a bit rough but I’m interested in getting better so hopefully over the next few months I’ll achieve that.

Here is a shot from Roosevelt Island looking back on mid-town Manhattan, with the United Nations on the left side of the shot and the 59th street bridge (Queen-borough Bridge) of the far right side of the pic. The Empire State is hiding behind the tall Trump building, which is to the left of the Chrysler building… can you pick them out and more… a fun game to play with the Manhattan skyline.

(You’ll want to click on the pic and look at it in a bigger size to get a better feel for it)

This picture was taken on the 4th of July, which was supposed to be a great fireworks show. Unfortunately I blew the perfect viewing location and Julie who loves fireworks and was excited to enjoy the 4th of July show in NYC had to watch it from behind a bunch of trees and a chain link fence… good thing I made up for it in Spain (more to come on that later - but here is a one shot from one of the nights in Spain). Julie was also treated that memorable 4th of July night with being stuck on Roosevelt Island with the thousands of other people that were trying to take the subway back into the City, so we went for an ‘adventure’ into Queens at midnight to try walk back to the Bridge or catch a cab.

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Here are some pics from; a better fireworks show; a better view and a much better venue.

Fireworks on the beach with the waves rolling up over your feet - priceless!