Quick London Shopping Trip

Day 0 - Aug 28: Los Angeles to Chicago to London

We took off shortly after midnight, headed for a short four hour trip to Chicago for our 3 hour layover. This was pretty much the only sleep I was able to manage for the entire day.

Once in Chicago, we settled into a nice corner to rest and find ourselves some breakfast. We didn't quite get as comfortable as the guy with the pillow, blindfold and blanket though, he was in it for the long haul. I was excited for the Dunkin Donuts that Apryl spotted, but alas, the donut was dry and uninteresting. Plus, they didn't have any maple ones. So, I had to go for the ol' Standby, McDonalds.

Our flight to London was uneventful, and after the hour long tube ride, we made it into our hotel and given a room that did not live up to Miss Apryl's standards, as we had a view of scaffolding.

Day 1 - Aug 29: London

Luckily, Apryl set the alarm, or we probably would have slept most of the day. After enjoying our free buffet breakfast in the lounge, we headed out onto the town. Getting out tube day pass, we went out to the Spitalfields Market. Spitalfields is a covered outdoor area that houses Farmer's Markets and the like. On Sunday's its a clothing market, where local designers bring out their wares. Also in the area are bakeries and fresh juice stands. We partook in all of these!

Next stop, TopShop, Apryl's favorite clothing store. As she was given free reign to wander, an hour goes by with not much in her hands. She says, this isn't the good one, I need to go to the biggest one. So we ask the cashier, which store is the biggest. She says we are in it. They have a second store in Knightsbridge that isn't quite as big, but Apryl doesn't believe it. That means another TopShop tomorrow.

After stopping by the hotel to drop off the shopping spree, Apryl mentioned that she had gone to a pub that served good Thai food. Before we headed out, I spoke with the front desk about the scaffolding. He apologized and offered a bunch of hotel points.. Woohoo.. Our tummies were growling so off we went.

The trains were packed and everyone got out at our stop. We didn't know what was going on, there was security and police everywhere. On our way out, I picked up a pamphlet that said it was the Notting Hill Carnival, the largest Carnival in Europe.

We had a pretty good meal at the Thai Pub and then decided to walk into the "Carnival". To get there, we had to trudge through streets filled with trash, and then came to the Carnival Route. The Carnival route circles the neighborhood, where semi trucks pull trailers filled with speakers playing Carribean music while children in costumes follow. This isn't your typical parade, thousands of people are walking IN the street while the semis are driving through.

Within the neighborhoods are people selling food and beer from their patios and stages with bands on them. People just "hanging out" drinking beer, sitting in the streets or packed worse than a mosh pit in front of a stage. It took us 15 minutes to realize this isn't where we want to be, it took us an hour and 15 minutes to get out, mainly because the subways only let people out after 6pm, so we had to wait for them to open the stations. Worst crowd experience ever, makes the Int. Food Fair seem like a casual dinner gathering. Apryl says think of Compton and Watts having their own street fair, with no cops.. Would you wanna go?

Once we got out, we headed to Knightsbridge, but all the stores were closed. Back to the room, we decided we wanted to go to the Aboslut IceBar London. Its a room full of ice, at -5 deg, where you can drink vodka for 45 mintues in a glass made of .. yup .. ice..

Before the bar, we had unexciting Italian and some ice cream (not the smartest move before going into a cold room). We headed into the Ice Bar, donned our parkas and froze our butts off (actually, Apryl thinks she has frostbite on her nose).

A great day in the land of London, definitely wasn't the original agenda, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Day 2 - Aug 30: London (then flight to Lisbon)

Our next morning it was a little harder to get up, but we made it out of bed, got our free breaky, then out the door. Back to Knightsbridge, the TopShop was definitely smaller, but since it was empty of people, Apryl was able to better browse and found some things she liked.

From here, we found the Monument, climbed 311 stairs and then to reward ourselves, some AMAZING soft serve icecream from a truck. After spending an hour or so at the Tate Modern museum and Apryl transfixed on a photo of a woman with a bad (lopsided) c-section scar, we found a pub with great Fish and Chips. I have been VERY unhappy with the beer, but thats to be expected of British Beer.

Apryl found a Tesco so she could get her Digestives (British Cookies), we made it back to the hotel just in time. Off to the airport, we almost missed our flight trying to spend our last pound. They even called our name over the intercom. Then we had to wait to take the bus to the plane and off we went.

Our hotel in Lisbon is beautiful and can't wait to explore the city.

'Til next time!

Cantrell Family - Maternity and Newborn Photos

I was able to take both the 8 month maternity photos of Tonia Cantrell and her newborn Cooper at 6 days old. The whole family took part, David the proud papa and Jake, the big brother. They all turned out great..

Enjoy!

Nov 10 - Napa Fall Colors, My Beautiful Wife and Fill Flash

Another beautiful view of Napa in the fall, only to be enhanced by my beautiful wife. Most people don't think of using flash in the sun because you figure it's already bright enough. The problem with the sun is it can be too bright and cause shadows where you don't want them. This is why a lot of photographers like taking pictures early in the morning or just before sunset. The light is softer and the shadows aren't as harsh.

Another problem with the sun is if you put the sun behind you as a photographer, you only get your subject squinting. If you put the sun in front of you, it is just so bright that your subject looks like they are too dark. One way to fix that is by using fill flash. Basically you turn on the flash on your camera. If you just use the flash on your camera instead of an external flash, you'll have to stand fairly close. Also, if you use an external flash, you can power it down a little, you want it to be similar or a little darker than the light around it, otherwise, the person will look "superimposed" like you photoshopped them into the picture. Here I have the flash a little darker than Apryl, you can still the the sun's light on the left side of her body (right side in the picture) and the flash isn't so harsh that she looks like she was added in photoshop.

If that bored you, then just enjoy the picture!

Nov 9 - Napa Fall Colors

I was amazed this weekend. You've heard of the fall colors in New England and the fall colors in Colorado and the fall colors in Washington.. But what about NAPA?!?!? I've been to Temecula during the fall and the vine leaves just kind of turn brown, plus there isn't a whole lot of other greenery in Temecula except orange groves, which stay green.

Back to Napa (and Sonoma of course), we were driving up the 101 to get into the Russian River area of Sonoma and I just couldn't believe the color. Green upon yellow upon orange upon red. It was absolutely STUNNING! The next day in Napa, I was finally ready to get out my camera (we were too concerned over wine in Sonoma) and my camera decides to give me an error, the shutter wouldn't close! I was in some of the most beautiful fall colors I've ever seen (Aspens still win, but this was a very close second) and my camera FAILS! After messing with it for a bit, it decided to start working again, so I don't have the quantity of pictures, but I do have some quality ones. This is the first, this was driving up to Sterling Vineyards and the trees just draped the driveway into the vineyard.

More to come!

Nov 4 - Great White Shark

I've done a lot of silly things. Walking with lions, bungy jumping, sky diving, falling down a waterfall and going on vacation during a class 5 hurricane. This one is probably one of the silliest. Get in a car, drive two hours to a Great White Shark feeding ground, take a bout out into the middle and dress up in all black, looking exactly like a seal. Yea, that sounds like a perfectly sane thing to do, right? Did I mention that the water was about 55 deg and that we were told there were 4 or 5 sharks hanging out in the area? How about that once inside the cage, you can't get out and your limbs can float outside of the cage if you aren't paying 100% attention?

So after getting in the water for 30 minutes, starting to freeze, dunking into the water and holding my breath when we are told a shark is headed our way, brace myself when the shark runs into the cage because he is following chub on a stick, I got out, and relaxed to take some photos. This is one of my favorite, especially when I can imagine that I was just in that cage and sharks were coming at me in the exact same way. They can't see all that well, so when the captain takes the bait out of the water, the shark tends to keep going and run into the cage. Perfectly sane right? I'd do it again!

Oct 30 - Costa Rica

This is a photo from Costa Rica. We were traveling from Arenal volcano to the Pacific coast and stopped off here for a break and a view. Any time I go back to these photos, I can't believe how green it is. I know its tropical and all, but it is just sooooo green. We didn't even have any rain issues when I was there (thank god after the fact I was in the most intense hurricane in the history of the gulf). It was just beautiful and tranquil.

Happy Friday!

Oct 28 - Harvest Time

It's harvest time in California. Wineries are in full swing starting to make 2009 vintages. Chile, due to the fact that they are South of the equator, starts 6 months sooner. These fermination tanks were at Veramonte Vineyards, a sister company to a winery in Napa. They are known for their Pinot Noirs, which were really yummy. In fact, just last night, Apryl and I had a bottle from Veramonte and it was really good.

Even though we go to Temecula every couple of months, we already miss the big vineyard country that we spent 5 days in Chile and Argentina. Next weekend we are headed back up to Napa to enjoy wine country once again, and see harvest time in full swing. I'm sure you'll be seeing photos here in a couple of weeks.