2008: In Pictures

Well, this blog was originally intended to be a photoblog... so I thought I'd blog some photos today as a recap of my year :)

January

1:

New Years Eve at the Pier in St. Petersberg, Florida

2:

MGM Studios (now Hollywood Studios) with Dan, Victor and Nicole

February

18:

Hanging out with Victoria, Charlene & Raphael in NYC :)

19:

Spent the day wandering NYC on my own... walked across the Brooklyn Bridge for the first time!

March

9:

Decided to road trip to Buffalo / Niagara Falls to hang out with Raphael (and Charlene & Fred for one night) ... little did we know that the worst snowstorm of the year at that point was going to happen on that weekend. It was insane. But beautiful!

22:

Miss Paris' 3rd birthday!

30:

Working on Test The Nation, I met TOMMY CHONG!!

April

10:

Drove out to Waterloo to hang with Lindsay, and see a Danny Michel concert. Here we are after the show.

22:

On a whim, decided to go to High Park for Earth Day. I got some great shots!

May

4:

Uncle Frank's surprise birthday party. Here's my Nonna with her brothers.

14:

Miami Beach! (Went to Florida for a week; spent time in Clearwater, Miami & Ft. Lauderdale. It was good times!)

June

1:

Spent the day baking with my Nonna. My first time making biscotti!

14:

Kels & Kristyn came to visit! Awesome!

22:

One of mine and Errol's famed trips to Honest Ed's

24:

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria: Team Awesome :)

July

1:

Spent Canada Day at the beach, playing "Frizz-Ball" with my friends (yes, we invented it) and watching fireworks.

21:

Maria Producer, David Rosen, speaking to Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber during a commercial break. I know David will read this, and he BETTER be pleased that his picture has finally made it to my blog!! haha.

28:

Maria wrap party! Here is team script in wrap party action. Elvira, Gavin, Pam, David & I.  Why am I the only lush with a wine glass in this pic? 

August

3:

Pete took me up to his cottage in Peterborough, and chauffeured me around on the boat for a wonderful day. I got great pictures this afternoon, too.

7:

Pete's 30th birthday party! I think we look smashing in this pic. I'm wearing the dress Marisa wore on week 1 of HDYSAPLM. After we wrapped, there was a wardrobe sale, and this dress was amazing, and just my size! Loooove.

16:

Road trip to Michigan! The lovely Rebecca hosted me for the weekend, and we met up with Jenny & then Lori & Kurt took us out for dinner. Awesome weekend.

20:

A lovely date in the park : picnic, photos, paper shops. Boys should take note of this.  This was my favourite shot from that day.  Actually, it's one of my favourites that I've taken all year.

25:

Errol, Krista and I in DISNEYLAND!!! Woohoo, California!!!

31:

Came home just in time for the CNE. I go every year. This time I brought Rae with me... he had no idea what he was getting himself into :) It was definitely good times.

September

19:

Back to NYC, for the second time this year! This time, with my parents. We gave him the trip for his 65th birthday present, because he'd never been before.

October

3:

This was a still from the indie short film I worked on, Scratched Out.

5:

Nuit Blanche! An all-night art festival thing that Toronto does every year. This was a shot that Rae took of me. Super cool.

10:

My 26th birthday party! Such a good time, almost all my friends came, and all the food I made tasted amazing :) LOL.

20:

The birth of my new niece, Olivia Violet! :)

29:

Random and spontaneous FUN with Rae in Niagara Falls

31:

Halloween Flapper Girl! The Mari(s)a dress makes a re-appearance, here with Ann-Marie and Amy

November

5:

Took my first dancing lesson! Unfortunately, I have yet to go back for my SECOND dance lesson. LOL. Hopefully I will have more time in the new year.

December

1:

I am the Sound Angel for Brainsgiving '08 :)

6:

Amy and I participated in our first craft sale as Kat and Toad! It didn't really go all that great for me, but I'm looking forward to doing more in the future :)

24:

Merry Christmas! This was my favourite holiday picture this year.

30:

The reunion of some of my favourite people in the world. I know, I just posted a blog about this yesterday, but it was necessary to go into my year recap :)

So Long, Farewell, 2008! You turned out to be a pretty good one. But I'm very much looking forward to whatever 2009 has in store. :)

Happy New Year, everyone!  Wishing nothing but the best for all of my blog friends & your families and loved ones.  

New York City!

This is a very late entry about my trip to NYC last month!
I'm not going to say much, because I've already talked about it in a million places... but here are the highlights:
- Top of the Rock: amazing views of the city! And total history in this building... it was very cool.

- B&H Photo & Video: I met my friend Pete (from Toronto, happened to be in NYC at the same time) here... this store was amazing. A technophile's wet dream. So cool.

- Manhattan Mall & Century 21: awesome shopping :)

- Highline Ballroom: went here to see Blue Rodeo on the Saturday night, I think. It was probably the most incredible concert I've ever been to. Such an intimate venue, to see one of my favourite bands. I even got to meet Jim Cuddy after the show!

- Friends! : Got to meet up with Victoria & Raphael, from NYC, randomly ran into a guy named Steve that I know from Toronto at the Blue Rodeo show, and the aforementioned meetup with Pete. It's so awesome hanging out with people you know when you're on vacation.

- Coney Island: my first time visiting! A lot of people were discouraging, saying that it wasn't really worth the trip out there... but I thought it was awesome! I even convinced my mom to ride the ferris wheel with me!

- San Gennaro: This is the yearly festival they put on in Little Italy, and pretty much the reason for the trip. Me and my mom wanted to bring my dad to the festival, because we knew he'd love it... and he did! Awesome.

- rats: Okay, this is not a highlight, but this was super creepy. At around 2am the morning after the Blue Rodeo show, I start hearing this rustling sound. Woke up my mom. Turned on the light. We saw a head, about as big as my fist, sticking out of our bags that were sitting on the desk. Both of us screamed and freaked out. It was kinda awful.

Photos, and there's a lot of them, can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/superflash/tags/nycsept08/

Niagara Falls in the Winter (brrr!)

So, last weekend, in the midst of the biggest snowstorm of the year, I decided the best thing that I could possibly do was... drive to Buffalo! An area that was forecasted to get even MORE snow than Toronto!

I drove out on Friday night after work. At that point, it had started snowing, but there was lots of traffic, and it wasn't overly horrible, because all the cars were keeping the accumulation from building on the roads. I drove slower than usual, and it was fine. Until I got to the turnoff to Queenston-Lewiston. Because apparently NO ONE was taking that road, except for myself and one other car. Getting across the border was another issue in itself. And driving through New York state was a little difficult, just because I had never driven there before and I had to consult my mapquest directions at the same time. I finally got to my friends' place around 9pm (around 2 hours later than I would have in normal weather). It was so great to see them. We went midnight bowling and didn't go to sleep until 5am :) Wish I had taken more pictures in Buffalo, because it was absolutely beautiful with all the snow.

The next day, we left Buffalo late in the morning, to get out to Niagara Falls. We were lucky we left when we did, because later that day, there was a travel advisory, and people weren't allowed to be driving. It was mostly freezing rain when we left though, which wasn't horrible. Except that we managed to get lost for like, 2 hours. But... we saw Tonawanda, North Tonawanda and Wheatfield - not many people can say that! ;)
We finally found our way to the Falls, and picked a place to stay based on the fact that it was attached to a Denny's, and we had no intention of setting foot outside for the rest of the night. It's too bad though, would've been cool to see the Falls from the New York side with all the snow. Don't think I've ever seen that before.

Sunday, the weather did a complete turnaround. It was sunny and beautiful. That's when all the pictures below were taken. I couldn't believe how stunning & breathtaking the scenery was. The pictures don't even capture it.
I definitely recommend a trip to Niagara Falls in the winter - though, maybe not on the day of the worst snowfall of the year ;)
Here's the set, on Flickr

New York, Day Three and Four

So, Day 3 - Tuesday - was my day to be pretty much all alone. Raphael had to go to work, and I had an entire list of things that I wanted to see before I left. I was pretty glad that we had done a lot over the last two days, so I knew how to navigate the subway system, and was pretty confident that I wouldn't look like one of those idiot tourists that everyone hates!

R & I stopped to grab a coffee on the way in, and then went our separate ways at Grand Central Station, with plans to meet for lunch. I took the train down to the City Hall stop, because my first task that I wanted to accomplish was taking pictures from Brooklyn Bridge. After I got down there, I quickly managed to find the pedestrian lane, turned on my iPod and began to walk. It was such a rush - first off, because it was a really windy (but sunny, though somewhat chilly) day, and also because of the cars zooming by below me. It was pretty breathtaking, the view from up there. Definitely recommend doing this if you happen to find yourself in NYC.

After I was satisfied with my shots, I decided that there wasn't enough time to head up to Greenwich Village before lunch, so I stuck around the area. I walked down to Ground Zero, because I didn't really get to see it last time. Still made me overwhelmingly sad when I thought back to September 11, 2001. I felt like a bit of an asshole taking pictures... I took a couple because I wanted to remember it... but then I put my camera away, and just reflected for a while.

Then, I found Century 21 - another must see shopping place on my list! I strolled around the womens, juniors, and shoe departments, but I was actually kinda disappointed because it wasn't really a place that you could just browse. It seemed slightly disorganized (plus they were doing inventory or something, so that could have something to do with it) ... Didn't end up buying anything.
Then I walked into Sephora for a little bit and browsed around the store until R. called me to tell me it was time to start heading up for lunch.

The train ended up being right on time (he called me a little earlier, to allow for delays), so I ended up walking around Grand Central station (another thing to check off my list) ... and then I walked out the completely wrong door, and was a little disoriented for a few minutes until I found my way back to where we were going to meet. Strolled into the GAP for a little while, and ended up buying a new GapScent that I love - DreamOn.

Met R. for lunch... we went to this little pizza place, that was absolutely DELICIOUS. mmm, New York Style Pizza!

Then we went for a walk to this little street that offered up a great view of the UN Building, and a little further down, the Chrysler Building.
Walking back to his workplace, we stopped into the Daily News building (where they filmed part of Superman)... they have a giant rotating globe in there, and mileage to major cities around the world. Oddly enough, the first one I found was Toronto - 348 miles. Thought that was kinda coincidental and neat :)

So then we parted ways again, I headed down to Astor Place, trying to get to St. Mark's Place. Raphael gave me directions from the giant cube... but I totally forgot them, and this was the only time that I was actually kinda lost. I ended up finding maps on the wall around the NYU Campus, and 20 minutes later, I eventually found my way to St. Mark's. Totally eclectic neighbourhood, I loved it. I stopped into the CBGB's store, and picked up the cutest guitar top, a pink guitar pick (that I have visions of turning into a necklace... should've bought more!) and a bib for my niece.

At that point, it was around 2pm, so I called up my friend Kate so that we could meet up. We wandered around all over the place... Stopped into a little cafe in Little Italy... saw a movie being shot (and quickly got shooed out of the way when the principle actors were ready to come out... wonder who it was!) ... stopped into a random art gallery - not sure who the artist(s) was, but it was pretty cool... first thing I noticed was an overwhelming smell of bananas (which I HATE with a passion), but I couldn't figure out why... then as we got further inside, one of the pieces was a huge WALL of bananas. Like, there were at least 1000+ of them. CRAZY.

*edit* Here's a link to the gallery's website about the show:
http://www.deitch.com/projects/sub.php?projId=230
Turns out that the artist was Stefan Sagmeister.

Then we headed over to Greenwich Village to a bunch of record shops, including Bleecker Street Records, which I was dying to browse around in after driving by there last time.
Wandered around SoHo... Kate pointed out the building that Monica Gellar & Rachel Green supposedly lived in on Friends... and we stopped for cupcakes at Magnolia, the SATC Hotspot and ate them in a little square, where birds were at our feet and people were playing chess. It was lovely!
Then we walked through the little boutiques... stopped in at Marc by Marc Jacobs... bought an awesome ring for myself, and a cool metal cuff for my sis-in-law. Saw a gorgeous sunset, looking down Christopher St (I had no idea that we were that close to the water!) Then walked up to 8th Ave, where we found some great shoe sales (I managed to control the shopping urge - mostly because my back was breaking from carrying around my camera, wallet, iPod, tripod, etc all day)
Then Kate and I parted ways, and I went to meet Raphael to start heading back to Queen's.

That night, R cooked us all an awesome dinner - his special House Rice, with chicken cutlets. Spent the night hanging out with good friends :)


The next day, I only had a couple of hours before I had to head to the airport to catch my flight. Ended up going to Roosevelt Ave in Queens, and browsing in a bunch of little stores for some souvenirs to bring home to the rest of my family that I hadn't bought for. MAN, I was not expecting the extreme TACKINESS of some of these stores!! LOL... there were like, glowing Jesus statues!! And those really tacky moving scene fish-tank type things... R kept trying to convince me to bring one home to my bro-in-law. Thankfully, I managed to find a couple of shot glasses instead.

I couldn't believe how overwhelmingly sad I was to leave the city that day. It was such a heavy feeling, I was seriously sitting at the airport with a super pouty face, probably pretty close to tears. I can't even begin to describe how much I love that city. It's like I belong there, and every time I leave, I leave a part of myself there to collect upon my next trip. I must find a way to live there one day. It's calling me.