Katie takes over the blog...

I let Katie borrow my camera for her work-related trip to Portugal. Here she takes over the blog to narrate the beautiful pictures she took.

Katie says, "This is a craft fair in Cascais, a beach town near Lisbon. I bought some pottery there (and some earrings for myself)."


"Still at the craft fair."


"This once was the summer home for the Portugese royal family. We drove up a steep mountain from Sintra to get there."


"Portugal is known for its unique tile designs as seen here."


"View from castle."


"This is Lisbon, from the balcony of the Four Seasons Hotel. Lisbon reminds me of San Francisco with the steep hills, the colorful buildings, and this bridge that was designed by an American company to resemble the Golden Gate Bridge."


"These are my co-workers (hard at work). I can't remember the name of this restaurant but it was the best meal of my life."


"This is Ginchu Beach. I spent an afternoon there getting burnt :-) "


"Sunset at Ginchu Beach"


"Quelez Palace. This is where we had our final night dinner for the group."


"The dining room at Quelez Palace. Beautiful!"


"The city of Sintra."


"Cascais Harbor"


"Fisherman at Cascais Harbor."


"An afternoon in Cascais"


"More tilework in Cascais"


"This is where we ate dinner our last night in Portugal."

First week of work!

Well, I survived my first week of working a real job in New York City. So far I am loving it. I really like my co-workers and the project I'm working on is interesting and giving me experience in GIS, which I am happy about. I am working on a flood-plain mapping project for FEMA. So far, I have been mapping all of the rivers, streams, creeks, etc in New York and New Jersey, one county at a time. Also, I had my first day of work at the Manhattan Sailing School. Instead of teaching a class, I just had to take out some young ladies from Popular Mechanics magazine and an ad agency for a pleasure sail. I sailed them out to the Statue of Liberty and back while they drank beer and enjoyed themselves. I know, tough job, but somebody's got to do it. I will send pictures of my office view when my camera returns from Portugal with Katie. The office is located in Long Island City, across the river from Manhattan so there are some great views.

Self-guided tour

It was too nice to stay indoors on Monday, so I took out a couple cards from a box of self-guided walking tour cards my sister gave me for my birthday (thanks Keri!) and decided to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and head through Chinatown, Little Italy and the Lower East Side. Much better than sitting at the computer looking for jobs and typing emails. Here is the beginning of my journey across the Brooklyn Bridge. It is such a beautiful bridge and to think it was built in the 1870s (opened in 1883). It was also a nice clear day, so I took lots of pictures...

Downtown Manhattan and South Street Seaport to the left.

Empire State Building and Manhattan Bridge to the right.

Another shot of mid-town and the Empire State Building.

The sights and smells of Chinatown. These crabs are alive, by the way.

Chinatown streets.

Confucius Plaza

Street Market at Confucius Plaza. If I knew how to cook this stuff I would come here a lot. Everything looked very fresh and good.

Mulberry Street is the heart of Little Italy. They close down the streets to cars at night during the summer months. Luckily Katie knows some good places because I don't have any idea how you would be able to choose where to eat on this street, there are so many Italian restaurants.

Some kids cooling off in a park on the Lower East Side.

The tenement buildings of the Lower East Side. During the late 1800s, immigrants would flock to the Lower East Side and would live in these crowded tenement apartments. They usually consisted of three rooms (front room, kitchen, bedroom) and often would house entire extended families and other boarders. Kind of reminds me of college.

4th of July

We started our 4th of July afternoon at the Brooklyn Ice Cream factory in Brooklyn Heights. They make the ice cream on-site and it's really good. There is always a line here. Also, sitting at one of the tables inside when we were ordering was Jerry Springer. So, to summarize my celebrity sightings so far in NYC: John Turturro, Steve Buscemi (twice), the celebrity hairstylist guy with the reality show Blow Out (don't ask me how I know who he is), a girl from Law & Order (also in an ice cream store), and Jerry Springer.

We were invited to a party at the Office of Emergency Management, located directly underneath the Brooklyn Bridge.

As the sun set, we got ready for the Macy's firework show.

Police helicopter fly-by over the Manhattan Bridge.

The fire boat gets us into the spirit.

We get to our front row seats for the fireworks show.

Getting darker...

A shot of the group with their glow sticks.

The show begins...

There were a lot of cool new fireworks that I hadn't seen before.

A great show and a great way to wrap up one of the best weekends ever.

Amazin' seats!

Katie scored some great seats to the Mets game last Friday night. My friend Eric Chase was in town and he and Katie's friend Katie came with. We were in the third row behind home plate. I've never sat in seats like these before, the face value was $163! The players took their warm-up swings about 10 feet away. This is the real reason I moved to New York, to take advantage of the perks from Katie's job! I forgot my camera, so these photos were taken with Eric's camera phone.

There was a short rain delay before the game started. We were prepared with our ponchos, but we didn't need them long. Here we are making our selections from the ballpark menu. That's right, waiter service in these seats!

More pics from Eric's camera phone.

We had better seats than the guys in the dugout!