Munchen Gay Pride

Our visit to Munich happened to coincide with the gay pride festival there, as our luck would have it! Sara and I enjoyed taking pics of the passing parade and watching the colorful sights....

sara told me that in shanghai its common to make a peace sign for a photo because the shanghainese believe it makes them look more natural than just standing and posing for the camera...apparently all cultures perceive posing in a different manner


these lion statues were all over town, dressed in different costumes...clearly sara and i didn't find them entertaining in the slightest way

Munchen

It had been ages since I had seen Sara and Claudio, my friends living in Shanghai....actually the last time i saw them was last November when I visited them in Shanghai over Thanksgiving...and as luck would have it, they decided to spend their holiday touring Europe....seeing the sights of Amsterdam, Cologne, Berlin, and Munich....

Cla's friend, Aldo arrived on Friday by train from Sienna, and I joined them a few hours later...it was raining and 12 degrees, as opposed to 25 degrees in Bucharest! we didn't care though, the beer halls and restaurants were plenty warm inside ;)


Aldo and Cla were making fun of our "American Smiles" (as shown in the picture above) so we asked them how Italian women pose for pictures.....and after a brief, somewhat confusing description, we tried to imitate las italianas.... what do you think? vote: american smiles or italian looks?

i think the american looks win, but maybe i'm slightly biased.....

ok below is a pic of all the german food we ordered....as our first meal in bavaria, we went nuts with the dumplings, beer pretzels, etc...(doctor atkins would be rolling over in his grave if he knew)

Claudio has got to stop being serious all the time....he really can be a bore!

Black Sea Weekend: Part II

Mamaia, Romania is the dream beach resort for any single man (or any man for that matter) to go and enjoy the endless beach eye candy....

For women though, it's quite the opposite to see a bunch of hairy white men baring it all in their speedos! (As we say in the States "Ewwwwwwwwwww")


well, alice, carina and i found ourselves being lured back to the black sea coast for another weekend, this time to see fatboy slim spin at ultima playa on the water...mungo came from istanbul to join us and the four of us found ourselves arriving in mamai sin acomodacion.....so we found this lovely hospitable grandmother to take us in for the night and to feed us homemade tuica (aka romananian grappa) for breakfast! yikes!

Black Sea Weekend

well they don't call it the black sea for nothing.......the water was sooo dirty! but the 24/7 nonstop blasting techno music made up for it.........carina, alice, and diana and i had a blast swimming and chilling, even though alice and i were swimming and encountered a piece of poop in the water with us!

At Gabriel and Dresden concert with Carina, Dave, Josh, and Alice (poor alice was cut out....not fair! the guy didn't know how to take a pic....who would cut out alice)
with carina and diana at a beach bar

girls having just the most awful time....really was too boring ;)

Istanbul in July!!!!!!!!!!!

sunrise over the bosphorus

Aida and I had so much fun going out in Istanbul last month. I can't wait to visit her again!