Lou's Year In Review: 2007

Last edited by Louise on Fri Jun 20, 2008 4:58 am

I take all people pictures, and that's what this will be, along with Kyle/Chuck-style reviews. Second disclaimer, my memory is terrible, unless I really really love something, or it's fudged up enough to stand out, you may well read "yeah, I have no clue what I thought about this coaster". Thirdly, my photography inclination is pretty erratic, some days I take a hundred photos, other times my camera may not leave my hotel room for three days.

With all that said... On with the pictures!

I started my year with a few random park visits with Robb, which he very kindly documented so I don't have to.... See below:

Much fun behind the scenes of Infusion at Blackpool Pleasure Beach.... I still haven't ridden this damn thing!

A quick trip over to Camelot

Visiting Southport Pleasureland post-demolition.... So sad it almost made me cry!

Blackpool with Robb and Yeti Ball!

So all of that (along with two Alton visits, from which I have one single picture), was the beginning of my year!

Fast-forwarding a few months, we're now in June, and Ed (Ed) and I head off to East Midlands airport (because you can't fly to Madrid from Manchester) for a day's sightseeing in Spain before the rest of the crew arrive.

Our plane arrives, and we have to sit and look at it for forty minutes before they'll actually let us get on it.

But it's okay, we have a camera, and poseur-tendencies... Even if it is 5am. *yawn*

And we have supplies!

After a pretty uneventful flight, and then two hours trying to find our hotel, which was in a dodgy part of town nobody had ever heard of, we eventually made it (late, sorry guys!) to meet up with John (CreativeForce) and his wife Rebecca, who were organised enough to have an architectural walking tour printed out of a book for us to explore with! I have no idea what most of these buildings are, but they're all in the Old section of Madrid, which is a beautiful area, one of my favourite European cities now.

I imagine this is the door to Room uno-cero-uno or something.

I love it when cities do this, cover up construction with a projection of what the finished building will look like. Silly in a way, but far preferable to taking pictures of scaffolding!

I fell in love with this building and wanted to live there.

This church was beautiful, hard to photograph though as I couldn't get far away enough to fit what I wanted to in the frame.

After an hour or two of exploring in the heat (it was DAMN hot), the four of us settled in Plaza Mayor for a while with a few bottles of Coke and beer, soaking up the atmosphere. The Plaza is amazing, beautiful in and of itself, and surrounded by cool little shops (AMERICAN VIRGIN COMIC BOOK) and cafes, and there are artists and street musicians everywhere. And crazy dogs.

Views of the Plaza...

After a few drinks and a bit more wandering, we left John and Rebecca to their dinner (but sadly not show-seeing) plans, and headed back to our hotel, hoping to get off the Metro before dark, as it was quite a walk from the station, all down alleyways!! I'll take this opportunity to praise the Metro system, which is totally awesome. Now I've travelled by Shinkansen and the other Japanese train systems, I have to say the Spanish one pales in comparison, but it's extremely cool and convenient nonetheless, much better than anything we have.

All in all it was a fun and chilled-out arrival (excepting us getting lost..... Ed and I should NOT travel alone together, by the way), which we needed for the insanity that would ensue beginning the following day...

So Robb, Elissa, KidTums, Chris, Rich, Mel, Larry, and probably half a dozen others (it's been too long) were due to arrive at the trip starting point around 1pm the following day. Ed and I slept in, and awoke around 10 (allowing time to make it to that part of Madrid) to a text message from Robb saying they were delayed... We decided to make our way over to the Novotel anyway, dump our luggage and sit in the bar. Another text comes through, they're JUST boarding in New Jersey. Oops. After waiting around the hotel for a while we decided to do some wandering around the area where the hotel was, just see where we ended up. The hotel was right near a roundabout, from which you could walk in four directions, so basically we just walked a while in each direction to see what we came to!

This cool-looking sculpture was in the parking lot of what ended up being a pretty nice park with a great view! Now what was that park called.....

Oh that's right!

This was about five seconds before the wind changed and that waterfall soaked me.

Every time I see this picture I have to wonder if I have ever seen anything more gay. I think it was just about surpassed while I was in California though!

Random view of the area. That copper shiny building on the right has a hedgehog on it, I never did know why but thought that fact was gloriously random.

Lots of random sculptures, buildings, bridges, and fountains in this place. All felt sort of unfinished though, a little odd. I LOVED all the people in business-clothes sprawled out sleeping on the grass all over the park, a good siesta place near their offices, I assume.

You could see pretty far across the city!

I'm in Madrid. 'Sup.

BUST. No idea who he was, but I call him Johnny.

Going in a different direction now (one where there ended up being nothing and we turned around), I took this just to prove it was hot. Compared to the rest of my summer, this actually wasn't hot at all, but at the time, it seemed it. So there.

Everything is always so landscaped in Spain! And I see McDonald's in the distance!! That place was handy to have around on nights when we got back to the hotel late and were lazy and hungry.

Walking alongside the railroad tracks, we decided we were literally on the wrong side of them. But hey, the graffiti was even kinda arty looking and neat, so it's all good!

The tracks are down to the left there. Pretty place, and quite peaceful, but I imagine I wouldn't want to be in that area alone after dark.

The path shown above eventually leads to this street, again, very pretty, but still covered with graffiti and stuff. Landscaping is typically beautiful though, it being Spain and all.

Funky sculpture. I love the bench next to it so you can just.... sit.... and stare....

VOGUE. (See us posing?)

So that was our first day and a half in Madrid! Sorry that was such a long walk with all culture and no coasters. Wink

After we got back to the hotel, the poor Alveys and co. eventually made it after a 102 hour hellish journey, we all went for dinner, had a few drinks, then crashed, ready for Day Zero, meeting all the new faces, and Parque de Attracciones the following afternoon!

Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 8:26 am Post subject:

Wow, awesome photos. Really looking forward to the rest of it.

And as hot as it was in Spain, it seemed quite reasonable when compared to Japan...

dt

Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 8:29 am Post subject:

Thankyou for this and what's to come.

I am shocked that Kyle and I managed to find pretty much the sames stuff you did in old town given the fact that we just wanderied around.

Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 8:30 am Post subject:

^Agreed Larry led us around with that book we got from the Library and we also have tons of the same pictures.

Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 8:33 am Post subject:

I have tons of the same pictures too. I wonder why?

Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 8:34 am Post subject:

Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 8:35 am Post subject:

Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 9:01 am Post subject:

LOU has driven thru West Hollywood listening to "Life After Love"? And why does it just have "Louise" and no other info?

Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 9:28 am Post subject:

Great pictures Lou, I don't think I'll ever get the chance to post mine with the crazy work schedule I'm on. This was just the 'pick me up' I needed to come back to work after Christmas, many thanks! Taiko Really Happy

Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 9:29 am Post subject:

Awesome Lou, I can't wait until you get to the real trip pics, not this Spain stuff.

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