Holga

While I was in Nashville, I brought along a couple of cameras and a ton of film, but true to form, I only killed a roll of Holga film, and only four pictures on it came out at all. I unwisely tried to shoot a bunch of multiple exposures in the Mercy Lounge (the music venue--I'm pretty determined at this point never to try shooting a Holga indoors again), and even some of my outdoor shots were mysteriously out of focus. Oh well. Lucky ducky that I actually got legit good shots of the Third Man storefront and the Rolling Record Store (which was parked out by the loading dock at the time).

Here's the stuff that actually looks pretty good:

(This one was from the end of the roll -- note the exposed line of film on the side, haha.)

Oh, I forgot to tell you. Guess who got her AKC Canine Good Citizen certification on the 17th of this very month?

Now that you've seen the Polaroids chronicling the satyric revelry in Justin's apartment, I can give you the summary. I had a fantastic time. A disproportionate amount of it was spent indoors, but that was all right; we spent a lot of time outdoors, too, just wandering around the city, going to bars, and marveling at it all. Jennifer, Justin and Cathy (pictured below) were very kind to tolerate my new-to-the-city ways.

The lot of us went to visit MoCCA on Monday (7/13), only to discover, to our disappointment, that it's closed on Mondays. To make up for it, we did end up seeing this fantastic little gallery showing of bizarre Dali prints, most of which I had never seen before. One depicted a giraffe on fire falling out a window. I am not joking.

Monday we also went down to Chinatown, where we ate delicious pork dumplings and I bought cheap crap on Canal Street. This was actually my favorite part of the city, by far. Where else can you get a $5 pair of sunglasses, argue down the price of a belt buckle, and buy a DVD of a crappy movie out of a suitcase? That's right, nowhere.

Hyatt wanted to meet up with us that evening and go to Forbidden Planet, but (admittedly on my insistence) we wound up going into a Halloween store first. This place was great, by the way. It had all kinds of stuff hidden in nooks and crannies, which is the worst way to lay out a grocery store but the best way to lay out a Halloween store. There were a few things I wanted to buy there, but willpower won out. I left with an excellent Betty Boop Talkartoon poster and that was that.

I had heard a lot of good things about Forbidden Planet, but frankly, though it was a nice store, Ann Arbor's Vault of Midnight is better, and the staff is nicer, too. I bought some things there anyway.

On Tuesday I wanted to do dumb tourist stuff, like go down to Battery Park and stare out at the Statue of Liberty over the water and see Central Park and Times Square and all that jazz. We ate breakfast at Ess-a-bagel, which came quite highly recommended by my boyfriend, and it lived up to all my expectations. Then Max (above) and I headed down to Battery Park.

It was getting late in the afternoon when Justin and Jennifer came to fetch us so we could go to Central Park (after puttering around with Max and me a little in Battery Park, of course). The parks in NYC are all gorgeous, by the way. After some playground antics, we were going to wait for Hyatt at the statue of Balto, but then I guess we were going to meet him at Times Square instead. Oops.

The main thing I took away from seeing Times Square at night was that I am not sure I ever want to go to Times Square again. Everything is covered in flashing lights. It's overwhelming. New Yorkers don't like it there, and I don't blame them.

We ate some tasty Italian food. Then, the next morning, we left.

Since I know you're positively dying to live vicariously through my friends and me by looking at our vacation photographs, you should check out the rest of them on Flickr.