Electric Zoo 2011

Posted on September 5th, 2011 by Peter

3 wonderful days later, I’ve taken many photos and video of you all. Thank you.

I have some serious editing to do. In the mean time, please check out photos and video from former years..

2010

2009

Saturday Photos

Sunday Photos

Filed Under: Made Event, Randall's Island, Video Add Comment »

Traveling…

Posted on April 14th, 2010 by Peter

If you couldn’t tell, this site has fallen a bit out of date. I haven’t had a reliable internet connection for most of the past 4 month.

If you’re looking for photos, check the link in the upper right, or on facebook.

If you want to get a hold of me, check the contact page for my e-mail info. I’m up to 7 different phone numbers now, and none of them are working in Japan, so skip that. Skype (fotoaddict) is also an option.

Cheers,
Peter

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Road Fever

Posted on February 3rd, 2010 by Peter

Just finished reading “Road Fever” while on my flight to Punta Arenas, basically the bottom of the living world. Interesting book which I picked up, ok borrowed/stole, from the book swap in Santiago. I’ll bring it back, so it really is borrow. Anyways, set in 1987, it’s about a pair of guys who decided to drive an upcoming GMC truck from the southernmost city in south america to the northernmost city in north america for a guiness speed record. 23 years later I can attest do many of the toils they had still existing. Sure we have cell phones now, so communication is easier. But much of the random crime back then still exists in many of the same regions today.

Céline is reading it now, her English besting all of my other languages combined. It’s nice having a travel partner for a few days, especially one who’s willing to travel to the end of the earth with you.

Tips for today:
- CL – Puerto Montt – has a very nice and brand new airport.
- CL – Puerto Montt- the bus from the bus station to the airport is about $3 and is timed to meet the flights. Our bus arrived at 9:45pm which was the recommended time for our 10:45pm flight.
- CL – Castro, the capital of Chilóe, isn’t very much fun when it rains all day
- CL – Castro – hospidaje mirradores (spelled wrong) was incredibly homely. Felt like I was staying at my grandmothers house, had she added 6 bedrooms full of French, German, and brittish to the family.
- don’t sit in the front row of a bus unless it has 2 floors.

Next stop penguin country.

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Travel tips

Posted on January 23rd, 2010 by Travel

PE – cusco is in a valley, get a window seat when flying In or out and have your camera handy

SLR – If your main camera is an SLR, consider not bringing it. There are places in the world where it's value will exceed the annual income of the locals. If you do bring it, aim for a lens that covers most needs without having to change. Canon has an 18-200 that works well for most situations. Also consider bringing a small point and shoot for the situations it's not safe to make the slr visible.

NZ – pahia, the pippi patch hostel is pretty crappy. Only stay there if there's a group of you and you can fill a room. Otherwise there's a hostel across the street with free bikes and canoes. Can't remember the name but it was in the lonely planet.

iPhone – iPhone is a great travel device. If possible get one that's unlocked ( or get yours unlocked before you leave ). The maps feature alone could save your life, but be warned: without cell access the gps does not work. It needs to talk to the towers to figure out which gps satelites to look for.

USA – iPhone, if your trip is short, consider adding the international data package to your AT&T phone plan. It's $25 a month for 20 megabytes which is enough to chekc your mail on occasion (make sure it's not set to auto check mail!) and to load up the local map in a pinch.

iPhone – when wifi is available, cache the maps to the street level for wherever you are. Free Maps Often suck, and the google ones don't.

PE – maccu picchu, if you're physically fit, you're going to want to go to wannu pichu, the mountain overlooking maccu picchu. They limit the # of people that can go up there to 400 a day in 2 batches of 200. The first one is at 6am, and is the one you want to be in. 2 choices. Either walk up the inca trail to arrive there about 5:30 ( leave at 430 I'm told) or be in line for the bus at 4am. (buses start leaving at 530). We got to the bus line at 430 and just missed he cutoff by about 20 people. Once in with your wannu picchu stamp, run over (carefully, slippery when wet) to that gate and get your time slot for going up. The earlier the better as the sun makes things hot pretty quickly. You'll likely be done with all of machu picchu by lunch time, which is a good thing. Other things to check out: the inca bridge. About 30 min roundtrip depending on how many photos you take. The signin form is so they know if you made it back ok, they really do lose people, so be careful. The bridge itself is a holy shit kind of thing though, and you can bet that whoever thought to build it in the first place either had lots of minions he didn't care about, or was on a significant dosage of Incan acid. Mount machu picchu is also an option for the serious hikers. Likely best in the morning as the sun will be behind you when taking pictures, it seems to be about 3 hours for the capable climber. Also. Bug spray! Once you're sweaty from all the hiking around the bugs will find you so be prepared.

PE – stay in the barranco backpackers if you can. They'll set up a taxi from the airport for you $16 and chris who runs the place has lots of good info. It's a great first and last stop in Peru for backpackers, but does often get full on Saturday nights (at least in jan) so keep that in mind. Also, don't go to the beach at night, not safe.

PE – learn Spanish. I got a western europe phrasebook covering all the languages for the countries I'm going to visit. It was a great refresher for my ugly Spanish, but it gets me the respect for trying. I also save $ as many things are more expensive in English. A taxi ride in Lima has been 20 soles in English while 8 in Spanish. "cuanto por barranco central" works muh better than "how much to go to, uum, backpackers in barrrranco". Plus it's a conversation topic when in situations where they don't speak english. "que es" and then point. They will likely tell you, you'll learn something, and that akward silence is avoided.

PE- taxis. Don't take them unless they have their license plate number painted on the side of the taxi and a taxi sign on top. (or you arranged for it through a trusted means). It's not safe to take a gipsey cab, as there's a decent chance they'll take you to a very bad part of town and up the rate 10-20x what it started as or leave you in gang land.

PE – cusco, I don't remember exactly where, but walking distance from the main square was a market for locals. We walked through a covered market to get to this set of streets where hill folks were selling their warez on the street. Nobody spoke English, and I was the only white person in sight but it didn't feel unsafe (I wasn't alone!). And wow, the stuff for sale was amazing at astonishing prices. They likely charged us higher prices for being white with poor Spanish, but even double on 15 cents is only 30 cents if you get my drift. There were also massive bags of coca leaves for sale, which we found quite humorous.

Posted via email from fotoaddict’s posterous

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Carnival in Rio!

Posted on December 15th, 2009 by Peter

Add some more flights, plus a hotel share in Rio.. and I’m headed to Carnival!

Your Itinerary:

Lan Airlines operated by SUBSIDIARY/FRANCHISE
Flight LA750
Depart Santiago Arturo Merino Benitez, CL (SCL)
10-Feb-10 (Wed) 08:00a
Arrive Rio de Janeiro International Apt, BR (GIG)
10-Feb-10 (Wed) 02:35p
Flight Time 05hr 35min | Economy
Aircraft Boeing 767-300/300ER
Stops 1
Flight LA750 has the following stops:
Arrive 10Feb 1250P Sao Paulo Guarulhos Intl Apt, BR (GRU)
Depart 10Feb 0130P

Tam Linhas Aereas
Flight JJ8094
Depart Rio de Janeiro International Apt, BR (GIG)
17-Feb-10 (Wed) 08:20a
Arrive Sao Paulo Guarulhos Intl Apt, BR (GRU)
17-Feb-10 (Wed) 09:30a
Flight Time 01hr 10min | Economy
Aircraft Airbus 320-100/200
Stops nonstop

Lan Airlines operated by SUBSIDIARY/FRANCHISE
Flight LA6464
Depart Sao Paulo Guarulhos Intl Apt, BR (GRU)
17-Feb-10 (Wed) 02:20p
Arrive Buenos Aires Ministro Pistarini, AR (EZE)
17-Feb-10 (Wed) 04:10p
Flight Time 01hr 50min | Economy
Aircraft Airbus A330-200/300
Stops nonstop

Lan Airlines
Flight LA422
Depart Buenos Aires Ministro Pistarini, AR (EZE)
21-Feb-10 (Sun) 10:25a
Arrive Santiago Arturo Merino Benitez, CL (SCL)
21-Feb-10 (Sun) 12:40p
Flight Time 03hr 15min | Economy
Aircraft Boeing 767-300/300ER
Stops nonstop

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My Itineary…

Posted on December 13th, 2009 by Peter

Carrier	Flight Number	Departing		Arriving		Booking Code
Carrier	Flight Number	City	Date & Time	City	Time	Booking Code
American Airlines	7711	NEW YORK JFK	TUE 29DEC 10:40 PM	LIMA	6:35 AM	L
	OPERATED BY LAN AIRLINES S.A CHECK-IN WITH OPERATING CARRIER
	Peter Drier			Economy
LAN Airlines	2564	LIMA	THU 14JAN 12:45 PM	CARACAS	4:55 PM	L
	OPERATED BY /LANPERU CHECK-IN WITH OPERATING CARRIER
	Peter Drier			Economy
LAN Airlines	561	CARACAS	MON 01FEB 11:40 AM	SANTIAGO SCL	7:50 PM	L
LAN Airlines	Peter Drier			Economy
LAN Airlines	845	SANTIAGO SCL	MON 22FEB 2:45 PM	EASTER ISLAND	6:10 PM	L
LAN Airlines	Peter Drier			Economy
LAN Airlines	833	EASTER ISLAND	WED 24FEB 10:30 PM	PAPEETE	11:20 PM	L
LAN Airlines	Peter Drier			Economy
Qantas Airways	114	AUCKLAND	SUN 14MAR 12:25 PM	SYDNEY	1:45 PM	L
	OPERATED BY /JETCONNECT FOR QANTAS CHECK-IN WITH OPERATING CARRIER
	Peter Drier			Economy
Qantas Airways	577	SYDNEY	SUN 28MAR 12:00 N	PERTH	1:55 PM	L
Qantas Airways	Peter Drier			Economy
Cathay Pacific	170	PERTH	MON 05APR 12:05 AM	HONG KONG	7:55 AM	L
Cathay Pacific	Peter Drier			Economy
Cathay Pacific	500	HONG KONG	SUN 11APR 3:00 PM	TOKYO NARITA	8:20 PM	L
Cathay Pacific	Peter Drier			Economy
Japan Airlines	707	TOKYO NARITA	TUE 20APR 6:00 PM	BANGKOK SUVARNABH	10:35 PM	L
	OPERATED BY JL FOR JO CHECK-IN WITH OPERATING CARRIER
	Peter Drier			Economy
Cathay Pacific	712	BANGKOK SUVARNABH	TUE 27APR 4:05 PM	HONG KONG	7:55 PM	L
Cathay Pacific	Peter Drier			Economy
Cathay Pacific	749	HONG KONG	TUE 27APR 11:45 PM	JOHANNESBURG	6:55 AM	L
Cathay Pacific	Peter Drier			Economy
British Airways	54	JOHANNESBURG	TUE 11MAY 9:15 PM	LONDON HEATHROW	7:20 AM	L
British Airways	Peter Drier			Economy
British Airways	548	LONDON HEATHROW	SUN 16MAY 9:10 AM	ROME FIUMICINO	12:40 PM	L
British Airways	Peter Drier			Economy
American Airlines	235	ROME FIUMICINO	WED 01SEP 10:00 AM	NEW YORK JFK	1:35 PM	L
American Airlines	Peter Drier			Economy		Lunch/Snack

Filed Under: Travel Add Comment »

I’m back

Posted on December 8th, 2009 by Peter

So things around here became a bit dead while I was away. Living life didn’t exactly leave a lot of time for logging on and updating the world. Let alone the varying qualities of internet access out there.

But I’m back, for a few weeks, with a hard drive full of photos & video, and some time to process/edit/upload them all. So if you’ve been waiting for something, it won’t be much longer now.

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Oktoberfest 2009 Video

Posted on September 26th, 2009 by Peter

Some scenes from Oktoberfest 2009

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Day 0

Posted on September 9th, 2009 by Peter

It’s 9pm in NYC right now, but I’m a few hundred miles over the Atlantic (Halifax to be specific) currently on our way to 37,000 feet.

Over the past few weeks, many of you have given me welcomed advise (and a number of you still owe me details mentioned during Electric Zoo…). Thank you! I’ll sort through the details over the next week or two and hopefully plan out the next year in reasonable detail. But don’t let me stop you from sending more travel tips and advise.

Two of you gave me significantly different advise, concerning survival as a party of one while thousands of miles away from everything and everyone I know. Most people don’t think about that side of the journey it seems, even though it provides the largest challenges.

So where does that leave me?

Predictions:

This trip will change me. I’m going to see more cultures, eat more foods, and experience a variety of peoples exceeding even the most cultured New Yorkers.
I have not fully comprehended the magnitude of that which I am undertaking.
Life has a habit of dealing me the best hand when I’m just about done at the table. The last few weeks in NYC were fantastic! And I predict my continually changing locales to help create a world wide web of pretty ladies, couches to crash on, and drinking buddies to last a lifetime.
I will spend a lot of $ on postage mailing postcards, sending home mementos so I don’t have to carry them, and sending couch surfing hosts thank you gifts.
I will miss NYC:
- pizza (had 2 slices today)
- coke cola (they have it, but it’s way more expensive and I need to cut back anyway)
- taxi driver abuse, I’m sure to get taken a few times without the ability to call them on their shit.
- anything delivered any time I want. Seamless web, corner bistro burgers with deep fried bacon at 3am, …
- FIOS, damn that was fast Internet. I could download or upload movies faster than I could watch them.
- unlimited interned on my iPhone. I still have to pay for US access (thank you AT&T) but internationally I’ll be limited to 20mb per month (0.66 mb per DAY!) at $25 extra a month. Yikes.
At least one “holy shit” moment every day.
I’ll learn a little bit of a few languages. Definitely not enough nor quick enough, but a life worth of language challenges doesn’t change over night.
The iPhone and the many available apps will prove invaluable.
NYC will change while I am away:
- a new mayor perhaps…
- 311 will get a website where you can access or even enter tickets.
- some major club will close (ok, that one was easy..)
- the bank of america tower will finally have the windows that blew out in 2008 replaced.
- FIOS will be available in some apartments I’d want to live in.
I’m going to miss you all…