On Saturday I went out to Frank & Liz's apartment for the TENTH installment of my favorite holiday party of the season: A Very Picarazzi Christmas! (Here's a link to the very first one back in 2005!)
Fast forward two weeks later, and Grant and I went out for some lunch with Chris the Greek and Caesar, who were in town from Washington, DC and Italy respectively.
The band had planned on having a huge post-show brunch party on Sunday at APT to celelbrate their first gig, but when the gig got cancelled with less than 24 hours notice, no one was sure what to do about the brunch. In the end, the band decided to press-on and have it. Here's Grant, Chris the Greek and Frank!
Chris the Greek was up visiting from DC to attend Grant's "Welcome Back from Hell-A" party. Here we are sending him off after some Tuesday morning brunch (which, is one of the finer points of not having a day job).
At first you thought that this photo was repetitive and not worth including...and then you looked again and noticed Fatty's ridiculous expression in the background and suddenly everything made sense.
Then Chris, being the "master of my own body" ninja that he is, destroyed them with him spot-on perfect impression (Well, except for the fact that he's not wearing a little brown dress). And the more we started taking, the shit was so funny that WE almost forgot that we really were taking him to his surprise party.
After we finished eating, the plan was for Emma and Lorelei to call and say that we should meet them at the Sunburned Cow, a bar all the way over on Avenue C. We'd try to arrive right at 10pm, and everyone would jump out yell "Surprise!" (hopefully both surprising Grant and scaring the living shit out of him simutaneously).
Here's Chris and Fatty back at my apartment getting ready to head back to their respective homes - so ends our journey.
Between the three of us that had cameras, we managed to take just over 2,000 pictures which I edited down to 21 entries comprised of exactly 790 photos. And so it's with these last few words that I end the European Vacation Series (which is by far, the longest diary project I've ever undertaken). Back to life in NYC!
Here's another one. This one's my pensive and artsy "I'm acting like the camera's not there, but clearly I must know it is because I'm the one who took the picture" picture. Who's more emo than me? Motherfuck this photo diary nonsense, I'm gonna get me a LiveJournal. (ps - look at the two cutey patooties passed out next to me like little sleeping lambs. Teeheehee.)
Awww, yeah - check tha setup! Awwww, look how cute Grant's mom is all displaying the food with the boys. (And be forewarned, anybody making remarks about Moms in the comments section will be promptly banned. In the words, of the Wise Fatty, "Dat shit ain' coo'!")
...we arrived safely and without incident (save a slight yelling match between Grant and the rest of the passengers in the car who politely asked him if he would "SLOW THE FUCK DOWN SO DON'T HYDROPLANE OFF THE ROAD AND DIE FOR FUCK'S SAKE!") at Grant's parent's home and celebrated with some stiff drinks...
Being that we were leaving Crete in the morning to head back to the UK, we decided to take one more trip into Rethymnon to walk around and get some ice cream.
Not completely happy with the shaky, hand-held quality of the previous "Scootering" footage we'd shot a few days earlier, Chris strapped the camera to the back of my bike so we could film our mountainous ascent on the coastal backroads. (I'll get around to posting clips of this someday. Don't worry, with the exception of Grant trying to brain we while I'm squatting down and talking to the bike-mounted cam, you're really not missing much).
After fucking around for too long in Bali, we ended up having to make the 35 minute trip back to our condo at dusk (freezing our asses off the whole way). After dropping the bikes off and picking up our car, we headed to a nearby restaurant for an early dinner.
...I claimed I wanted to get a picture of these three on their way down, but it was really just my sneaky was of getting them to go first in case there were any ScoobyDoo-esque villians waiting below.
A small chapel off to the side of the Monestary tells the story (which I grabbed a rehash of from this site):
"The Greek freedom fighters would register their displeasure with the Turks (normally some Turks would be discovered dead) and the Turks would show their displeasure by killing everyone in a town or village. In 1866 around 1,000 Cretens took refuge in the Monastery fearing Turkish retribution. The people, which did include several freedom fighters, held out for two days before the 12,0000 Turks laying siege were able to rupture the walls. However, instead of surrendering the abbot (a local hero) and the people inside decided to ignite the gun powder in the powder keg room. 829 of the Cretens died. It is said anywhere from 100 to 1000 Turks were killed in the explosion."
We saddled back up on our HOGGZ and hit the road. We only managed to get about 1/4 mile when Grant, who was leading the pack, slowed down and pulled over to the side of the road hysterically laughing and pointing...
Here's Fatty, Grant and Chris upon arrival - quasi-drunk from dinner and already in awe of the stupid amounts of hot Greek women. (Make sure to look at all three of their priceless expressions).
Looky, looky! What's going on here in this picture? After Grant was done giving her the "See, aren't we fun guys?" photo review, she quickly cozied up to tha Grizza.
We chatted Michael up for a few minutes and after we'd established a rapport, I asked him if I had any shot with his cute friend and he replied (please make sure you read the next sentence in your best Balki from "Perfect Strangers" voice) "Don' be ree-deek-you-los!"
With the leather-panted Gunther giving us the stinkeye from across the table we took a view pictures more pics without her in the background to try to throw him off our perv trail. By the way, ever notice how stuff like Coke, ketchup and McDonalds always taste not-so-great overseas? Well with beer, it works the other way around. The beer we are drinking is Amstel. (not Amstel light, regular Amstel) Maybe it was the crisp sea breeze or the abundance of badobnkadonk butts out there but it was hands down one of the best beers I've ever had.
And then a group shot. HA HA HA HA. Notice in the background you can see the chick's equally-attractive German boyfriend totally catching on to what we were up too. Das gig ist up, ja?
We walked around town for awhile and eventually managed to find the steak joint. After we'd been seated, we noticed a heartbreakingly attractive German woman sitting at a nearby table and all of a sudden Grant wants to take a picture of Chris reading a menu.
The camera never lies. That's why the picture is blurred. But turn down a complimentary digestif in Greece and you might get your ass handed to you along with the check. Looks like we have some shots to drink. Oh well, here's to minimal liver damage.
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