My Location

in
 

Hey, just to answer the question as to where i'm at exactly: View Larger Map

Also, the round about cost of coming to Paris: $615 - Airfare. I used kayak.com to find the flight.

$12 - Train ride from the The airport to Paris

$1,029.14 - Cost of the apartment for the week. (650 Euro - it is about average)

Everything else is the same price point as NYC but multiply it by 1.56. so a Starbucks coffee would cost you 5 euro or $7.92.

Where I sleep: french edition

in

I was having quite a hard time finding a place to stay. I really felt the need to find a hip, boutique hotel for at least the final 3 nights. I found a place called the Five Hotel that seemed to fit my style perfectly but i was still without a place for the first 4 nights. Sonya and her sister visited Paris last year and i remember her saying how great it was to have rented an apartment for the week. So i started looking for a little apartment in the Latin Quarter / St. Germain area of town. After several days of not finding anything and having a hard time contacting a few that were avaible Marcia (who has been in paris for a week already) discovered this great little place. I was going to only stay for 4 nights and then switch off to the hotel for the final two. Well, once i got to the area, walked up the 4 flights of stairs and saw how perfectly french this place was, i immediately wanted to stay all 6 nights here. Instead of the 450 euro she was asking, i paid the full 650 for the week and that was that. No boutique french hotel this time.

The place has two rooms, a great bathroom, a full size and a half size bed, kitchen, free wi-fi (pronounced wee-fee by my french folks) and unlimited calling to the U.S.

hamburgers in france

in

Please read marcia's account of eating a plate of raw hamburger meat:

Last night, being the daring traveller that I am, I decided to try steak tartare. I think that because of the name, I expected raw steak, raw steak which seemed not so bad in the scheme of things, when considering how much I eat steak rare to the point that its only brown on the outside. Besides, I'm gutsy. I'll try anything once. When in Rome?

go to teenybooks for the rest

oh little mars, glad you could join us for dinner. I wish you didn't drink so much of our wine though.

I asked for a bottle of Bordeaux and just crossed my fingers hoping that it wasn't the 60 € (90 us) bottle. And instead of asking how much it was before i ordered the second bottle (i tried but failed) i just asked for another and again hoped it wasn't super expensive. turned out to only be 18 €.

I'm Here!

in

I can't write a long post cause it is time to go out to eat. I just want to say i arrived safely, met up with friend marica (who found the most amazing 17th century 4 floor walk up apartment to stay at for the week) and have taken a few photos. Stay posted for more soon. - bk

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Countdown to Paris: Amour Mixtape

in

It is universally understood you can't go to Paris without thinking about love, wishing for love, or being in love. So in the spirit of Love, I present to you my first digital mix(or mux)tape: wordbk.muxtape.com

Since i'm currently not in love, you don't have to worry about only playing this at night, unlike the mixtape in the photo below. It was mixed by my boy Ramel freshman year back in the dorm rooms of Hampton University. It may be one of the best slowtapes i've ever heard. This old tape was meant to only be played with a women in the bedroom (and maybe at the Hotel Amour).

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The Muxtape Tracklist:

D'Angelo - Feel Like Makin' Love Stevie Wonder - Hey Love Clipse - Ma, I Don't Love Her (Featuring Faith Evans) N.E.R.D - Backseat Love The Roots - Act Too (Love of My Life) Featuring Common Robin Thicke - Would That Make U Love Me Etta James - A Sunday Kind Of Love Sade - Lovers Rock Cee-Lo - All Day Love Affair Amy Winehouse - Love Is A Losing Game (Live) John Legend - Used to Love U Jay-Z - Heart of the City (Ain't No Love)

kanazawa to nyc

in

_mg_9216.jpg Kohei and I met while I was at a store in Kanazawa. He told me he was visiting NYC this year and was hoping we would have a chance to hook up. We met at Union Sq. and walked from there down through the East Village around Lower East Side, over to NoLita and ended up in Soho. It is a good place to take folks who visit the city. East Village and Lower East Side still seem to be the area's most don't venture to on their own. Especially if you are coming from another country and speak a little bit of english.

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This is a new museum in NYC called The New Museum. Since i only peeked into the bookstore, I'm not really sure what exhibits they have going on. I'll have to go back and take a look on a week day when it is less crowded. (the joys of working for our own thing)

melody's melody is sweet when i sleep

I just made that up. That JUST happend. i'm such a talented fella. Almost as talented as Ms. Melody Gardot who is apparently today's top selling artist on amazon.com. A friend (marcia) turned me on to her sometime last year and i was addicted to sleeping with her almost nightly. The best track is Love Me Like a River Does. Listen to a live version:

[audio:http://wordbk.com/audio/melodygardot_love_me_like_a_river_does_live.mp3]

She must have blew up because of this article from NPR:

www.npr.org

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a photo i took from a show last year.

very early test of a lens adaptor i'm making

It is about halfway done but i just wanted to play with it. The parts have came from asia, germany, BH Photo and other random places around the united states of america. As you can see it needs a lot more light than normal or it will come out dark and muddy. Hopefully once it is all finished it will render beautiful, shallow depth of field images.

Something about this video i dig. It's kinda like shooting with a holga or if i shot it with an old 8mm. If i add a fan and some string i'll sweding in no time. (see movie for reference)

oh, all of my video's from here on out are probably going to be in HD. So if you want to see it in higher quality either turn on the HD button on the right or go over to vimeo (it can be low if you don't have a new-ish computer though). I won't reference again cause I kinda hate to say "look at my hd video". It's like saying "look at my 24 mega pixel photograph" or "read the letter i wrote with my Montblanc pen. But i will share the technique i use to get a certain look. word.