Columbus Circle & Plaza de Colón

For a long time, every time I went to NYC on business, I always used to visit a law firm located in the Columbus Circle.

I went back to the (circular) square on my recent trip to New York for the first time in years and went to the Time Warner Center for the first time.  It wasn’t there the last time I visited.

It’s a nice view through the vast glass window of this multi-purpose complex.

And speaking of Columbus Circle/Square, I was told that every city in Spain has one.

Plaza de Colón in Madrid, Spain.  From February, 2010.

And it was rather amusing that traffic lights were not working at this busy intersection when I visited…

In Barcelona, I believe it’s set in a “circle” but they just call it a “monument“.  I didn’t see him from the front.  This is also from February, 2010.

And I thought perhaps there may be a Plaza de Colón in every Spanish-speaking city in South America but I could not find one in Buenos Aires.  There is however an opera theatre, Teatro Colón, in the Argentinian capital.  This is from a visit in November, 2009 when the theatre was getting a facelift.

Sorting Through Travel Photos – a New Year Ritual

Yes, that’s what I do every new year holiday season – I sort out photos, along with other sortable stuff such as receipts and shop cards, I have taken on trips.  In the past, it was photos taken with a camera that used films so they had to be developed and printed and as soon as they were printed, I got into the mood for sorting them out and putting them in a photo album.  These days since photos are taken on a digital camera, the number of photos can just grow and since you can view them as soon as taken, there is not so much urge or desire to sort them out (in my case anyway).  However, I still prefer that I print my photos from the “major” vacations I do and put them in an album and continue to do this.  The only problem, apart from cost, is that I am behind by a couple of years in getting all that done.

So this new year’s holidays, I was working on sorting out photos from my October 2009 trip to Prague, the Czech Republic which was followed by a half vacation/half work trip to Helsinki and Tampere, Finland.

The album opening page of the Prague trip.

I obviously have many food photos and restaurant receipts and cards. A page dedicated to Cafe Louvre in Prague.

The opening page of the Helsinki leg of the trip.

More Helsinki.

The Tampere leg which was a business trip for me. Yes, I was working!

2009 was the year I probably travelled the most compared to any other year.  For my new year’s card (a Japanese tradition) for 2010, I did a photo summary of my trips during 2009.

Left to right, top row: Cannes, Rome, the Vatican, Oslo, Shanghai. Bottom row: Prague, Helsinki, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires.

From the above I’m missing the trip I did at the end of December, 2009 to Phonm Penh, Cambodia, as below.

@ an elementary school in the suburb of Phnom Penh run with Japanese funding.

And when I was done with that, I went to finish sorting out the photos I never finished sorting out from last new year’s holidays, meaning photos taken in 2008 that I was working on at new year’s 2010.

The opening page of my Turkey trip in August, 2008.

More Turkey - Istanbul.

It can get tedious if you work on it too hard for too long but it can be really fun trying to remember what you may have done or eaten or drunk on your trip.