Same spots, same haunts..same story. San Diego holds very special memories for me. This jont down to SD was added to the tail end of the SSMF trip to and it sported quite a different vibe than the 2 day onslaught that was Hollywood. 
Sunset Strip Music Festival
VIDEO: Ace Frehley w/Slash - Cold Gin. Live @ The Viper Room 09/09/09
VIDEO: Ace Frehley - Shock Me (with smoking guitar). Live @ The Viper Room 09/09/09
HOLLYWOOD, CA - Oct 2007
WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA - Sep 2009
Another little trip down to Hollywood for the 2nd Annual SUNSET STRIP MUSIC FESTIVAL. The festival took place over my 40th Bday weekend with Ace Frehley playing the small capacity (250), notorious Viper Room. THE SUNSET STRIP was closed for the first time between Doherty St and St. Vincente, to feature The Strip as an outdoor music venue during the festival. The event included two outdoor stages with performances by Ozzy Osbourne, Korn, Pepper, Kottonmouth Kings, Shiny Toy Guns, Shwayze, LMFAO, The Donnas, Unwritten Law, Fishbone and 40+ additional artists playing the historical sunset strip music venues. All of the infamous Sunset Strip nightclubs participated in the event. THE ROXY, THE RAINBOW, THE CAT CLUB, KEY CLUB, VIPER ROOM, HOUSE OF BLUES and the historic WHISKY-A-GO-GO. The event attracted 10,000 music fans to The Strip for a full day of music! The three-day event also honored rock icon Ozzy Osbourne with a tribute event at House of Blues, and a declaration by the City of West Hollywood that Sept. 10, 2009, was Ozzy Osbourne Day. George Lopez introduced Ace Frehley playing the Viper Room (250 capacity), and for the last song of the set, Slash joined Ace on stage and played Cold Gin.
VIDEO: Ace Frehley w/Slash - Cold Gin. Live @ The Viper Room 09/09/09Weekend trip to West Hollywood and the Sunset Strip to see The Genitorturers & Beautiful Creatures at THE HOUSE OF BLUES. This trip was all about the Rock n' Roll. 
AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS - Feb 2007
BERLIN, GERMANY - Feb 2007
SEDLEC OSSUARY, KUTNA HORA, CZECH REPUBLIC
I didn't find Amsterdam to be a very picturesque place, but it certainly had its own beauty. A wonderful city built on canals with plenty of friendly locals. The main means of local transportation is certainly the bike, and you better watch where you're walking as they're flying from every direction. The trams too!! Took a ferry out to an old docked and abandoned ship for a midnight rave party. A great place to visit! Probably the most open minded city in the world.
Great trip to BERLIN, but pretty typical and standard photo sites. From WWII a lot of Berlin had been destroyed, and due to the rebuilding it was much more modern than I expected. We made the rounds to most of the typical sites...THE REICHSTAG, BRANDENBURG GATE, the largest remaining section of THE WALL, CHECKPOINT CHARLIE etc. Beer and Brats!
THE SEDLEC OSSUARY is a small Christian chapel, located beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints in Sedlec, a suburb of KUTNA HORA in the Czech Republic. The All Saints Chapel was built around 1400, and the Ossuary itself dates from 1511. The Ossuary contains approximately 40,000 human skeletons which have been artistically arranged to form decorations and furnishings for the chapel. During the Black Death in the mid 14th Century and after the Hussite Wars in the early 15th Century, many thousands of people were buried there and the cemetery had to be greatly enlarged. Around 1400, a Gothic Church was built in the center of the cemetery with a vaulted upper level and a lower chapel to be used as an ossuary for the mass graves unearthed during construction; or simply slated for abolition to make room for new burials. After 1511 the task of exhuming skeletons and stacking their bones in the chapel was, according to legend, a half-blind monk of the order. The Artist - a local woodcarver, who as late as 1870 was employed by the Schwarzenberg Family to decorate the inside of the chapel with the human material at his disposal. The name of the artist was Frantisek Rindt. THE CHANDELIER supposedly contains every human bone in the body....several times over. Henry, the abbot of the Cistercian Monastery in Sedlec was sent to the Holy Land by King Otakar II of Bohemia in 1278. When he returned, he brought with him a small of amount of earth he had removed from GOLGOTHA (crucifixion place of Christ) and sprinkled it over the ABBEY CEMETARY. He referred to this as "holy soil". Spreading this earth over the sedlec cemetery, the cemetery begun to be considered as a piece of holy land.
PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC - Mar 2006
AUSCHWITZ/BIRKENAU
KRAKOW, POLAND - Mar 2006
BUDAPEST, HUNGARY - Mar 2006
VIENNA, AUSTRIA - Mar 2006
NICARAGUA, CENTRAL AMERICA - Sep 2005
COSTA RICA, CENTRAL AMERICA - Jan 2005
BOATING PHANG NGA BAY, THAILAND - Apr 2004
ELEPHANT TREK - PHANG NGA, THAILAND - Apr 2004
A little silly, but still pretty fun. Maybe not cool, but...
SIMILAN ISLANDS, THAILAND - Apr 2004
Boat/Dive trip out to the SIMILAN ISLANDS. I'm not a diver but my buddy is, so I went along for the ride. Generally a good dive spot is still a beautiful place to be, even if you're above water. The Similan Islands, located about 60 miles northwest of Phuket are composed of 9 granite islands covered in tropical jungle, with a clear blue tropical ocean and beautiful beaches. The Similans are commonly rated as one of the top 10 dive spots in the world.
PRAGUE may be the most beautiful city I've experienced so far and definitely a place I look forward to visiting again. During my visit here (including a short train trip thru SLOVAKIA) I walked several historic grounds including PRAGUE CASTLE (founded 870) and CHARLES BRIDGE (built 1432). Prague is the capital and largest city of the CZECH REPUBLIC. Nicknames for Prague have included "City Of a Hundred Spires" and "The Golden City". The area on which Prague was founded has been settled since the Paleolithic Age.
An insight to the experience of visiting the AUSCHWITZ and BIRKENAU Nazi Concentration Death Camps. I saw many sombering things here. I saw many of the empty Zyklon B canisters used in the gas chambers, mounds upon mounds of human hair (The Soviets found approx. 2,500 tons), luggage, eye glasses, shoes, children's toys, blankets...etc. The 'recyclable' goods were sent back to Germany for use and the human hair was recycled back into textiles such as blankets and clothing. Certainly several of those items are still in circulation today. Auschwitz was liberated by The Soviets - January 27, 1945.
What an incredible old beautiful city. KRAKOW is Poland's capital of culture and was justifiably named as one of the 9 European Capital Cities Of Culture 2000. This trip to Poland also included stops in the Jewish District of KAZIMIERZ, WAWEL CASTEL and a drive thru Oœwiêcim.
BUDAPEST. A rough few days and on shortened time here, We didn't get the opportunity to experience Budapest as we intended but was still able to visit some very historical parts of the city including the memorial site for the 1956 HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION against The Soviets.
"Lots of statues of dead guys on horses" and an immensely great time. Ran with a great group of locals and met so many great people. Memorable times for sure. Visited sites such as the STEPHANDSOM CATHEDRAL and HOFBURG PALACE . I was impressed with the size of this PIPE ORGAN inside the Stephandsom Cathedral, but unfortunately wasn't able to hear it whirl. The first couple days here were missed completely as we were on night schedule and having such a great time, but those moments created some of my most memorable experiences of all my travels.
Continuing north from Costa Rica, the Nicaraguan journey took us to SAN JUAN DEL SUR (Pacific Coast), Rivas, the old colonial town of GRANADA and finally MANAGUA, the country's capital.
The adventure through COSTA RICA started in San Jose, heading north up into Arenal, around Lake Arenal into the MONTEVERDE CLOUD FOREST. Continuing onto a fiesta in Santa Cruz where we ran with bulls. ..well...kinda...(user posted you tube VIDEO CLIP)... and
finally up to the Nicaraguan border with a dozen towns in between.
Costa Rica is known for it's beautiful beaches and coast line, but
unfortunately I didn't see any of it. This was an inner country trip
focused more on the jungle areas. On this trip we used the "Open
Voucher" program for total freedom and flexibility. With the open
voucher program you are rented a car and are given a packet of vouchers
with a selection of 172 HOTELS located in all regions of Costa Rica. Certainly one of the major tourist highlights is the ARENAL VOLCANO. Arenal is an active volcano and its activity can be viewed without danger. There are many HOTELS situated around the volcano, with most having views right from the room. Check out this Arenal hotel location MAP AND ACTIVE LAVA FLOW STATUS to
best situate yourself in view of the Arenal's current lava flow. Most
of the time, the volcano is surrounded by clouds near the tip and it's
touted as good luck to to see the whole volcano without clouds (Arenal's
tip was clouded over during my visit). I saw small lava flicker thru
breaks in the cloud line, but that was about it. [Cheat Pic]
This was an extremely scenic and eventful day on the bay. The day
consisted of a boat ride thru the bay, sea canoeing thru the "Hongs", a
lunch stop at Koh Pannyi and a swim at James Bond Island. The bay is
just pure natural beauty. The Hongs are collapsed cave systems in the
interior of each island only accessible using tough purpose-designed
inflatable canoes through sea-caves at low tide. Open to the sky and
filled with jungle flora and fauna, the hongs conceal a unique Eco-system with monkeys, birds, fish and apart from the sound of
birdsong, complete quiet. Certainly one memorable experience from this
day was docking at KOH PANNYI
(Sea Gypsy Island) for lunch. This is a remarkable village, the whole
of it built out over water on stilts and with a giant rock monolith
guarding its rear. It is 100% Thai Muslim and is only accessible by
boat. I also really enjoyed the swim at JAMES BOND ISLAND where scenes from "The Man With The Golden Gun" were filmed.
A little silly, but still pretty fun. Maybe not cool, but...
Boat/Dive trip out to the SIMILAN ISLANDS. I'm not a diver but my buddy is, so I went along for the ride. Generally a good dive spot is still a beautiful place to be, even if you're above water. The Similan Islands, located about 60 miles northwest of Phuket are composed of 9 granite islands covered in tropical jungle, with a clear blue tropical ocean and beautiful beaches. The Similans are commonly rated as one of the top 10 dive spots in the world.
*Additional content compiled for personl reference only.
