Saturday, March 25th. Shannon was back home for the weekend and it was her birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHANNON!!!!! So, while I waited to see what she was going to do after dinner, I went to Shannan's Pub with friends to celebrate someone elses birthday. It's the first time I've been to Shannan's since they moved to the new and improved locale. It's definitely bigger, better and more comfortable than before. Aside from the band sucking, we were having fun. Later on we met up with Shannon, Yasmine and Armando at Kudeta in Old San Juan where apparently Ashlee Simpson was hanging out after her concert (which I heard was short and lame). hahahaha! After Kudeta, we made our way to Pink Skirt where we stayed till sunrise. Pink Skirt was funny. There were loads of people there. This one guy tried to dance all up on me and I told him "Hey, it's my friends bday...say happy birthday to her" which he did and proceeded to 'dance' with her while I chuckled. hahaha! Aren't I evil? You know I love ya Shannon! :D

*Pictures are out of order 'cause if you do anything to them, like fix the lighting, it messes up the order. So they actually start on sunday morning and end on saturday night.

So it was my brother's bday. The day started out with us going to the golf course. No, I don't golf. My entertainment came in the form of driving the golf cart around, taking pictures and laughing when there was a bad shot. :) At one point all these goats came out of nowhere. I thought it was hilarious...they were going around eating the small palm trees until this kid rounded them up and led them out. After we got back home, we cleaned and got the house ready for the party. It was a fun day and night.

Stereo - a 12 hour modern music festival.

It was KICKASS!!!!  We had so much fun. Since there were so many DJ's we wanted to see and hear, I made an easier guide on a post-it for us to follow with the names, times and stages they were at. We hit every area like twice and even checked out this Hippie Village they had going on.

The event started at 1pm, but we got there around 4pm. We didn't miss much of the beginning...if I wanted to hear Ivan Robles play, all I have to do is turn on La Mega on fridays. Anyway. So we started out in the Electronic Tent where K-Oba was playing. I was waiting for it to be 7pm 'cause that's when the bigger DJ's started. From there we went next door to the Fusion Tent and listened to Psiconautas. A bit after 7pm we headed to the Main Stage where Benny Benassi was playing and by then it had started to rain, but we didn't really care.....this Puerto Rico, it rains. Overall, I have to say that I was a little disappointed with Benassi. I was hoping that it would get better and I don't know if it did 'cause we left after an hour. We had a schedule to keep :) Benassi played and mixed Ice Ice Baby....'cmon now.

By 8pm the rain had been coming down very hard, but no one was going to stop. We headed over to the Evolution Stage where Lady Liquid & DJ Hugh were. Since this stage was on the grass, there was lots of mud right infront of the stage so people were staying back and standing under the smaller tents. Oh, and next to these 2 buildings there were these ground level fountian things I guess. I don't know. We knew they were there 'cause we scoped out the place beforehand, but in the dark and torrential rain, some people didn't see them. So I'm standing there under the tent listening to the music when I see this girl walk and fall into one of the fountains. I was laughing my ass off. Was that mean of me? Maybe, but she was far away and she didn't get hurt so it's all good :)

From there we went back to the Fusion tent and saw Israel Vibration's full set. I'm not a big reggea person, but it was fun and we had a great time.  At 10pm I wanted to see Misstress Barbara and it was good timing 'cause it was right after Israel Vibration ended. So we went back into the Electronic tent for a hour. LOVED Misstress Barbara! We all didn't want to leave, we were having the best time. Everything she played was right on and she knew it too. She would lift the vinyl up, pump her first in the air, play the music and the crowd would go wild. It was a shame we had to go, but next up was Ed Rush+Optical with MC Rymetyme....back to the Evolution stage, but by now there was no more rain, so we took our spot in front and jumped around in the mud :) Very cool.

Finally, we made it back to the Main stage for Prodigy. For some reason they had closed the gate for a bit and there was a line. By the time we got in, it was well packed. That didn't matter. Arnaldo and myself took our usual spot infront. They played their hits and atleast one song I'd never heard before, but was really happy they played Voodoo People...my fav. :) It ended at 1am and I was still amped. So we left, some got some food, some of us changed into dry clothes and hit the after party. It was at Pool Palace and Hernan Cattaneo was spinning. I think we got there around 3am and finally left almost at 6am.

I got home and I wasn't tired or sleepy. So......I made pancakes :) Had breakfast, watched a little Headline News and then went to bed at 7am only to be woken up 3 hours later by one high volumed neighbor. I couldn't go back to sleep after that, so I've been running on 3 hours of sleep :) All in all, it was a great time. I think we'll end up talking about this event for a while. 

Day 3: Woke up still pretty damn early considering our festive mood the night before. Rob and I met up with Jo Ann and her friend Becky, not to be mistaken with our friend Becky. Our friend Becky had a rough morning and we'll leave it at that. :) So us 4 go to Chinatown for dumplins. I think the place was called Jo's Shanghai...something like that. Really good. Darren and Becky met up with us later on in Chinatown. We walked around Chinatown which then turned into Little Italy. There we stopped for more food. After that we walked around more and I guess we were in Soho or Noho...I don't know. I don't know the city, but that's sort of what I remember people talking about. All I know is that we kind of ended up walking in circles trying to meet up with Vitoriana. I got to see CBGB's from a far before we loitered some more at some market. There we were next to the Fluff and regular marshmallow talking about body waxing. :) Soon after Darren and our friend Becky headed on back to MD and DC. The rest of us went to Jo's friend Becky's apt and chilled. OMG, if you haven't seen Russell Peter's comedy act, look it up. By then it was dinner time, so we got more food and watched the show. Hilarious!

Day 4: Very chilled day. Got some lunch, watched tv for a while. Later on we finally went to the Fat Black Pussycat bar I'd heard so much about. We had drinks, played darts and chilled. Next bar, Off The Wagon. Wow, that place has a serious frat vibe so we didn't stay long. We walked by Cafe Wha? and went in. There were lots of people,  but we opted to go some place else. Ended up at Groove for a while listening to a jazz player. After that we went back into Fat Black and listened to some folks get their karaoke on. On the way back to the train, I must have seen...I don't know, 3 Duane Reade's. hehe They are everywhere. So I had some fun late at night taking random pictures.

*Pictures are a bit out of order.

Day 2: Even though Rob and I were out late the night before drinking Stoli & OJ and Hennessey, we got up early on day 2. After lingering around for a while we went for some breakfast at IHOP. Man, was IHOP packed! After the breakfast goodies, we went and looked at all the nice, cool looking, new tv's at Best Buy. On the way there, it started snowing. It was cool to snow falling again. I hadn't seen that since college. It didn't last all that long and then I was entertained by the Hoss style lumberjack advertisement I saw. Awesome! Darren, Jo Ann and Becky had already gotten to the city and were waiting to meet up with us. We finally did meet up at some cafe where all we had was hot chocolate and dessert. We did loiter for quite a while. I think it was a combo of figuring out our next stop and not wanting to go back into the coldness. We finally got up and went to the hotel where Becks and Darren were staying. I got to see the UN Building at night. At the hotel, we grabbed Darren and went to dinner. The Italian place we ate at seemed to be undergoing some roofing improvements...so it was chilly inside. The food was good. After that we went to a local bar named Local. After that we lost Darren to his exhaustion and Jo Ann also. But Becky and I represented Dabu style at another bar named Jameson. Awesome time. Couple of drinks down and we accompanied Becky back to the hotel where we woke Darren's ass up with many bright camera flashes to his face :)

*Pictures are a bit out of order.

Day 1: I arrived at Newark at 4pm and Rob picked me up. We dropped off my bags at his place and headed for the city. First we went to a nice Irish Pub called Dublin. We had some food and a couple of drinks. Dublin is a nice, chill place. I guess I'm used to the Irish pubs here in PR not having anything real connection to the country, so when I heard the bartenders speak in an Irish accent, it pleasantly surprised me. Then we went to Philip Marie 'cause Rob wanted food. After that we went back to Rob's where he scarfed down the food and talked to me 'till I passed out in the middle of his sentence :)

*Pictures are a little out of order.