Stilt house

this morning we got up early and left new orleans. we drove along the shore of the gulf of mexico through mississippi, alabama, and finally arrived in panama city beach, florida. yet another amazing trip. so many impressions it made our heads spin! the scenery changed enormously along the way and it is so much i am afraid i am already forgetting it. ofcourse we took pictures along the way, but today i am particularly disappointed with mine; they really do not show what i saw!! so... tomorrow i should try harder....

it was a beautiful sunny day, and we decided to ignore the "tomtom" system entirely. we drove through the bayou savage national wildlife refuge, which is where i took above photo. houses were all built on stilts (i didnt know that word), which is done mainly to protect the house against flooding. the one above is still in the very early stages of construction, haha! i especially liked the little plane (i think?) in front of it. then we were back in mississippi, but along the shore, and it looked entirely different from what we saw just 2 days ago! many, many fancy hotels and we saw several casinos. the rich like fancy beaches, i learned from that... then the road led us through some small towns and all the towns were equipped with the same sets of shops that are probably all over the us; a retail chain, a home improvement chain, several fast food chains... (many waffle houses in this part of the country). they depicted this nicely in the movie young adult that came out recently, when charlize theron is driving back to her hometown. that could be anywhere in the us....

then we entered florida and drove through pensacola beach on santa rosa island. it seemed as if we had arrived in paradise! white sandy beaches, no jacket needed, driving right along the shore. everything looked so beautiful there... and the white sand was amazing to see (i had never seen that). no strip malls there... just some houses and beach. after 1.5 hours more we arrived at our sleepng place for the night; panama city beach. we are staying in a motel right on the beach, unfortunately we just missed the sunset.. :( but we have a room with a view on the ocean!! 

buuggh, am i tired... tim is sleeping already since 9. he started to complain a little more that i cannot drive, and i should really get my license finally, as driving is really tiring and now he has to do all the work! but... im tired too! and im reading the map.... ! :) 

Public markings

aka graffiti..... 

this is here, in Hull, right behind a cemetery. we were just walking on the cemetery when i found a way to climb up, and suddenly we were in a fort, with an amazing view on the ocean! great historic site... but.. not so much.. it was in such a bad state, everything covered in graffiti. i was rather surprised, as i have come to understand that americans cherish anything with a little bit of history. but no, this fort was just abandoned and most likely used by local youth (ow, do i feel old, writing something like that!) to drink beer and mark the walls...

i never liked graffiti but recently i changed my mind. a little. maybe not so much about graffiti but more about advertisements that are placed everywhere around us. wherever you go, you will see billboards or smaller ads. pretty women making clear that you should buy this and this shampoo if you finally (eh..?) want nice hair, telephone companies that want your money or half naked ladies in victoria's secret underwear. do i want to see all that? not more than i want to see graffiti... i guess. and at least graffiti sometimes can be funny, while advertisements are just telling you that the products you are currently using are crap, or that you really should start to loose weight or goto the gym......

anyways, this morning there was an article in the newspaper about graffiti. apparently, in boston its not easy to spray walls. the police is always on the lookout. fines being between 500 to 5000 dollar. and... and average of up to 3 years of jail time. an average of three years?! isnt that a little too much...? a funny detail was that some artist that had his work displayed at the ICA got arrested for placing graffiti across boston city...

Parking lot

it started snowing a little last night.... and we woke up to quite a layer of snow again! very pretty.......

tomorrow it will be around 10 degrees, so that will result in a watery mess, i presume. as above; this is somewhere at some parking lot around boston. it does not really matter, since all these parking lots are more or less the same, as are the shops....

if you look carefully, you can see several shopping carts randomly scattered around. this always annoys me, and when im in a bad mood, can even make me furious... sometimes we indicate to lazy shoppers that they forgot their cart, but they never seem to get it.... especially at the end of the day, the carts are spread out over the entire parking lot, making it hard to find a spot. ironic, no? you goto the supermarket late to avoid the crowd, but still cannot park... 

in the netherlands this is less of a problem; at most supermarkets you have to put some money into the cart that you will get back upon returning it. surely most dutch will bring their cart to the other end of the parking lot when their money is involved.... :)

Abandoned cart (2)

or, abandoned stroller, rather... :) this was in winthrop, a while back already. couldnt locate the owner of this cart, nor the child.... a little eerie, no?

its getting colder a little every day. but then tomorrow (weekend!) its supposed to be warmer again. the last day the pool at our apartment complex will be open... defenitely we have to enjoy that! i dont want to say goodbye to swimming!!! :(

Abandoned cart

carriage, actually. also in new york; in the same street as the garage for cabs. it looked so strange, so out of place, finding this carriage there. it really looked as if it was abandoned in a hurry, and suddenly we were in another century, if not for the cabs rushing by.. we checked whether it was broken or so, but that did not seem to be the case.

i always heard this story that it is no pleasure to take a carriage ride in central park, as they keep the horse-shit somewhere close to where you are sitting. but i never tried, so i dont know whether it is true... :) (trying to find out a bit more about it, i came across this article, its about how badly these horses are treated, and that the average working life of such a horse is 4 years, whereas the average is 15 years for horses of the NYPD)

Abandoned carts

this is completely normal here, and i HATE it. people shop. people use a cart. people put their stuff in their cars and they just leave the cart where it is. despite the many places closeby where you can bring your cart. often its windy and the carts just dance around...
why is it soooo hard just to bring it back? dont they care about their own/other people's car?! so wherever we go, there is always someone from the shop busy collecting all these carts to bring them back to the entrance. maybe people just leave them to create more jobs...?!