Grave addiction

i like to visit cemeteries and have posted some pics here. now i know that this makes me a taphophile, and through biebkriebels i learned there are more grave addicts (oh how i like that word play), contributing to taphophile tragics initiated by julie.

this is in new orleans, on dec 26. we were driving on the highway directly above it, and i made tim get off it to visit this cemetery. we had no real clue where we were, except that it was close to the french quarter and the nearby neighborhood did not look that inviting (it was actually in the iberville housing projects). we just parked the car in front of the entrance and wandered around. there was nobody else, and the fog made it all a little more spooky. many graves were about to collapse and it did not seem to be too well maintained. through google maps i found where we exactly were; st. louis cemetery #2, consecrated in 1823 (there are 3, several blocks away from each other, #1 being the most visited; here you can view biebkriebels' pics of that one). and if i were to believe internet forums, we should be happy not having encountered any robbers or even murderers. you are strongly advised to ONLY go to these cemeteries through an organized tour (that will cost you some 20 dollars per person; getting robbed after all, only in a more sophisticated way...). commenters feed these beliefs by saying that because these graves are aboveground, bad people can hide behind them, and suddenly attack you. blablablabla. i did not feel unsafe. common sense, please.... 

anyways. it was flooded during katrina, but damage was minor. ever since this visit i have been fascinated by these aboveground structures and could not believe the explanation in my tourist guide; that this is because new orleans is below sea level, and flooding can make underground coffins float up, spreading corpses everywhere. some googling around told me that this happens sometimes, indeed. but, it is more likely because this was tradition in the native countries of the early settlers (i.e. spain and france). so why did they do it there? probably because of the rocky soil in southern europe; not easy to dig holes. i noticed that some of the graves looked like ovens (here you can see that in one of my flickrpics). the hot climate in NOLA does sort of turn the tomb into an oven; the high heat causes the body to decompose rapidly in a process that you could compare to a slow, natural cremation (it takes about a year, i read here. interestingly, until 1963 catholics were not allowed to be cremated, but such a natural cremation was ok). in this way, the next familymember can be buried in the same tomb, all they do is shove the remains of the previous one to the back, thereby saving a lot of space.

whoops... i wrote a bit too much, but i had so many questions and found so many elaborate stories on floating bodies which kind of annoyed me...

Country side?

another neon sign! currently not working, and i thought ready to be demolished.... i saw it for the first time early september, last year. only the sign was left, behind it a bare piece of land. i tried to take some pictures then, but all turned out bad. on sunday we went there again, and now some building is being constructed! i presume it is a new motel, and maybe they will restore the sign? unfortunately there is a fency around it, so taking pictures was again not easy. actually the only one that was ok-ish i took from the car, while we drove by, haha...

yes, i also like those neon signs! they are sooo american! nowhere else i saw so many of them, and such enormous ones! this one that i posted earlier is impressive too, its along the same highway, and we sometimes go there for dinner (the restaurant is very, very american too. really like you see in the movies. i would love to be invisible one night and picture everything and everyone there.... as for me, i think it would show the true heart of america.... :) ). from reading i gather that most of these signs and motels were built in the 1950s and 60s, and really made the usa so different and more modern than europe, at that time... i would like to be able to go back to that time and see how it all looked, with all the fancy cars and people...

perhaps back then this really was the country side... but now its certainly not. this is the crazy route 1 around Saugus, close to our apartment, completely bombarded with many different shops and restaurants, some more crazy than others. theres a huge chinese palace called "kowloon" (with absolutely horrible food, we tried it once and never again), there is a restaurant in the form of an enormous ship and some italian place with the tower of pisa next to it. another restaurant has a huge neon sign that just says "EAT" (still to be photographed), and then there are ofcourse the usual suspects; mc donalds, taco bell, burger king, hooters, and many stores and supermarkets, a minigolf and a skating rink. this stretch of highway is always very busy, and as it has very short entrance and exit ramps it is nerve wracking at times to get on or off.... this part of highway is sooo full, crowded and overloaded with crazy things making it so ugly that i think its some kind of beautiful...  and guess what! this route 1 is the same route 1 that eventually leads you to the keys in florida! i think thats so funny. it is 2377 miles long, starting at the canadian border in fort kent, maine, all the way to key west..... route 1 even has its own wikipedia page....

Neon sign

whats more american than a huge neon sign?

during our trip we saw so many, also many still standing, but not used anymore..... just recently i read that its extremely expensive to restore such a huge sign (they talked about 35,000 dollars!). above is in boston, a sign that was installed in 1910. in 2006 it was refurbished and turned on again, after having been off for several decades. (ah, here i found that this costed 200,000 dollars!! so much?!) it was bought and restored by the development company that is making fancy apartments of all those old buildings around there. last time, somewhere last year, we walked around there it still looked pretty empty, although there were many signs for apartments for rent or sale.... today we just went on the bridge, to picture the buildings in the setting sun.... why is it always just for a few minutes that everything has that special glow?!

here i found a website that reports about the restoration of neon sings along route 66. not a cheap business either...

The Keys

i really wanted to see the keys. we went on the last day of our holiday, the first day of 2012. route 1 leads you from island to island over 42 (!) bridges, until you are in key west, 129 miles from miami. somehow i had an image in my mind of this chain of islands, surrounded by perfect beaches and blue water, nature, and no people. we would be some kind of explorers... entering these perfect untouched islands. how wrong could i be? and how stupid! of course its not like that! they keys are what they are because of tourists like me, "who want to see the keys".... and i guess people living there also just like to go to the supermarket... :D i must admit, it was even quite ugly at times... just a us highway, with fast food chains, and other superstores alongside it.... i really thought we would not see that here, these were islands after all! well, perhaps it was like that before they were only accessible by water, which was until 1910, when the overseas railway was completed. nowadays, tourism is the main business, which is clear from the many h/motels along the (mostly) single lane highway. traffic thus can be slow, but when we went it was ok (aside from some crazy drivers when we went back. one of them a tourbus... yuk). 

just like all the other places we drove through, there were abandoned places... this one in front of the airport. this building was already ugly, and abandoned even more so.. :) 

of course, it was pretty too. when on the bridges, seeing all the little uninhabited islands, or when i saw the sign for "private island for sale" (!!), we had a swim in the ocean somewhere along the road, and that was very pretty too. the water was not deep, and so clear.

Where's Waldo!

do you see him....? i think its funny that waldo has a different name in other countries (in danish its holger!). the first book was published in 1987 titled "where's wally", by the british illustrator martin handford. somehow i only know it as "zoek willy" (dutch for "find willy"), but according to wikipedia the dutch call him wally, like the original. i really liked this book, but i never owned one myself... every time i see it im still tempted to buy it!

sorry, im just not done yet with my pics from our holiday... so heres another one from miami. there were many rather new looking apartment buildings like this. the entire city appeared new, rich and fancy. and predominantly spanish....  unfortunately we did not have much time here, and the time we spent we were somehow rushed (for example by our expiring parking... grrrr). i sure liked the beaches and to see ocean drive, but i was attracted by the city. i liked new orleans better, and the more northern part of florida.

Citgo sign

i showed you the boston (in)famous citgo sign once before. here you see it from the other side, a little further away (or quite a bit, actually), but still very well visible.

i like the lamps in this street. the houses are pretty nice too, but you cannot see them here... its quite a fancy street! im rather sure its commonwealth avenue (or comm ave, as they refer to it here), but im not 100% sure. if you get out at the kenmore stop on the green line, you should visit the fancy commonwealth hotel. they always have a photo exhibit, which is for free! (and you get to see a glimpse of the hotel). we have been there now twice, and both times saw some really interesting photographs. both times there was work from harold feinstein, whom i didnt know before, but now i even bought a photobook from him for tims birthday, that is not yet published. but when it does, it will come with his signature.. :) which reminds me... i think they might have changed the exhibit at the hotel... time for another visit!

Chilly weather

this is some dislocated brick (i guess part of the stairs) along the charles river in boston...

its very chilly, suddenly! when we returned from miami monday evening it was rather mild (luckily, as we didnt bring winterjackets), but yesterday and today the temperature suddenly dropped dramatically, well below 0 degrees celsius! even put on an extra blanket on the bed! still no sign of snow, however.... whereas last year it was packed with snow by now....

now im just wondering why someone would write "chill" on some concrete..

No trespassing

saw this sign alongside an unpaved road in the everglades. unfortunately the road turned out to be closed after 2 miles... so we had to turn back, which gave us at least the opportunity to photograph it! apparently yhe "everglades conservation and sportmans club est 1950" will shoot you on sight when trespassing... great... so, we just took the pic and drove on...

i uploaded some more pics on flickr (here), still not done however! its frustrating how much i already forgot. where was it exactly? what did we do? etc... ? so in order not to forget flickr is actually quite useful.. if i do it fast enough... there are also some more pics of the deserted cars along the road. while many abandoned places had a sign "no trespassing" this one did not. so all the while i felt a little uneasy, taking pictures there, and i imagined some guy jumping out of the bushes with a gun. luckily, no such thing happened.... would have loved to take a peek inside such a deserted place, but i didnt dare! i found a website where people post pictures of abandoned places... and sometimes they do go inside. especially this one i liked, its beautiful and sad at the same time...

ooh, its suddenly cold in boston!! right now its -10 C (15 F).... but still no sign of snow....

Hello Boston!

yup... today we went back to boston. buuuuhhhh, i didnt want to leave that warm weather and blue ocean... but on the other hand i am looking forward to my own bed, and some selfmade meals again. beeghhh, thats what i dont like about staying in hotels; what to do with dinner?! but h/motels turned out to be cheaper and easier than for example airbnb (which was our original plan). also... (un)packing the suitcase was not something i enjoyed, and having to choose in advance what you will wear (i always bring too much and never what i want to wear), the dirty laundry you accumulate, and how all that stuff never fits into your suitcase anymore when going home, while it did neatly and perfectly when packing for the trip.

it was beautiful! we saw so much, and so many different things. different landscapes, incomparable cities and climates.. etc etc. we slept in 6 different places, crossed parts of 4 different states and drove approximately 1865 miles! (or... tim did, i should say. thats 3000 km!!), i took almost 2000 photos (but those need to be sorted out yet), and saw even more that i didnt photograph...

above is around boston. i liked this one... you can interpret it however you like.... ah yes, we also saw many, many such slogans during our trip. some i photographed, some i would like to remember (should i write them down before i forget or is that weird?), some that made me laugh, and many that i already forgot... one day or another i will post them... the first load of laundry is done already, and now its time for my own bed. jeeejjjj!!
ah, i would almost forget; this is my conclusion: the us of a is very, very beautiful, and unbelievably ugly. sometimes its either one of those, sometimes its both at the same time. anyways; now i even want to see more of this country!

Miami beach

the last day of 2012 2011 (!!) we went to miami beach and swam in the ocean! it was so pretty and blue, and very sunny and warm... i never swam in the ocean in december!! i also never swam in the ocean in/around boston, not even in summer as the water does not look as attractive as it did here... (actually it looks rather dirty).

these 3 pretty ladies were lying close to us, and i could not resist taking a picture... :) after that we walked around on ocean drive lined with art deco houses/hotels/clubs, it looked fancy and pretty. it was so crowded! (and many, many german people, i noticed). in the evening we dressed up and went by publi transport back to the city, for new year's eve. public transport in downtown miami is free! it was called the "metromover" and was without an operator, so you could sit in the front and have an amazing view of miami (too bad we didnt do it during the day). we were stupid to arrive too early, at 8 we were downtown... we walked around a bit and saw the urban jungle. it was as interesting as the tour through the everglades, with all the dressed up people, and the women with impossibly high heels (i noticed that women are much more dressed up here anyways than in boston. in boston it seems everyone goes in pyjamas to the mall, here they walked around in stiletto-heels and short skirts). it was great people watching, but around 10 we had enough... and... boring as we are... we just went back to the hotel... and had champagne in the jacuzzi.. which proved to be difficult too; it was far too hot to sit in that thing until midnight!! hahaha. we missed all the fireworks in miami, but thats ok with me..

First sunset

of 2012 we saw on key west, the southernmost point of the usa! quite a drive from miami, but it was worth it... :) ofcourse, in reality it was so much better... 

i liked the pelicans, you see 2 above. there are so many exotic birds around here, i like that so much! unfortunately i did not see any flamingos.... :( buuuuh. 

now we are both completely exhausted. holidays are quite tiring! ;) 

as i missed some posts last year (i did not do 365), i will post some more from the holiday later on. now its time for bed.

From Miami...

happy 2012!!!! (the skyline seen from a very posh neighborhood...)

it is hot here, and very sunny! i got a little sunburn yesterday at the beach... amazing, on dec 31st...

later more about the last day of 2011, today one more day of exploring...

Airboat tour

yesterday when driving from fort myers to miami we went on an hourlong airboat tour in the swamps of the everglades! above you see such a boat. it is a flat-bottomed boat propelled in a forward direction by a propeller, using a lot of gasoline... (i think). it was marvelous!! we went through tunnels of trees... saw 2 alligators; one lying somewhere in the mud and one swimming in the water (i found that a bit scary.. but one of the tour guides suddenly just grabbed it and pulled the enormous animal out of the water, yuk). and they were feeding him marshmallows! (writing that down im wondering whether he was real.. ?). sometimes the boat went really fast, and we were just going over branches of trees etc... yup, i was afraid, but still it was fun, and especially just beautiful... i took some pictures but they are not that good... you really have to see and experience that yourselves!! like on tv.. haha...only i didnt know those boats are very noisy because of the propellor.... 

it was very touristy, however. along the highway there were many, many of such airboat tours. perhaps if you look from the air you see a big black cloud coming from the swamps... not very ecofriendly. at the entrance you could also hold a baby alligator. the guy almost forced him into my arms, but he quickly understood i was really not into that. i thought that was a bit sad, everytime that animal was put into another set of hands, everyone wanted to feel it, and the guy was constantly touching its eyes to show how funny it looks when he closes them.. they should leave that part out! aside from all these "complaints" it was really amazing to see a little bit of the everglades like that.... :)

Alligator safety

as you can see, there were some warning notes, but quite ahead of the plastic fence, i was surprised about that too. we actually were just driving, and then we saw many, many people with cameras hanging over some ditch... so we turned the car and then we saw allll those alligators lying around there! it was a little weird. and indeed, i was wondering about the warnings... but they came a little later. here we were actually standing on some bridge, and the alligators were below, as you can see...

we also did a tour (im looking for a pic now, but they are a bit disappointing), and the guide told us that during summer (i think?), anyways, when the waters are high in the everglades (now they are low, brownish and stinky, and then they are clear and you could drink it, he said), the alligators move much more, are much active, and they also cross the highway (the one we drove on!!!), so you see some dead ones along the road, that had been hit by cars... :(

unfortunately, the info center was just closing when we were here.

Up close

this is quite a crappy picture, but its to show you how close we were to alligators!! can you believe it? i couldnt.... i only saw those in the zoo!! today we drove from fort myers to miami, through the everglades. the weather was perfect, around 24 degrees celsius, and it was all very impressive. the trees, all the different birds, and then the alligators!! at this point just the plastic was seperating us from 3 alligators that were just lying around. haha, they were actually quite boring, just lying in the sun, not moving an inch...

tomorrow i will post another picture... 

just realized that tomorrow is already the last day of 2011! the past week i kind of lost track of what day of the week and what date it is...

Retirement destination

again did not know what photo to show for today. i was looking for one pic to show it all, but ofcourse that one doesnt exist! we woke up in this fancy hotel in tampa and went straight for the pool again. we were a bit slow this morning (also, we switched back to "our" time again, so we basically lost the hour we gained when arriving in memphis), but we didnt have to drive that far today. we first looked around in tampa a bit. it looked nice! and: it was sooo sunny! no jacket needed, the temperature was perfect. tampa seemed quite a modern city, we went through it quite randomly, without a proper tourist guide or whatever (we did see an ice skating rink! haha... in a city where it last snowed in 1977) then we drove to st. petersburg, a city located on a peninsula between tampa bay and the gulf of mexico. there we went to the dali museum, which was in a very special building (photos later..). i really liked to see so much of his work, and to see that his early work is so different from what (i guess) most people (including me) know. really beautfiful, weird paintings and funny titles. unfortunately it was extremely crowded in the museum... grrr... but we managed to see it all, and from up close (so much detail!). then it was already 4 and we still had to drive to our next stop. i suddenly realized we missed sunsets on the beach for the past 2 days, so today we really had to... the sun was amazingly red while setting and we tried to get to the beach... that turned out to be difficult! right at sunset we drove trough al place where all the beaches were private! we found a house for sale and after all the abandoned places we have seen we assumed it would be empty, but.. while running through their garden... we saw the owners sitting outside... oops. we drove a little further and found a bare piece of land surrounded by "no tresspassing" signs. well, it as our last opportunity to see the sun setting into the sea! so we went.. it was beautiful but the sun had gone down already...  buuuuhh.. :(

ah well... now we are in fort myers. in yet another fancy motel! it has a huge pool, with real lanes for real swimming.... jeejjj! so thats what we did immediately after arrival. 

ah, and now i entirely forgot about the pic i posted; thats right behind the dali museum, in st. petersburg. you can see how sunny it is! i just read on wikipedia that this city is also named "god's waiting room", because so many people go here for their retirement (either american or otherwise). the other nickname is "sunshine city", since it is sunny here for 360 days a year... you choose which one you like best!

Abandoned places

during our holiday we already saw sooo many abandoned places.... unbelievable. entire motels, hotels, houses, cars, trucks, you name it. this morning we drove by the above place, it had 3 of this kind of cars, and 2 relatively new cars, all abandoned. the shops (and houses?) had still a lot of stuff in it, perhaps just everything (by looking through the window), and were abandoned too. just so weird! why? i keep wondering. is it the because this country is so huge, and has so much space, that you can just leave behind what you dont like/want anymore, and start anew somewhere else? is it because of money? someone bought it but then something happened, not being able to use it and its just forgotten? nobody wanted to buy it and over time it became worthless?

this morning we got up early again.. it was very sunny and we had a run in panama city beach! something i surely never imagined i would do... then breakfast at the waffle house (we saw so many along the way yesterday, we were curious). the waitress was so nice and the food was good and cheap, yumyum. such a breakfastplace you defenitely cannot find in the netherlands, where they keep filling up your coffee, and where you can share one plate if you like... then we had a long drive ahead of us again. we drove to tampa! the route was beautiful again. different from yesterday. we drove through many forests... and now we are in a very, very fancy hotel. it was only 90 dollars and when planning this trip i thought it would be nice to have a hotel after the airbnb home and 2 motels (but the motels were not bad at all). we got warm chocolate cookies upon arrival, and there is a gym (we went. sitting in the car is not good for us, we eat too much!!), and a heated outdoor pool (we swam) and a toooo hot outdoor whirlpool (how fancy!! but the champaign we had in the room.. :) ). and now its time for bed. tired again...

here i uploaded some more pics of our trip, from memphis and new orleans..

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.... ! :) 

NOLA skyline

couldnt choose which picture to post! something from the colorful french quarter? the less touristy and less well off neighborhood around it? the sculpture garden? canal street? (i really liked that street) a cemetery? (they are really different from the ones i know) the mississippi river? with or without a boat? so... i choose the skyline of new orleans (NO) in louisiana (LA) as seen from algiers point. as you can see it was rather misty, and this lasted the entire day, so i dont really know what the skyline of NOLA looks like...

new orleans really feels different from memphis, and i liked it better. it was definitely more lively, and there was more to see. the houses more colorful and cute. and palm trees! those make a difference too, and i really think they can make any place look more friendly... the air felt much warmer here too, it really felt tropical and humid. unfortunately it was not the best day; it was raining on and off, and the entire day there was a dense fog. that made for some nice pictures though. this morning we were about to take the ferry to algiers point by foot, but just before departure they told us it would not be coming back until the fog was less dense... (you could really see nothing ahead of you). we thus went off again and instead drove around new orleans a bit, and finally drove to algiers point ourselves. that was much nicer as we explored the area a little more. then i snapped the above pic and we were just in time to take the ferry back, for 1 dollar (free when by foot). the mist above the mississippi river was so beautiful! and it was interesting that it got really cold when we went through it. a boat next to us completely disappeared and then appeared again... cool!

i think i will post more pictures later, on my flickr account. i guess when we are back, since now there is no time... :) but there is so much i would like to show!

Canton, Mississippi

this morning, christmas day, we left memphis and drove all across the state of mississippi!! it was very grey out and later during the day we had quite some rain, unfortunately... but it was amazing. while we first drove on the highway, we later left it for the smaller roads, leading us trough small villages and with too many new impressions... im just really amazed about how many houses, small (or larger) shops and gas stations are left abandoned... some already half collapsed, burned down, or otherwise damaged. we saw a lot of trailer parks too, and many houses so small, in the middle of nowhere.... some well-maintained, others surrounded in mess and old rusty cars etc. some poshy houses too, but not too many.

above is the city of canton, where we briefly walked around. isnt it cute? and isnt it like in the movies? (it has been the decor for some movies, just check wikipedia... ) we also stopped in jackson, the state capital, but everything was deserted, on this christmas day.... even many fastfood restaurants were closed... 

now i wish i knew more about this all! i wish i knew all the history, and facts. on wikipedia, i just saw for example that there are only 3 cities in mississippi with more than 50,000 residents, and 60% of all mississippi residents lives below the poverty level....

then we arrived in louisiana, and passed by the beautiful lake pontchartrain, eventually arriving in new orleans! you can defenitely feel that the air is different here, and although still chilly, its a bit warmer than memphis. we went to the french quarter for dinner. unfortunately it was dark already, but i think this area must be beautiful by daylight, we will see tomorrow... :)