Author: nataliar77

This was just super sweet.

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No, this is not a girl in a costume. She’s a Mennonite, a religious sect that is similar to the Amish, except they seem to be a little more liberal. The Amish avoid technology, but I’ve seen Mennonites at the Air and Space museum in Washington. My guess is that they take a little bit of a liberal view on things.

But this has to be super liberal if this is where this girl is performing:

And handing out literature here:

and here:

Here are some more photos of the girls:

Here’s them in a group:

Here are some views of them with the jaded New Yorkers walking by:

I could have thought “oh, look at their dresses, they are so unflattering” or “ah, globalization, look at it here,” but that would be stupid. I just looked at this and thought — this is super sweet. These people are trying to spread the word of god in Times Square and you have to admire that.
They are putting themselves out there for what they believe and I think that is something a lot of people could or would do.

Now for the sarcastic part of the entry. They have to endure being in the Times Square subway station, place of unbelievable array of smells, all of them terrible. Not to mention people who are kind of agitated because the bastard subway system didn’t get them where they needed to go. By this I mean delivering them to 14th street when they wanted to go 125. Ok, rant over.

There was a bearded man, dressed very simply also, who was kind of the leader of this group. He said he’d lived in New York in the 1960s for two years. Because Mennonites are pacifists, they do not go to war, so he came to live in New York to work at NYU Medical Center. Just as an aside, I’ve met people all over the place who say they lived in New York for a time. If I ever go to Mongolia, I bet I’ll find a goat herder who will say he lived in New York for a year.

A Danish flag?

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As some of you know, the Danes and Swedes dislike eachother. Perhaps this has something to do with the Stockholm Bloodbath, which the internets tell me happened a long long long freakin’ time ago.

Imagine my surprise when I saw this:

And it was attached to this thing:

Is that some kind of center for the understanding of country whose language Swedish is very similar to, and which is closer to Sweden than New Jersey is to New York? I want a center for the understanding of New Jersey, because those people are a bigger mystery to me than the Swedes.

The thing about the rivalry between the Danes and Swedes is that it is carried out in the most hilarious way possible. The Danes and Swedes were to be playing one another in soccer the last time I visited Denmark’s great neighbor the North. Running on Swedish television at the time was an ad for the game. I did not have the presence of mind to photograph it, so the ones of people who visit this site are going to have to just read my description.

We come upon the Danish national soccer team at their “practice.” I use practice in the loosest way possible because there was a cloud of smoke over the field. One of the players looked like he was more cut out for sumo wrestling than being a soccer player. Suddenly, half the players are gone, because they are relieving themselves against some hedge of some kind. Then, one of the guys kicks the ball into the goal, but the goalie is gone. Why? Of course, he is off drinking a beer. And scene.

Go Denmark!

This is the worst part of this guy’s day

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It’s called “working.” Ok, here is the postcard shot:

This felt so weird taking this photo because this was an object that could potentially talk back. I can’t imagine having random strangers come up to me and taking pictures of me. He is what the guy with the Kaiser Wilhelm helmet on is guarding:

Not to mention this thing:

And this guy:

I didn’t take this photo, but I think the Swedish king is absolutely freakin’ adorable. You can’t say that about many monarchs in the world.

Anyway, back to the behemouth. I was walking around this thing and walked up a flight of stairs and suddenly felt these eyes on me. I look up and see this thing:

I felt bad for this guy too. He didn’t look too happy:

Well, as luck would have it, I didn’t get to see the inside of this thing because it was Monday and these kinds of places seemed to be closed. Boo hoo.

An extended ode to the Stockholm metro system

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As the five people who know me who actually visit this place infrequently (I’m trying my best to get my numbers up), I have a thing for Scandinavia. Ok, maybe its more than a thing. But there are a lot of things about it that I find really unique. My favorite thing is the fact that every corner of every place seems to have been intelligently thought out to make people feel at home or cozy. A lot of it makes people feel good. I realized after just visiting that the metro stations there can look like the ones here, kind of dirty and drab. The New York City subway system is a place that people have to drag me into kicking and screaming, but when I go in there, I look at the tiling on the walls, I think they could do so much with it just to make going in there a happier experience.

So, here I present some of my favorites and my little commentaries.

On my first visit to Stockholm, I got off at the Solna Centrum metro stop and I couldn’t believe my eyes:

I think this is the guy who did the art for the place. The art seems to be organic and matches the surroudnings. Here’s another example:

That is a little model house built into the walls. Amazing.

I don’t understand what this plane is for, but it seems to be going somewhere:

And, this is the whole station:

This place I found because I overestimated my knowledge of the Stockholm metro system being jet lagged. But this is the one metro system in the world that I completely do not mind getting lost in. Have a look-see:

This station had to be my favorite on so many levels. I went to see the Olympic stadium in Stockholm, which was also amazing and there will be another entry about that.

But walking through this place I thought — this would automatically put a person in a good mood:

What about this? I smiled the minute I saw this:

This is Scandinavia and the Olympics, two of my multiple obsessions together. And this was almost the icing on the cake:

After looking like I was casing the stadium for a while, I took a walk around the neighborhood next to it. I kind of got lost on purpose just to find another station to photograph. My aching feet were worth it. This was the metro station next to a technical college.

Check out this lovely geometical solid figure that I am sure the engineering students know what is called:

I was a humanities major, so I am safe from math. Still, I walked around the station knowing that there was something else to look at and I was not wrong:

Unbelievable. I turned around at this place and thought — this is amazing:

Here are just some random examples of the various types of art that saw on the metro:

So, this is my suggestion for the urban planners of America — create inviting spaces in the undergrounds containing the trains and perhaps the people around would be less stressed out and much happier in general.

Monoliths or immitating the greats?

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Another altered photo from my post work motor drivin’. Yes, the little square on the photo is the light from the inside of the train. Well, I can’t say I am not immitating someone again. This time its Margaret Bourke-White. You have to click on it because the thumb nail doesn’t really give you the full effect.

taking an kind of ok photo and kind of making it…

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Better? I love this bridge. Ok, I say that about every bridge I see, but this one I really love. This is this bridge that takes you to 125th street. When you sit in the train and it is going by and you are listening to music, its like the beginning or the end of a movie. I’ve been trying to figure out how to photograph it forever. This was another result of the production from the motor drive. Oh well. If I’m not happy with it, I’ll have about a million more chances to photograph it.

On second thought….

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Here is the original of the warehouse industrial photo that is b&w below. I had all day to look at it and I grew to like the blue. So, you, my viewing public comment on which one you like better. And, there is no spelling to be corrected here.