Carroll Gardens

Carroll Gardens is a gorgeous, rather upscale neighborhood in Brooklyn.  I don't live there, and I don't know if that is eventually where I would want to live either.  But, it is beautiful.  I go to see an Alexander Technique teacher in that area, and I always leave early to walk around and see all of the beautiful front gardens, the park, and the independently owned shops that line the tree-covered streets.  Murals are abundant, flowers are plentiful, and the occasional bizarre touch of graffiti or a very old building adds character.  

Sometimes Danny and I will go out of our way to go to a dinner in this neighborhood.  

One time in particular, we went to a lovely speakeasy style bar with fondue, and fancy meat and cheese plates.  It was decadent. We keep planning to go back, but haven't been able to as of yet.  Danny and I are excellent about taking one another out to dinner, but it tends to be more of an impromptu thing than a planned night.  We will both get out of work, text one another, and then just meet somewhere, or realize that out breaks line up and go somewhere near where I work.  Or, we'll both be starving and desperate for food after an afternoon of martial arts classes. 

 One of these days, we will go back for more fondue!!

Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA

Inner City Pressure

 

Would you get these cutleries out of my knees... please?

Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

El Béisbol con un Plátano (The Baseball and the Banana)

Miami had excellent murals.  You saw one in a previous post, Sunny Skies and Marvelous Murals, and now I want to share some other ones!  This one, with a detail shown above, was one of my favourites.  It was on the outer wall of a preschool, and showed a bunch of children with fruit for bodies playing baseball.  This great scene overlooked their little parking lot, complete with a tiny outdoor playset.  Adorable!  I wish I had taken a photograph of the entire scene so that I could share it with you, I was very enchanted.

On the street side of the building were more murals, showing a butterfly and trees. This serene little scene was paired with their sign advertising Judo classes!  I looked at something later, and it turns out that this place also ran a day care for older children, and part of the daycare was that they have to take a Judo class.  How awesome is that?  Hey kids, you have to go here after school because mummy and daddy are still at work, but it's okay because, you know what?  You get to fight stuff.  

But my favourite was the mural painted on the glass door- of a little girl with mended faerie wings.

The whole thing was just so darn cute and full of childish imagination.  I wish I could remember the name of the place, but I don't.  In any case, it made me happy, and I hope that these photographs make you happy too.

Miami, Florida, USA

Can Wishes Really Come True?

 

Can they?  It seemed that they were for many of the children in Disney World.  This little girl looked especially happy while meeting Belle in Epcot.  Even more... she was actually well behaved!  I saw so little of that while I was there.  I saw lots of kids screaming at their parents to buy them stuff or make lines go faster.  I saw even more kids running amok as their parents daydreamed. I didn't see that many behaving themselves.  Also, I saw very few skinny American children.  Most of them seemed a bit chubby, and many of them were far more than that...

But, Mary Poppins was lovely!!

Which brings me to my next point, my one gripe about Disney World.  It wasn't the ill-behaved children, I knew about that. 

My one and only gripe was their main message.  Basically the park was screaming at you:

IF YOU WISH HARD ENOUGH, ALL YOUR DREAMS WILL COME TRUE!

Alas, that's untrue.

If you work hard enough, some of your dreams might come true.  Maybe.  If you're really lucky.  I kind of felt like Disney World was trying to give a trophy to every kid who came in the door and tell them that they were special and entitled to automatic success just for existing, which is a beautiful idea, but absolutely, hilariously wrong.  I just wanted to hug the kids and tell them that they were being lied to, and that life was going to be hard, and that these illusions would just make them feel bad later when they realized that they would actually have to do something with themselves to achieve success.  I don't know, I just felt like Disney World was giving people false hopes and dreams, and setting children up for disappointment.

It sure felt nice while you were there though! Being told that your life is going to be perfect because you're unique and you deserve it definitely feels great, even if it's a total lie. So, I guess it's not all bad.  It's pretty hard to be negative about anything when you're talking about Disney World.  It's my only gripe and it's not even a bad one. 

Just a warning- I'm probably going to be posting Florida photos for about forever, as it's freezing here, the photographs are sunny, and they help me take my mind off of the cold darkness.  Not to mention that I took like two thousand photographs.  It has nothing to do with that...

Walt Disney World, Florida, USA

Seeking Sunlight

The past few days I have been trying to not be on the computer as much- it's amazing how technology so easily allows us to forget "real life."  Getting sucked into the world of the virtual is surprisingly easy.  Blogger, Tumblr, Facebook, Email, Etsy, Computer games... they can just slurp your life away if you aren't careful.  And my queued blog posts haven't been posting, so there isn't even a great post here to show my efforts! Ah well, you all get this lovely one instead.  

 

There's a big bright beautiful world out there, and it's so easy to sit and stare at a screen instead of the sunlight. Even though it's freezing here, it's still sunny out most of the time.  In Florida, it was sunny and warm... I want to go back!  Get me away from this frigid land!  (Just kidding.  I love it here.  It's just cold).

So, in celebration of the day here in New York City that started out at 1 degree Farenheit, enjoy some more of my summery Florida photographs.

Haha, just wait til I get to the Disney World stuff!  (It's coming soon).

Miami, Florida, USA

Also coming soon: more photographer features and more shop updates!!

Here now:  A new little thing on the bottom. 
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Nifty, huh?

South Beach Short Shorts

People in South Beach, Miami, seem to be pretty brazen when it comes to their swimwear.

I saw a surprisingly large number of men in speedos or short short swimsuits.  I wasn't that surprised- the majority of the tourists seemed to be from Europe and South America, where men are just generally better dressed, and more confident to wear such things.  Also, they don't have the false machismo, the pretending to be the concept of what people consider to be a man, as much as American men seem to.  I know I'm making vast generalizations here, but that's what I have experienced.

The women were what I expected in South Beach- thin and pretty.  Everyone who looked like a local also looked like a workout-a-holic.  Not gonna lie, I felt a bit pudgy lookin at my thighs.  But I wasn't wearing a swimsuit... so no one else saw them...  

This post is actually mostly of people!  I know I do that very rarely, but sometimes you have to step out of your comfort zone. 

 And, to show you pictures of what South Beach was really like, I feel that I have to show you people, who are always more interesting than things anyway.

  Yes, there was a lot of sand which was surprisingly rocky, and yes, there was the ocean, which was a beautiful blue.  There were palm trees, and flowers, and seagulls. 

However, I've shared lots of photographs of sand and seagulls, and there were palm trees everywhere, not just on the beach, so you'll get your fill of those before my Florida trip posts are over.  

Thus, I share with you the life, the actual feeling of this place through the people.  

I only wish it had been sunnier- the photographs are a little bit dark. 

I let in as much light as I could without sacrificing it to super-blurriness, and some of them turned out blurry.  More of them turned out a bit dark.

But, everyone was just fascinating. I was so happy to see vibrant, diverse people who were not what I was used to, that I just kept snapping away regardless of the light difficulty.

Apparently I wasn't alone :)

There were also a lot of very cute children on the beach, who were surprisingly well behaved.  Many of them were surprisingly naked too, but as I said before, that's a cultural thing, I guess. 

I wasn't at all bothered by the nudity, but I am also not posting any pictures of it here, for propriety's sake.  

There werelots of other young couples too- I don't think we were the only ones with the idea to hit Miami as a romantic winter getaway!

It was such a great study of humanity, which as an actor, I am always trying to do.  Studying how different people from different places act, interact, dress for different occasions and such makes me really happy.  It brings a sort of fulfillment, with the knowledge that I can use that information for a character somewhere down the line. 

Miami, Florida, USA

Pictured:  Lots of people I don't know.  And me, in the last photo (taken by Daniel Garrison).