Shadow, Zalsberg, Austria
Friday, June 1
Moon over San Francisco from the docks
San Francisco has a great sense of 'belonging'. The interaction of the bridges, port, ocean, bay and the hills of the city combined with the local relaxed atmosphere make it one of the top cities in my books. The views are spectacular, the people relaxed, the food is good and there's plenty to do.
A great place to live, work or just visit.
Streetpainting in Santa Barbara, CA
The best word to describe Santa Barbara is 'nice'. It seems the whole city was constructed around this concept, including the tourists that come and visit. This also means it's missing some of the edges of society that make cities interesting and rewarding. Nice town to visit though, especially after Los Angeles, a sprawling urban area that seems to have been constructed on nothing but the edges of American society (both the intensely rich and downright dirt-poor).
Yosemite (6) - Half-Dome from Glacier Point, CA
A big dissapointment for seasoned travellers in Yosemite is that everything is just too accessible. There's nothing better in hiking than having to half kill yourself to make it to an amazing place to experience that one unforgettable sunset.
Not in America it isn't! Most everything cool in Yosemite can be reached by car, wheelchair or pushpram, clearly signposted with the necessary creature comforts around such as restrooms, soda dispensers, bus stops and ranger stations. - Compare that to the 25 hour train-bus-riksha-dumptrunk-hikingwhilerunningoutofwater-journey it takes to get anywhere in places such as South America or East Asia. This means that all of the fat, time-constrained, lazy, employed, 'normal' people that some of the rough-and-tumble crowd stick their noses up to block the view everywhere.
Good thing that Yosemite is so big that there's enough space for all types of travellers. (and really now, it's kinda nice that for a change you can see something amazing without any hassle, right? ;-)
- disclaimer: It's fantastic that in Yosemite they've really made an effort to make some sites available to people that would otherwise never be able to see some of the wonderful things out there. And that includes a group of people that really physically cannot make it out to some of the more remote areas, not just the people that are not willing to make the effort.
Yosemite (1), CA
For a place as big as Yosemite National Park I strayed from my one eye, one lens principle. It's simple to big to take in through the kit had. It may even be to big for a camera in general, but there you go, I tried to get the flavour. Pictures from here on may be from my new 10-22 Canon zoom that I bargained from the local Chinese guy in the tourist districts around fisherman's wharf in San Francisco.
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