pretty in purple

it's been a very busy day today, so there's only time for pretty pictures. and it was total coincidence that the shirt matched our new legwraps.

more soon....

a supposedly fun thing...

the first truly sunny day of the summer. and the first day of the first week of summer vacation from school.  so we found ourselves in legoland.  along with half the population of norway. the whiniest, cryingest (is that a word?) half of the population of norway.

and i sat on the ground in a shady spot and photographed feet, as i am wont to do, and i people-watched. and i realized that not very many of the people at legoland on this beautiful day appeared to be having that much fun. there wasn't much laughter and hardly any smiles. just a lot of aggressively perfect scandinavian families, grimly giving their children the obligatory legoland experience.

legoland is actually lovely - the gardens and the plantings and the flowers are fantastic and i love miniland, with its replica of nyhavn and amsterdam and an airbus A380 best of all. but people didn't appear to be enjoying it all that much. i didn't really see anyone stopping to look at the flowers. they were too busy quieting crying children and slathering sunscreen on red shoulders and noses. too busy schlepping their coolers from one ride to another. too busy paying $6.70 for a cotton candy.

i overheard a lot of complaints about the queues. and really, the queues weren't THAT bad. but it all seemed to be stressing people out - all of the FUN that surrounded them. the weight of their expectations that they should be having a GOOD time. and the gnawing realization that they really weren't, despite how much they'd paid to do so.

and the stress was infectious. by the end of the day, i was ready to scream myself. and when some stupid old man attending the gate made some sarcastic tut-tut noise at me as i tried to exit through an entrance (that looked the same as the exit unless you happened to be staring up), i almost slapped him. why couldn't he just kindly point me to the exit, why be sarcastic? 

why do we do these things if we don't enjoy them? who has us thinking it's expected? we live in this culture where everything is expected to be An Experience. and yet we're left unfulfilled by these experiences. and unable to admit that something that's supposed to be fun really isn't all that fun after all.

but the biggest question of all is, why don't people wear comfortable, cool shoes on a hot summer day?

a foot fetish?

i'm not that keen on taking pictures of random strangers in public. i think i'm reluctant to have a confrontation if they catch me at it and ten years in scandinavia has rendered me unable to use what should be my natural american ability to just talk to strangers (tho' in all honesty, i'm not sure i ever had it) and ask them if i can snap their picture.  however, i have no problem at all photographing people's feet. it somehow seems safer. you can do it more surreptitiously and i've found that it can be more interesting than you think.

it all started with a really cool tattoo i saw in a really cool spot on a foot. i want.

then i saw these shoes. they were sparkly. i like sparkly. however, i'm less keen on socks with sandals. even if they are pink socks.

then you find yourself sitting someplace with a good coffee and just shooting all of the feet that go by.

there is the occasional odd fashion choice.

and the odd dog.

sometimes there are sweet little people in pink.

then you start looking out for alternative-type people. i have to say, i prefer socks with my docs.

sometimes the shoes surprise.

more cute tattoos. little stars on that same part of the foot.

i think this may be the start of something fun. but at least i'm finally off those eyeballs.