Back in Mobile for a week now, I’ve had time to unwind, decompress, and reflect on my experience of New York and Canada. My little sister said something that aptly describes the experience:

“I’m not taking picture because you can’t capture all this in a picture. You just have to tell people to experience it for themselves.”

That’s pretty much how I feel, too. However, I do believe that photos can move people to go and experience the place for themselves.

The first time I went to New York City, I did take mad photos because everything was new to me. This time around, I opted instead to try to form a narrative of my journey with my photos. I’m pretty happy with the result, except that I didn’t get photos of the celebrities people I saw (Nigel Barker and Talib Kweli).

Still I have some gems in the form of photos I’d like to share, and most of them have stories.

At the B&B in Middletown, NY

Middletown, NY – A squirrel in a maple tree.

Crazy gas prices on the road to Canada. What’s more—as I found out from a young man I met from Egypt—gas is about 40 cents/gallon in Cairo (and it’s getting cheaper).

Canadian Customs – I had to turn over my pepper spray, because it’s illegal to carry it in Canada. The Queen of England has it now.

My little sis actually snapped this since I was driving. The camera settings were wrong so I had to salvage it. I like the surreal quality it has.

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an excerpt from my travel journal/sketchbook:

May 16, 2007

So we finally reach New York City. After a long journey, the three of us emerge from Penn Station only to encounter tropical storm force winds and pelting rain. It’s noise everywhere, and more than a little intimidating. Though I’ve been to New York the previous year, I’d never had the experience of getting off the train in the midst of rush hour.

[Riding in a taxi to the hostel] I’m so tired right now, and just glad to finally have a break. It’s so foreign being on-the-go so much, after just getting into the monotonous routing I’d established back home.

As I write this I’m relaxing in the lounge of an NYC hostel, loving the free wireless. (I just paused to aide a young Japanese man in connecting to the wireless here . . .so cool. I want to go to Japan one day.) Anyway, If you’d like to see the photos from my trip, check out the link to my flickr account to the right. (I think I may ask the guy if I can take his photo, because I just got the notion, and that’s what travel is all about–spontaneous moments, unique photo opportunities.)

Well, my sisters are bugging me not to spend my entire New York stay on the computer, so I’m off to do find some lunch in the city.

Ciao. ^_^

I’m in Canada right now on vacation. It’s so beautiful here. I’m staying in Brampton, actually, which is a suburb of Toronto. It was a long journey: two planes, a car, a train, a rental car–and finally we’re here. I ache from lugging my baggage so long.

So, of course, I have lots of photos. If I don’t blog while I’m here, I’ll probably never post all of them when I get back. Day 1 was mostly traveling, until reaching our final destination of Middletown, NY.

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I know I’ve been talking about how I never have time to draw anything, blah blah. However, upon reading a recent blog entry of a friend, I remembered that we make time for the things that are most important to us. It hard to be “artgyrl” if I’m not, ya know, arting.

I bought a new sketchbook from Wal-Mart (they call it a notebook, but I say anything with a bunch of blank pages bound together is best used for the arting), and took it with me to work. Around 5:00 pm, we all had to log out of our computers so the bookkeeper could do some type of system update. BAM! Fifteen minutes of free sketch time just fell in my lap. I just went with the flow, which led to this drawing:

I have no idea what she’s sitting on, but I was trying to see what I could do with anatomy. I only had time to draw her body and left leg before we had to get back to work. You can see the lines from my trying to figure out where to place her legs. I finished the other leg while waiting to get a pedicure. So. . .this drawing isn’t nearly finished. I mean, it’s basically a random sketch. She’s not a character . . . yet (that only requires a name, and I’d be happy to hear any suggestions). But I like her, so she may turn up again.

I still have to pack for my trip. We’re heading out Thursday, and will return in 10 days.

I saw Spiderman 3 at midnight Thursday. It was pretty awesome. And, as mentioned in the title, Peter Parker went totally emo for a bit. Personally, I don’t know if I can compare it to the first and second movie and say that it was better. It was just different, and there were a lot of elements of story line that original took place over years of comic book continuity into two and a half hours of film. And I’m sure that’s the heavily edited version of Sam Raimi’s creation.

And when did Harry (James Franco) get so hot. He had me with those chocolate brown eyes. I might just suffer through Tristan and Isolde and Annapolis just to see him again. [After reading his bio on imdb.com] Man, I forgot he was in The Company, playing a chef, even. I totally saw that movie.

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Next Thursday I’ll be in New York and Canada with my sisters. We’ll be in Canada for the first  4 days, so if anyone can suggest some places to visit it would be much appreciated. We have things will be doing, like visiting the branch offices of Jehovah’s Witnesses for a tour. We’re also going to Niagara Falls.

I’m really excited about this great photo experience, so I have to remember my extra battery, memory cards and such.

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I missed posting my Photo Week blog last week, mostly because I didn’t take many pictures. But I’ll catch up now.

My first blackberry of the season.

I saw Disturbia twice. Don’t sleep on Shia LaBoeuf.

This is Melody. She’s been my barista a few times at a new Starbucks location near my old college. I thought she so cute, and she’s always been really friendly. So, I finally asked if I could take her photo.

After taking Melody’s portrait, this guy comes and asks me about my camera. He’s interested in photography, and we chatted briefly about how lenses are almost prohibitively expensive. Anyway, I think he’s the manager or something, because I’ve seen him at another Starbucks.