Oh dear, are you sure you didn't take the bad mood with you?
Why would hordes of families drag themselves and their children to a must-go-to event if it's no fun. Is that what Norwegian families do? I can't believe it.
actually, most parents all over the world believe that an 'outing' at the weekend is obligatory, I never suffered from such ideas. My poor kids.
I think all the shoes are very comfy looking, flat and summery and a bit worn in. Just the sort of shoes I tend to wear myself.
your photography seems to give voice to the feet. some appear excited, some tentative, some bored, all interesting. as for the dude at the gate....shut the front door bud.
Generally speaking, "Sensible" and "Shoes" are mutually exclusive.
June 28, 2011 at 10:02 PM
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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but the biggest question of all is, why don't people wear comfortable, cool shoes on a hot summer day?
8 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment formThose all look like comfortable shoes. Not attractive shoes, but comfortable.
June 27, 2011 at 10:48 PM
i have more photos of others that aren't as comfortable...and many of these look HOT! :-)
June 27, 2011 at 10:51 PM
Great post! Glad to see that we here in the US aren't the only ones with stressed out parents trying to calm stressed out children.
June 27, 2011 at 11:08 PM
Oh dear, are you sure you didn't take the bad mood with you?
Why would hordes of families drag themselves and their children to a must-go-to event if it's no fun. Is that what Norwegian families do? I can't believe it.
actually, most parents all over the world believe that an 'outing' at the weekend is obligatory, I never suffered from such ideas. My poor kids.
I think all the shoes are very comfy looking, flat and summery and a bit worn in. Just the sort of shoes I tend to wear myself.
Nice to meet you.
June 28, 2011 at 3:36 AM
your photography seems to give voice to the feet. some appear excited, some tentative, some bored, all interesting. as for the dude at the gate....shut the front door bud.
June 28, 2011 at 4:58 AM
Flip flops are the best.
funny post!...
June 28, 2011 at 7:41 AM
Sometimes I think kids need more boredom (nothing to do) so they can appreciate the outings. I love your unique images!
June 28, 2011 at 7:58 PM
Generally speaking, "Sensible" and "Shoes" are mutually exclusive.
June 28, 2011 at 10:02 PM