about We are Akila and Patrick. Our minds (and waistlines) expand as we travel, cook, and eat our way around the world with our two dogs.
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Tag: Scenery
lions rest

We spent four years in and out of the United States, eating from street food vendors who have probably never even heard of the word "sanitation inspection," ordering from menus in countries where we don't speak the language, and eating pretty much everything under the sun.  On top of that, Amara has been to India and Costa Rica.  We thought we had stomachs of steel.  Or, at least iron.  Or, some other strong metal.

But, apparently four years of travel has nothing on two days at a local Atlanta daycare.  The last two weeks have primarily consisted of one of the three of us groaning and moaning and wondering why the heck I threw out all our Cipro when we returned to the United States.  Ugh.

The only positive side to all this is that, last weekend, we thoroughly disinfected and cleaned our entire house, from top to bottom, because I don't want to see this virus ever again.  And, the thing about cleaning is that once I start cleaning, I keep cleaning.  Which is how I found this video.

I don't know why I never posted this video.  It's all edited, compiled, and ready to go.  I can only assume that I forgot about it in the mammoth digital photography and video files that I've got stored on our backup drive.

I watched it over again and sat back and smiled.  I mean, it's got lions.  And lions cubs!  Really cute lion cubs!  And, a little bit of frisky mating!  And lion cubs!

It's been three years since we've been in Namibia and I'm still in awe that we got to experience this wonderful place.  So, here you go: lions resting (and a little bit of getting it on) at Etosha Reserve in Namibia.

humbling pompeii

Pompeii

View of Pompeii Amphitheatre

I've never seen a picture of Pompeii that did it justice.  In fact, before going to Pompeii, I questioned whether it was worth the time and energy to go there.  The architecture looked less impressive than the ancient architecture in Rome at the Pantheon, the Roman Forum, and the Colosseum.  The scenery was less stunning than that of the gorgeous blue and yellow Amalfi Coast.  But, we went because we were staying in Sorrento, were only 45 minutes away from Pompeii, and it seemed foolish to miss one of Italy's most popular attractions.

Pompeii mosaic Pompeii mosaic
Pompeii walls Akila at Pompeii

Walking through the streets of Pompeii

And, I'll be the first to admit that our pictures don't do this place justice.  What's missing from the photography is a sense of the vastness of this place.  Pompeii was a living, breathing city with a population of around 10,000 people in about five square miles before 769 AD.  To put that into perspective, that's about the population density of New Orleans, Sydney, or Montreal today, and more dense than Miami, Antwerp, and Las Vegas.  Of course, our cities today are much larger than five square miles but, when we went there, we could feel how the city once bustled.

Pompeii baking Pompeii ovens
Oven Pompeii Pompeii oven

Cafe/restaurant; bakery and ovens

We started at the less touristed side of the city, at the point where most of the populace lived, and walked all the way to the main public areas at the far side of the city.  Like New York or Sydney or any major city today, Pompeii had places for worship, markets, government buildings, and public arenas and amphitheatres.  It had more than 33 bakeries with huge lava mills, turned by donkeys to grind the wheat, and ovens in which the bakers brought out thick flat bread, cut into wedges and sold to the citizens.  It had over 200 cafes where Pompeii citizenry --- especially the poor --- sat at long bars to eat from food ladled out of large jars set into the marble counters (kind of like a buffet).

Akila at Pompeii Pompeii streets
Pompeii

Houses in Pompeii

We walked for hours.  Hours and hours.  Into and out of houses.  Into and out of mansions.  Through gardens with fountains.  Through gardens with statues of gods and goddesses at the center.  Through places where there were vineyards.  Into mammoth buildings where judges and politicians discussed and determined the way in which the rest of the Pompeiians should live, while those ordinary citizens went about their business, raising families, improving their homes, and generally living the best lives they could.

Pompeii roads Pompeii fountain
Pompeii

Marble and temples

It wasn't long before we realized that these people --- these people who lived over 1,500 years ago --- weren't all that different from us.

Pompeii Pompeii ruins
Dog at Pompeii Pompeii ruins
Pompeii avenue

Public areas of Pompeii

Pompeii is, ultimately, a lesson in humility.

Gateway Pompeii Pompeii moonlight

Pompeii by moonligh t

Patrick and I have seen many, many amazing ruins all across the world: Angkor Wat , Ephesus , and those in Rome immediately spring to mind.  But, Pompeii is unique in that it showed us how the ordinary people --- the people like us --- lived.  In Ephesus and Angkor Wat, we saw the structures built to celebrate the gods.  But, we never thought about the more humble structures necessary for man.  The bakeries, brothels, canteens, and warehouses are lost in those places, tumbled down into rubble and then built over many, many times.

Floor tiles in Pompeii Pompeii tiles
Pompeii Pompeii tiles

Decorations in mansions

These people sold and bought goods at the markets, with products imported from all across the vast Roman empire.  They lived in houses decorated in granite and marble.  They walked streets and stepped carefully over the "speed bumps" built for horse-drawn carriages.

Pompeii
Pompeii Pompeii

As we stood there at ancient Pompeii, looking over the busy city of modern Pompeii, we couldn't help but imagine the tourist of 3,500 AD.  Will they look at our houses, built mainly of the natural materials used for over 2,000 years --- wood, stone, and metal --- and think our architecture is curiously primitive?  Will they stand in front of the remnants of our granite kitchens with gleaming stainless steel appliances and wonder why we would try to preserve our food in such an antiquated mechanism as a refrigerator?  They will surely laugh at our smartphones and computers, and ask how we could build monuments like the Twin Towers with such simplistic devices, in the way that we wonder how Roman architects built huge structures using mental and handwritten arithmetic and an abacus.

It was a strangely humbling place as we realiized that, one day, when we are long gone, the cities and the people of the year 2013 will be ancient in the same way that Pompeii and its citizens are ancient to us.

prague in black and white

Prague buildings in black and white

Street in Prague

We don't often do black and white photography largely because I love color.  I love the juxtaposition of bright against light, sky against tree, and strong against weak.  One of my all time favorite photo spreads on our site is this one with the children and balloons , done in black and white, with pops of color, because the color almost springs out of the computer.  And, our penchant for bright and vivid colors is the reason that we're constantly posting about flowers , trees , gardens, and flower festivals .

But, one of the biggest benefits of black and white photography is its timelessness .  If you look at an old photo in color, you can easily determine the decade in which it was taken by the type of color and the use of the lens.  But, the pictures we took recently in Prague in black and white could have been taken a decade ago or longer.  In monochrome, our eyes aren't distracted by the newness or oldness of the camera technology or other camera distortions.  (It's only a small part of the reason why Ansel Adams' gorgeous scenery photographs looks like it was taken yesterday.)

When I started going through our photography for Prague, I realized that I had to do a photo spread in black and white because Prague has this same sense of timelessness.  Buildings and cobblestone streets are perfectly preserved, down to the ruts used for horse-drawn carriage in the Stare Mestro (Old Town).  A little further away, the city becomes stark and square, with odd monuments built to celebrate Communism and the Communist regime.  There are very few buildings (other than the famous Tancici Dum or Dancing Building) that embrace modern steel and glass.  The city seems to have stood still, with parts of it squarely stuck in the 14th century and others in the pre-Cold War era.

Prague building in black and white
Prague cathedral Prague clock tower

Prague black & white

Prague in black and white church Prague fountain
Prague Communist monument
Prague in black and white
Prague church in black and white
Prague in black and white Prague building facade in black and white
prague in black and white Prague in black and white
Prague in black and white
Prague Communist monumet in black and white