This is true. Getting lost forces a person to notice where he is. Not only in wild, in the wilderness of the great outdoors, in the majestic peaks of the Sierra Nevadas. But in the wild cities, too. The streets of London are a confusing web of dead ends, winding curves and changing names.
You can wander for hours, try retracing your steps, but to no avail. You're hopelessly lost. There are street signs, sure. But they are hard to locate. Anyway, they mean nothing when your sense of direction is so thrown off in this strange new place.
So you wander these gray streets, with their gray buildings. You don't know where you are going. That's when you see the color-- the independent coffee house, the graffiti in the alleyway, the hidden terrace in between two restaurants. You hear the color, too. The different accents. Or the different languages.
You find the city when you let yourself get lost in her ancient streets. She comes alive when you stop searching and succumb to her whims. She has so much to teach, so much to offer, but she will only show you if you give up your preconceived notions.
"...travelers must accept that they do not have ultimate control- upon this realization, a sense of self and an appreciation of place can soon be achieved."
The first thing that jumps out to me with this blog are the colors. Starting with the title, 100 leaves in a concrete jungle, in a green color followed by a background full of an array of green and blue. Meanwhile the title of the post and the date are a blue color. Although before reading the piece I am not to sure what to think of the background picture of a pond, due to the sense I feel that it would be more of a grey and dull background to embrace the ‘concrete jungle.’ The color difference can almost hypothetically represent the leaves. Found in different colors around the world adding color to life, the colors used in the blog serve the same purpose adding color to the blog rather than being bland. The second thing that jumps at me is the use of the quote. Separating it from the rest of the post make sense, but it would’ve been nice to see them integrate it into their post somehow, working it into their text rather then segregating it from the entire piece just to have it included in the assignment. In the sense of the photo, it is perfect for the blog. It gives a sense of the concrete jungle, a sense of place but leaving you hanging as to why they picked this picture. Seeing the picture before the text allows the reader to ponder on the question, why did they pick this picture of what seems to be London? Moving on to the text it is very universal. Putting the reader as the subject, using the noun, “You.” This creates a uniformity between all readers to feel the same. To feel what its like to be in the midst of a concrete jungle just as the writer did themselves. And to finish off the post, it ends with a quotes aiming at all travelers. Which in my opinion leaves it open and is the perfect way for people to end reading this post.
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