Free furniture

this is where we needed the truck for.... i discovered the free section on Craigslist (http://boston.craigslist.org/zip/). we emailed several people. most did not answer at all, that was very disappointing. but look! we got this beautiful couch for free!! now we finally have our own couch and something in that second empty living room. we also got an enormous, really huge TV, but thats for another day to show. ah, and we got a futon (also a very weird story that deserves a pic by its own), and we drove around a LOT.... ah yes; today i worked very hard in the lab. i hope to start pipetting next week monday, finally.
dont you love the couch?! i do...! (but it was not easy to move)

Big car

we used this car today. why? i'll tell you tomorrow, now it is time for bed....

Meat consumption

saw this ad on saturday at Harvard square. even thought of going there, just to see what she has to say about such a weird topic... in the end we did not go.. instead we ate some meat!! :) we had very delicious burgers at Porter Square in the Phoenix Landing (mine was with bacon, thin slices of apple and peanut butter, yumyumyum!).
we were actually supposed to view an apartment this afternoon. but just at the very last moment the lady (with whom it was already difficult to communicate) asked whether it would be a problem if the apt would be available from July 7 instead of July 1st. well, yeah!! and i had told her so already twice. there is a lot available, but communication and coordination seems to be rather difficult...

Quite cold

I think it is not that warm. Currently, it is 4 degrees. but you see a lot of girls with very short shorts... or people without jackets, while i am shivering. i keep wondering: arent they cold?! btw, this pic was made last october, in New York, but you see legs like that all time... :)

Laundry room

due to an excess of space (never thought i would be able to say that, ever!!), we currently have a room that solely serves as laundry room.... as you can see here.. :) ok, in the walk-in closet (that is a little too small for my taste), are my clean clothes.
but, as mentioned before, i do not enjoy doing laundry here. all the black shirts are covered in dust after washing... :( tim called 2 dry-cleaners, and cleaning a shirt/blouse costs 4,95. maybe i should Fedex my delicate clothes home for washing?

Outside hairdresser

this is just outside prudential center in boston, a shopping area with a large food court. the weather was nice! what can i say about this pic? not much.., i just thought it was worth taking a picture...

Our house

this is where we live. as you can see, it is a really big house! the entire ground floor is ours, but then above there are 4 more apartments....

Social Security

2 days ago my social security card arrived!! i had to wait 2 hours at the office to get it; they were sooooo slow. when it was finally my turn, the woman just typed over the form i had filled out (very slowly) and then she asked me to check for typos. then i waited eagerly for the mail. i thought it would be a real card; the first proof i really belong to the American system now... :)) but it is just a piece of paper....:( then i thought: let me laminate it, otherwise for sure some day it will be ruined, but what does it say above? indeed, "do not laminate"... besides, you are not supposed to carry it with you, and give no one, except for example your employer the number... (below the white stripe is my number; i am a real american and do not give it out to anyone!!).

Scary basement

this is the basement. here we can do our laundry (2 dollars, to be paid in quarters so we are always saving these). in the netherlands, one wash takes 2 hours approximately, here it takes less than 15 minutes! how can anything become clean in this short amount of time? besides, the machine is so unfriendly to your clothes.. im afraid everything will be ruined soon.....
as you might see, the basement is a total mess! spiderwebs everywhere, lot of dust and, in the space next to this, a huge amount of dusty, unused stuff... :) (some we took up and cleaned!). the light is also not working there. to me it looks like a basement from a scary movie.....

waiting waiting...

i am sitting by the window and wait for the mail... fedex said my camera would be here today. so i left the lab early (package needs to be signed otherwise they take it again), and then had to wait sooo long for the bus. to speed things up, i decided to walk. then i got lost. and it was so hot and my bag was so heavy! i walked around at least an hour, mostly in bigger and smaller circles when i finally found home.... while in my street (it is very long and there were still 3 busstops to go), "my" bus passed me, actually, 2 buses later than i would have had if.. i just had had a little patience....

Harvard steam

this picture was made last October. i still didnt discover what exactly harvard steam is..... is it tha air that makes the lab soooo cold? the entire day i am sitting and reading and being cold.... :(
tim is next to me right now and really annoying so thats it for today! maybe he needs some harvard steam?

New camera

I decided for this one.. yesterday we went to 3 stores on very different locations, but it was nowhere available or 50 dollars more expensive than we had seen on the internet the night before. so first needed to spend again some time on the not so well working internet (which now has been fixed as we are sharing with one of the neighbours!!). hope it arrives soon, since a blog that is supposed to have one picture a day becomes a little boring if i am only complaining about the absence of a camera......
it comes with a lens cleaning kit! a 8 Gb memorycard and some other nice stuff... and all for much less money than i needed for my current camera.

Laptop camera

just took this pic with my laptop as.... well, it gets boring, but i really miss my camera!!! i am in the first livingroom, then there is the second (with almost nohting in it) and then the room where we eat (tim is in the door to that room), and behind that is the kitchen... the house is huge!

Blossom trees

blossom trees in our neighbourhood. so pretty! they are all around Boston, in fact. last weekend the weather was perfect, but now it is really cold and rainy....
we spend the entire day in only few shops (they are soo huge!). looked for a new camera again. then decided to buy an olympus (same brand as the broken one) with a lot of discount. they had only the show-item left which we could buy at even further discount, but..... it came without manual, battery, memory card, charger, cords or anything. so no.. we ofcourse did not buy that. oh, was i disappointed! i thought i could start taking pictures again... :(

Boston city

this is Boston. doesnt it look nice?
what more can i say?
:)

agree disagree

flying is boring. we had screens to watch movies or whatever, but i was bored of that as well. so i wanted to do a survey, as it is always nice to give your opinion and/or answer stupid questions. at that moment there were no surveys... the only question i was allowed to answer was whether i agreed with the fact there were no surveys or not. ofcourse i disagreed.... will there be one next time?
(checked for cameras today... but have no clue what to take.... :( only know i miss mine and i continuously see things i want to picture...... buuuuuuuhhh!)

Amsterdam - Boston

i am ofcourse regularly checking nu.nl . there i saw this: http://www.nu.nl/buitenland/2226168/evacuaties-uitbarsting-vulkaan-ijsland.html
we flew through iceland when coming to boston; it was cheaper than KLM, allowed to take 2 suitcases instead of 1 (very important to me), and.... it was much much more relaxed than flying through Paris as we did last time.. iceland airport was very quiet. and we saw a little bit of iceland! it was very sunny and it looked like it would be hot outside (it was however only 4 degrees). from what we saw from the country.. it looked like the moon.... so colourless and flat empty (but maybe the moon looks very different). now i actually would like to see more of Iceland. maybe next time when flying home!

Huge couch

yesterday no internet. this pic is from saturday. we were at the Jordan's... the girl at the car rental told us it was a great (!!!!) furniture store.. so we went (it was next to Ikea anyways). well.. it was awful. never saw such an enormous store with sooo much ugly furniture. in that way it was great to see.. indeed, but i dont think she meant it in that way. there were sooo many enormous & ugly couches (like the one on the pic). many with a holder for your drinks and a secret compartment for all your snacks, so that you never have to move while watching tv.... typical American?

Ikea carts

as my camera doesnt work: some "old pics".. :( this is from friday, when we were in ikea. it was so quiet there!! here are all the carts.. waiting to be used. on the side there were alcohol-containing-cart-bar-cleaning-wipes, so that your child sitting in the cart will not get some disease... (i think they are quite paranoid about getting a disease here). actually, the next day we were there again, and it was a lot more crowded, the amount of carts was still huge though!

Camera breakdown

we rented a car for the weekend. it was very sunny and we had paid for the fuel in advance. a good reason to drive to gloucester, somewhere above boston. on the sea as you can see here. it was really pretty and there were lots of things i wanted to photograph. but... this is the second last picture after which my camera decided to end his service... :( the lens is still out, and not responding to anything anymore... time for a new camera? buuuuhhhhh....

Shopping spree!!!

our "second" living room. here still filled with suitcases.. we rented a car for the weekend and got some stuff to fill the rooms with... :) (maybe later some pics of that!). the shops are sooooo enormous here. bigger than big. we thus walked a lot the past 2 days. now at least we have some nice, own stuff (including our own suction mouth.... ;) but thats something to be explained another day as well.

Coat/Clothes hangers

when we arrived in our apartment, i soon noticed there were not even clothes hangers... no way i could hang out all the clothes i managed to stuff in my suitcase (actually quite a lot). the first thing we thus bought were hangers... 24 for 7,50 until we found the dollar shop, jeeejjj! there i could buy 12 in fancy colors for only... yes, 1 dollar. now i have many of them so that i finally can unpack my second suitcase as well. but first i need to sleep.....

Empty livingroom

this is the first livingroom... as you see, there is only 1 couch, and nothing else. then there is also a second livingroom, which is connected to the first by suite-doors (dont know how you call these doors). there are big windows. we are on ground level, and this room is facing the main street; the busstop is right in front of the house...

My wallet

i got this wallet as a present from my colleagues when i got my PhD. actually per & bettini decided which wallet. ok, first they had bought me a pink, smaller one, but then i decided to go for the big version that per originally had in mind. and i love it! i love to take it out, look at it, and then easily find the cards, money etc.. bad thing is ofcourse that everytime i take it out, it means money leaves my wallet.... :) but well.... starting a new life is not cheap!

Boston apartment

so, there we are, on the couch in our new apartment in the US of A. aside from the couch, there is not much furniture, although there is an enormous amount of space.. good thing: we could each have our own livingroom as well as our own bedroom. no need to compromise then.... :)