Heat advisory

today it was HOT. really hot. it was hot already this morning and it just got hotter and hotter. i guess it was around 36 C (little less than 100F?) and a little humid. but well, i was inside and didnt notice much. until i stepped outside into a hot blanket.... ah well, we went to the pool for a bit (and when not swimming it even became a little chilly!), and then out to dinner, as the mayor of boston sent out a heat advisory that we ofcourse obeyed exactly. one of the points is; "avoid cooking".

a quote: "Mayor Thomas M. Menino has issued a heat advisory reminding residents to stay safe and healthy during this first stretch of hot summer weather.  Mayor Menino and the Boston Public Health Commission are urging residents to stay hydrated and in shaded or air conditioned areas whenever possible. Residents can cool off at several Boston Parks Department water spray features throughout the city and in air conditioned community centers." (note that mister mayor menino personally warns us here!) and: "everyone should remember to limit their activities during very hot weather, drink plenty of fluids, and avoid beverages that contain caffeine or alcohol.  When outdoors, limit strenuous activity, wear sunscreen and loose, light-colored clothing, and rest often in cool, shady areas. Additional measures to beat the heat include avoiding cooking, taking cool showers or baths, and staying in air conditioned areas whenever possible." (stolen from the boston city website). unfortunately, it doesnt tell us where to get our food when avoiding to cook (or did he mean it literally?!). luckily we do not yet have a ban on large sodas as proposed in new york, but i presume that next to our assisted living, heat advisories and soda bans, we soon also will be told (and checked) when we have to go to bed.... but surely i will be having trouble sleeping, even more so now that its hot and will stay hot for at least tomorrow... 

above pic was taken at the hoover dam, which we visited while in las vegas.

Grave addiction

i like to visit cemeteries and have posted some pics here. now i know that this makes me a taphophile, and through biebkriebels i learned there are more grave addicts (oh how i like that word play), contributing to taphophile tragics initiated by julie.

this is in new orleans, on dec 26. we were driving on the highway directly above it, and i made tim get off it to visit this cemetery. we had no real clue where we were, except that it was close to the french quarter and the nearby neighborhood did not look that inviting (it was actually in the iberville housing projects). we just parked the car in front of the entrance and wandered around. there was nobody else, and the fog made it all a little more spooky. many graves were about to collapse and it did not seem to be too well maintained. through google maps i found where we exactly were; st. louis cemetery #2, consecrated in 1823 (there are 3, several blocks away from each other, #1 being the most visited; here you can view biebkriebels' pics of that one). and if i were to believe internet forums, we should be happy not having encountered any robbers or even murderers. you are strongly advised to ONLY go to these cemeteries through an organized tour (that will cost you some 20 dollars per person; getting robbed after all, only in a more sophisticated way...). commenters feed these beliefs by saying that because these graves are aboveground, bad people can hide behind them, and suddenly attack you. blablablabla. i did not feel unsafe. common sense, please.... 

anyways. it was flooded during katrina, but damage was minor. ever since this visit i have been fascinated by these aboveground structures and could not believe the explanation in my tourist guide; that this is because new orleans is below sea level, and flooding can make underground coffins float up, spreading corpses everywhere. some googling around told me that this happens sometimes, indeed. but, it is more likely because this was tradition in the native countries of the early settlers (i.e. spain and france). so why did they do it there? probably because of the rocky soil in southern europe; not easy to dig holes. i noticed that some of the graves looked like ovens (here you can see that in one of my flickrpics). the hot climate in NOLA does sort of turn the tomb into an oven; the high heat causes the body to decompose rapidly in a process that you could compare to a slow, natural cremation (it takes about a year, i read here. interestingly, until 1963 catholics were not allowed to be cremated, but such a natural cremation was ok). in this way, the next familymember can be buried in the same tomb, all they do is shove the remains of the previous one to the back, thereby saving a lot of space.

whoops... i wrote a bit too much, but i had so many questions and found so many elaborate stories on floating bodies which kind of annoyed me...

Reinventing society

today occupy boston was again in the news, but this time because the health conditions at this new city were being questioned. so many people on such a small space, without showers or toilets, and without proper places to store food, is that healthy? well, dont worry! they have a health committee and they keep everything as clean as possible, there is hand sanitizer and there will be a free flu clinic and there are condoms and... 

yes, they have committees for everything. just like in normal life. you are asked not to just take the food, but have someong from the food committee serve you. and... since there have been many thefts, people in the tent city have been thinking of putting locks on their tents. moreover, someone has been arrested just last week for dealing hard drugs from one of the tents. as a result, they assembled a safety committee.... in other words, they are just re-creating society, only on a little more primitive scale. as such, you will be evicted from the place if you are using drugs or alcohol. while in regular society, there are places to help such people, the advantage of this primitive society is that they can just expel whomever is annoying; there is always the "real world" out there. but... one day or another they will find out, i think, that they just have reinvented society. the people in their little committees will become the new 1%, and the rest will not be happy with them, sooner or later.... it just takes them a while; in new york they are already in tents since half september! or.... perhaps the odor problem will get them to their senses before they get upset with their mini-society. we noticed on sunday that the bottom 1% of society is very well represented at occupy boston (perhaps because of the free food and a tent to sleep?), and apparently they dont mine urinating freely, adding to the smell..... or perhaps the cold weather that is coming; we might see some snow tomorrow already!

Mountain angels

on sunday we finally went to mount washington in new hampshire! i had been wanting to go there since a while now, but it is quite far (3 hrs by car). so, we got up early, and arrived down at the mountain around 11.30. it is 6,288 ft, or 1912 m high, the highest peak in this part of the us, and famous for dangerously erratic weather (wikipedia). the weather was perfect, sunny with only a few clouds. i had put on my most sporty outfit and my ugly running shoes. yep, we would walk up that mountain; a 4,4 mile hike! i decided to take tims camera bag taking all the lenses we have, and tim carried a backpack with food, water, extra jackets etc. the first part was fun and all. the path so rocky, but very doable. halfway, or rather, what we thought was halfway, we had lunch. unfortunately, we could not find the place where we supposedly could fill our waterbottle. not so nice, as we would have drank less.... soon after that, the path became more rocky, and considerably steeper. but still, doable. up, up, up we went. getting more and more tired. but the views were beautiful and the weather nice. and we saw so many people, also rather old people, so why wouldnt we be able to do this? at some point, while we thought we were really almost there, we drank all the water! and the path was getting more and more difficult. at some point, there were only rocks, and it was really steep. and i was tired, and we got  past the treeline and we were up so high and the sun was shining and i never did something like this before.... i was getting nasty with tim.... and why did i bring that stupid camera bag?!!

luckily, our fist mountain angel arrived! you can see her here. she was training and had an extra bottle of water, entirely for us!! that was great, and we got some courage again.... then we climbed up rock after rock for another 45 minutes, before we finally reached the summit. we took all the required pictures, including this one. in total, it took us nearly 5.5 hours!! all the while, i was telling tim that i was not going to walk back that path again... however... taking the train or shuttlebus back down would be 45 dollars per person!! we did not even bring that much money! lucky us, once again, we could drive down with a family that visited the mountain for the first time with their kids, 20 years after they had visited it together for the first time.... what would we be doing in 20 years?

so, we had a great day, but certainly it would have been less nice without these people that helped us out! thank you, once again!

more photos of our adventure? here!

CVS Pharmacy

the CVS is a very american store, in my opinion.... often these stores are open 24/7. they sell a wide assortment of general merchandise including over-the-counter drugs (here a lot more/stronger drugs are available without a prescription than in the netherlands), beauty products and cosmetics, film and photo finishing services, seasonal merchandise, greeting cards and convenience foods (including candy and chips, but also milk and bread, but no fruits or vegetables). before writing this post, i never wondered what CVS stands for, but i thought i should know this when posting a pic of it! originally, CVS stood for Consumer Value Stores, but the CEO has said he now considers 'CVS' to stand for "Customer, Value, and Service" (all knowledge thanks to my friend wikipedia!). the CVS above is in the center of boston, and does not have a pharmacy, as most other CVS stores; there you can get prescription drugs. 

americans are very concerned about privacy, and the CVS gives you a Notice of Privacy Practices with each prescription drug, in which they describe that they wil not disclose your Protected Health Information (PHI), unless..... and then they virtually describe every possible circumstance in which they are allowed to disclose your health information to others... most reasons are boring; they could have spared me from all this reading by just writing; we will never disclose your information, unless we will disclose it. 

for those of you who made it to the end of this very boring post; the following reason to disclose your health information by CVS to others i found truly hilarious: "We may disclose your PHI to authorized federal officials so that they may provide protection to the President......" (suddenly your harmless prescription drug seems like a very powerful chemical weapon..., no?)

Just morons

this evening we were at Nantasket once again, for the ocean and the pizza! (yum!) while sitting in the cafe this time, right outside on the beach there were suddenly fireworks and it went on and on for 5 minutes at least. it was for a bachelorette party. police came to check it out, and were staring at the burned out panel with all the rockets mounted to it, and decided it was best to get the firemen to deal with it (i thought a bucket with water from the cafe would do, but who am i?). and so, soon after a firetruck came rushing down with sirens and all (for a burned out panel, mind you!). then all the machoguys just stood there for quite a while.... shining a torch on the panel. finally, 2 of them got shovels (while actually the thing caught flames again... wow.. they didnt come for nothing!) and went onto the beach. and this was their brilliant action: they flipped the panel over, into the sea, while some rockets fell off. if one if them hadnt yet ignited and would have at that very moment, it would have been right in their face, but well, they know better how to handle a firehazard than me, i suppose. after this, i assumed they would clean up, but they got off the beach! they all got in their big trucks again (another policecar had arrived as well), and just LEFT. they LEFT, while the panel was about to take off into the ocean! now what, pollution!!!! really, so far i have only seen that officials here are a bunch of idiots. yegh...
(btw: another couple & tim made sure that the panel got out of the water.... now its lying there on the beach)

Liquor store

unlike the netherlands, here you have to go to a liquor store to get your wine. annoying! last friday tim really wanted to get martini. i wondered why, since we had agreed we would make mojitos with the limes and mint we just bought (the rum already waiting in the fridge). but he insisted, and i anyways wanted to go here to take a picture and look inside this enormous store that looks soooo typical american to me! we then ended up with quite a lot of alcohol (gin for gin tonics and the bottle looked so nice!), martini, wine, beer. as if there would be a party... :)
but then at the counter we were both asked to prove we were above 21 (yes, we look young!). i gave my passport, but tim only had his dutch driver's license. and that was not allowed. a US license; OK. a dutch passport; OK. but a dutch license?! no! a harvard-id with doctor on it? NO! even the manager came to tell us NO. since we could not both prove we were above 21, buying alcohol was not allowed. even when i suggested i would again go into the store-alone this time- to buy it, they said: NO. because it was obvious we would drink the alcohol together, and tim couldnt prove his age, and thus they could be violating the law by permitting me to buy alcohol for him...
did you get that? i did not...
we thus went to the next Kappy's, a little further down the road. i went in alone, couldnt find the martini (buuuuhhh!), but the gin etc i did find. and.... the girl at the counter did not even look at me.... and surely she did not ask me to prove i was above 21.....

Independence day

so yesterday the US of A celebrated the 4th of July. people gathered at the charles river for the fireworks, probably already hours in advance, sitting side by side on blankets (like resevering a spot for the "rommelmarkt" in Amsterdam for queensday). sooo many people, many with small children. they must have been so bored! the fireworks only started at 11, were over pretty quick, and in my opinion not very spectacular. this apartmentbuilding is at the river more or less, so these people had a good view without having to stand amidst the enormous crowd. i guess some people didnt understand why my camera was pointed that way, while the fireworks were behind me! :)
at some point they closed the bridges and you could net get on or off the small island anymore. one daring couple decided to strip to their underwear and cross the water to get onto the island. police was there immediately and ordered them to go back, which they didnt. they then got handcuffed (can you believe it!!!) and they were forced to sit on their knees whilst handcuffed and in underwear. it was horrible to see and totally unnecessary. wondered what happened to them... i guess they should never send the policemen on an internship to the netherlands during queensday, they will get crazy. this event confirmed my fear of the US police, not ever do i hope to have to deal with them....