Amsterdam houseboat

here you see some houseboat in a canal in amsterdam. i guess its a bit more expensive to have on in this city compared to groningen. also here, you are not really having a private place. on summer days many people will come by in boats. the houses on both sides, and of course the traffic and all the tourists... :) no garden either....

tommorrow regular life starts for most again; universities start the new year, all primary and secondary schools have started again... etc etc. by now most everyone should have come back from holidays. i had a quiet start into working life again over the summer. and now i just hope it wont be too crowded in the train....

House boats

these boats are not for sailing (anymore), they are for living!! some used to be real boats, others arent, and a few still can be used to get around..... this is in a canal in the city center of groningen.

tim also lives in a boat now. but not here! its a bit more outside the center, and there is a real garden, and more privacy.... ever since i visited a boat a few years back, i have wanted to live on one at least once... now i sort of do. in the weekends... :) for poor people like us its perfect; a free standing house!!! who can get something like that in the netherlands?! it moves too, gently (and sometimes a bit more, when large ships are passing through the large canal nearby... or because of the weather). its really a totally different experience, living on the water. its cute to see the ducks all assemble when you get into the kitchen. i guess they want food. and indeed, its very tempting to just throw whatever food you dont want into the water (that actually happens a lot, quite often an onion comes by, or an apple, or a piece of... etc etc). and its fun to see boats come by while you are having breakfast.... its not too big, but big enough (as most of the stuff is still here in amsterdam), and the kitchen is actually bigger than the one in amsterdam. or rather, its square instead of a long, narrow hallway, so 2 people can move around in it..... i should take some pics... next time im there! (this weekend tim is coming to amsterdam...)

Crazy clouds!

well hello!! i thought it was about time to post a new picture...... :)

i took this one a few weeks back, but only now i noticed the magnificent clouds... i didnt notice it when i took the picture, nor did i when i was looking at them at my computer.... only now, when i decided that the first of august was a good date to post again.....

so, this is amsterdam, and the weather has been good quite often the past few weeks. at times even hot. plenty opportunity to cruise the canals, as you can see here... we just came back from the theater, that you can see here to the left, on top it says "carre" in red letters.

well well well. lots has changed. other things have remained the same..... more on that in the coming posts? and yes, i most certainly am curious about the blogs i just to check regularly. i havent in a while... but i did think about you!! :) hope all is well!

Defense tower

i took this picture when we were out on the canals of amsterdam in a boat!! it was so pretty, especially when at sunset. you really get a different view from amsterdam than when standing on the bridges... recently i took a picture of this tower while standing on the nearest bridge, and was sure this was a church. so... i was just going over google maps, looking for a church around that location.... but it isnt a church at all! this tower is called the "montelbaanstower" and was built in 1516 at the then outer city limits, to defend the city. to pay for digging of this canal and to build the tower, taxes on beer were increased. as in 1591 the city grew beyond the tower, it no longer served its purpose. the upper half was extended to its decorative form (i would say church-like form) in 1606. in dutch, you can read quite a bit about the history of this tower here.

ha, i also found an interesting news report from last year october; the municipality was looking to rent the place out again. from 2009 to 2013 it was being used by "secret garden", an organization for gay muslims. the rent was 9000 euros (!!) per month (although the organization did get some discount). no word on who i srenting it now though...

One more...

ok, ok, i showed you this before, and then yesterday a close-up. but look what some calmer water, different light, and, most importantly, trees that were cut down can do to a view!! see, if you compare the above with this picture... it just looks completely different!

the trees were cut down because they were ill. but... they will be replaced, eventually....

De afsluitdijk

yes, yesterdays and todays post were taken at the "afsluitdijk", literally the "enclosure dam". it is a 32 kilometer (20 miles) long dike, between the dutch provinces north holland and friesland, and was built between 1927 and 1933. by building this dam, the zuiderzee ("southern sea"; a salt water inlet of the north sea) was transformed into a fresh water lake (ijsselmeer). this dam protects the dutch from floods, and allowed them to claim new land from the fresh water lake. this resulted in an entire new province in the netherlands, called "flevoland"!

so, above you see the sea to the right, and the sea-tunred-into-lake to the left as a result of this dam. we stopped at the memorial, here i am standing at the bridge they built to cross and have an outlook over the highway on the dam. it is at the location where the dam was eventually closed in 1932. this huge project resulted in a lot of jobs and relieved unemployment during the great depression. the american society of civil engineers declared it one of the 7 wonders of the modern world. to the right you see a statue staring out over the ijsselmeer. this is the dutch civil engineer cornelis lely. already in 1891 he formulated a plan that would become the basis for this dike and thus the damming of the zuiderzee.

Sinking ship

when i took this photo a few weeks back i didnt want to post it, since its so grey. but currently the weather is like this.... or its raining. beeehhh!

the amsterdam canals are filled with little boats. somehow tim got the impression that you can put your boat anywhere for free (and he kept saying, i want a boat too!!), but thats not the case. just like for your car, you have to pay to park your boat. i read somewhere 30 euros per meter of boat (but im not sure). anyways, its not free, and if you do park your boat without paying, they can tow it, just like your car. they also periodically remove boats that look like the one above, so after heavy rain etc you should definitely check whether your boat still looks fine...

as for the leak in the apartment; someone was supposed to come today. and then didnt... they were swamped taking care of apartments with leaks much worse than ours. today it rained, but luckily not inside. its not sure yet when the will come, but i hope it wont take too long....

I'm lazy!

today we saw some guys jumping off the roof of the ICA (institute of contemporary art) into the boston harbor. some 90 feet if i remember correctly. before they were down in the water, they did some nice turns and flips and what-not. but it went so very fast i missed many of the jumps (i guess a jump took 3 seconds?). also, i did not want to sit ready with my camera, until they would finally make the jump. and the few times i did, i didnt see anything of the jump as i was too busy clicking..., or seeing that i held my camera wrong and he jumped a little to the right, or left... most shots that i did manage to take were blurry, or just empty... 

i guess this is the only one that worked out... :)

it was super- supercrowded! but the weather was nice, and we had a good spot (thanks to our friends who were there much earlier than us; we somehow managed to miss the stop while on the subway, and had to go back, and it all took forever and ever). ah well... i dont think i want to become a cliff diver (they were all wearing tiny speedos), and before people realize what you are doing is amazing, its already over. besides, i prefer to be in the water, rather than jumping into it all the time....

Watching whales...

i guess yesterdays sunflowers helped; it was very sunny and warm today! we got up quite early, baked some bread (yumyumyum!!) and drove to gloucester. an hour or so from our apartment. there we got loaded onto a boat with many, many other people. whale sighting was guaranteed, and if not, you would get a season's pass to come back whenever (i dont know whether the whales ON the boat were regarded as sightings...). finally, we set off... for... cape cod... hahaha. we first drove an hour north just to sail down south.... it was more than a 2 hour boatride before we arrived at the whales territory where they were having lunch, dinner and breakfast.... despite the sun it was pretty chilly! the sea however was silky smooth, without any waves. we first saw a huge shark, which was amazing... click click click. and then we saw a few whales. click click click again... :D i kept thinking; should i watch, or should i watch through my lens...? i did both. it was really cool to see. they are sooo huge! their breathing ofcourse was funny (just like in the movies, hahahahaha), and their diving down. only one we saw did a tiny little trick, that you can see above. i could "just" see it; there were too many people in front of me to take a picture of it, but tim did! (a photoshopmaster then would magically erase and refill the right corner... but im not. so ijust give it to you as is). isnt that cool? it was quite spetacular to see them, even without any tricks orjumping in the air or whatever.i canonly imagine how amazing that would be!!

and then after a while of wathcing them swimming around, and saying ooh and aaaahhh! and tons of pics with a huge black shiny thing in the ocean, sometimes their fins, it was time to get back again, another 2 hours.... so now i have a tiny little sunburn and a lot of sleep! good night!

Retirement destination

again did not know what photo to show for today. i was looking for one pic to show it all, but ofcourse that one doesnt exist! we woke up in this fancy hotel in tampa and went straight for the pool again. we were a bit slow this morning (also, we switched back to "our" time again, so we basically lost the hour we gained when arriving in memphis), but we didnt have to drive that far today. we first looked around in tampa a bit. it looked nice! and: it was sooo sunny! no jacket needed, the temperature was perfect. tampa seemed quite a modern city, we went through it quite randomly, without a proper tourist guide or whatever (we did see an ice skating rink! haha... in a city where it last snowed in 1977) then we drove to st. petersburg, a city located on a peninsula between tampa bay and the gulf of mexico. there we went to the dali museum, which was in a very special building (photos later..). i really liked to see so much of his work, and to see that his early work is so different from what (i guess) most people (including me) know. really beautfiful, weird paintings and funny titles. unfortunately it was extremely crowded in the museum... grrr... but we managed to see it all, and from up close (so much detail!). then it was already 4 and we still had to drive to our next stop. i suddenly realized we missed sunsets on the beach for the past 2 days, so today we really had to... the sun was amazingly red while setting and we tried to get to the beach... that turned out to be difficult! right at sunset we drove trough al place where all the beaches were private! we found a house for sale and after all the abandoned places we have seen we assumed it would be empty, but.. while running through their garden... we saw the owners sitting outside... oops. we drove a little further and found a bare piece of land surrounded by "no tresspassing" signs. well, it as our last opportunity to see the sun setting into the sea! so we went.. it was beautiful but the sun had gone down already...  buuuuhh.. :(

ah well... now we are in fort myers. in yet another fancy motel! it has a huge pool, with real lanes for real swimming.... jeejjj! so thats what we did immediately after arrival. 

ah, and now i entirely forgot about the pic i posted; thats right behind the dali museum, in st. petersburg. you can see how sunny it is! i just read on wikipedia that this city is also named "god's waiting room", because so many people go here for their retirement (either american or otherwise). the other nickname is "sunshine city", since it is sunny here for 360 days a year... you choose which one you like best!

NOLA skyline

couldnt choose which picture to post! something from the colorful french quarter? the less touristy and less well off neighborhood around it? the sculpture garden? canal street? (i really liked that street) a cemetery? (they are really different from the ones i know) the mississippi river? with or without a boat? so... i choose the skyline of new orleans (NO) in louisiana (LA) as seen from algiers point. as you can see it was rather misty, and this lasted the entire day, so i dont really know what the skyline of NOLA looks like...

new orleans really feels different from memphis, and i liked it better. it was definitely more lively, and there was more to see. the houses more colorful and cute. and palm trees! those make a difference too, and i really think they can make any place look more friendly... the air felt much warmer here too, it really felt tropical and humid. unfortunately it was not the best day; it was raining on and off, and the entire day there was a dense fog. that made for some nice pictures though. this morning we were about to take the ferry to algiers point by foot, but just before departure they told us it would not be coming back until the fog was less dense... (you could really see nothing ahead of you). we thus went off again and instead drove around new orleans a bit, and finally drove to algiers point ourselves. that was much nicer as we explored the area a little more. then i snapped the above pic and we were just in time to take the ferry back, for 1 dollar (free when by foot). the mist above the mississippi river was so beautiful! and it was interesting that it got really cold when we went through it. a boat next to us completely disappeared and then appeared again... cool!

i think i will post more pictures later, on my flickr account. i guess when we are back, since now there is no time... :) but there is so much i would like to show!

Both shooting

this was in california this august, when we took a boat tour.... both of them were experiencing most of the ride through their lenses. they were not there together, and it looked so funny, sometimes they were both shooting one way, then the other, and sometimes it looked like above.... im curious who ended up with the better pictures.

currently, we dont have internet at home, which is very frustrating. so sometimes i goto the common room at our apartment complex, or, as right now, im forced togoto the mc donalds, and eat a sundae icecream while updating my blog... ;)
(as a result, i also cannot visit other blogs as often as i want... :((( , i hope we have internet soon again)

Charles river

yes, we were in a canoe on the charles river yesterday! the weather was great... so that was really nice.. many boats were there, too, already in place for the fireworks later that day. the river banks were full with people as well, entire families on blankets, waiting the entire day for the fireworks that only started at 10.30 that evening.

i still dont understand the concept. americans go and sit all day in the hot sun to have the best spot to see the fireworks, but as soon as it is done, they all run out as fast as possible, not taking one moment to contemplate.... well, what should they contemplate.. something, anything! nope, all they think of is getting out of there as soon as possible... :)

Its summer!

today summer officially started! here in boston its warm, since a little while. unfortunately, at work they put the airconditioning on high, so inside im cold, most of the times, and need warmer clothes than during winter. aarghhh! 

the picture above i took almost exactly 2 years ago, in the netherlands. those boys were enjoying the water, by jumping into it over and over again. it is around utrecht, where i lived. this part is sooo beautiful! i think that winter it was so cold that even this lake got frozen. it was fun to walk on it, while just months before we were swimming in it....

today was also the longest day... :( buuuh, already from today on, the days will get shorter again. and they are already shorter here than in the netherlands! here it starts to get dark around 8.45 now....

By boat

a picture of Boston as seen from a boat! not a pic form last night, it was too dark already, and i generally do not like night pictures of cities. this was last week, when we were on a ferry with sylvia! very cloudy... and rather heavy rain can come from them quite suddenly (luckily it happened after we left the ferry).
today its very sunny and hot, and i am in the lab. yegh... but about to leave!!

Electric six

yesterday we were on a boat. to listen to electric six, a band from Detroit. ah well, i dont know them, but tim was crazy when he founc out there were cheap tickets, and that the concert would be on a boat floating around Boston. i liked that latter part and joined, as the music is rather ... well.. whenever he sometimes had it on, i asked him to switch to something else. :)
ah well, the views of boston were nice, unfortunatly no romantic sunset, it started raining instead. it was fun to observe all the different people there. 2 were in gala-outfit; they looked rather out of place. but maybe so did i, not going crazy on their music, but rather watching the sky, the planes taking off (one came really close!!), and the lightning! this is a pic of the guitar player, right after they were done. at first he was just walking "freely", and i found that soo weird! wasnt there no one who wanted to tell him how great it was? or whatever... but just as he started to go through the crowd (to get some attention?), a girl grabbed him and they talked for a while, then i lost track of him (ah, its the one in the white shirt on the left). according to tim he looked less impressive without his guitar (maybe thats why no one spoke to him; didnt recognize him anymore?), but this is all i saw from Electric six...

Sylvia weekend

so this is why tim wanted to get martini!! he knew sylvia was coming over from San Diego.....!!! on saturday early morning, there suddenly was someone in our fancy apartment, while i was showering (tim told me i had to get up immediately for a surprise, and i had just heard him talking on the phone). and then... there was sylvia!!! jeeejjj!! we had a swim in "our" pool, we went to boston and got in a heavy rainstorm causing flooding of the subway (later another post on that), and we went to amherst to visit patrick and his wife anne!! we had a perfect dinner on their porch and when we left it was late.. when we got home, a 2 hour drive, it was even later.... :)
on sunday more sightseeing- we took a ferry-, watching the soccer game with yvonne & wouter who were here to apply for postdoc positions! saw harvard square and all, dancing & singing spanish girls in the subway (buuuuuuhhhhh... we were the only orange there), more swimming and then the weekend was gone again, it went soooo fast even though we cut back on sleep... :(
it was a great surprise!!!! :)
(and surely more pics later about everything and nothing)

Sudden storm (2)

the sudden rainstorm from yesterday still amazes me, therefore another picture. this one was taken within the same minute as the one from yesterday. as you can see, here the buildings in the background are not yet covered in clouds, and in less than a minute, it was all gone... (see yesterday)!

Sudden storm

we took the ferry from boston to charlestown to see boston from a boat. while the ferry took off, the weather turned crazy in just 2 minutes. when we left, boston was still "normal", but within seconds, clouds came trickling down, covering the buildings. it was amazing to see, and unfortunately impossible to photograph. while still standing jaw-dropped, very very heavy rain started, and we all were urged inside, but the few seconds it took to downstairs were enough to get wet entirely. in no time boston disappeared in thick clouds. we were in a floating cocoon and all there was to see was water and rain, instead of boston :(
the plan was to walk around a little in charlestown and then catch a bus back home. but... there was toooo much wind and rain, and we thus took the ferry right back (it was only $1.70). luckily that was enough time for the weather to turn a bit back to normal and we could take some more nice pics of cloudy boston...