Such landscapes....

no, this is not something you will find in the netherlands..... this was in december 2012 already, when we drove from..... texas to caliornia, or was it nevada. uuugghh. i dont remember exactly! also not which state this is. but i remember this very well. we had arrived after dark, found a cheap motel, and in the morning the landscape turned out to be amazing... as you can see above.... :)

perhaps this year we can once again make a road trip... i certainly would like that!!

Tuesday cemeteries...

i cannot remember when was the last time i posted a picture of a cemetery or grave.... even though we still goto cemeteries every now and then... i just collect all those pictures and then never do anything with them. so perhaps, perhaps now that there is some sort of regularity in life again due to work and what-not, i should also start posting cemetery-pictures on tuesday. this was somewhere along the road in scotland. during our 5 days we mainly had marvellous weather, but here it was raining. it resulted in beautiful clouds covering the mountains. and it fitted the mood of this cemetery. behind me was a little church, and graves were all around. most were from the early 1900s (although some more recent ones as well), but the texts on most of them were not very well readable.

Edinburgh castle

i was away for the weekend to the place without internet (i.e. tims place), but now im back in amsterdam. some of the plants on the balcony were not happy... i hope they will get better again, but im not sure this time...

this was in scotland over 2 weeks ago now. we arrived back from our little road trip around the scottish highlands on sunday evening, and then finally had a walk in the city. all the shops were closed (buuhhh!!), but luckily its even longer light out there than in the netherlands, so we still had quite some time to look around. i really like edinburgh. here you see part of the castle high up these rocks, and on the opposite side are the shops (and in between the park). the light was nice too..... we didnt get to visit the castle the next day. too little time and too much to see (unfortunately we then spent hours and hours on the airport, but well... how could we know the weather in the netherlands had been so bad (in edinburgh it was outstanding) that all flights were delayed).

here, the weather turned bad last week. lots of rain and it got a bit colder too... :( the days are getting noticeably shorter (ugh), and more and more people are returning from their holidays. im not really looking forward to commuting in the dark and rain. i anyways really have to get used to commuting. especially since it takes quite a lot of time each day. but well... better than not working!!

Far away...

this was in scotland too. i was faster taking pictures and got back in the car again (on the wrong side!!! hahahaha).

since monday, tim lives in groningen, a 2 hour drive from amsterdam. he started a new job as a doctor in the hospital in groningen (the biggest hospital of the netherlands). so, over the past weeks we furnished a place there. mostly with stuff we found in secondhand shops (often its so much nicer than ikea, and much much cheaper!), combined with some stuff that didnt fit in the apartment in amsterdam, and even quite some stuff we found on the streets in our neighborhood (every wednesday night you can put out "the big trash". quite often people put some really nice stuff out that they dont want anymore. more often than not, it doesnt stay on the street very long.... as we grab it, or more often, because others do so. there are even people driving around on wednesday evening, just to pick up anything that might be usuable...). anyways, i think the place is really nice now....

and me? im still in amsterdam.... in the weekends tim either should come back here, or i go there (its really far!! it feels like a foreign country almost! i know i know, for americans this distance is nothing, but for dutch you need to cross half the country!). not the ideal situation, and unlike anything we planned, but well.... sometimes you cannot choose.....

As expected...

this is sort of how i expected scotland to be. with a lonely castle at the water front..... lots of clouds and even more rain.... pretty, no??!!

never mind the parking lot and the huge number of tourists stopping for this castle as well... :) unlike us, most also walked over to the castle and had a look inside. we only had a look from this distance and drove on....

i want to tell you about all the changes that occurred the past few months. but today i am too tired... perhaps tomorrow! :)

Deserted roads

there are many things i miss from the usa now that i dont live there anymore. there are also things i do not miss at all, of course... :) but when i think back about those 3 years, i most often think about driving on empty roads in the middle of the desert. and if someone asked me what i wanted to do RIGHT now, it would be exactly that; driving on a deserted road somewhere in the USA. i would like some crazy heat with that, a summer dress and a hotel with pool at the end of the road..... i wouldnt even mind the cheap american hotel breakfast with tasteless pancakes that you make yourself in the wafflemaker. in fact, that is just part of the road trip experience....

at the moment, it is unseasonably warm (but no crazy heat like i know from boston) here in the netherlands. but i do miss the american apartment with the pool downstairs; right now all that comes up from downstairs is a constant stream of cigarette smoke/smell from our lovely neighbors (YUCK!). and..... every now and then you can drive on deserted roads here too! like you see above... if you take the small roads... (just before i took this picture quite some cars passed us, but well...)

Cemetery angel

when we visited trier in germany, we passed by a cemetery and walked around. there were quite some pretty statues on the graves, like this one above.

now its time for bed. tonight we move the clock 1 hour forwards again.... so from tomorrow onwards the days are really getting longer again...! too bad it costs one hour of sleep...

Fancy place?

we saw this castle while driving, yesterday. overlooking the vineyards and the little town at the banks of the mosel river.

this morning i didnt even try to upload a picture, the slow crappy internet. and... we had to pack and tidy up the bungalow, getting ready to go back home. yesterday evening many more people had arrived to the park, probably staying for a long weekend (again, most of them dutch!). we drove back and visited luik (liege) in belgium, where we wandered the flea market. too bad they were just packing up. then it was another 2+ hours to get back to amsterdam....

Hiking etc..

yesterday it was really sunny, so we decided to hike around in the neighborhood. we had a very brief description of several hikes around mont royal. choose one that would lead us down into the valley and back up again. in 3 hours. there were hardly signs so we choose the wrong turn a few times and had to go back. finally down we were not where we were supposed to be, according to the description... the names of most villages are somewhere on their vineyards, like above, but ofcourse we couldnt see any during our hike. and surely it started to rain while we left all rain clothes, umbrellas etc in the car. the clouds looked more threatening than it eventually was, but we didnt find the path back up and had to walk along the road. beeeehhh. that was not what we had planned. after 11.5 km we were back up.

then we drove around the neighborhood a bit, while we drove on this narrow bridge i took this pic.

Current view

well, the fog has gone done a bit further already... its going quite fast! we are on top of mont royal, and we had admired the view when we arrived monday evening. i was really excited yesterday to see the valley in the morning sun. but... when opening the curtains there was just thick fog. and it remained like that until we left (and i think quite a while after that). this morning it was really sunny, so i was sure that there was no fog... but... completely fogged up again when i opened the curtains. that was a few hours ago, but now, during breakfast, its slowly getting less....

yesterday we visited trier, the oldest german city. then in the evening we had a swim (theres a pool! so nice!) overlooking the other side of the valley. after that we watched some tv, and came to the conclusion its really more peaceful to live without a tv, like we do at home. i discovered there is some sort of reality program on the dutch tv (there are a lot of dutch tourists here, so they really cater to the dutch) where singles meet each other on a deserted island. while naked. and while being filmed naked. very, very weird. we also watched "opsporing verzocht". a program in which they ask the help of people in trying to find thiefs and criminals by showig their pictures and showing/telling what they did. it makes you afraid just to buy something at the store! (there are a lot of losers that are tricking especially old people they encounter in supermarkets to help them and while they get the "help" they ask for, they steal that person's bank card and take all their money).

ah, the internet connection is really crappy here. we have to pay for it, but often its not working, and half of the sites are not accessible or take ages to load. grrrrrr! time for some hiking in the neighborhood!

Exploring Germany

we are having  days off and decided togoto germany!! this was yesterday, on our way to our destination. as you might see, there are a lot of vineyards in this region. this is the mosel region. according to wikipedia, its the third largest in wine production of the 13 wine regions in germany. but... the leading region in international prestige!

while driving we had lots of sunshine, rain, hail, snow... and beautiful clouds. this morning its very misty, we cant see anything of the beautiful view we are supposed to have from our bungalow... :)

La photographie

so... we were in france! we had always wanted to see where photography was invented, in 1822... :D no, actually its not too far from where tims parents live and i certainly did not possess active knowledge as to where and when photography was invented. but now i do, and so do you!!

along the road is this giant plaque to make everyone aware that in the tiny french village of Chalon-sur-Saone mister nicephore niepce took the first photogravure etching, in 1822. this was the first important step for the development of photography. close to this place there is a museum, but we did not visit it (maybe next time?).

nicephore niepce (such a funny name) was an inventor of all sorts; together with his brother he also conceived, created and developed the worlds first internal combustion engine. despite this, he died a poor man; his brother spent all the money and there was not even enough money to pay for his funeral and grave. 

Me & bridge

it took me forever to remember the name of this park!! but now i do... its zion national park. we were there last year january and it was beautiful. it was a little chilly but not too bad. unfortunately, the hike we had planned didnt happen as halfway the road was closed due to giant icicles that might, or might not, fall off... so we just wandered around a little. and of course, only when we discovered the real cool part, it was time to move on as we still had quite a drive ahead of us. 

the park was really beautiful, but at this point in our trip we kind of were saturated. we had seen so much desert, beautiful nature, the grand canyon, the caves in pages (oops, i also forgot the name of that right now), etc etc. moreover, i couldnt get the pictures right; it was so much prettier in reality than on my camera and... well... we both sort of had it with all that beautiful stuff.... hard to imagine now but i very well remember that we both felt like that. after this, we drove on to las vegas and we were sort of happy to just be surrounded by ugliness for a change, and not having to ooh and aah at anything.... :D

and now? i want to go there again! i want to drive those roads, i want to see it all again..... 

Jan1st 2013

one year ago, on jan 1st 2013, we visited the grand canyon. it was cold. it was sunny. but really very cold. it was slippery (tim fell a few times, making me even more uncomfortable, standing there without a safety railing. but all for the picture, right?! now im just wondering what on earth i was wearing, but well...). most importantly, it was absolutely stunning. it was so impressive staring into these depths..... the entire roadtrip was amazing. just like the one we made the year before, when we spent new year in miami, after having driven through tennessee, mississippi, louisiana and florida. or our last trip, on the usa west coast.... 

this year we kept it simple, being back in the netherlands we stayed home on new years eve. tim had to work and came home only well after 8pm. we had dinner, watched some netflix (we still watch the american one), and waited till midnight. our lovely (not really) neighbours shot some fireworks from their balcony right underneath ours and kept me awake most of the night. really, aside from that, we had a nice evening! today, the first day of 2014 no grand canyon, but we did bike into amsterdam. visited a museum and took some pictures in the city. not too bad at all. but ok, a road trip would have been better... :)

so... thats my photo of the year for this months theme day!

Wheres that?!

well, yes, on a huge parking lot with no bike in sight, hahahaha! this we saw last march when we spent a morning in portland, oregon. we actually didnt see many bikes while we were there. and to be honest, we were not really enchanted by the city. but maybe we werent there at the right time or right location. and yes, we only spent a morning....

most certainly, if portland is the bicycle capital of the US, it still needs a whole lot more bikes to beat any given city in the netherlands... :)

Canada & broccoli

im on tims computer and was looking for a photo to post... then i checked the 2012 folder and realized it was just a year ago that we visited niagara falls. a year! i was really surprised... somehow it feels like ages ago already. if im not mistaken, we were staying in one of those fancy glass buildings and paid way too much for our stay. but it was so amazing to get to see the falls! and to be able to drive there... now it all seems (and is, ofcourse) so far away!!

here, back home im still debating whether i like the overly used american "excuse me" and the americans that rather move aside more than necessary in order to avoid too close contact with strangers, or the dutch way of just bumping into someone if you dont move quickly enough. i have to admit; i never liked the "excuse me" while in the us and never have been able to utter it myself, but now back home i realize that dutch strangers sometimes get far too close to me and i then still wonder why they dont say "excuse me".

also, broccoli tastes different here. i really liked brocccoli in the usa, but here i like it less. while eating broccoli today, i mentioned this to tim and he agreed!! we couldnt really pinpoint what it was (the taste? or the florets are a little different, maybe smaller, here?), but i was glad not being the only one thinking broccoli is a bit of a disappointment in the netherlands... :)

Obviously, this....

...is not in the netherlands!! this was back in march, on our way to yosemite in california. it was such a beautiful ride!! here we had lunch in the hot sun, and that one little cloud just kept hanging there, haha. we took a little too long during lunch and arrived in yosemite pretty late (but still had a nice hike there. just too bad that we left the park while it was dark).

yesterday we again wanted to go to the cinema here in amsterdam. and again didnt go, since it was... yes... raining again! taking public transport takes too long, and sitting in the cinema all wet from biking in the rain isnt fun either. maybe next week... so different from the us, where we wouldnt even have to go out, but just had to walk down to the garage underneath our apartment, hop in the car... (i once walked home from the cinema there; it took an hour....)

Last March

in march we were in death valley, california, and now im back in amsterdam since a while already. its still  so weird! i really miss these sceneries and the relative ease with which we were able to visit all this beauty.... now im back to good old (and yes, pretty, but pretty in such a very, very different way) holland, and not taking that many photos... also, im skipping days with posting for whatever reason.... (i guess a combination of laziness and lack of new photos). im still not entirely out of the "getting-used-to-be-back-home-again-phase", i guess.... i miss the endless empty roads in the us, and the hours you could drive seeing extremes in landscapes. in the netherlands you are out of the country within 3 hours!! (thats why the speed limit on most highways in 100km/hr, otherwise you would be out of the country even faster).

here in death valley we had parked the car down the little hill, and walked up under the sizzling hot sun. we did it because everyone else did it, eager not to miss anything. i think it was the ladies you see here in the front that said to us when passing "well, that was a total waste of our efforts!". that was just so weird to me! i thought it was pretty, and even in the hot sun its nice to be out and not seeing everything just from the car....

Self portrait

nooo, this is not in the netherlands, this is yosemite, where we were back in march!! but we didnt take any self portraits recently. or many other photos, for that matter... it was so pretty there, and we had so little time. just one afternoon. we did one hike, and didnt know exactly how long it would be. with all the warnings for bears and whatnot, that was a little scary to me... and it was indeed getting dark when we finally got back to the car (i already saw ourselves stranded somewhere high up, with a bear taking our last food. hmm, actually we didnt bring much. yes, we were really not that well prepared). 

lif here in amsterdam is quite different! :) no bears for sure..... but the weather at the moment is really good. jipppiiieeee!!

An elephant?

this was last year, in valley of fire, not too far from las vegas. an image i had seen already many times, like most people, i guess. in reality i thought... hmmm, really? elephant? and then i tried to take the picture as it was in my mind already, and ofcourse i didnt manage... i guess usually its taken from the other side...

earlier this evening i already tried to upload a photo (a more recent one!), but firefox refuses to do so, nowadays. now its 2.30 in the night and my cough does not let me sleep, so i decided to try again. i only have this folder with pictures from this holiday last year... there are so many images from the usa that i know since long before we came here, and its really so cool to now have visited (some of) them in person!!

now, let me try to sleep again... good night!