Purple ride

soooo... today its purple, which is still my favorite color! this is in the car museum in the hague, where we went the day before tims birthday. i actually wanted to go shopping that day, and that was also the plan when we left the house, but instead we went to the museum and it really took forever to get out of it again. they have nearly 250 cars!!! and even without reading all the descriptions and not staring at each one intently, it took ages to get through the museum. and yes, at some point i was a bit bored! there were just so many, many.... cars..... the highlight for me was the purple car above. its in the central hall, so i had seen it upon entering the museum already..... it was custom made in new jersey in 2008, and the back has room for a harley davidson motor (as you can see here).

the museum was about to close, but there was still time to do some lunging in front of the purple car.... :) afterwards, there was just a tiny bit of time left for shopping...... ah well, it was for tims birthday after all....

They read?

this store sells all kinds of appliances, but they dont like it when dogs urinate on their displayed goods. the yellow note says: "doggies, you can look, but do not piss on it!" in dutch it sounds like a silly rhyme for the "kijken" (to watch) and the "zeiken" (to piss). but i just didnt know dogs could read... :)

the weather has cooled down again. buuuuuhhhh. now we are back to normal temperatures for this time of the year.

Dutch cheese

something i have been enjoying a lot since we are back in the netherlands; dutch cheese. so goooooodddd!!! we really didnt eat a lot of good cheese in the usa, i have to say..... above you see the big yellow cheeses... in some fancy shop in amsterdam for tourists.... (i dont think this shop was there 3 years ago, but i could be wrong. taken back in december as you can see by the decorations).

other things i enjoy; "drop" (liquorice) and cookies! we eat way too many cookies... i very well remember the first time i bought some cookies in the usa (nearly 10 years ago now, how weird is that!). when trying them, i thought there was something wrong with them. probably i had bought a pack that wasnt sealed properly. so the next time in the supermarket i got cookies again. and then i realized that that was probably how they were supposed to be; soft and chewy! it was the weirdest thing to me, and i never really got to like american cookies. dutch cookies are hard and crunchy! 

ah, we enjoy croissants too, and lots of other dough-stuff. like cheese in puff pastry.... hmmmm, and properly fried fries... its a miracle i actually lost some weight since being back..... :D

Shop window

i thought this was quite a fancy dress! a shop window somewhere in the center of amsterdam. but we didnt go in, this shop looked too expensive!!

now that sinterklaas has left the country, its time to get ready for christmas. as a "rule", many dutch dont want to decorate, think or have anything to do with christmas until sinterklaas is over. i saw some nice christmas decorations a week or 2 ago, but tim didnt allow me to get it, since sinterklaas was still in the country.. :) and well, we didnt need it anyways.... now i would like to get a small christmas tree. we shipped the nicest christmas decorations we collected in the usa back home, so i do want to hang them here! 

ah, and i do need to share this with you; today i (and tim as well) ran about 6 miles in 1 hour! i never ran 6 miles, and i never ran an hour. somehow i am stuck in the 3 miles, approximately 30 minutes scheme and i didnt manage to get out of it (it was more like this; before every workout i would say to myself; now this time go beyond the 3 miles!! but whenever i would get to 3, i would stop out of tiredness and boredom). so i am really proud of myself!! my nike-ipod-gadget-thingy was proud too, at the end of the "workout" it said: "hi, this is lance armstrong. congratulations, this was your longest run ever!". i do feel it in my legs now... buuuhhh...

Only $10.50!

i was running out of fruit and vegetables. but i cant drive, and our favorite supermarket is a 10-minute drive away. so... i went to haymarket in boston! its a 15 minute ride or so with the subway, and the market is right outside the station (which is aptly named haymarket)

the t-shirt stand next to the subway station was already selling t-shirts saying; "boston marathon, 04/15/13, we will never forget", which i just found sad and a little creepy.

i spent 10 dollars and 50 cents, and above you can see what i got. the quality greatly varies at haymarket, sometimes the stuff they sell is literally rotting, but what i got today seemed all very good. except the strawberries; 2 boxes for 1 dollar! they are about to go bad, so im thinking to bake some sort of strawberrycake tomorrow..... they also had 3 pounds of tomatoes for 1 dollar, but i decided the small box with cherry tomatoes was enough for me...

(for the scientists; yes, those are 2 50ml falcon tubes on top of the stove....)

Holiday shopping

a shop window somehere in boston... i just dont know what the sentence on the window means "the woman prepares for the holidays". literally? the woman does all the work? (the cooking, etc), or does she prepare herself by buying this (boring) blue dress? or....? i also seem to see a moustache, at least on the doll to the left... 

anyways, we didnt do much holiday shopping. thats the advantage if you live on the other side of the ocean... ;) i did buy some shoes, yesterday. for myself. and tim bought 2 pairs. the guy at the counter asked us about our holiday shopping, and if we were almost done.... i just answered that it was, with the 3 pairs of shoes... :D

December 5

this is some very nice decoration in "de bijenkorf" in amsterdam, a department store. i guess you could compare it to nordstrom in the us. these are "zwarte pieten", or black petes, the helpers of "sinterklaas". here they climb up and down the ropes, its really nice to see. they are there every year, for as long as i can remember.  "sinterklaas" is comparable to santa claus; in fact, santa claus' origins are said to come from the dutch sinterklaas. he arrives from spain somewhere in november, and leaves on december 6th. its mainly a feast for children; you can place your shoe at the chimney, with something in it for sinterklaas' horse, and if you have been good, you get a little present or some candy. on december 5, you get some more (and bigger) presents. the zwarte pieten have black faces since they go through the chimney to get the presents into the houses (so i never understood how children living in a house without a chimney could get presents; luckily we did have one). as a child, i liked sinterklaas much more than santa claus, which we also celebrate, probably because sinterklaas takes several weeks and i got more presents... :)

every year, people are complaining about the zwarte pieten; as they are "helpers" of sinterklaas, and black on top of that, they see it as a racist feast. but, as said, their faces and hands are black because of the chimney, and i dont think that children see them as anything else than providers of candy and presents, and it really is a feast for children!! (occasionally they see them as scary as only children that behave well get presents, and parents sometimes threaten their children that if they misbehave they will be taken to spain together with sinterklaas and zwarte piet...). 

But why?!

today it was black friday (the day just ended 5 minutes ago); the start of the christmas shopping season in the usa, and the day on which all stores give (or pretend to give) large discounts on their products. actually, it started already last night. when we drove home from the thanksgiving dinner, we passed a "big k market" (a department store, nothing special as far as i remember), where some 20 people were standing in line in front of the entrance. it was about 9. at home, i checked when the store would open; midnight!! i dont know how long they had been there already, but sitting outside, on thanksgiving (a seemingly very important holiday for americans) at 9 for a store to open at midnight just makes me wonder WHY?!

i think last year many stores opened "only" at 4 in the night, so i guess next year they might just be open on thanksgiving....  for us, it was our third black friday, and yet again we did not set foot in any store. i would have liked to observe the spectacle, but its hard to be present in such a huge crowd of people without being part of it, unless you can fly, no? tim found this video, and that actually made me happy i was not present, i would defenitely not have liked to be in such a shopping-crazy-crowd!

the sculpture was not made for black friday :) i saw it in new york, when we were there in june with my sister. its in the city hall park, until the end of this month, together with several other interesting works of art. the sculpture is named "memorial for unknown artist", by thomas schutte (here you can read more about it)

Giant deer

when we were in toronto it was really cold! we didnt really find our way, and were frustrated that we had to pay for parking on a sunday (in boston its free on sundays, so sometimes we do a little crazy and goto the city by car....). besides, when we finally got a parking spot we could stay there only for 3 hours (stupid rules!!), on top of that we were so stupid to not change our watches yet to wintertime and so while walking through cold windy streets we suddenly didnt know whether we had to rush back to the car or not... do we have another hour, or....?

both me and tim were not impressed with toronto, but perhaps we didnt find the good part... we did find the shopping mall and i loved the deer they had placed there (there were several)! look how gigantic this one is! 

Christian eggs....?

yes, this is an egg carton. the one you get in the shop, with eggs in it. when i took the last ones today, i suddenly saw these eggs are christian... the psalm in the carton says; "this is the day which the lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." hmm... suddenly i felt bad we had used up a dozen eggs without knowing they are christian. yuk! but i presume it was a heavenly sign i discovered it on a sunday... no?

its also a different brand than we usually have, and i wondered where we got those eggs from. now i finally remember; from Aldi! this is a supermarket originally from germany, and it surprises me they sell christian eggs. i really wonder whether the german aldi eggs are christian too.... wikipedia tells me aldi is already in the usa since the 70s, so they had some time for religious change, i guess...

i find it really weird to see christian verses on stuff i buy. i once showed you they do it at in-n-out burger in california (although they there only refer the verse, and do not print the actual text). same with forever21, a clothing store for young people. i recently saw that their shopping bags refer to a verse as well! but i doubt that the clothes they sell at forever21 are suitable for church....

then there are some other companies that let religious beliefs have a major impact on their business model as well, here in the usa. i have been trying to come up with a dutch or european company that does that too, but i really cannot think of one. from that (haha, i could not even remember at first where bought those eggs, but well.... from that i conclude that this is something typical american... and i find it very odd!

ah, the last 4 christian eggs were used for my very first pumpkin pie, very american too. and i have to say that it is definitely not my favorite pie.... (luckily the homemade crust and the whipped cream we flavored with some brandy made up for it, a little...)

Some shopping

this is the "gateway center", a place with some shops not too far from our house. there is a huge, gigantic parking lot, and several shops. every so many miles, you find such a shopping center here in the us. often you can only get to them by car. the shops are more or less the same, and they are huge. i always wonder how so many shops, the same shops, can coexist so close to each other. usually there is a "home depot", which sells everything for your do it yourself (DIY as they call that here) home improvement and construction (like a dutch "gamma", but then 10 times bigger). there is a paper store, for all your office needs, also enormous, an enormous toy store, a crafts store (we were there this weekend for the first time; my goodness, i didnt know that they could fill such an enormous store with... well... that kind of stuff), and usually there is a target, a retail store. perhaps comparable to the dutch "V&D", but ofcourse much bigger. then there are some (cheaper) shoe/sport or clothing stores. and i really cannot stop wondering how this is sustainable. within a not too big radius we have a few of these malls, all with the same stores. especially their size is very weird for a dutch... :) even our supermarkets arent this big, or numerous (i also imagine that the tiny size of all stores in the netherlands must be a shock for americans! haha.... also, dont expect to buy your stuff in as large quantities as you can here; most beverages (milk, orange juice, etc) are sold at a max of 1 ltr per bottle, shampoo and stuff is in at least 2 times smaller bottles than here, and i guess double the price etc etc.).

anyways. we sometimes goto target, although we never need anything. and then we come out having bought all kinds of stuff. or the shoe store (although not the above one, im a fan of DSW; shoes can be so deceivingly cheap there! i cant go there too often, as i always buy a new pair of shoes. even after more than 2 years in the us, i still tend to think in dutch/european prices when it comes to clothing and shoes, and its soooo much more cheaper here!!). this time (sunday) i got some clothes; a trouser, a shirt and a dress, together for just 30 dollars..... :)

Free ride!

saw this on the window of some shop, quite a while ago... 

the week has gone by so fast! this evening me and tim both started with (almost) the same ingredients for making bread. only he used yeast and i used a sourdough starter... and... he is better at kneading the dough it turns out than i am. tomorrow morning we will bake them to see which bread tastes better. im very curious!! perhaps soon we wont be buying bread anymore...

Just cute

i have posted more often pics of this sculpture in the public garden (like here, here and here). i guess every time i go by there i take a picture. i think every single kid loves it and it is so cute to see!

sometimes people (who? just anyone? i dont know!) dress the ducks up a bit. sometimes for some sports game, for christmas, etc. or just to dress them up. but i dont think they need any of that. they are wonderful just as they are!

we went for some shopping today. a store was moving to another location and had huge discounts. i was very content with everything i bought, it was amazingly cheap (one of the blouses i got was just 75 cents! and a pair of hiking boots for 8 dollars (they were 150 or so? tim wanted them, but they didnt fit him, so he was very happy, but jealous at the same time, when they did fit me). but... somehow i walked out of that shop with a huge bag of stuff for a total of 60 dollars! yep, huge discounts, but had everything been priced normally i wouldnt have spent anything.... smart, those sales people....

Winter shoes

i was so happy when i found those! then i had to decide, get them in red, black or blue.... black was too boring. blue too blue. so it was red. and then there was hardly any snow... :( i was really looking forward to the mountains and mountains of snow we surely would get, just like last year. but this time i would be really prepared with a nice set of snow boots...

today it was 20 degrees celsius!! (above 65 F, i guess). and yesterday it was warm too. 

now i just hope we dont get a cold crappy summer..

Impossible heels

i like shoes. at home we have this cute bench of which you can lift the seat, revealing a lot of storage space. many of my shoes are in there (although not all.... it didnt fit). sometimes i look in it, and see a pair i had forgotten about... yeejj! i also like to try on shoes. especially here in the us, where the heels seem higher and the shoes more ridiculous. i dont own a pair of high heels as pictured above, but i have tried on many models and had tim picture it (here another example). this furry model was in the sales section, there were many of them. i guess they were just too weird....

when we were in miami during new year's eve, we saw many, many dressed up ladies. heels like this or higher. and most ladies were not very well trained in walking on them. it was fun to see... 

when we were about to return to our hotel, we saw 3 girls. it could have very well been the girls we saw earlier that day on the beach. they were all wearing a super short skirt and killer heels. then... one of them dropped her phone. she reached out her hand to pick it up, but at the same time the other hand went to the back of her skirt, and she realized she could not pick up the phone. there they were, standing on the sidewalk like 3 bambi's, just learning how to stand on their hoofs. she reached out her hand again, but the pavement was really far away! i was about to walk back and pick up that phone when another passerby did just that. and guess what?! right after that she dropped it again, and the entire scene repeated itself. standing there helplessly on their impossible heels. but being oh so pretty....

i wish i could have taped that!! most certainly, if i ever were to make a movie, that would be one of the scenes i would include... :)

When snow...

....refuses to come to boston..we have to go to the snow! grrr... still not one flake here... :( i liked it so much last year, and now... nothing, nothing, nothing... 

we went to new hampshire, where they dont have a 6.25% sales tax like massachusetts. depending on what you buy, this can make a difference! so, an hour away from our house, there was snow, jeejjj! but it was also really cold. i am still a bit sick, so mostly we just sat in the car and enjoyed the view (we tried not to take the highway).

around here you can find abandoned houses/cars/shops as well. we saw some (but not as many as in mississippi), like this car above. the door was open, and inside was a total deteriorated mess..

Liquor store

now doesnt this look like a very american liquor store?

i still cant get used to the fact that you have to goto a separate store to buy alcohol. its weird and inconvenient... even so we dont drink that much... :) ah, and lets not forget tha you need to show you are above 21! even if you are not buying the alcohol, but just came along.. if not everyone in your party can prove they are above 21, you sometimes wont get it (but i wrote about that once before). but the most frustrating is when you goto a restaurant, and dont get your drink, as has happened to me far too often by now (i dont always take my passport with me, and that always turns out to be the case when i want a drink... )

ah well... at least its cheaper that way... ;)

Shopping fever

the day after thanksgiving is called black friday... most stores have lots of discounted goods for the real americans. some stores opened at 4 this morning, others already at midnight... and some fanatics just skipped their thanksgiving to camp out in front of whatever store has whatever discounted product they want to buy. as you can see here; those people planted themselves in front of a store at 1 in the morning of thanksgiving, and spent 24 hours just to be the first allowed inside upon opening. why? because the most heavily discounted things will run out, and what if you miss out on all those amazing deals?! but well, nobody is harmed when you sit outside a mall for 24 hours, while everyone else is enjoying a nice thanksgiving.. :) on the other hand... in los angeles there was a lady who pepper sprayed 20 people as to prevent them from getting stuff she wanted to buy. other than that, there were some shootings and burglaries, as you can read here. we were briefly thinking to go and check out some mall at midnight yesterday, just as observers... but the thought of so many shoppers gone crazy... made me tired and we just went to sleep.. anyways, i found some pis of crazy bargain hunters here..

of course, occupiers around the nation had some opinion about this day too (actually the pic above i took at occupy boston; this is the tent where they make signs, to state the obvious). i just saw on the occupy boston facebook page that some occupiers went to meditate in some mall, apparently around a vending machine (to prevent shoppers from buying something to eat/drink?), and one got arrested.

they are all crazy!!! the best bargain would be when staying at home, buying NOTHING!! but i have to admit, this evening we went for a little shopping ourselves. it was quite crowded, and the discounts not that amazing, so i only bought a pair of shoes... as if i needed those... ;) (but they were only 14 dollars!! from 55 originally...)

Child storage

we went to 2 malls on sunday, and it was depressing. i miss shopping streets, like in utrecht, or amsterdam. here you get into your car, drive, and somewhere along the highway, next to fastfood restaurants and whatnot, there will be some mall, or another. on sunday we got kind of lost in the mall, and barely bought anything (so that was good). then we went to a more shabby mall, with cheaper stores, for cheaper stuff.. :) and there they had this child hanging device for only 7 dollars!

here you cant see it, but they were jumping up and down, on this elastic ropes they are attached to. the boy operating it all was somewhere in another world, totally bored and yawning all the time; seeing that i dont think i would ever let a child go into that, how would you be sure he secured them safely? but it looked fun.... i didnt dare to ask whether it was also for adults, like me... :)

Reet one

an advertisement for reebok. reetone, whatever that may be. well, i see a ladies buttocks, and a not very neat dutch word for buttocks is "reet", thats like "ass". so, ass number one?!

and a dog....

and time for me togoto sleep, i cant make any sense of this ad anyways!!