American bike

very american bike (to me also the type of bike, not just the stars and colors, except the basket on the front) parked at a very dutch canal! :)

here you can once again clearly see why many bikes end up in canals....

Real american....

...hotdogs! you can get them in amsterdam.....

i didnt try them. in the supermarket we also have "real american pizza", but then i went to america and couldnt find that "real american pizza" as i knew it....

like the "dutch cheese" thats not always dutch cheese if its not actually from the netherlands.... and so on and so on....

just recently i read in the newspaper that the ducth like starbucks. they dont mind to pay a little more for that coffee as it gives them the feeling of doing like the new yorkers do, walking around with a cup of coffee... i dont get it! we have good coffee and one of the things i missed when in the usa were the cafes where you could really sit down and get a real good coffee (not the diluted american stuff) in a real cup (tastes so much better in a cup as compared to a carton-to-go). but well.... i guess those dutch just want to goto new york!! (and i wouldnt mind a visit either... its been over a year now...)

Dutch dining

on my birthday, it was actually only the second time we went out to dinner since i am back in the netherlands. as i mentioned before, going out to dinner here is just so much more expensive, much slower (which can be a good thing), and the service... well... it can be OK, but often it is less than that or even plain awful. however, at least the food is usually much tastier :)

in the usa, it took me quite a while to get used to the overly friendly (and to me a little fake) "Hi, my name is ... and i will be taking care of you today. please let me you if you need anything, ok?" but it was not difficult to get used to the endless possibilities when ordering. at first it was a bit intimidating, and i was always jealous of the real americans ordering exactly what they want, without the waitress having to sum up all the possibilities (types of dressing, bread, size, types of milk etc etc). it surely took me a while before i could order like that..., and i was real proud when i could!! :D

so... now back to dutch dining. i guess it will be shocking for americans. it might take ages before they notice you are there and want to order something. you will not get water automatically (more often than not there will be a note on the menu saying that they dont serve water. unless you pay for bottled water). you will not be able to order salad A with dressing from salad B, and you will not be allowed to take your leftovers home (but the portions arent crazy big like in the US so thats usually not an issue anyways). moreover, you will have to pay for everything. see that bill above? it lists a 0.75 cents (about a dollar) charge for the mayonnaise!! here in the netherlands we eat our fries with mayonnaise, but you will always have to pay for it. this is even the case at mc donalds!! i liked that in the USA there was always a ketchup bottle on the table, and it was never a problem when we asked for some mayo, they would just bring it (and not bill it!).

now when we sat down, the waitress asked what we liked to drink. tim wanted a beer, and he could choose between a normal or a large (0.5 ltr) size. then i said to him; lets take the large and we will just share it! (i also still have to get used to the fact that now everyone can understand again what i say, although in the US sharing has never been a problem). when the beer finally came, the guy bringing it put it in the middle of the table and said "i understood you want to share this beer??!!" and then put 2 straws in the beer. only when he left i understood this snark... i actually should have called him back to explain himself, but i didnt want to make a scene. but thinking about it still pisses me off!! we were there to enjoy ourselves and drink as much as WE want, even if that means sharing one beer. and as you see, 2 entrees, 1 beer and 2 coffees came down to 37 euros, which is 50 dollars (at least there is no 20% tip as waiters here get a normal salary. you can tip as you  like, or not tip at all, although they will not appreciate no tip at all)

It's closing!!

of course i still follow the news from boston every now and then... but the news that the above restaurant is closing i first saw on facebook... when i saw it posted here as well, i knew it was true... this is on route 1, in saugus, not too far from our apartment, and so we drove by it quite often in weekends. the lawn is decorated with lifesize cows, and the place (just like the cactus) is gigantic. at first we were hesitant to visit the place (after the cows and the cactus we were afraid what would be inside), but once we finally did, we kept coming back every now and then. for me it was not so much about the food (the vegetables were absolutely awful, even the corn!! but tim loved the baked potato), but more the "experience". i think the decor has never changed since it was built (the 2 story restaurant opened in 1961), and i wouldnt be surprised if the waitresses were still the same as well (once our waitress asked tim when we got seated; "whats the matter son, you hungry or somethin?!" with that typical boston accent). there is crazy carpet on the floors, beautiful booths to sit in and weird cowboy-stuff on the walls. i think some of the guests had been coming there since its opening as well, so every time we were there i just couldnt get enough of watching around... if only i had been brave enough to take pictures from the inside, had asked people for portraits... but well, i didnt... (here is the last burger i had there).

according to this article, at its top days, the hilltop employed 50 cooks, 180 waiters and served 5000 meals a day. when we were there, it was usually not too busy (except the one time we took someone there and had to wait over an hour). this picture was during our last drive on route 1, we had just had to bring our couch to the dump and i was frantically photographing all that crazy american stuff on route 1 one more time... for us foreigners, this was really a typical american place, like we see in the movies, and if we were ever to visit boston again, it would be a place to go back to. but.... they are closing october 20th already!! i wonder what will happen to it. i hope at least the cactus will stay.... (and they should make a museum out of the place!!)
here you can see a video about the closing (they interview 2 guests inside the restaurant)

More pictures...

i need to take more pictures! im currently not taking a whole lot of pictures and every evening im very indecisive as to which picture i should post. sometimes i spend an hour looking at folders and folders of pictures, only to not post any of them... (like yesterday). 

so... perhaps today we will take some more pictures. lets see. most certainly, the above is in a diner in the usa (close to boston). the booths, the ketchup bottle, the ketchup itself (the dutch give you mayo with your fries..), the burger... all so very american!! a burger is something you can get in every american restaurant (if not the only thing), but thats really not the case in the netherlands (unless you goto mcdonalds)... so a picture like the one above i probably wont get anytime soon... :)

Grand central

this was back in may, when we were in new york with the most awful weather... the first day it more or less rained non-stop! i guess thats why there were many (at least 4 when we were there) wedding shoots going on inside grand central terminal. the wedding group above was definitely the most interesting.

since a week or so i somehow got into the habit of watching "say yes to the dress". its about brides-to-be that are looking for a wedding dress in some fancy store in new york. to me its amazing what they are willing to spend on a dress; most dresses are not below 1500 dollars, and many are looking for dresses for say 5000 dollars!! (or even more...). i can only watch it when tim is not around, as he cant stand even the sound of all the screaming brides and bridesmaids and mothers and mothers in law.... haha.

Drying laundry

its soooo very hot again here! and tomorrow is supposed to be even warmer, perhaps record breaking hot... if anything, its good for getting your laundry dry quickly! i really dislike to dry my clothes (or anything, really), in a dryer, and have always hung my clothes out to dry. and now i can finally hang them outside, on the balcony! it makes it smell so good...!

in our first place in the usa we had to go to a laundromat to do the laundry, but would always drag the wet stuff home to hang it out (the apartment was so huge that one room was dedicated to just that, haha). in the next we had both a washer and a dryer, but i just hung it out in the living room. there is something really relaxing in doing laundry. i like to hang it, and i even like to fold it (but i never iron).

most people around our place here in amsterdam hang their clothes out to dry. many have racks that hang from the railing, but i just wonder if that isnt annoying for the people underneath you, suddenly seeing your towels in front of their window.... 

whats crazy; in the us, the land of the free, its forbidden (!!) in many places to hang out your clothes. some 60 million americans are not allowed to hang their clothes in their own outside space! in some states, there are now laws that forbid apartment complexes to make such stupid rules, but not in massachusetts... (however, the state senator is now "fighting" for "the right to dry"). isnt that crazy? in a country where you can have guns in many states, you cannot dry your clothes in the most environmentallly friendly way (as well as cheapest, and best for your clothes... etc etc).

as you can see, i really like pink, and flowers... i brought this sheet to the us, and back home again...

American diner

this was back in boston. saugus, to be precise, on route 1. quite a typical dinner in a very american diner.. no? somewhere between the fries is a gigantic burger! when the waitress brought it to our table, i wondered why i ordered this... haha... i was recovering from one of the many colds i have had this year and didnt eat much. but it was our last time in that restaurant.... buuuhh!!

back in the netherlands we have not been out to eat once yet! its easier, faster and cheaper in the us (and usually even more unhealthy than here). ah, and most restaurants are open till late, not like here where you can often find the kitchen closed by 9, or earlier... 

compared to yesterday it was a little less hot today. rain was expected but didnt come. it did in the south of the netherlands, where it turned into quite a mess. in some places it rained in a few hours as much as normally in a month!

On supermarkets...

oops, its been a while again.... 

in boston the market basket was our favorite supermarket. by far the cheapest, and the fruit and vegetables were always fresh (usually its very crowded, so that makes for a high turnover). back in the netherlands i have to get used to the small supermarkets and their even smaller produce sections... :( no more any fresh herb you can think of (here they are wrapped in tiny amounts and very expensive, if they have them at all), no more huge bags of whatever nuts you want, roasted and/or salted or not.... at least the mushrooms are much cheaper here... :) everything here is also sold in much smaller quantities (which is better, sometimes), and i really had forgotten how good plain yoghurt tastes here!! and i still have to find my way in the supermarket; today i made 3 rounds before i found ricotta. and they had only a small tub (in the market basket there were many types, brands, and sizes). 

and, of course, the checkout is very different. here everyone brings their own bags (although we also used to do that in the us, since they always managed to put 5 items in 7 bags, somehow), or you can buy one. and there is no one packing your groceries! im fine with that, but i again have to get used to how fast the cashier is scanning all your items!! before you know, everything is piling up at the end, but then i still have to pay and if you dont hurry, the cashier is already helping the next customer. at least there is a divider for that person's groceries, but if you are really, really slow the cashier will already be helping the third customer, piling his/her groceries onto yours... i guess i got used to how verrrryyyy slow cashiers in the usa usually are, so  its quite stressful for me... ;)  

the apartment is still a giant mess, but we hope to finish painting at least the living room this weekend.... 

Hello again....

ok, ok, its time to stop hiding and finally write another post again.... this monday i was still in the craaaazy heat of boston (it was well over 35 C, i think), frantically getting the apartment entirely empty. even though several people had come by during the weekend i hadnt managed to dump all our stuff with them and so it was really time to trash things. i realized i never have trashed something that you can still use and i did not like it at all! all that stuff that we used now just disappeared in the dumpster... :( i also had placed a bit in the hallway of our apartment complex, and at least fellow residents were taking stuff from that...

somehow i managed to get the place entirely empty (with the help of my sister), and then it was time to lock the door and go to the airport.... :( i had quite some luggage; two 22-kilo suitcases, and a 15-kilo small (!!) hand luggage that i was forced to check in as well (grrrr!!). 

and so... since tuesday i am back in the netherlands. in amsterdam, to be precise. it all feels weird. the weather is shitty, i cannot run down to goto the pool or gym anymore. in public transport (the ticketsystem changed during my 3year absence) people are all staring at their phones (just like in boston. when there, i always thought that was an american thing, haha), and when talking on their phones they do it sooooo very loud!! (much louder than in boston, i think). when i bump into someone i mumble "sorry" in english (with my dutch accent, ofcourse). i havent done much yet, aside from unpacking my suitcases and going to the shops around the apartment here. i dont like that i cannot find my way in the supermarket (i like routine, i guess), nor that the eggplants and zucchini are so very very expensive!! ($1,30 each!!). at least there is good cheese, as you can see above. and my boston mug, a gift from someone at work!!

i need to fill the kitchen cabinets again with spices, herbs, sugars, flours etc etc.... the apartment really needs to be painted and there is not enough space for all of my clothes and shoes (and this is already before our shipped goods are here! which come in a few weeks). so...., im just grumpy about all of it and i guess it will take a while.....

Homeland security

homeland security.... i think thats a very funny term, and something you probably will only see in america. what other country assumes that naturally anyone knows what "the homeland" is? if this car drives to canada, would it provide homeland security to the canadians...? :)

i have a list of things i still want to see, do or photograph while still here. this i can now cross off my list.. its funny how you see some things every so often and always think; hmm, i should take a picture of that! but before you know, 3 years have passed and you still think that.... 

wikipedia just told me that "homeland security" is "an American umbrella term referring to the national effort to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States, reduce the vulnerability of the U.S. to terrorism, and minimize the damage from attacks that do occur". the term came into use after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

my sister arrived today from the netherlands and to protect the homeland, she had to wait in a very long line, proving she is not of any harm to this country. i knew the plane had landed, and waited, waited, waited... i guess some 1.5 hour. when it was finally her turn, the guy protecting his homeland asked her very important questions like "what are you doing here, how much money did you bring, do you have a creditcard, where does your sister work, what is her status (really??!! he meant whether i am allowed to work here, but still... grrr), what kind of work do you do? and the weirdest of them all; why is your sister (thats me) not married to her boyfriend (that would be tim)? really...?!! really?! she answered that she didnt know.... hahahaha. and after that, he finally let her go without another word. i dont know how i would have reacted to that question. these "homeland" officers really tend to piss me off, and i often have to make the greatest effort not to show how awfully annoying i find them. i guess they do it on purpose. just because they can...

anyways, i feel a lot safer now. i think my sister wont be a threat to the homeland.... 

Holland style...

quite a while back i saw this product in "our" supermarket here in the usa. of course, i had to buy that! i know we often had them at home, although i wasnt the biggest fan of them. when trying these, i was really disappointed. those were nothing like the dutch "zilveruitjes" (pickled silverskin onions). they were not at all crunchy, as they are supposed to be... :( so... after one bite they were left in the fridge for months, since i first wanted to take a picture before trashing them... maybe we had a bad batch, but i think these are just american style holland-style onions (the barn in the background also looks more american than dutch to me).

wikipedia tells me that you can hardly find these onions fresh, they are almost always already pickled (like above), and are often eaten as a snack (with a beer or something), but are also used in soups (never had that, i think) or in casseroles.

its funny how almost everyone always refers to "the netherlands" as "holland". i myself never do that, but have noticed that sometimes people then dont know which country you are talking about. but as soon as you mention holland, they will say "aaaah... amsterdam....". for an entertaining video explaining the difference between the netherlands and holland, go here (it was going around on facebook at some point). warning; during the 4 minutes they manage to make it actually really complicated!! :)

Bye car!!

today we said goodbye to the car we were happily driving the past 3 years. or rather, that tim was driving since i dont have a license... (since a few months i have a learners permit, but... well... i will not be able to obtain an american license anytime soon... buuhhhh.. :( ). it belongs to tims parents and it made our life quite a bit easier... we had absolutely no trouble obtaining furniture, as it all was just thrown in the back of this huge car! we had no trouble getting groceries either... (theres no supermarket in walking distance of our apartment. and we got used to doing shopping only once a week, or less. very undutch! there i used to go whenever i was cooking dinner, just a little walk from my apartment). i got used to climbing in this huge thing, and very much enjoyed the royal view above everyone else.... and of course, it made me feel like a real american, sitting in a real american truck!!

thats why yesterday was so stressful; we HAD to get rid of the couch, even if it meant secretly throwing it in a dumpster somewhere, anywhere.... (i found out normally the dump we brought it to is not open on saturday, and we were there not that long before closing time. pfew..). today we got up early and drove the car to its storage, an hour away. when we had it storage ready (tim did most of the work, lucky me, it was so very hot again), we got a cab to the nearest train station, and had our very first train ride in the usa.... :) as it is sunday, the train was going only 3 times, over the entire day!! if we had missed it, we would have had to wait some 4 hours!! (thats also rather different from the netherlands!). it took forever to get back into boston, but it was actually quite relaxing to sit in the very slowly moving train for 1.5 hours....

bye bye car, we will certainly miss you!

Bye IHOP

slowly we are saying goodbye to some of the places we like to go. one of them being IHOP (i.e. the international house of pancakes)... :) not every week of course. just every now and then! we got up really early on sunday, and we were rewarded for that; the restaurant was still pretty empty. coming in a little later on the weekend and the place is packed, with many waiting to be seated (which luckily goes relatively fast). to us, such breakfast places with too much food for not that much money and cheerful waitresses are really american. something i will miss when back home.... (although being able to get great bread and pastries just about everywhere is a nice alternative)

a full thermos of coffee and pancakes, eggs, hash browns, bacon..... hmmmmmm.... the above is just 9 dollars, and then something for the coffee. we shared the middle plate, but each had our own pancakes. far too much food, but oh so good! in the beginning i was overwhelmed by all the choices you always have here. you cannot just order something, everything has to be specified; how do you want your eggs? bacon or sausage? etc etc... nowadays i often can just tell the waitress what i want, and dont need to have them tell me all the options (often far too fast so i miss half of it), followed by eehmmm, uuhhhhmmm.. hmmm, ok, i'll take that.... im pretty proud of that... :) i now also like that you have options, and literally can order things exactly the way YOU want it, not the way the restaurant always prepares it (which is usually not the case in the netherlands). dressing on the side? sure! whole wheat bread instead of white? absolutely! no cheese? we'll take care of it! and if its not exactly the way you ordered it, they take it back without a problem (usually.. :) ).

It's official....

... today we sold our yellow barstools, and also the black ones... :( i was truly sad when we were in the car, bringing them to their new owner...... it officially started something we already knew for a bit (but not that long, really); we will be moving back to the netherlands soon..... we always planned on staying  here for about 3 years, and we passed that time point in april. moreover, our lease is ending july 1st and we are totally fed up with the new owners of our apartment complex. oh, and tim found a job and is due to start june 6!! he will work as a doctor in a hospital in amsterdam. all a bit sudden. we thought to spend the summer here (the dutch summers are less warm and sunny), but well.... sometimes you cannot have it all....

i will stay a few more weeks, my sister will come and we will enjoy the boston sun for a bit, and then its also time for me to leave. no job yet, but i do hope to find one asap....

when we found this apartment with the enormous countertop i wanted nice barstools. most dutch kitchens dont have such a bar, so i wanted it to be as american as possible! but.. most barstools were not to my liking, or too expensive. then we got the black ones. of course right after that we found the ultimate barstools, those yellow ones! the shop was closed and we could only admire them through the window, from a distance... the next day we got up early to be at the shop right at opening time so we could buy them before anyone else. luckily they were still there! (we tried to sell the black ones, as we really didnt need 6 barstools, but never managed). i always thought we would ship them back to the netherlands, but at that moment i didnt know how crazy expensive that is. and... we dont have such a fancy countertop back home..... buuuuhhhhhh... so... this is it... the table and red chairs are up for sale too, and so is the white armoire.... (let me know if you are interested! ;) here is the other stuff we need to get rid of... ) its a very weird feeling, i can say that much.... (oh, and pardon the mess; the advantage of having such an enormous and beautiful table).

That's small!!

and this...... is, indeed, a SMALL ice cream. a small! can you believe it?! i think in the netherlands this will be size gigantic, probably not available or crazy expensive. and guess what? i ate it all!! yumyumyum. this was my lunch today.... it was a bit too much, but oh so very good.

not too far from our apartment is a local ice cream shop, opened from april until october or something. its usually crowded.. and they are open until 11pm at night. the first time we went there was just out of curiosity, we drove by every so often at any time of the day, and there were always people waiting in line. we hadnt had dinner yet, and both (!) ordered a medium-sized ice cream (you see, at that point we hadnt lived in the usa for that long yet... so what did we know!!). a medium is much larger than the small you can see here!! it was so good that i somehow ate it all, and then i was full for the remainder of the evening. no dinner for us!!

with the small you can order 2 flavors (and their selection of flavors is enormous). usually i only get one nevertheless; moose tracks (vanilla ice cream with very tasty pieces of chocolate and tiny peanut butter cups... hmmmmm). today i decided to be a bit adventurous and also got "death by chocolate". i did request that the moose tracks was put on the bottom, as i wanted to finish with that... yumyumyum. too bad its all gone now...

(its diary delight in malden for those nearby)

Germs everywhere!

i have gone through quite some packs of these the past days. something you probably didnt want to know... ;) today i finally went in to work, but i still feel and look like someone who is sick. its going around, as many people in the lab apparently dont feel well. tim has a bit of a cold, but not nearly as bad as me.

i like these packs, arent they cute?! and the advice "wash your hands to keep the germs away" & "cover your mouth when you sneeze" is very american!! first time i arrived in the us i was surprised to see this advice everywhere in the restrooms at the airport. only to discover its plastered everywhere, not just at the airport! it falls into the same category to me as the sign in many restrooms (in restaurants, malls, hospitals, etc) thats says "employees must wash hands before returning to work". to me this all seems very logical, why do you need signs for that? do more people do it because of the signs? also, in my "welcoming information packet" when i first starting working here was a brochure entirely devoted to the art of washing hands... (with pictures and clear instructions on how to apply the soap, how to wash your hands, how to rinse and dry them...).

something you definitely do not see in the netherlands...i think americans are much more germophobic than the dutch. there is hand sanitizer everywhere here! literally everywhere! wipes for the carts in the supermarket, a pump at every counter (be it the bank, the supermarket, the hospital, the clothing shop, at customs at the airport). but i still got sick... ;)  (and yes, im getting extremely frustrated!! it just doesnt seem to end!!)

Woods! Closed!

it has been raining. all day. lots and lots of rain. had it been a little colder (as was expected earlier), then it would have been snow... but no, we got rain... :(((

so, i looked at some summer pictures, and found this one again, its somewhere around gloucester. yep... in the us of a the woods can be closed. hahahhahaha!

Apartment building

this is in new york, but actually in the netherlands you very often see people hang their blanket (from the bed) outside their window. i always find that strange... hanging it out like that will make it dirty, no?

as we live in a corner apartment, we have a lot of windows (the reason we decided to take it; so much light!), but all windows have an (insect) screen, so when you open the window, there is still the screen that cannot move. thats pretty common here, but i find it soooo weird! what if you want to throw something out of the window? ;) stick your head out, or just get the crumbs from the tablecloth? 

VLA antenna

from the very large kettle the day before yesterday we goto the antennas in new mexico that we saw during our road trip. on the signs i had seen the (i thought) town of Vla, which i thought was very funny, since we also had just passed (or were about to pass, i forgot) "Pie town" (evidence of that some other time). "vla" is dutch for a dessert that many, many dutch have after dinner. its cooked ilk with custard, often sweetened with vanilla. its not something i miss from the netherlands. we did eat it every now and then, but when you open the package, you have to finish it all rather soon, as the consistence gets... well... yuckie pretty fast. if interested, i found a recipe here (a very nice blog with very dutch recipes, but with american products and measurements!!!

anyways... ofcourse there was no town named VLA. it was yet another acronym and stands for Very Large Array. its a radio astronomy observatory at an elevation of 6970 ft and has made key observations of black holes, for example. looking these antennas up on wikipedia, i just learned that there are 27 of them (!!) and each is very big (with a diameter of 25 meters). while we were driving past them we were in the middle of a snowstorm and could not see very far ahead. we perhaps saw 2 or 3. really too bad... as you can see on this picture, the VLA looks pretty cool! but even the few antennas we saw, while it was snowing in a perfectly silent world, the road ahead and behind us entirely empty....... felt pretty "outer space", even though they are of course man made......