Police control

when from a country where police is usually absent, or only there to give you a ticket when you cross the red light on foot, or when your bike light just stopped working because of the rain, the police in the US, as mentioned before, can be rather frightening, yet at the same time ridiculous. this morning we left our perfect apartment and walked down the perfect path leading to the subway station (this path being especially constructed for our living community). arriving at the station, there were some policemen and a notice that people at random could be subject to "search" and that refusing this could lead to "arrest". the woman in front of me was picked, we luckily werent.
its good that i lunch with some real US citizens who explain me these kind of things. this is something the Transit Police can do, because as soon as you enter the railway station, you are on their property, and thus if they feel its necessary, they can force you to open your bag for example so that they can see whats in there. similarly, the harvard police can "search" everyone present in a Harvard building, if they feel to do so. but what if you then say: "ok, i do not want to be searched, i rather leave the building/subway station, this is ridiculous"? well, then you have a problem, because people who have nothing to hide, will not refuse such a thing, and they thus have a reason to arrest you.
i find that scary.... and not enhancing my safety. but maybe you will disagree with me on that...?

Post 100

yesterday should have been post number 100, and a reason to celebrate and/or contemplate... no? instead, the neighbouring lab convinced me that unplugging a freezer diminished in size by half due to ice was a good idea. at 5 in the afternoon. then i could let it defrost overnight and in the morning i would have a clean freezer! at least they were helpful. but when the thawing began, the water started to flow. and it was not a little bit of water..... in fact, i was the only one really worrying about that water; they all said: so what? then tomorrow there is a pool. doesnt matter, right?! but i thought it did matter, and around 7 i hammered away already quite some chunks of ice, finding in there loads of eppendorf tubes and other stuff i do not want to remember. tim came to help me (my 2 colleagues long gone) and an hour hammering later we went for dinner (Panera Bread: i love it! although it is a little too much, as usual), and then we continued. i felt like being on a gletcher expedition. but i didnt enjoy it and surely the view wasnt as nice.
after ten it was when we left, the freezer still not being entirely ice-free. but now its empty and i rearranged it all, and all the old stuff, scattered over the entire thing now easily fitted on one shelf; all the other shelves left for me! jeeeeejj! now i can finally do (more) experiments.... ;)

Common sense

when dealing with "officials" here, i often have the feeling that common sense is lacking. like at the liquor store.
this billboard is at the highway leading you out of boston, next to the fenway baseball stadion. at first i could not believe it, but i think it is actually meant to be against guns. i have been reading a little about gun possession in the US, and now i feel less comfortable, i have to say. in 1997, 40% of the households in the US reported to have a gun in their home. in total, there were ~44 000 000 gun owners, which means that 25% of all adults have a gun!! every fourth person!!! 11% of them say they just (?) use it for hunting, meaning the other 90% use it for.... ? i also found a pro-gun website where they state that it is ridiculous that guns are not allowed in schools.
well, let me just have my alcohol, then....

Oranje oranje!

orange line, american flag, 2 dutch and 1 german (taking the picture) in orange... ready for the soccer match... ! and then we lost... :( ah well... maybe it was because the bright orange bag i am holding in fact is our laundry bag that says "grimy". but it is the most orange thing i possess!!!
too bad weekend is over.

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)

Liquor store

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

Fresh pond

this is the frog pond at Boston Common (see previous post). of course i did not understand at all why everyone was in the water while all around the water there were signs clearly saying "pond closed". when i took this pic i had not yet witnessed that disobedient citizens wading through some water can get arrested for that, otherwise i would have been even more worried about all those people with small children....
i guess the water was 30 cm deep, and probably around 37 degrees; thus the perfect E. coli incubator. yegh!! not such a fresh pond, i think. and all those children lying in that dirty water.... yegh! but they obviously all were very much enjoying themselves.. it was really cute to see...

Crowded central

after the spectacular fireworks on independence day, we all had to go back home at once, ofcourse. there were sooo many people! normally the T stops around midnight, but this night its service was extended, and free. we were offered a ride back home by Berk, with whom we had dinner and watched the fireworks with. ofcourse i rather preferred to take the T back home... :) we walked to central square T stop. our side of the platform was rather empty, and on the other side a train was just loading people. i could see it was overcrowded. so when the train left, i expected an empty platform there as well. instead, it was still soooooo full! i had to take a picture of that. while we proceeded further downtown, our train also got more and more crowded. at some point there was a drunk guy close to us, spilling his drink everywhere. yegh... luckily only on the floor. it was quite difficult to get out of the train at our stop, and then we still had to take the orange line. it was all going soooooo slowly. but well.. it was interesting to see all these tired people, so many exhausted children also... quite cute, but i didnt dare to take more pics.
anyways, i guess next year we will skip the fireworks. i heard its quite comfortable to watch it on TV... ;) (we however dont have a TV)

Groovy oak

our "living community" is called oak grove village, but i always refer to it as the "groovy oak". since we dont have internet at our apartment (or only when i manage to pick up the signal with my macbook, and usually it only works for a few minutes), we just went down to sit by the pool... in which we swam every evening the past few days!! our apartment is in the right corner, those five windows (the right 3 are living room, the left 2 bedroom). isnt it lovely.....

but then the security guard came and said that the pool side is closed after 20.30. after that time it is too dangerous to be close to the water, or something like that, apparently....

Oranje you..

...glad that the Dutch won? (as is on the front page of the Metro newspaper). it took tims explanation for me to understand that it is a funny word play: or arent you happy that the dutch won? so that was my first soccergame in a boston cafe together with all the other bostonian dutch..
as the article says: "after decades of failure, the netherlands is just one game away from world cup glory" and: "the Oranje celebrated heartily after the victory. television shots showed similarly raucous parties in the netherlands" (should i inform them about the S missing?).
anyways, it was fun to observe all these dutch people, unfortunately all the pics i took were rather crappy. and i am pretty sure the dutch here did not go as crazy as the dutch back home. in fact, it was a little lame... :) now i do have to get an orange tshirt to watch the finals in! (i was one of the few not wearing an orange shirt; although there was some orange in my new skirt!).

American girls

they actually posed for me!!! :)
real american girls... on the 4th of july!

Independence day

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

July 4

in this country you see the american flag everywhere.. on many cars it is accompanied by the text "god bless america" (what about all the other countries? they dont need gods blessing?). this ragged exemplar was on the rocks at the beach in Winthrop. currently many houses are entirely decorated with flags and stars and stripes (from the outside; how will it be inside?), most probably because tomorrow it is the 4th of july! im very curious about it, and we will defenitely go watch the fireworks...
btw: we were swimming already few times now in the pool of our apartment complex... hmmmm, very nice!

Prudential center

prudential, as seen from the first (or last) stop of the green line, lechmere. actually only yesterday (after already almost 3 months!) i noticed that you can nicely see it from there. but thats most likely because im always reading, except yesterday, when i had forgotten my book!

Orange line

this is the first (or last) stop of the orange line, and close to our new apartment! the complex is thus called "oak grove village". the orange line is much much faster than the bus and/or the green line. unfortunately, i still have to take the green after the orange... most likely there is a faster route, but i am a bit lazy to explore, and actually enjoy my pre- and after work reading.
today the netherlands won from brazil! i missed the game yet again, but i saw many people dressed in orange, and 2 girls in tiny orange skirts (bavariameisjes?) and enormous dutch flags. i promised to watch next game... maybe together with all the other dutch here. im actually very curious to see that... but surely i wont wear orange (dont have any orange!).

King Donalds

on saturday we had dinner at burger king or mc donalds, essentially its all the same... at least we learned one menu for each of us is really too much (although i know we shouldnt eat there at all! its just convenient, when u are tired, had a long day, were moving...), so we now take one menu, and an extra burger. this however always causes confusion, and usually the ordering takes a while before they understand... but it seems many workers at mc burger do not speak that much english (ah yes, u can see from this our visits are too frequent, but now that we moved into a place with a decent kitchen.. we will cook ourselves again, promised!!).
it seems that these fast food restaurants are gather points for the most weird people; an excellent people watch place! dont dare to take pictures though, most people arent a little weird, but reaaallllyyyy weird. like on saturday there was this old lady with very long hair so dirty it seemed she had mopped the floor with it. besides, she had an enormous beard.....
here at least u can take as much ketchup as you want, as opposed to the netherlands where you have to pay for your stupid little "bakje fritessaus".

Traffic light

to divert a bit from our amazing, exciting, fancy new apartment, a picture taken from the car, in the center of boston. as mentioned before, here everyone thinks: i am first, no matter what. and see, the lights are green for the car, yet all pedestrians just cross the road. this happens all the time!! everyone just crosses (sometimes also cars), paying no attention at all, no, just going! even so a car is coming at full speed. even so the car is honking... people just walk, and at their choosen speed. really, its unbelievable...

New place

sitting on our couch.. both with laptop, then this is the current view... (the wall on the right is light purple. in the bedroom is dark purple, and its really pretty!!)
quite messy still, but we are getting there! we now also have bar stools. in my opinion, that is really soooo american! jeeeejj!
this i wanted to post yesterday, but the free internet from the apartment complex was not working that well. its free around the pool, and we are kind of above the pool, but probably too far away to get a decent signal. still indecisive whether we now finally should get our own internet... reading books is also fun, and we should spend time at the gym rather than surfing on the internet! :) (and internet is expensive!)

US suffer

hahahaha, i loved sylvia's remark of yesterday.. and yes, the people in the pool did watch US suffer... especially when we had to move this couch... (and the kitchen table was hell as well..). even though the stairs were easy. there were 2 of them... and the couch was big and heavy and not elastic, unfortunately (if u look careful, you can see tim sitting in the corner, totally exhausted). getting it into our apartment also needed some higher math calculations.. and it was soooo warm! but we managed. now every muscle hurts and the apartment is one big mess. but its beautiful! we have 2 purple walls (light purple in living room, dark in bedroom), and we have many windows. lots of trees outside. i was woken up by hundreds of birds singing.. looking out of the window there is the pool in the bright sun... its as if we are on holiday!!

Moving day!

the living rooms are already pretty empty... (we loaded the car yesterday)... and look, still such a mess! :) (dont mind the yellow cart there... have no clue how it got there... ;) ). surely we will have to drive a few times. its nice, sunny and hot out. and we will have to move, while all the other residents will be around the pool, watching us suffer, as our apartment is opposite the pool. ah no, surely they will marvel at our great furniture we managed to collect the past months!
so... maybe tomorrow a pic of our new place..! wish us luck...