Golden M

wherever you go, a golden M will be around. usually easy to spot from highways. sometimes more hidden; when i did an internship in the USA years ago, the canteen of the university housed a mc donalds, i found that very odd. while driving around boston today, we found a walmart. and this walmart had a mcdonalds. the golden M as entrance to your calorie infested food,  was somehow appealing to me.... why dont more mc donalds restaurants have an M like this? i never saw it before!

anyways, the walmart was an interesting experience of (a part of) american culture... it was my first time going to a walmart, finally!! when waiting for my visa, last year, i stumbled upon this website, where people post pictures of "interesting-walmart-clientele", and that made me wonder..... should i really.... ;)

unfortunately, i was once again too shy to take my own pictures that certainly could have been added to this site....

Powerful position

so says the church..... i dont know what to add to this! maybe its related to this sign i once saw carried by a man at downtown crossing?

close to Saugus, somewhere around here... ah, and it was a beautiful day today! so sunny, and not too cold.

City lights

in charlestown just an hour or two ago, at the ferry dock where (during the day) you can take the ferry to boston for $1,70. we took a lot of pics. some crappy, some nice... it was kind of foggy.
and now.. as every friday, im very tired... good night!

Shoe warehouse

it is restaurantweek in boston. eating in expensive restaurants for less money than they normally charge. but the tricky part; also their menu is different. for the cheapo option, that is... you almost feel bad when they ask you: normal menu or restaurantweek menu? (and it does feel as if they say; cheapos or...  are you coming for the real thing?). anyways.... our table was booked for 8.45. i was a little early which allowed me to visit DSW; the designer shoe warehouse for cheapos! :D 1000s of shoes at discounted rates.... when tim came, i tried on some "real american woman shoes.." ;) as above.... see-through heels in 3 different colors with glitter... (too bad you cant see that on the photo). i decided not to buy them when i found out that they actually did not light up when walking... :( a huge disappointment ofcourse....!!

ah yes, another tim-picture...

Tim's ladies...

this is a photo tim took yesterday at the entrance of the TD garden, just before the lady gaga concert. i like it much better than mine, theres so much to see! those 2 young girls with too short skirts and too high heels. it was rather chilly last night, so they probably arrived in coats that they are now giving to daddy who is dropping them off. their mom is just behind him; when the girls got rid of all their non-necessary items, she took a picture. perhaps its now on their facebook-page; "just before the concert!"

to us, as simple dutchies, its really striking to see all those girls, young, old(er) or super young, dressed like this when going out (for me its especially the extremely high heels that are remarkable). it is not an exception; it rather seems the rule! at least here in boston...

i imagine a similar scene after the concert, when they were picked up again, handing out coats, taking pictures, but now most likely very tired and perhaps without shoes.... cute, no?

Lady Fiasco

yesterday i saw large trucks with "monster tour lady gaga" on it. i asked my friend google what it meant, and i found out that today lady gaga was giving a concert in the TD garden. since the TD garden is in north station, where i take the orange line, i packed my camera this morning as i hoped to finally photograph "people going to the TD garden". ~19.000 people fit into the TD garden, so whenever there is an event, its hard to miss when you are in/around the station. tim left work a little later than me, so i was alone at north station, with my big camera, much too heavy bag, and an enormous amount of shyness!! :(( buuuh.. there were sooo many, very interestingly dressed girls (and some guys), much more interesting than these legs i recently posted. that was just child's play. seriously. but i did not dare... i felt so out of place, so obviously an outsider just there to take pictures. it was very crowded, and there were so many policemen and security guards... then tim finally came (usually then i better dare taking pics), but no.. still not... then he took some, and i was jealous, but they were all unsharp (ha! i thought... (how mean!)). finally i took the one above, but i took some time (as thats one of the things i finally learned; if i do take a pic; dont take it hastily...). and yep, immediately a policeman came telling me that i could not just stand there and had to move on. so, that was it. no extreme lady gagas for me..... :(

After skating....

... a little rest is well deserved. too bad; as an adult this isnt cute anymore, but just weird... :)

Spring's arrival...?

it was warm today (kind of..)! and so was yesterday.... the snow is melting away quickly and you can now see yellowish grass and (sometimes) a lot of garbage underneath... its kind of ugly, currently. the snow thats still there turned black.

we were at the frog pond at the boston common this morning. in summer it looks like this, and in winter as above. over the weeks i have taken pictures whenever i was there, but i was never satisfied. today they had just polished the ice (is that how you call it?), so the reflections were marvellous, but so hard to catch with my camera... :( there was quite a layer of water on the ice too, one little boy fell and was wet entirely...

it was nice to smell a hint of spring. hmmm, actually now i cant wait for the days when the pool is open and the nearby ice cream shop and we can goto the beach again and....

Building structure

this was in the mall in providence. i thought it was pretty and took out my camera. i was not entirely satisfied with the image above, and wanted to take more photos. but then 2 nearby security officers with stupid hats and barely 20 years old (or younger; they looked real young) told me that it was not allowed to take pictures of the building. why not? because the building manager does not want it. oh, but is that legal? yes, you are on his property, so he makes the rules. you could ask him, but he is not here on weekends, so right now we have to ask you to stop taking pictures. yes, we understand it is annoying, and we often have to explain this to many people, as they like the building and.. blablablabla... then they told us that it was allowed to take pictures with a normal camera, rather than a professional camera (should i have told them i still have to read the manual?), and it would be ok to take pictures of each other with phones and so on as this is something they cannot prohibit. but yes, yes, with professional cameras, and after 9/11, you know.. malls like this have become potential terrorist targets, and you might be here to photograph the structure of the building! (so i presume its also not allowed to post this pic online, since people with bad intentions can now see the structure of part of the mall!!)

so... you have to do it with this pic.... and my boring account of speaking with these 2 securiy officers... :)

Sleeping away...

whoopsa.... and another evening lost sleeping on the couch. how frustrating when you wake up and realize you were not in the most comfortable position and everything became numb... worst of all; now you have to drag yourselves to the bed and try to fall asleep again.

too tired and sleepy to really make an effort for this post.., this was a while ago at a parking lot in somerville... :) good night!
i just found this on the internet, its a video on you tube made in a neighbourhood in utrecht where i lived for a few months, its really amazing, all those birds giving away an air show...!

Empty wall

i currently feel like the wall above; totally empty... not good if you are trying to write something... :( and whatever i wrote i erased again... aarghhh...!

this was also in providence, last sunday. we wanted to walk a bit through the city. but it was really, really cold. and the streets were so empty.... we were glad when we found back the car to go to the nearby mall. but the mall was a letdown too....

March happenings..

... thats above the calendar in a free magazine from our supermarket. apparently march is national nutrition month. in less than 2 weeks the clock will be turned again; longer days! the 17th its st Patrick's day (i yet have to do my wikipedia reading on that), and the 20th spring officially begins.... 

but here its snowing again! and its very windy and cold. a good opportunity to post another snow picture (im running out of pictures and really need to take new ones! "but who has the time?" sheldon cooper from the big bang theory would say... :) for those interested; here are the BBT transcripts, haha).

anyways, this is in the center of boston, close to state street, during a snow storm. the streets were prettt empty that day.... no people to photograph... :(

American restrooms

the bad guy or poor woman in "on the run"-type of hollywood movies almost invariably have a scene where the main character is hiding in a toilet. they then always have to hoist themselves onto the seat, carefully balancing themselves without making a single noise, as to make sure nothing can be seen from underneath the doors (or heard, since the divides are so poorly constructed). i always thought it funny that in movies they have such weird open toilets, surely it makes it more exciting as almost impossible to hide there, but i hadnt given it much thought that these are just the actual american restrooms... where you have no privacy whatsoever! no moment for yourself, nothing..... whatever you do, the person next to you will know its you, by just looking down and recognizing your shoes...  how i miss the entirely closed dutch toilets..... :) also the word "restroom" i find entirely misplaced, the US kind of toilets are not... a place to rest.....(i should once find out the origin of the word restroom)

i was just googling around, and found that i am not the only one with this concern. apparently there is an "american restroom association" that advocates for better public restrooms since some people prefer working at home solely due to the restrooms at work. and... because europeans can form a bad impression of the USA as a country because of their poor restroom privacy... :) (i myself hadnt gone that far...).

anyways, the toilet above i found charming. did they take the no-privacy to another level with these faces all over the toilet walls? :) this was in the museum of art of the rhode island school of design in providence, where we went last sunday. the entrance was free since it was a sunday and we came in early...... and the museum was huge, very diverse and interesting! even their restrooms... ;)

Self portrait

the last day of february already! 

im extremely lazy right now; so another self portrait. this was last friday, when we walked home from the orange line. while the monring started with heavy rain, upon leaving the lab it suddenly had turned into snow! to me always a pleasant surprise.. :)

Parking lot

it started snowing a little last night.... and we woke up to quite a layer of snow again! very pretty.......

tomorrow it will be around 10 degrees, so that will result in a watery mess, i presume. as above; this is somewhere at some parking lot around boston. it does not really matter, since all these parking lots are more or less the same, as are the shops....

if you look carefully, you can see several shopping carts randomly scattered around. this always annoys me, and when im in a bad mood, can even make me furious... sometimes we indicate to lazy shoppers that they forgot their cart, but they never seem to get it.... especially at the end of the day, the carts are spread out over the entire parking lot, making it hard to find a spot. ironic, no? you goto the supermarket late to avoid the crowd, but still cannot park... 

in the netherlands this is less of a problem; at most supermarkets you have to put some money into the cart that you will get back upon returning it. surely most dutch will bring their cart to the other end of the parking lot when their money is involved.... :)

Aiming for....

... the sky! this is close to the supermarket in chelsea. it was last week, and i didnt yet want to go into the most likely overcrowded supermarket. the light outside was soo beautiful and for sure it would be dark when finally done shopping. so we left the parking lot and the first thing i saw where these cherry pickers (in dutch its "hoogwerker", i looked up this word on www.interglot.com, and got hydraulic hoist, lifting ramp and cherry picker. i then searched for google images and only cherry picker gave me the above pictured ones. so, i go for cherry picker, although it sounds weird to me). there was a high fence and i had to climb onto a piece of crash barrier, holding myself onto the fence. the wind was going like crazy and it was really cold, but the sky was so beautiful!!

actually, the dutch news recently had a funny story; a thief tried to steal a bike, but the owner caught him. he then asked some nearby workers for help. they put the thief in their cherry picker, and then drove it, with the thief high up in the sky, to the police. the thief later said he found that tour through the city rather humiliating, hahahaha!

interglot.com i find very useful; so often there a words i dont know. or for synonyms... for all the non-dutch; interglot will tell you why, as a dutch, the cherry picker with "lull" on it, to the left, made me laugh (just remove the last letter before you interglot it! or am i too old to laugh about something like that... ?)

Road repair

many roads around boston are pretty bad, and winter is making them even worse. snow, salt, melting freezing, melting and freezing again... it creates small, large and enormous potholes. we bumped into a few already... by far the worst road is the road to my work, of course... 

tim sometimes picks me up in the evening (when once again i missed the shuttle; after 7.15 they go only twice per hour and at some point im just sooo tired and dont want to take the shuttle/wait for orange line/walk the 5 mins home; the laziness!!). in weekends we always go by car , when the shuttle is even more infrequent; this was last saturday when they were repairing the road. some 2 hours later, when we drove by again, they were all gone and that part of the road looked like new again.

in the background, to the right, you see downtown boston and a part of the zakim-blabla-bla-memorial bridge (cant remember the exact name; but i wrote it down in this post), to the left you see  a bit of charlestown's bunker hill monument (that we still have to climb....).

Ice breaker

have you ever walked on ice that wasnt strong enough to hold you? i never had this desire but the path on yesterday's peninsula was rather icy. or better; it was entirely covered by a layer of ice. actually.. the parts where the ice was breaking were OK to walk, but other, more firm parts were sooooo slippery! when we were about to walk back to the car, an old couple just arrived. they had to return after a few metres.... :(

hmmm, i realize my boots get pictured quite often!

Boston skyline

on sunday we drove around; the final destination was Hull, but we werent in a hurry to get there. underway we stopped and walked around on this peninsula, from where we had a nice view on boston. unfortunately the trees are a bit blocking the excellent view of boston ;) on the right you see downtown boston, more to the left is the hancock tower, and next to it, to the far left, prudential center. it was beautifully sunny (as so often is the case here!!), but freezing cold....

Observing people

this was last week in the green line. the girl in pink was sketching fellow passengers, without trying to hide it in any way. i therefore felt more free to take a picture of her in return.... :) 

my post about the subway legs got posted on a boston news site with quite a bit more readers than i generally have (it actually happened once before with this post). flattering... but.. suddenly i worried.. did i write something that i shouldnt have? is it ok, even though i didnt ask those girls? normally, they would maybe be seen by maximal 50-100 people, now it suddenly were 2000.... does that make a difference?

and then someone posted a comment on that site "good thing he took the picture in the station as opposed to the train, there would be tweets out demanding his arrest!" (the MBTA here has a twitter site where riders can post for example pictures of people behaving indecently in the T; this has helped arresting some people already). and that did make me wonder.... i know you are allowed to take pictures of strangers. but when they are dressed like that, does it make a difference? does it make a difference that i am a she, would it have been less OK had i been a guy? what if they had worn jeans? what does it say about our society? why is there a difference in the first place, is there a difference, since they were "dressed like that"? and what does that mean, "dressed like that?" didnt they themselves choose to be dressed like that? and am i judging them, just by picturing them? and... so on and so on.. then, even... could i be arrested? :) how to explain? ah well... i have this blog, you know, and i like to take pictures of strangers... 

hmm..., i am just an observer, and try to capture what i find fascinating/typical or otherwise interesting.... be it women in short skirts or ice on a fence.... :)