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...

Lechmere station

today was the last day we had to take the bus to and from Lechmere. i spent quite some hours already waiting for the bus there.... but tomorrow we move!!
left work early today and did some packing already... so much stuff collected in so few months! amazing... and tomorrow will be hot... :) a good workout.

Baseball cap

in this country you can wear a cap. it is not bound to age or sex....
but often not very stylish, in my opinion.... :)

Superboring seminar

today i went to a seminar. but i could have known it would be boring. it was given by an MD, and about transplantation, or how to prevent rejection of a transplanted organ, i believe kidney but im not even sure! the seminar started much too late. and there was no speaker! instead, there were cameras and a screen, and a room somewhere at the other side of boston that also was equipped with a camera and all. at first there were just some seemingly random persons there, talking about soccer and foreigners and i dont know what, and then pizza came and everyone started to eat (also such a weird thing here. why isnt it possible to have a seminar WITHOUT eating large amounts of pizza, chips, coke and other unhealthy stuff?!). at last, the speaker arrived in that room, but first ate a slice of pizza -he is in the right corner, white shirt. below is the room where i was sitting. that room was almost empty, and it was sooooo boring! during the presentation, we saw the slides, but not the presenter, who on top of this did not speak a very clear English, so besides the utter dullness of the whole presentation and slides, i had no clue about which graph he was talking (sometimes there were many on one slide). aarrrghhh! after 1 hour of this misery i just left. that is the advantage of a long-distance-presentation: you can easily walk out...!

Boston common

on sunday we were in Boston Common, a central public park in Boston. it is one of the oldest parks in the US of A, dating from 1634. however, at that time it was not a park! (so how can it be the oldest park?!), at that time cows were grazing here, but they did that too much and then there was no grass anymore... ah, and it was also used for public hangings until 1817, first on an oak (which one, it was not indicated as far as i saw), but later on a gallows (a word i just learned; if u dont know it; catch up on your wikipedia-reading!). but only in 1830, when the cows and gallows were gone, it became a true public park. in 2007, 2 teenagers were shot there, but on sunday it seemed a nice and quiet park with nice green grass, many squirrels, children, policemen on horses, and this balloonman. i observed him for a while. he was mostly just standing there, waiting till someone came by. he did not make an effort to attract children. and in a way it was so sad to see him just standing there with all those stupid balloons attached, while it was so hot! on the picture above he had just made a nice balloon-thingie for the girl, and then her father had to take care of the financial side of this balloon act...

Emergency traffic

and yes, on saturday there was yet another accident in or street, now almost in front of our house, we were just walking inside when there was a loud BANG (but not as loud as on wednesday). again the police was there very fast. with every accident, also a fire truck (but this, and previous time there were even 2) and an ambulance comes (i actually wanted a pic with all the cars there, but right at that moment my battery was of course empty). the ambulance barely stopped and then left again: it was not needed. also the large fire truck was not needed at all, and the smaller just was cleaning the street (but left the remnants on the street! instead of really removing it). all these trucks did cause a small traffic jam, but luckily not another accident.
driving here, or well, being on the street here is dangerous! you always have to be careful, everyone ignores each other and only thinks: i go first.. no matter what...

Beach ladies (2)

sorry, i just liked the 2 ladies and took quite some pics of them... i promise, this is the last here...
it was hot again, and tomorrow it will also be hot...
we realized we have accumulated a lot of stuff already.. mostly thanks to Craigslist (for anyone who wants to catch up on wikipediareading regarding Craigslist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craigslist; you learn there f.e. that it has 20 billion page views per month; but i guess now i discovered it.. this number already has gone up significantly... ;))) ), and next week we have to move! today the last stuff we were using from the couple we are subleasing from was brought back to them, so all thats left- quite a lot, is ours....!
ah, and we also learned that parking your vehicle in the wrong direction is a violation, and costs you 20 dollars... do we also have such a weird rule in the netherlands?!