Skating rink!

we went roller blading tonight! in a real american skate center. i only knew those from the movies, and the big bang theory (look at howard's purple pants!!). for only 7.50 we could skate as long as we wanted, including skate rental. i remember i used to love roller blading.... so much that at one point i was that good that i could skate real hard and then hit the wall.... i went on with it until i broke my arm... 

anyways... i thought roller blading is similar to biking; something they say you will never forget how to do. that wasnt quite the case! i felt very insecure and unstable on those things (and mind you; they were real roller blades, not inline skates), but after a while i kind of new again how to do it... and it was cool! going round and round... and just the entire ambiance.... the music, the lowly lit skating rink, all the kids going really fast. i felt like a real american!! :D

and so i was sure roller blading was an american invention. but information at the skating rink told us that it was actually an unknown dutchman in the 1700s that wanted to go iceskating in summer, and thus put some wheels under his shoes... oh, what would the world be without the dutch?! ;)

above; thats me...  :)

In Texas

we arrived in dallas today. stupid, this morning, at the airport i had to ask tim where we were flying to; i did not even know! i knew it was texas, but.... anyways... we went from boston to newark, and from there to texas. then we got into a car and this is what i saw.... lots and lots of highway. and you can go very fast there, much faster than around boston!

and now im tired... its hot here too. real hot. sizzling it said on the weather forecast in the plane. i thought it was funny, but it really is sizzling.... ah well.. airconditioning is everywhere and right now im a little cold, even though its 10 pm and outside its 28 degrees celsius...

More pink

another pink lady i saw on times square... :)
now i am packing, as tomorrow we goto..... texas! i never been there so i am very curious.. its hot there and we go for a wedding.. i hope i packed the right clothes...

Pink fashion

in new york as well....

thats my belated post from yesterday... came home, had dinner and went to sleep... quite boring! im just rather tired and too much work. beeggghhh.. hope that i soon will have some new photos again, grrr..

NY fashion

she looked stylish to me... but i only saw her from the back...
in new york, close to ground zero.

Going slow

:)

im not in a writing mood, recently. and i decided i dont have any pictures to show... its like in the morning, standing in front of your closet, all those clothes, but nothing to wear...!!

Tired, sir?

me too!
so i leave it at that.... good night!

Poetry board

i saw these magnetic poetry boards today along the charles river., in cambridge. open to whoever felt like writing some poetry. on another board it said "start swimming woman" :D

i thought it was interesting, not only for the strange poetry, but also because of the see-through boards.

today it was summering indeed. by far not as hot as last week. even a little chilly, at times!

Holland tunnel

when we visited new york we stayed on the jersey side, just like last time. less expensive, easier when coming by car, a bit more quiet and a nice skyline when walking home... :) this time we found a place through airbnb; not a hotel, but someone's apartment! the place was not the best, but well, what more do you need than just a place to sleep when in NY? we stayed at the 32nd floor, i never slept that high up before! :) (for dutch it would be the 30th floor; here ground floor is 1st and they skip the 13th). unfortunately we did not have a view on manhattan, but on new jersey, as above. you can see the entrance to the holland tunnel. in the holland tunnel you have only 2 lanes, so during rush hour the road towards the tunnel is very congested, as you can see! 

the name holland tunnel has nothing to do with the netherlands, as i always assumed. it was named after Clifford Milburn Holland, chief engineer on the project, who died before the tunnel was completed in 1927. wikipedia also tells me that the tunnel remained closed for all traffic for nearly a month after 9/11. until november 2003, single occupant vehicles (SOVs) were prohibited in the tunnel on weekday mornings between 6:00 am and 10:00 am. 

getting into the tunnel, from this side, costs you 8 dollars. but leaving new york through the tunnel is free! in fact, you can drive from boston to new york without paying any toll, but the opposite direction costs you nearly 20 dollars for toll roads! avoiding it will cost you a day worth of driving, instead of 4 hours.. :)

Four men

4 men. lost in thought.. or reading. in harlem.

Manly contest... ?

as mentioned previously, the harvard stadium was built from money that came from the 25th reunion gift by harvard's class of 1879. the above sign is in the harvard stadium.... so... this stadium is dedicated to the joy of manly contest...... ehmmmm?! whats manly contest? is that a contest between males? or not necessarily, but it should be "man-like"? or....?

well... im not very good at the manly contest. tim and me decided to do some more sports... but after work its always late and we are tired and hungry.. during the day is no option. so... the morning was left.. thus far, i have gone to the gym once, friday morning (and saturday/sunday, but weekend does not count), while tim went every morning! i do promise every evening that i will go, but then... eehmmm. no.. rather not..

perhaps tomorrow a little manly contest again?

Four girls

its late already and im a little lazy; so i just picked the picture that i still had open form yesterday! the sea of flags was a photo opportunity for many.... these 4 little girls had to pose a few times before their father was satisfied with the portrait...

tim picked me up from work and said we should goto the movies. and so we did... this time it was woody allen's midnight in paris. and i liked it a lot. funny, too... just a movie you should see rather than that i tell you about it.. :)

Memorial day

today its memorial day in the us; always on the last monday of may. its a public holiday, and typically marks the beginning of the summer vacation season (well, hot it is; since a few days its over 30 degrees and very sunny; the pool at our apartment complex is open again; jeeejj!). my friend wikipedia tells me that memorial day was formerly known as decoration day, "and was first recorded to have been observed by freedmen (freed enslaved southern blacks) in Charleston, South Carolina in 1865, to remember the fallen Union soldiers of the Civil War. Over time, it was extended after world war I to honor all Americans who have died in all wars. Now known as Memorial Day, it is a day of remembering the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces."

above i photographed the approximately 20,000 flags that they placed last friday in the boston common. each flag represents a massachuttes citizen who died in wars and military conflicts during the last 100 years. everyone was taking pictures of them; but you were not allowed to walk through them...

Wall street

of course, as real tourists we also went to wall street. as always guarded by a huge amount of policemen.... just to the left of this picture many people were posing with willing policemen in front of their NYPD car. since i saw planet of the apes i cannot watch the statue of george washington anymore without thinking about that movie... that statue is just up on the steps behind... but i was more interested in this homeless man that seemed to pose for me, while standing on this vent.... it wasnt very cold that moment, however...

oh my! and i was just reading up on my wikipedia pages... and yes, also wall street is originally derived from the dutch that named this street "de Waal straat"...

Staten island

ok... back to new york... :)

this time we took the staten island ferry! its always nice to see the skyline of a city from the water, and even better if you dont have to pay for it. and... the staten island ferry is free! it goes very frequent and provides you with a 30 minute ride during which you can try every setting on your camera to get the best picture... if still not satisfied, there is still the way back to manhattan... :D

when on staten island we didnt see anything in the immediate vicinity of the terminal that could entertain us, aside from an au bon pain to get some food, so we went straight back.... the ferry is huge! and its also good to have an hour rest from all the walking through new york while just enjoying the view of manhattan, ellis island and the statue of liberty....

above you see another staten island ferry (i like that they are yellow... :) ), to the left you see new jersey, with their tallest (and my favorite) building; the hackensack building, and to the right manhattan...

Zombie march

jeeejjj! we witnessed the boston zombie march! while last year we ended up amidst the zombie walk and were wondering the rest of the day what was that all about; this year we were prepared! or... kind of... we knew it was today, and that they would probably go through prudential center, and we happened to be at prudential right on time... :)

there were sooo many! and the make up/outfits were amazing! but the clown above was the freakiest..... im planning to upload more pictures on my flickr account.... here!

Bye bye!

above my sister and i, in front of the boston skyline. this was during the first weekend she was here. i had read in some magazine about a great lunchroom/restaurant, so went there to have lunch. it was a teeny tiny place, with a lot of people working in the small kitchen; pupuseria mama blanca. the food was good and sooo cheap, and the waitress so cute! it wasnt a place i would normally goto, but i was glad we did! yum yum mexican food. after that we walked a bit through the neighborhood, and discovered this nice view of boston we hadnt seen before. after that we had a walk through the nearby marina, which was great too, as there were a lot of huge and interesting/beautiful artworks... surely i will post some pics of that sometime...

yesterday my sister left for the netherlands again. too bad i had to work most of the time, and too bad the weather wasnt that great most of the times, especially compared to holland right now (but the last days were good!), but we did goto new york... and we had dinners at a lot of restaurants... once again; we do not usually go out to dinner that often! i do need to visit the gym a bit more now....

and isnt it funny; when we were young, people sometimes asked whether we were twins, which i always hated, since i am TWO (!!) years older than her.. :) but now we dont look as if we could be twins anymore, i think....

Ellis island

yet another picture from our NY trip.... hope you dont mind... :)

here we were on the jersey side, from where you have a beautiful view of manhattan... unless, as in our case, its very foggy!! this is in liberty state park, an enormous park that is by far not as crowded as manhattan. from there, you can take the ferry to the statue of liberty. you can also take ferry from battery park, in NYC, but i think its quite a bit less crowded taking it from this side...

above you see ellis island, in front of the manhattan skyscrapers. 12 million immigrants entered the US through the "golden door of ellis island" (i found that on this website; im just wondering whether there literally was a golden door? i can imagine it; some official standing there; "welcome to the united states of america! god bless america! welcome to the land of endless opportunities!!"). today, half of the american population are descendants of those 12 million immigrants....

this is another interesting website; you can enter names and find out whether they passed through ellis island (i typed in my last name, and found 22 people! i am just wondering if they mean with "residence" where they originally came from, or where they live now?)
thinking about it, i guess perhaps this golden gate was the golden M from mc donalds....?

In Harlem

we also walked around in harlem; another part of new york named after a dutch city (click here to see the dutch haarlem). the neighborhoods in NY are all soooo different. it was fun to walk through a big street in harlem; at that moment the weather was nice and everyone was on the streets; only a little later it suddenly started raining quite a lot once again. 

we passed by the 2 guys above, and they asked where we were from, and where we would publish the pictures we were taking.... they then posed for me and said they hoped it would make them famous! :D

One more...

... picture of the view from rockefeller center! the sky was just sooo beautiful! to me it looked like a painting.. :) to the right you see a black building with kind of a white frame around it; thats from the bank of america. here you cant see it, but this building is not entirely flat; towards the ground this building is shaped like a bell. or, as i prefer; this skyscraper is like a giant chute! behind you see central park. it is sooo huge! i still have not been to the far end of it, maybe next time... its amazing to imagine that manhattan once was entirely like central park.....

and i do agree with biebkriebels; the view from rockefeller is probably nicer than from the empire state building, and the line indeed was less long. or as someone else said; its better because you get to see the empire state building, rather than standing on top of it... :D