Frog pond

we walked by the frog pond this afternoon, in the boston common. it was hot, so all the kids were in the water, playing. it was such a beautiful sight!! last year at july 4th, we saw this for the first time, and i now see i placed this picture of it on my blog, exactly one year ago!

the fountain gave a pretty rainbow from one side, but from the side on this picture, i liked the pond even better.... but... as we were taking some pictures, a member of the staff, guarding the pond came up to tim saying it is "not cool" to take pictures of kids. they told him he was not allowed to take pictures, "especially of the children". he then asked to see the regulations for that, and the guy answered "do you really want that?" "well, yes" so then he was brought to another guy, who simply stated the same.  they then even said that he "could get into serious trouble". well, thats just sad.... do they also prohibit parents taking pictures? another kid might end up on their picture! and what about people without cameras, but also without kids, watching all those kids play, because it is such a lovely sight? can they get into serious trouble as well? should we perhaps all close our eyes while walking in public places? or, in order to let privacy prevail, we should close down all the parks and stay at home?

here once more the photographer's rights......
now we're at it. we went to this exhibition "kids are people too", inside the hotel commonwealth. in boston. it displayed photographs of kids from various photographers. some were staged, which i did not really like, but there were also photos from Harold Feinstein, which he took in New York during the 50s and 60s and they were simply marvellous.... click here to see some of his work. the exhibition is only until July 12th...!

Living proof

when we were walking around cambridge (from the mall to the cinema, how american!), we passed this parking lot with the sign "living proof. visitor". that was funny!

around that area are a lot of biotech companies located. so i thought that living proof might be one of them... and well.. it seems to be a startup that aims to apply innovations in science to address beauty challenges; they sell hair products... and this is their slogan:"science is beautiful. we are living proof" hahahaha. as a scientist... hmm... i should just refrain from giving my opinion... here you can read a little more about science and my friend sylvia's opinion, if youd like..

living proof is also a song by cat power! she is an american singer/songwriter and i found her by coincidence, when i was once bored and typing random things into google.. :D then i got her CDs, played them in the lab, and i liked it a lot, but the others not that much.. :)

and tims shirt says; "rock is dead. and paper killed it" but to understand that, you have to be an american, having played rock, paper, scissors....

Ooh laundry..

this is in melrose, where we live. we biked there on sunday, while it was raining a little. i am so glad we have our own washing machine! while a normality in the netherlands, here most apartments do not come with a washer. often you have to goto the basement, with quarters you have been collecting the entire week to be able to wash (8 quarters per wash or so!). in our previous apartment we actually had a washer in the basement, but it was so dirty that we went to the laudromat down the street......

ah well, lets not get started on the washing machines here.. :) good night!

Beach scene

this was a while back already; end of may, when there finally was a warm day without rain. everyone was out on the beach in revere.... 

these children were very cute, especially the girl. she was very busy removing water from the sea with her red bucket. her mom was more interested in her phone, and had her picture taken with it.. :) (she is now checking whether she is satisfied)

Charles river

yes, we were in a canoe on the charles river yesterday! the weather was great... so that was really nice.. many boats were there, too, already in place for the fireworks later that day. the river banks were full with people as well, entire families on blankets, waiting the entire day for the fireworks that only started at 10.30 that evening.

i still dont understand the concept. americans go and sit all day in the hot sun to have the best spot to see the fireworks, but as soon as it is done, they all run out as fast as possible, not taking one moment to contemplate.... well, what should they contemplate.. something, anything! nope, all they think of is getting out of there as soon as possible... :)

Independence day

we went to see the july 4th fireworks! on the .... bridge (the one that takes the red line from cambridge to boston). and above what i saw.... loads and loads of people... and then some firework... :)

ah well... an excellent day. it was very hot! in a canoe on the charles river in the afternoon; i was in the middle so did not have to paddle... :) neither did i have to carry the canoe to the water. after that a BBQ in the sun on a roof terrace in the blazing sun. hahaha, celebrating independence day with.... mostly dutch people! its been long since i have been surrounded by so many dutch...

and now im real tired. good night!

Real Texan

 

this man was one of the few walking beings we saw in downtown dallas, when we were in texas. it didnt happen to us, but i heard from several people that walking in dallas is an anomaly. if you do so, it can very well happen that a cop comes up to you to ask whether everything is OK, whether your car is broke down or whether you lost your way... :)

here are some more photos from texas, also from the wedding celebration, which was the reason we went there...

Distorted Obey

have you ever seen Obey? i think it was the ica museum in boston who was selling obey tshirts and all, and from that moment on, i have seen obey at many places. every time i think; "ah, obey". it reminds me of communism propaganda, but i didnt look into it.... although it always made me wonder "now what is this? who is that? and.... why?" luckily, there is the internet to tell me everything and now im looking at pictures and reading about fairey since almost an hour (i wanted to go to sleep, actually!)

well, obey has been around since 1989, and is a creation of shepard fairey. originally an image of andre the giant (a french professional wrestler and actor) that fairey eventually altered stylistically and semantically into the obey giant. he created it at the rhode island school of design, in providence (it has a nice museum that we visited a few months ago!). it got distributed by the "skater community" and started to show up in many cities, all across the USA, and eventually the world. but why? at that time Fairey declared the campaign to be "an experiment in phenomenology". and directly stolen from wikipedia: "it is intended to inspire curiosity and cause the masses to question their relationship with their surroundings".

in fact, i discovered fairey made a lot of very interesting posters. look at this one for example! exactly how i feel about american cops.... or america's finest cop. as the ICA writes on their website when they displayed his first solo exhibition: "The content of Fairey's work is a call to action about hierarchies and abuses of power, politics and the commodification of culture" yup, i agree!

and look, also this famous hope poster of obama is his!

Some milk?

a collection of milk bottles was standing somewhere on the street in chinatown. im just wondering why... to show the huge variety of milk they have here? this is just a small subset. fat free milk, skim milk, 2% fat milk, hmmm.. there are a whole lot more.. but i dont know, as i never drink milk. i do drink buttermilk, and from that they have only one, sometimes 2, varieties. and yes, it took me a while to figure out that buttermilk is what we dutch call "karnemelk". actually, its not entirely the same. sometimes i miss the dutch karnemelk, just like i miss the cheese, a lot, at the moment. and biking around. and people that just act normal, and say what they think... ;) instead of fake politeness...

hmm, but let me not get into that. and certainly; not everyone is like that, just like the netherlands is not perfect... ;)

Looks like

this building has a face! no?

this is close to harvard square. saw it once already while driving by, but recently we finally walked there, so i had to take a picture....

Fast food

for only 5 dollar 50.... in chinatown.. but i thought this street looks rather sad...!

Tree rat

tree rat (in dutch; "boomrat") is a whole lot easier for me to pronounce than squirrel. 

they are not shy at all, and do whatever necessary to get some food... even holding out a helping hand... or is that to get some food... ? :)

Purple lollipops

purple is my favorite color, since a while now, and these gigantic flowers were just amazing. they made for great photo opportunities for many people, young and old... :)

in the public garden, boston, on sunday afternoon.

after that we went to see the movie "beginners"; the father of the main character wears a purple sweater (actually, he wears a robe) when he tells his son he is gay, and now, after his wife passed away, wants to explore this side of himself... well.. it could have been a hilarious movie. or a very sad one. or both. but it was not really either of those.....

American badass

if forgiveness is the way..... then.... here something to think about.. :)

Is it?

depends on what it is... i guess...
this is somewhere on a building in the center of boston.

Ieeekkk jellyfish!

when my sister was here, we went to the boston aquarium. that was the first and the last time. it was over-over crowded, the building as old, dark and depressing and the entrance fee high (even though we had discount through work). the only thing i liked were the jellyfish.. :) jellyfish have no heart, bones, eyes, brain or heart, and are made up of 95% water, yet they are able to kill other animals, in some instances even human.

the other amazing thing is that they have green fluorescent proteins (GFP); so they emit light. we saw some tiny jellyfish that were emitting many different colors of light. they were in a corner of the aquarium, and not many seemed to notice them. i watched them for quite a while, so beautiful! unfortunately, the pictures were crap (you thus have to visit the awful aquarium yourself, just to see them!). nowadays, GFP is widely used in laboratories as it is a very useful tool in microscopy. the people who discovered and developed GFP, received the nobel prize in chemistry in 2008.
by now, scientists have made many different colors of fluorescent protein. here you can see a plate of bacteria, all expressing another color of fluorescent protein! science can be fun.... ;)
enough lecturing... good night!

Just sitting...

saw the street, and only upon looking twice, i saw the guy sitting there... 

this is in the north end, a part of boston we do not visit very often, for whatever reason. yet this website calls it one of the most famous neighborhoods of boston... :) we did go to a restaurant there, once, or twice? for sure something italian, as this part of boston is also called little italy....
when finally coming home from work, im usually just sitting as well. i should be cleaning up my stuff, i should be writing emails, i should.... but usually im just sitting, and then its time for bed, but then i first have to do my blog, and then i dont know what picture to choose, and then i dont know what to write, and then it always ends up being late when i finally get to bed.. :)
good night!

Rain, rain

another fountain photo! we were there for quite a while, and i took many pictures. i guess i should upload them to flickr. another day.... :) currently i have annoyingly few photos of boston.. i need to get out more...

this boy looked so triumphant, hihi. today you didnt need a fountain to get wet, it was pouring! almost the entire day. and according to the forecast tomorrow as well, and perhaps friday too. buuuh, no more lunch outside.

Its summer!

today summer officially started! here in boston its warm, since a little while. unfortunately, at work they put the airconditioning on high, so inside im cold, most of the times, and need warmer clothes than during winter. aarghhh! 

the picture above i took almost exactly 2 years ago, in the netherlands. those boys were enjoying the water, by jumping into it over and over again. it is around utrecht, where i lived. this part is sooo beautiful! i think that winter it was so cold that even this lake got frozen. it was fun to walk on it, while just months before we were swimming in it....

today was also the longest day... :( buuuh, already from today on, the days will get shorter again. and they are already shorter here than in the netherlands! here it starts to get dark around 8.45 now....

Flat tire

yesterday no post; i was exhausted once again...

tim picked my up from work at 8 by car; in that way i would be home a little earlier. and i was so hungry! but... halfway home i heard this weird noise. we stopped right at a bus stop, and when opening the door there was this enormously loud hissing noise. surely that was the airconditioning of the building and luckily not from the car.... until we found it it was actually the tire that was flat in no time.... buuuhhh. a large piece of metal still stuck in it, shitty roads!!

of course i had no clue what to do. but tim did and he exchanged the enormous flat tire for the enormous spare tire. by then it was so late that we had "dinner" at applebee's. the good thing about being so late; the appetizers were only half the price.....