Girl talk

im very curious what these ladies are discussing here, but it looks important...

monday we had rain the entire day! today at least it was dry, but the sun was kind of hidden... hope tomorrow will be better again.

Yellow car

this was on some field in new hampshire. i think yellow cars make for nice pictures. when i was in california, sylvia rented a car to goto the desert and LA, and that car was also yellow! at the rental company they had all these boring colored cars, but the one sylvia got. i will show you a pic of it some other day...

Self portrait

jeeejjj! tim got back from the netherlands today... so i thought it was time for another self portrait. this one is on mount washington. i picked him up from the airport, where supposedly also mike meyers was arriving, but we did not want to wait for that... 

now im too lazy to write more, so i leave it at that!

Frog pond (2)

remember this picture of the frog pond? some guards were not happy with tim taking pics..., that post ended up on this site, and generated a lot of responses. now yesterday evening i was bored and hopping around on facebook (what a waste of time!), and saw this post at the frog pond page: "Visitors at any public space have the right to take photographs and that is of course true at the Frog Pond. Please accept our apologies that one of our staff members aired on the side of overprotection." actually posted july 12, two days after my post... sadly, they had then had already removed tims question on their page about taking pics, and never wrote him back directly. 

ah well... i thus went to the frog pond this afternoon, without tim, as he only comes back from the netherlands tomorrow, but it was so emtpy there! hardly any kids in the water and not much happening. besides, my view was blocked by these people concerned about whales and dolphins... were they afraid to find one in the frog pond? :) (here is their site, actually sad to read that stuff.., good i never had the urge to swim with dolphins)

Holy drink.....?

sylvia and me went for some fastfood on tuesday at the in-n-out burger. although i am (slowly) getting used to the enormous amount of choices you are confronted with while ordering something ("what kind of salad? onions? tomato? what kind of dressing? on the side? small-large or medium? for here or to go?"), it was nice to go to a place where my options were very limited; only 3 types of burgers (hamburger, cheeseburger and double-double, which is double meat and double cheese), and/or fries & soda. and hmm, it was not bad at all! while drinking, sylvia told me to look underneath the cup. now zoom in.... can you see it? 

yes, it says "John 3:16". eeehhh? she told me that all cups have a bible reference. of course back at home i went to wikipedia to learn what this is all about.... well, as she already told me, this family-owned chain has been around for a very long time (the first restaurant opened in 1948 in california), and claims to be the first drive-through restaurant (which is different from a drive-in. want to know more? wikipedia will tell you all!). they pride themselves in always using fresh ingredients, including meat that has never been frozen. interestingly, they also have a "secret menu"; a 3x3 for example is 3 times meat and 3 times cheese, and you can order that in whatever number you want, at additional cost. so... someone once ordered a 100x100, and what that looks like, you can see here. now back to the bible; that started only in the 1980s, and is "a reflection of the Christian beliefs held by the Snyder (the founders) family".  so, our drink: John 3:16—"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." and our cheeseburger: Revelation 3:20—"Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me."

i do hope the lord likes fastfood....

Deserted place

another desert photo from anza-borrego. it was so amazing there..! here we were high up and had a view down on seemingly nothing but emptiness. i could not believe it! one moment we were driving on the highway, and just a bit later... total nothingness. and soooo terribly hot! there are several hiking trails, but we remained close to the car and only went out to take some pictures, that was more than hot enough. and in fact, down there it was not as deserted as it seemed, there were some resorts (is that for people with marital problems? ;)), and also actual people were living there!! the previous photo is taken somewhere down here too. we think we saw a roadrunner; at least it was running across the road, but wasnt followed by a coyote :), and it was a little small....

certainly, im not yet done with the desert and will show you more pictures later.

i got abck to boston this morning after an overnight flight without any sleep. i did see water for elephants once again during the flight; that movie is even worse when watching it for the second time., but at least this airline didnt make you pay for watching television. i do think the ban on water bottles is enforced by all airport shops. thirsty as i get from flying, i thought this time to buy some water at the gate. the lady even asked  "only this water?" well yes, it was more than expensive enough! 3 dollar 50... grrrrrr!!

the apartment was deserted too; tim only comes back on sunday....

Flying back....

... to boston.... :( this week went by so fast! sylvia just dropped me off at the airport, and now waiting for my flight..... 

today we did a boat tour and we saw lots of sea lions (i only ever saw those in the zoo!), and some seals. then we went to the beach again, another one this time, but.... the sun was behind the clouds and it was quite cold. nevertheless we went into the water, but not that many waves... ah well.... 

have to say that taking pics here was rather difficult. often it was quite cloudy, and although the weather was great, for pics it was not that great. ofcourse i did take quite some, so certainly you will see more the coming days.

and sylvia; thank you! it was great! now back to normal life, or whatever thats supposed to be... buuughhh.

Amazing holiday

now look at that..... isnt that great? 

this morning we went to old town, which was, indeed, a very old town... :) it is where the first europeans settled in california. that was very interesting.. to get a glimpse of what it must have been like so many years (but not THAT many) ago.. it reminded me a little of the movie true grit. it was a little too touristy, however, but i guess thats always the case, everywhere. we did get some very good candy, including "roldrop", yumyumyum... (note to tim; please bring me some from the netherlands!!). after that we had a burger in a very interesting fast food chain about which i will write some day or another for sure.. (i have been catching up on wikipedia already!), and then we went to the beach, as above, and had a swim in the ocean! jeeeejj! it was my first attempt of catching waves with a boogie board, but i had trouble to keep my bikini in place at the same time... :P when we got out the sun disappeared and it became a little chilly. i never thought of california as chilly, but it is! both in the mornings and evenings... not like boston where, when its hot, it will remain hot.... 

tomorrow will be my last day already... :(

Such emptiness!

such emptiness we saw today when we drove to the desert! we went to anza-borrego desert state park, and it was just amazing. one moment we were driving on the highway, next thing we were in the middle of nowhere in blazing heat.... so beautiful! and so impressive! later we went through a small mountain gold mining town named julian, where we had just the best dutch apple pie i had in the usa.... yumyumyum!!

then we drove by the coast which was beautiful too. endless beaches, palm trees and just beauty.... after that we went to the pool to swim for an hour, just like we did on saturday morning. pure pleasure!

i took so many pictures and cannot choose which one to place.... and surely, tired once again....

Santa Monica

today we (or actually, sylvia, since i cant drive!) drove to los angeles!! we went to the getty museum, which was beautiful.... and so huge... and of course my pics were disappointing...

after that wedrove on to santa monica, where there were lots and lots of shops, street performers, and at the end of all that the endless sandy beach, as you can see above.... 

then hollywood which was so different from what i imagined. somehow it looked a little sad... all not as fancy and glamorous as i had thought... but so cool to be there!

and now im tired and not at all in the mood to write or refer to wikipedia... :) good night!

Palm trees

palm trees are everywhere in san diego! literally everywhere and everything seems to look better because of them, even parking lots, or so i think...  according to wikipedia, palm trees are a popular symbol for the tropics and vacations. for me, palm trees were something from cartoons, and it was only when i went to a conference in spain that i saw palm trees in reality, and realized that they are not only in cartoons.... (stupid, huh).

but now im tired.... so good night!

Im in......

when i arrived last night it was dark already, all i could see were palm trees everywhere.... because i am in ... san diego!! i never went to this side of the us of a, while my friend sylvia lives there. while she has visited us already twice in boston, we never got to visit her so far!

but finally.... here i am, on the couch in her apartment! today we went to a photography museum, and had a walk through the park, and then a veeerrrrryyyyy long walk at the beach. so pretty! and a lot of people were enjoying the sun and the water.....  many people on bikes... isnt he gorgeous.. ? :D all like in the movies, but better!! ah, and tim just said this guy reminded him of the one we saw in texas, you can see him here... hihihihihihi.

my, it looks so different here, compared to boston, let alone the netherlands... hahahaha.

Me toooo!!!

this is at newark international airport.... the view from my window onto new york city, which was not my final destination... yup, i decided not to stay at home either and went somewhere... perhaps today you see where i went! ;)

Glass ceiling

my dear friend wikipedia tells me that the glass ceiling refers to "the unseen, yet unbreachable barrier that keeps minorities and women from rising to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, regardless of their qualifications or achievements." i do not necessarily think that this only applies to women, so i am happy to read that the next wiki sentence tells me that it can also refer to men.

glass ceilings can be pretty too; above you see part of a glass ceiling. its in the MFA, and belongs to the chihuly exhibit i wrote about before, we then could not get in. i actually then saw it a few weeks later, but today i went with someone who had not yet seen it. when we got to the museum i saw lots, and lots of people, that formed a line, extending from the entrance up to the sidewalk onto the back of the museum... whoops. yup, it was free entrance night today, but more importantly, the last week of the chihuly exhibit. and no, being there around 6.45 was too late to get to the exhibit, even though the museum closes at 9.45. the MFA people were smart; they were offering us the option to skip the line and get in immediately.... if.... you become a member of the museum for 75 dollars. some people did... :) we (like many others) just left when it became clear we really had no chance to get in, and had a delicious dinner instead! here you can see some more pictures. it was hard to take pics, as it was rather dark there, and the sculptures so big!

Flying home

well... i dropped tim at the airport today; hes going home to the netherlands to visit his grandmother, and then on to france to visit his parents. im staying in the us, enjoying the weather!! but its weird to suddenly be alone, or rather, without tim, after more than a year always being together..

Fashionable bostonians

GQ, which stands for gentlemen's quarterly, is a magazine apparently the male equivalent of vogue (oh, am i glad that wikipedia is there to literally explain me everything! how else would i have known what on earth GQ mag is!). they did a poll, which made boston the worst dressed city of america, which in turn was so shocking, that it was on the cover of the free newspaper, cnn, and on the (local?) news. i found back that article and just had to copy what they write about boston style: "Boston is like America's Bad-Taste Storm Sewer: all the worst fashion ideas from across the country flow there, stagnate, and putrefy. To be fair, it's hard to be a fashion capital when half of your population is made up of undergraduate hoodie monsters, including those unfortunate coeds who don't realize that leggings-as-pants were supposed to be paired with tops large enough to conceal their cameltoes." and this: "For the more proletarian-minded, there are the modest little burgs of Cambridge and Somerville, where everyone dresses like the proprietor of his or her very own meth lab." eh....?

well.. what can i add other than the picture above... the socks might be some sort of fashion statement, but after that it only gets worse, and where did he get that hat or whatever you call it?

Mountain angels

on sunday we finally went to mount washington in new hampshire! i had been wanting to go there since a while now, but it is quite far (3 hrs by car). so, we got up early, and arrived down at the mountain around 11.30. it is 6,288 ft, or 1912 m high, the highest peak in this part of the us, and famous for dangerously erratic weather (wikipedia). the weather was perfect, sunny with only a few clouds. i had put on my most sporty outfit and my ugly running shoes. yep, we would walk up that mountain; a 4,4 mile hike! i decided to take tims camera bag taking all the lenses we have, and tim carried a backpack with food, water, extra jackets etc. the first part was fun and all. the path so rocky, but very doable. halfway, or rather, what we thought was halfway, we had lunch. unfortunately, we could not find the place where we supposedly could fill our waterbottle. not so nice, as we would have drank less.... soon after that, the path became more rocky, and considerably steeper. but still, doable. up, up, up we went. getting more and more tired. but the views were beautiful and the weather nice. and we saw so many people, also rather old people, so why wouldnt we be able to do this? at some point, while we thought we were really almost there, we drank all the water! and the path was getting more and more difficult. at some point, there were only rocks, and it was really steep. and i was tired, and we got  past the treeline and we were up so high and the sun was shining and i never did something like this before.... i was getting nasty with tim.... and why did i bring that stupid camera bag?!!

luckily, our fist mountain angel arrived! you can see her here. she was training and had an extra bottle of water, entirely for us!! that was great, and we got some courage again.... then we climbed up rock after rock for another 45 minutes, before we finally reached the summit. we took all the required pictures, including this one. in total, it took us nearly 5.5 hours!! all the while, i was telling tim that i was not going to walk back that path again... however... taking the train or shuttlebus back down would be 45 dollars per person!! we did not even bring that much money! lucky us, once again, we could drive down with a family that visited the mountain for the first time with their kids, 20 years after they had visited it together for the first time.... what would we be doing in 20 years?

so, we had a great day, but certainly it would have been less nice without these people that helped us out! thank you, once again!

more photos of our adventure? here!

Bike lane

in some parts of boston and cambridge you have separate bike lanes. as above; the green lane is for bikes... in the netherlands, almost everywhere you have separate bike lanes. being used to that, i really do not feel comfortable biking here, especially in combination with the shitty roads (so many big holes you have to avoid, while at the same time avoiding big cars!), and big cars that are not used to tiny bikes...

as i said so often before; i really miss taking my bike and going somewhere quickly...

American emptiness

this was last week, in new hampshire. it felt like we were driving through a movie set. everything so empty, here and there a house, a lone shop, just like in the movies. only the men with guns were missing.. but we did see a gun shop (i ofcourse thought it was a gum shop, at first..).

Happy family

looks cute, no?
at the frog pond, once again, in the boston common.
im not so much in a writing mood, these days.... perhaps next week again!