Self portrait

another self portrait! this is actually the push-button for the light of a pedestrian crossing in boston. it was so shiny, and then i realized when i zoomed enough, it was a perfect mirror... :)

of course there is a wiki for button, but please check it out yourself if interested. there is also a wiki for pedestrian crossing, and that one tells me that many buttons in some areas such as new york are actually placebo buttons designed to give pedestrians an illusion of control while the crossing signal continues its operation as programmed. hahhahaha, i think thats funny. and not surprising at all. too bad it does not only count for traffic lights...

Need some?

this is in the (gay) village in montreal. the entire street is decorated with those pink balls; it was the first i saw upon arrival by bus. it looks so nice! but taking pics was, as usual, not that easy. as in... i cant show you how it looked... grrrr!! but above a try... here a few more pics of this street.

from may to september, this street is pedestrians only, the other months of the year its open to other traffic as well.

there were several advertisements for viagra. i do not know why....

Duck extension

this evening tim and me met at the ducks in the public garden. i could sit there everyday watch the children. its so cute, and i could prove my theory that almost each kid does the same when seeing this statue; sitting on each duck (there are 8 small ones and the mother duck; above), at least one time. and the parents do the same too; grab their cameras and take as many pictures as possible. this girl put her skirt over each duck head (the park is one of the few places without hand sanitizer). tim was worried the skirt would get stuck onto the head when she was about to jump off, but it didnt.

after that we went to the hatch shell to listen to some free classical music, but it got a little chilly so we left during the break. then we went to the cinema; we saw the help. it was sad, but also very funny at times, and i really liked it.

Two ladies

underneath some weird advertisement in montreal.... im wondering whether they saw that!

Something simple

some raindrops on a green leaf.... but it took me quite a while to get i photographed! this was in montreal, where i went to visit a friend with baby, haha, so now you know why i went there. the baby is only 29 days old today.... and very cute.

the bus trip back was again not very pleasant. no dogs at the border this time, but the officers became very suspicious when one male passenger had a what appeared to be a female scarf in his bag. when asked twice whether that scarf was his (and yes, he answered it is!!), they took him to another room for further investigation. that took over an hour, after which he could just return back (so... do not bring "weird" clothes with you!). i dont think this passenger was treated very nicely, and most likely there was absolutely nothing wrong with him, and that while they have this "pledge" hanging at every US border.

more delays at the next stop, and then heavy rain slowed us even further down. i got back to boston 3 hours later than planned. grrrr!!!

tomorrow another montreal picture!

Ooh, french..

i do not speak french. i never did and i never will. and now im in montreal and its mostly in french and i have no clue what they are saying. luckily most people speak as well english as they do french. but this artwork in the village is in french. i liked it a lot! but since i couldnt read it anyways, on this pic you cant read it either. each red stick has a letter, and standing right in front of it, you can read what it says, as you can see here. luckily, there was a translation, this is what it says:"a time will come where you can express yourself freely". and then there is a "manifeste" in which it is explained, but... only in french. to see the tex you had to peek through this square, i somehow see that as a message too.. 

so.... when will this time come, when you can express yourself freely? i dont know.... :) so either someone else can tell why im in montreal, or you have to wait another day... :P

When traveling..

traveling usually involves a lot of waiting, sitting and doing nothing. today i went by bus. a 7 hour trip it was supposed to be. during the morning everything went smooth (the bus left at 7.15. that was the only thing, getting up so terribly early) and i remember at what point i was thinking; ooh, how great this is. im sitting nice and comfortable, i have a book, when i look outside the window i see all these new and often pretty places.... then the last stop before the border. the driver saying; "dont get off the bus, your new driver will be here soon". soon became an hour. "sorry, your driver is stuck at the border coming back". 2 hours... and all the while the engine was running (aarrghhh!!). another driver.... yesyes, soon we go. then, finally, the border. "get all off the bus, get all your luggage"

"where are you living? when are you going back to the netherlands? how do you know your friend? where did you meet? wait in that room and do not go to the restroom." "now you all get out, place your luggage in front of you, step back, wait". (i had no clue what was going to happen and because i am reading the hunger games, the most weird things suddenly went trough my mind) and then dogs came to check both us and the bags. "thank you. now wait here. you can stand in the shade if you want". they did this with all passengers, lined up in groups, then the bus. we just crossed the border from us to canada. funny, what people do, and other people do to prevent that, and what people then do, and.... and so on and so on.

then a small road and endless farms. so green, so pretty! but all my photos with the ugly reflection of the window. they should have washed the windows, too. then... traffic jam..... a delay of almost 4 hours, but now i am in montreal for the weekend. jeeejj. why? tell you tomorrow...

Little protestors...

... but do they know what they are protesting for?
this is in front of the public library in boston, a little while back.
just noticed that both girls have their feet positioned the same way.

Too close

biebkriebels placed this photo yesterday, so i thought to show you a similar one from san diego! when i arrived, i was, as always, looking down from my window (i prefer to have a window seat so that i can see whats going on), and the ground was approaching sooo fast! i couldnt see an airport, but i did see houses, streets, and it was all a little too close for me. it all went fine, and one of the first things sylvia asked me was how i liked the landing... as she knew ofcourse.... :)

later we were back there for the rental car, and i (also) had to be very quick to take a picture. now some wiki-facts about the airport; its the busiest single-runway commercial service airport in the us, but not in the world; thats london (and then comes san diego), with having approximately 600 arrivals and departures each day. august 16, 1928, exactly 83 years and 1 day ago, the airport was named San Diego Municipal Airport – Lindbergh Field, because San Diego was the city from which mister Lindbergh began the journey that would ultimately become the first solo transatlantic flight, in addition to being the place where his aircraft was designed, built, and tested.

besides, i am fascinated by the wall with the monkeys, no idea whether it was just decoration, or some sort of advertisement.

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!