Cheapest produce...

... in the city can be found at haymarket, an open-air fruit and vegetable market close to government center in boston. this picture is quite old by now, i took it on the very first day i had a "real" camera.. :)

we actually never go to haymarket. we were there a few times, and had some cheap stuff, some ok, some good, some really bad. its easier to just drive to our favorite supermarket (the market basket!) once a week and get everything there. the produce selection there is very good (i think there is a wider selection than in the netherlands. and many things are much cheaper (but not the mushrooms..)).

haymarket has been open since 1830. nowadays every friday and saturday...

You decide...

this piece of art is in the de cordova museum in lincoln. a museum where we have been quite a number of times now. it has an outside sculpture park, and a museum with rotating exhibitions of modern art. the grounds are absolutely wonderful, and i am never bored there. there is "weird" stuff too. but i like weird stuff. since this year, every first wednesday of the month entrance is free, so last month we left work a few hours earlier and went to the museum.

the above is made by the american artist steve lambert (1976). as a visitor of the museum, you can, if you want to, vote whether capitalism works for you or not. as you can see, the votes are counted. currently, this work is traveling through boston, together with the artist, and people are asked to vote and i guess think more/discuss about this question through this piece (i wonder if he notes down the votes. if he sees a difference in outcome depending on where he is. i think for example harvard yard vs eeehhhmm... revere or so). glancing at his wikipedia page, the artist seems interesting. in 2006, for example, he launched "why they hate us". "this project invited users to tag photos on flickr with "whytheyhateus", acting as a display of pictures that users suggest contribute to a negative view of the United States or have the potential to be misinterpreted as negative. Some of the themes include gun violence, war, crude humor, consumerism, obesity and big government and big business". hmm, im curious to see what kind of pics are posted there. apparently they are uncensored, and anyone can post.

but... its bedtime yet again. i will check it out tomorrow!

Traffic enforcement

somewhere close to the museum of science, when it was a little warmer outside.

i always wonder how fit they are. could they run, if they had to? they must have gotten their nickname "officer cupcake" from somewhere, right? :)

Indulgent wife

another cemetery in the center of boston, that is relatively close to the ones i showed you last week. this one is in the boston common, a large park in boston of which i already posted many pics on this blog. yet it was only this february that we "discovered" this park has a cemetery (next to the tennis court, baseball field and bandstand). we were waiting for someone to join us for the cinema but were too early and decided to have a small walk on the side of the park we dont see that often. and there it was! a cemetery; the central burying ground! it was locked... but a few weeks later we were there during the day and it was open. as opposed to the other cemeteries, this one does not seem to be much visited. its more than 100 years younger, established in 1756, but the stones looked more or less the same and equally old.

the above stone was found by tim. and since then i think about it every now and then. although you can read it, you can do so only barely, so it was more or less by chance that he found this one. this is what we read: "in memory of mrs sally morfe, wife of mr samuel morfe who died july 25th 1799 of the cramp in her stomach after about one hour illness aged 26 years & 2 months". i just asked tim what could have caused her sudden death (he is the medical doctor, not me), but his list of probable causes was pretty long... and i have to say i forgot which one he thought was most likely (it is late and, as usual, he went to bed already). but poor sally, only 26....

then.... not very well visible on my picture, but underneath all this, in smaller, italic script it says: "complete (? about that word im not sure) she shone through every scene of life, the tender parent and indulgent wife"

i think that is very sweet. especially in 1799.

for more taphophilia, go here.

Well, hello!

i found this angel at a cemetery in salem. at first sight i thought it really ugly, but when taking pictures i kind of liked it...

Photographing food

as you might know, i currently am kind of obsessed with cooking. once i found out most dishes are really not that hard to make... im constantly looking for new recipes.. of course, im initially drawn to recipes when i see pictures of the end product. amazing pictures of not so amazing food already have fooled me, though luckily not too often. mostly, i am amazed that people can take such great pictures of their dishes! how do they do it?! and often from every step of the process. howcome their kitchens are so well organized and uncluttered? the surfaces all so clean? (i like clean, but when cooking its often quite a mess!), and do they have special lights? whenever i try the light is never ok! i also find it takes a lot of patience to take all these pics. i rather just eat than having to take numerous pictures... or.... i think of taking a picture when im done, or half done. but even then, others manage to take beautiful pictures. how can they take a bite off a cupcake and still make it look perfect?! and whats with all the fancy (and matching!! although i have to say i actually dont like matching) tableware, and stylishly set tables... (also without any magazines, books and other stuff i still need to read or file away properly..)?

anyways... this weekend we did not do too much. so i had time to try some recipes. above a lemon tart, with a delicious, and very, very easy, crust. i could just bring up enough restraint to take this picture, before throwing on some whipped cream. yes yes, not healthy! but we went to the gym before this..! 

also, i made bread today. with my hands. easy for some, perhaps, but a big deal for me. i dont like the sticky dough and how it makes everything dirty. how do you knead something that remains stuck everywhere? somehow i managed (with a little help from tim every now and then. releasing me from the dough, hahahaha). and it tasted not too bad either! here some pics, but i dont think photographing food will ever become my hobby...

Grandma's way??!!

this evening we walked around the brick desert, and i suddenly saw the above streetname. its pointing towards the city hall plaza that i pictured here. empty on that pic.. now it is entirely occupied by a tent from the big apple circus (i guess this tent is allowed, as opposed to the tents from "occupy boston"; anyone ever heard anything from them recently?!). i am pretty sure this sign is new.... really?! grandmas way?! how could i ever have missed THAT?!

so... i just googled a bit. first google maps, but there seems to be no such thing as grandmas way in boston. then i went to google streetview and zoomed in on the above lamp post (at least i think i did); no green sign (btw; can you imagine the world without all these tools?! how did we manage without the internet?!). then i just googled and found someone else who pictured it but no info. back to my beloved wikipedia; apparently in 2001 the big apple circus best known performer joined; clown grandma, (barry lubin) (because of that i now also know there is something like the ISCHOF; the international clown hall of fame and research center, dedicated to the preservation and advancement of clown art and achievement... really?! would they hire scientists like me...?). but... still no answer as to why its called grandmas way. is it always there when the circus is in town?! its in the same style as all the other street signs in boston.... then... i found an article stating that clown grandma is leaving, having been with the big apple circus for 25 years. i gather from this article that this is his farewell tour with the circus. so... i assume it is a tribute to him....?

pfew. im tired of all this research on my free saturday evening... ;) now i would like a confirmation that my hypothesis is right!!

Another week...

.. raced by. so did this evening. suddenly it is past 11 again... time for bed..
good night!

Pretty tulips

buying flowers here in the us is too expensive (probably they are shipped from the netherlands... so they will cost a LOT more and will last less long...). back home i would often buy flowers, and i really miss that here. going to the market and get a huge bunch (not some fancy bouquet, i really dont like those) for less than 10 dollars! i think flowers can really make you feel better, just by looking at their beauty....

but.... last weekend we got flower-plants, they are much more affordable and their (ugly) plastic pots are nicely wrapped in shiny, colorful paper. a yellow wrap for the daffodils, a pink for the tulips and a green wrapper for the... ehhhmm... white huge flowers that smell pretty good (im too lazy to get up and see what they are called). unfortunately i think the tulips are soon done blooming. i tried to take pictures just now, but none was to my liking. maybe they will last till the weekend so that i can take some pics in natural light...

hmmm... i remember now we also bought soil so that i can repot our plants (some are almost 2 years old now, as we are here in boston for 2 years since april 4!). too bad plants dont repot themselves....

Kiss my....

... irish ass! 

well... that was on st patricks day in boston. the day where you apparently can dress as ridiculous as you want, as long as it is green... 

i wouldnt, but who am i...  ! :) (i had nothing, really nothing green that day. only some purple (as usual) and felt kind of out of place)

Beautiful headstones

as i may have mentioned before, there are not that many statues of angels and such in most of the cemeteries i have been so far around boston. by now, i actually have been to some where they do have statues, but the very old ones in the center of boston have none. instead, i noticed that the graves have often beautiful motifs on the stone itself, below which there is a short text listing name and (often) the exact age of the deceased (e.g. "49 years,  5 months, 12 days"). when we were at the most visited graveyards of boston, i actually mostly focused on the imagery, i see now. above pic was taken at the king's chapel burial ground, which is very close to the granary burial ground where servant frank is buried, as i showed you last week. the kings chapel burial ground is the oldest burial ground in boston, established in 1630. many headstones had toppled over and/or were broken, and visitors were asked not to walk around the graves, but to remain on the path. many english puritan colonists are buried here (as well as the first girl to step off the mayflower (she was only 13 or so! actually the wiki-entry is quite interesting..)), and that is probably the reason for the absence of angels and stuff; puritans did not believe in religious icons or imagery. so instead... the people of boston used the headstones to display their creativity and ideas about afterlife. the most popular image was the soul effigy; a skull or head with a wing on each side that is a representation of the soul flying to heaven after death. or like above; an image of death and father time. i thought it was really beautiful, and so well preserved!

i have to admit i do not even know whose grave the above image belongs to. i was too focused on that image! i uploaded a few more pics on flickr from both burial grounds, as you can see here...

for the other taphophiles; go here.

Another homeless

this man was sitting in his blankets somewhere on commonwealth avenue (i think) in boston, close to the mc donalds. he was just sitting there, and not asking for money (at least at that moment), as most others do. unless, ofcourse, they are sleeping...

i recently learned that such a person is called a "tramp". i thought that was slang, but it is described in the massachusetts general law (Chap. 272, Sect. 63)! the definition of a tramp: "Whoever, not being under seventeen, or a person asking charity within his own town, roves about from place to place begging, or living without labor or visible means of support, shall be deemed a tramp. An act of begging or soliciting alms, whether of money, food, lodging or clothing, by a person having no residence in the town within which the act is committed, or the riding upon a freight train of a railroad, whether within or without any car or part thereof, without a permit from the proper officers or employees of such railroad or train, shall be prima facie evidence that such person is a tramp."

hahahaha. clicking further you learn what the punishment is for being a tramp, and i now also know what a "vagrant" is and a "vagabond", as well as their respective punishments... hahahaha.

there are quite some homeless people in boston. some more annoying than others.... recently one got mad when w refused to give him "some change". well... maybe he should change a little first...

So sleepy!

days go by so fast... then its suddenly past 11 again and time for bed. i never want to goto sleep in the evening and never want to get up in the morning, like a little kid. but when i do get to bed early, i usually cant sleep.

ah well. this guy just dropped down in the park. homeless? drunk? both? it was a little weird. this was a week or 2 ago, i already forgot! but it was not too cold out.

this weekend was rather chilly, especially yesterday. this morning it seemed we would get a great spring-like day. until the sun disappeared again.... and is it really april again?!

Just cute

i have posted more often pics of this sculpture in the public garden (like here, here and here). i guess every time i go by there i take a picture. i think every single kid loves it and it is so cute to see!

sometimes people (who? just anyone? i dont know!) dress the ducks up a bit. sometimes for some sports game, for christmas, etc. or just to dress them up. but i dont think they need any of that. they are wonderful just as they are!

we went for some shopping today. a store was moving to another location and had huge discounts. i was very content with everything i bought, it was amazingly cheap (one of the blouses i got was just 75 cents! and a pair of hiking boots for 8 dollars (they were 150 or so? tim wanted them, but they didnt fit him, so he was very happy, but jealous at the same time, when they did fit me). but... somehow i walked out of that shop with a huge bag of stuff for a total of 60 dollars! yep, huge discounts, but had everything been priced normally i wouldnt have spent anything.... smart, those sales people....

Street wisdom

somewhere in boston.... 

awesome is a very american word, i think. its much used by the americans around me, but i never use it as i feel i cannot say it casually enough. my accent is wrong, too. here you can listen to the pronunciation, but it sounds a little off to me. the guy saying it defenitely forgot to be awesome..
(the shadow is of course the one and only awesome tim...!)

Virtual pinboard

the above picture was taken somewhere in new york, i think in the visitor center on times square. i mostly liked the colors and different shapes.

it also is a reason to write about my newest addiction; a virtual pinboard. ever since i use the internet, i never bothered to bookmark sites. so whenever i find an interesting site that i dont want to forget,i just leave the tab open. and then another tab, and another. and suddenly i have 3 or 4 windows each with too many tabs to count.... until my computer crashes and i loose them all. this week i joined "pinterest", a virtual pinboard where i hope to store all sites i find interesting (currently mostly recipe-blogs). it all looks so pretty with the pictures (as you can see here)! you can sign up "by invitation", or without, as i did, but then you have to wait a day or so before you can start pinning, because you are on some "waiting list" (which i found very annoying).

of course, there is a wikipedia about pinterest. the site launched in 2010, and is growing pretty fast recently. apparently, in the us, 83% of the users are female, and around 35-44 years old. probably posting recipes, just like me.... ;) they have some trouble with copyright, i believe, and some sites wont allow "pinning", like for example flickr. ah well. i hope it will be useful to me, and not a mere distraction from more important things.... (and i hope to stop those endless numbers of open tabs).

Every time...

... i see this pic i have to laugh. i had to laugh when i saw it for real too. this statue is next to a church in the south end, in boston. in combination with the bush, his head with the weird expression just sticking out from behind it... weird! (i also took a pic with tim next to it. somehow this statue looks really tiny, but when i placed tim next to it, it turned out to be slightly taller. hahahha)

no clue which holy person this is.... :)

Servant Frank

there are 2 very touristy graveyards in boston, very close to each other. although we live here now almost 2 years, we had not been to either one, yet we have passed them many, many times. the sheer number of tourists made us just walk past them, every time. even though i have always liked to visit cemeteries. i guess i just like to be the only tourist, instead of being surrounded by many others...

but this st patrick's day we finally went to both! the above marker is at the granary burying ground, close to the boston common. it is the final resting place of many important americans (thats why it is a tourist hotspot); paul revere, benjamin franklin's family (he himself is in philadelphia), samuel adams, and john hancock. to be honest. i know all these names, but i couldnt tell you exactly what they all did/why they are important. is that bad? perhaps so... do i want to know? yes! but not tonight... :)

anyways.. to me the most striking grave was the one above. frank. servant to john hancock. only that. googling just that gives you many hits, and similar photos as mine, as well as many questions about frank. who was he? was he married? was he happy? what did he do? but no answers... :( one thing i did not realize when i saw this grave; the fact that he is there at all is a sign that john hancock probably held him in high esteem (this was 1771!!). franks grave is right underneath the big obelisk for john hancock (as you can see here), which was erected 100 years after his death. moreover, john hancocks tomb does not say anything about him either. no "first signer of the declaration of independence", just this: "No. 16 tomb of hancock" (unfortunately i have no picture of that).

some other time more about the graveyard itself, perhaps. now its time for bed and tomorrow some history lessons through wikipedia for me.. ;)

more taphophile stories? go here!

Boston skyscrapers

march is not yet going into april and i already took almost 1000 pictures... i was just going through them, and hoped to find one to post. some were dismissed because they were ok, but not ok enough. some because i am too lazy to write something about the pic, but i dont want to post it without writing that something. some because it takes too much time to find info about it at this very moment. some because i cannot choose between several shots. some because my computer is too slow and does not listen to me.

i settled for this one. i liked the bare trees in front of the hancock tower (left) and prudential (right). to the left is the entrance to the park street subway station, and to the right is the boston common. the green fence is there because they are doing some major (re)construction to the park. since months already.... theres always a hotdog stand, and often other (fried) food as well, a stand that has boston t shirts, and there are quite some homeless people sitting around here, usually. i never bought a hotdog at a stand, and i think i never will. somehow i dont trust food from such stands, not even in new york! (or especially not in new york... ?)

One photo

actually... i took quite some more than one photo. either it turned out crooked, or a car came by, or tim was not posing the way i wanted.. 

now i see hes standing next to a patched up window or something...? hadnt seen that while taking the pics! ah, and another blossom tree. we drove around a little for those. but it was really cold (from 30 degrees C on thursday to 8 C or so today... ), and some rain too!