Back again!

we were out the past 2 nights! we went to the white mountains in new hampshire. no internet, no phone.... just..... eehmmm... rain... :) and very hot and humid weather. and some more rain. and beautiful scenery, disappearing in the fog.... as you can see above!

it was fun, but now im tired so more tomorrow!

How american!

today i was in search of a "quick picture". just a nice one, that didnt require too much writing, or thinking, or browsing wikipedia. but i couldnt find one. not quick enough, anyways. i browsed some more. beehh. all boring. then i got the marvelous idea to look what pictures i took on this day last year! i was in san diego, with my friend sylvia, while tim was in the netherlands. but hmm... i didnt take that many pictures august 9th 2011. then i decided to go back even further. 2004, my first digital camera (actually my parents'), and my first time in the usa, exploring manhattan every weekend for 3 months. but no pictures on august 9! hmmppff... 

so.... now its well past midnight and i have been browsing photos from august 2007, 2008, 2009.... that was fun! (and a little weird, sometimes). the above photo is from 2009. august 6 (no pics on august 9). a delicious meal from mc donalds, in tims car, enjoying the sunset over a meadow, in the netherlands.... :) how very american!!

i would love to browse some more photos (i should do that more often!), but now its time for bed.... good night!

Please climb!

"for your safety, do not climb the sculpture" is a sign that always accompanies large sculptures that seem to be there just for climbing.... the sign actually also accompanies sculptures or other large objects you never thought of climbing. until you saw the sign, that is.....  well, this life-size replica of lady liberty's face is an "interactive sculpture", meaning its meant for climbing! and climbed she was, mostly by children, it was lovely to watch. its called "face of liberty", made by zaq landsberg.

after i had seen a picture of this sculpture somewhere, i just had to see it for myself! its on governers island, a small island just half a mile off the southern tip of manhattan. having been to new york numerous times, and seen quite a bit of it, i have to admit i had never heard of governors island! so, that was cool, as we always try to see something in new york we havnt seen before. the island is accessible by a free ferry (from manhattan or brooklyn), but its only open during summer, and then only during weekends. there is art, a fort, sometimes there are festivals and there is a lot of green space where you can just hang out. ah, and beautiful views of manhattan! i really enjoyed walking around there, and wouldnt mind to visit it again sometime. i took quite some photos (this was back in june), so perhaps i will show you more some other time.

Grass & graves

the last weekend of june we went to gloucester, a small city on the coast north of boston. we had biked around a little, and then wanted to go to the beach and perhaps swim a little. but... it was a very hot day in the middle of summer and we discovered that the parking lots of all the beaches we frequented in early autumn and spring now asked money. and not just a little money, at least 15 dollars! as it was almost 5 and we just wanted to be on the beach for a bit it was not worth it. we drove around, quite aimlessly, and saw that ofcourse all the free supermarket parking lots had big signs with "no beach parking". when a tow truck passed us, it was time to just forget the beach and go home.

while driving in some random street, i suddenly saw some headstones, or so it seemed, scattered around in high grass. i made tim stop, and indeed, there it was, an entire cemetery, between 2 houses and the MBTA train tracks. it was locked, but we could easily enter it from the side. the grass was so very high; it was hard to make out where i was walking as the ground was very uneven. many stones had sunk quite deep into the ground, and at other places there were deep dents in front of stones (you can imagine why!). i hurt my feet  and the various types of grass and thorny bushes that were taking over the place were not very nice to my bare legs. but i enjoyed walking around there so very much! most stones had become unreadable, had sunk too deep into the ground, or were just lying around, shattered in many pieces. aside from the train, it was so very quiet there, actually a nice change from those overcrowded beaches and parking lots. so... we just spread our blanket out somewhere in the middle, disappeared between the grass and graves, and had our afternoon snack there! that was my first picnic on a cemetery...

this is the first cemetery in gloucester. the settlers arrived in 1623, and in 1644 some land next to the first meeting house was set aside for burials. until 1925, burials were accepted here. after that, the cemetery was just neglected, and got subjected to nature, and vandalism (thats why the gate was installed. also to prevent people from driving in and dumping their stuff). i found a report in the gloucester newspaper from 2008 that a committee was working on restoration of this cemetery. perhaps they did; i saw some stones that were glued together, but other than that, there was no sign that this cemetery recently had been taken care of.

ah well, i really liked it how it was, and it was such a nice and random find after a frustrating search for a parking spot to get to the beach. when we left, we saw the above couple taking back their space.... :)

for more taphophilia, go here!

Such fame...

i think its amazing that most people probably immediately know who this is, although this is quite an ugly representation... imagine being that famous, that just a white flowing dress, or the blonde short hair is enough. even though she died exactly 50 years ago yesterday, while she was only 36.

i just read a little about marilyn monroe (on wikipedia, ofcourse). most of her early life she lived with foster parents, as her mother was unable to take care of her. the most striking anecdote to me was this; until the age of 7, norma jeane (her real name) was living with foster parents in california. one day (wikipedia doesnt specifiy how old she then was), her biological mother, gladys, came and demanded that her daughter would come live with her again. her foster mother refused, as she knew marilyns mother was unstable. somehow, however, gladys managed to stuff marilyn into a military duffel bag, with which she wanted to walk out. marilyn was screaming while in there, and a struggle between gladys and the foster mom caused the bag to break open, letting marilyn to fall out... 

later, she lived with her mother, but she was mentally unstable and eventually was forced into a state hospital, leaving marilyn to live in several different foster homes again. 

i have seen her face so very many times, but didnt know anything about her background...

this barn is somewhere in cape cod, in fact next to the one with the american flag that i showed you last week.

Get out!!!

found this photo in my "to-post-folder". its from the st patricks parade. i guess this street was blocked for traffic and this officer was placed there to make sure nobody would enter.

its extremely hot and humid these days. its so hot that it doesnt cool down much during the night. but... in the weekends there is at least the great prospect of starting the day in the pool next to our apartment!! yesterday, we got there just around 9.15. hardly anyone there yet, and those who were, were just enjoying the morning sun, not intending to enter the water at all. its the perfect time, no children yet, nobody just hanging in the water; the pool entirely empty to do some real swimming! then, when most other people arrive, we have done our workout, had some sun, AND still an entire day ahead of us... but.... just as i was about to get in, the security guard came and ordered us all to leave the pool area! right NOW! because.... it was not yet 10 am, and the pool opens at 10. "yes, i know you are here every weekend, and i never say anything, but head security checked the videos and noticed i dont order you out and told me i have to. so, you have to leave. because... its not yet 10, and if something happens when its not yet 10, you could sue us". really...??!! really?! 

there is no lifeguard at the pool, and there is a huge sign that swimming is at your own risk.... but not before 10, apparently. at 9.50 someone tried to enter; nope, not allowed. one resident just placed herself on the ground in front of the entrance, waiting to be allowed to return again. it was one of those times that what happens is so plain ridiculous, that everyone starts talking to each other... :) we heard that ball playing is not allowed either. there are many green lawns around the apartments, but when 3 adults were calmly throwing a ball around, it was quickly ordered to be stopped by the security guy. 

this morning we did not even bother going to the pool :(( at 9 yet another parent with a young child was ordered away, to come back at 10. it seems we should be "grateful" we are allowed to live here in the first place. as if they prefer not to have any residents! just perfect green lawns, empty of any life, a blue pool, without anyone around it, and certainly nobody in it (perhaps only people with a perfect figure?). beeeehh, oak grove village, im really tired of all your rules..... :( i live here, and you definitely forgot that i dont leave at 5 as you do....

My card

whoops. i wanted to send some emails this evening, and do some other stuff. instead, i found myself in an uncomfortable position on the couch, woken up by tim. buuuhhh. now its time to really sleep (and probably i wont be able, it is so very hot!). am even too lazy to get my own laptop out of my bag, but found this picture still on tims. tim made this card for me! i sometimes give it to people, but not too often. i do like to leave it here and there (but usually i forget to do that too), like here at the dali-museum in st petersburg, florida. there were this trees in the garden where everyone hung his entrance-bracelet. looked pretty nice, actually. 

unfortunately, nobody ever posted on my blog; "hey, i came here because i found your card, blablabla..."

maybe one day....

(im reading a book here, its at a cafe in utrecht, the netherlands)

Abandoned car

at this specific spot somewhere in florida (where we were last december) some 4 or 5 of these cars were randomly standing around, waiting to be overgrown, i guess... it was so weird! but fascinating too...

#1 Hospital

i havent joined theme day for a while, and was sure i didnt have a fitting photo for the one of august. until i saw this cookie lying around. its been lying on our kitchen counter since july 17 (im sort of conducting the mc donalds experiment, as i dont feel the urge to eat this cookie at all. which says a lot, as i generally eat cookies/chips/chocolate/candy instantly...). so, massachusetts general hospital (MGH) was named the number 1 hospital on the 2012-13 us news & world report americas best hospital list. it was a big happening. there were signs everywhere, and free cookies and bracelets and commemorative pins with MGH #1. these annual rankings are done since 23 years, out of which johns hopkins hospital has been number 1 for 21. so... what does that mean? did johns hopkins get worse? or mgh better? whats the use of such rankings anyways..? shouldnt health care be excellent anywhere, regardless? why should you give it a number? 

should i be proud? i was a patient at this hospital, and i work here. my doctor, even before the rankings, told me the same each time i saw him; we are the best, our treatment is the best you can get, and you are my favorite patient (at some point tim and i knew when he would say what, and it got boring... although he was a nice doctor, i do have to say that). now, as a researcher, should i be proud? maybe i should be proud of the fact that i still didnt give up research, even after all that ive seen along the way, even at the #1 hospital of the usa.

a few examples, that didnt necessarily happen to me personally. when being ill, but still appearing at work, telling your boss you dont feel that well, getting as a reply; "work. you are only sick when you are in the hospital with high fever. i come too, when i am sick, so it is not an excuse.". or: "why did you get even more children? now you will definitely not make it in science." or, when working at the bench (which is somewhat similar to cooking, and sometimes you just have to continue what you are doing, or you ruin it) and the boss comes by to ask you something; "next time, when i come, you stop your work and talk to me. you dont continue working, understood? i am your boss and if you dont give me the respect i deserve, you can go. anyone can do your job, in no time i have you replaced." i dont know the number of abused postdocs, but i think there are quite some. its not something postdocs talk about a lot, as it is embarrassing. more importanly, most are afraid to loose their job. many are on temporary visas, tied to their job. loosing the job means loosing the visa, which means having to leave the country; depending on the type of visa, you have to be gone within a month. it doesnt matter that you lived here for several years, that you have an entire household and what not. you have to leave, or you become "illegal". surely, bosses know that their postdocs are dependent and powerless.

now some other numbers; this is the salary many of us postdocs get on their bank account each month; around 2300 dollars. that at least includes health insurance. but it doesnt include retirement savings. 2300 dollars, with the average rent of a boston 1 bedroom apartment being around 1900 dollars... even when disregarding the level of education (PhD), then consider the workload; 40+ hours, and often you have to come in on the weekend (some bosses demand (!!) workweeks of over 50-60 hours, and coming in entire days in the weekend). for 2300 dollars... i think those are sad numbers. aside from the miserable salary and the abuse many endure, there is scientific as well as financial misconduct (thats what you sometimes read about in the news; some scientist that faked data and now has to retract his/her publications, and thats just one example). all of that makes you wonder; why would anyone want to do science?!

purely because of the science! its exciting! you get to "play" in the lab, do experiments, see what comes out, or not. get to think about what that means, what other things you can try next. thats how "stuff" is solved. how eventually diseases are understood, and perhaps even cured. thats why people go into science; the excitement. the numbers, whether salary-wise and/or the number of times you were yelled at or got otherwise screwed, is what makes many postdocs leave science eventually. and thats just sad...

by the way, tim thought this cookie was perhaps distributed to crank up the number of patients at mgh.....

(if you didnt get it, theme day this month is numbers!). for other participants of august theme day, go over here to julies blog!

Proud American

the owner of this shed must be a proud american...  but there are many! its not the first time i saw a wall painted like this... (this was in cape cod, close to provincetown)

i dont think you would ever see this in the netherlands...

finally joining the monday mural again! for others, click here.

The inflatable...

do you see it? that tiny blue inflatable tire? not allowed in the water. not allowed!! never mind that the water (until the red thingies) is not deep at all.... or that the mother was with the child in the water while she was wearing it (do you wear an inflatable tire? i dont know...). i thought it was really so sad! here i really liked the 2 girls (twins?) with their colorful swim caps... placed above their ears... :)

so, thats the lake we went to yesterday. its called walden pond (maybe you know it from the writer thoreau, who lived on the shore of this pond for a while, in 1845, and wrote about it at length). as mentioned, we swam across it. while standing on the beach (as you can see), it doesnt seem far at all! and while swimming, you think each time while looking up; ah, almost there. and then you still arent... but i really liked swimming it, i think i never did something like that before! (except for last weekend, when i swam it for the first time, haha).

More rules

at the water fun place in boston you do have to wear shoes. ah, and you cannot run.

today we went swimming in a lake, and there was a strict rule of "no inflatables". i didnt have any, since they had sold all the pink inflatable tires (or whatever you call them). im still sad about that, they were so pretty! but... you were absolutely forbidden to use them. there was a little girl with her mom and she was having fun with such a small inflatable tire. nope, lifeguards came to send her out of the water. only acceptable inflatable was a life vest. the girl didnt have a life vest.... 

really? why is something like that forbidden? i really dont get it...

we had a long swim (some 50 minutes! back and forth across the lake), and now im tired. i took a few pictures there but im too lazy to get them. next time, next time... :)

Pink sunset

this is an older photo, although we had such a pretty sunset somewhere last week. only, i was at home that time and not at the beach.... 

yesterday i didnt bring my laptop home and today i am again lazy... i do have to tell you that last night i was in a karaoke-bar for the very first time in my life! as an observer, not a participant, of course. that was fun (although it got a little boring after several hours)!

That's Manhattan!

as we saw it last month. the tip of manhattan with battery park. the tallest building, not yet finished, is the freedom tower that is being built at the site of where the twin towers stood.

my computer is slower than ever today (i didnt think it was possible, but now i know... :((( ), so perhaps tomorrow i will tell you from where i shot this pic!

Visitation stones

just a quick post today. this was at a cemetery we visited back in march, when it was still cold out (most days). i have yet to look up where exactly this cemetery is. its located directly next to the highway and you really have to know its there (we knew approximately, so that was a bit scary to get off when you suddenly see it, but the only entrance is directly from the highway. the cemetery itself was rather boring. not too old, it seemed, and most stones had the same shape and just the names, hardly any text. (perhaps next week i show you a grave, if i can find an interesting one).

as it is a jewish cemetery, many gravestones were topped with visitation stones. i just looked up why those stones are left on graves. most likely this is a custom from earlier times, when bodies were put into the ground, covered with some dirt, and then on top of that large stones would be placed in order to prevent wild animals from destroying the remains. whenever people would visit the grave, they would continue to place stones. both to keep the remains protected as well as to build up "the memory" of the person buried. nowadays bodies dont need to be protected from animals anymore as they are buried better, but leaving stones became a custom. there could also be another explanation, as you can read here.

this cemetery provides such small pebbles for visitors to place on graves; they are in the box above. this box, and its text to me represent exactly whats wrong with the us of a. they spell out what potentially perhaps possibly might go wrong when you place larger stones than the ones they provide. really?! i continue to be amazed that americans put up with this kind of nonsense. same with not allowing people under 21, or people who cannot prove that they are 21 with an official document, to drink alcohol (or even enter a cafe where alcohol is present). and while americans put up with this (or the fact that they cannot drink alcohol while sitting in a park or having a bbq somewhere at the beach (if thats even allowed, usually its not)), they do sue the government for making the purchase of health insurance mandatory, since "that goes against their freedom", and "that is exactly what this country is founded on". hmmm, i could go on and on about this. better leave it at this for now... :)

tim is back from his conference, but i guess he didnt see yesterdays post yet, so maybe i should tell him i did miss him... :)

more taphophilia here!!

Shiny umbrella

i was mostly fascinated by the umbrella, as you can see from the pic.... 

this is not just another day in the park in boston (at least, not that i have seen!), this was at the steampunk festival in waltham, back in may. steampunk is some weird genre i never heard of before, but wikipedia does... :)  i think americans really like costume parties. next to drinking through straws, i dont think i saw more adults in the most weird costumes. and not just something simple! no, into detail they are dressed up.... complete with elaborate make-up and accessories (must cost them so much time and money!) me? i would just like that umbrella... :)

tomorrow tim comes back from his trip to berlin (conference) and amsterdam (home). i missed him because i now had to eat from the yoghurt-can when it was almost empty (i hate that and he always does that; i always get my portion in a nice bowl). also, i had to cut my own mango (sticky hands, beehh) and i didnt drink coffee in the weekend (he always makes the coffee; i cant even operate the coffeemaker). during the week i had to make my own lunch (takes so much time! normally im in the shower when he does that), and in the evening i had to throw the trash into the trash receptacle myself (scary, because in summer there are often raccoons inside/around). moreover, i had to make dinner and clean up (especially cleaning up becomes boring), so i skipped dinner a few times (but not too often!!), and i had to get packages delivered during the day from the apartment office myself (which requires to make small talk with the security guy, beeehh).

so... i guess its good he comes back again tomorrow ;) probably there are some other reasons too why its good he wil be back tomorrow, but i forgot... :)

How friendly!

saw this sign somewhere in chelsea, close to boston. i think it was a garage, but im not sure. i wonder whether you can buy such signs or it was custom made? maybe im missing something? 

i just googled it, and found more signs like this (like here, and here). also, burger king apparently (used to?) advertises with "have it your way" (whatever that means...)

hmm, im just getting confused. lets sleep a bit. good night!

Cooling boxes

this building is on somerset street in boston. i think its the courthouse... and i finally got to photograph all the air conditioning units that hang from many houses and buildings here! (i actually took several and couldnt decide which one to post). isnt it funny?

usually, a window (or half a window) is sacrificed to place the unit into it (but you could also cut a hole through the wall, ofcourse...). its huge, heavy and ugly. if standing underneath it (outside), you might get wet; this sometimes made me wonder whether it started to rain. if you want to know how air gets cooled through such a unit, please visit wikipedia... :) its quite long! all i took from it is that these units as you can see above are produced since 1935. although its ugly and you basically loose a window, the advantage of these units is that you can cool that specific room. our apartment for example can only cool (or heat) the entire place, including the bathroom... :( but as i cant stand the noise and quite quickly get cold when its on, we dont use it too often.

Long shadows

i am going through our photos from the las vegas-san diego trip. above is at venice beach. glad to stumble upon it, as i had no clue which picture to post this evening... :) 

its tims, not mine. i cant even remember seeing such long shadows!! (once again he takes the better pics...)

Rooftop garden

saw this last week when walking to the pizza place. with the american flag, ofcourse! and perhaps a grill, although i believe that thats not allowed... i wish we had some place outside. even just a tiny balcony.... great for testing the weather before you head out. although, the weather from the past days (is it weeks by now?) has been the same; HOT. yesterday we did have quite the rainstorm in the early evening, but it didnt cool off that much....

anyways. i just realize i have shown you the wall in the foreground earlier! somewhere in february. as you can see, it looks completely different now and the ghost sign has almost entirely disappeared. amazing, how fast everything grows... (and amazing, how going to the gym does not seem to reduce me in size, but im sure that when i wont go anymore, the opposite will happen very quickly... ! :( )