Snow & Ice

its getting a little colder here in boston, but its still well above 0 degrees celsius! today it was arond 8 degrees and very sunny. this picture was taken at october 28, when it was sooo warm that i went to work without jacket and we ate lunch outside.. i then had a walk around and saw this sign which was so funny in the bright sun....

we came here in april when the weather was not that bad and the summer was hot and sunny!! coming from a country where the winters usually are not that cold, and snow is a curiosity (except for last winter) i feared winter, but so far it hasnt shown itself (herself/himself?). in the netherlands, on the other hand, its freezing!! and snowing!! it has been freezing that much, that the first crazy ice-skaters have been on the ice already, and they expect to have the first ice skating marathan tomorrow.....

in the meantime, im actually happy its still not that cold here... :)

Black friday

internet at home is sooo bad, couldnt even upload a picture last night... :( this is a quick picture i took in the supermarket we do our shoppings every week; the market basket! they really made an effort on the christmas decoration, in real it looked so nice! it is by far the cheapest supermarket around, and the only one not working with stupid discount passes or coupons or whatever. fruit & vegetables also are much better (i think) than the much more expensive Shaws. often it is overcrowded (like last week) but yesterday it was amazingly quiet! maybe because everyone was decorating their homes with (mostly inflatable) christmas decorations. truly amazing; thanksgiving is over and immediately on to the next feast. we drove around a little and many people were busy decorating their house.

on friday most people were off (not me), and this is the biggest (or one of the) biggest shopping days of the year. many things have large discounts. over the years i vaguely remember seeing on the dutch news some images about US shoppers gone crazy, but i never realized it is really true.... thursday, we drove past the closed best buy (sells tvs and other electronics) at 11 in the morning and there were already some people waiting for the large discounts! when we passed it in the evening they were still there... guess what, this shop opened at 5 in the morning!!! (so they were there nearly 18 hours in advance!) but... tickets to get into the store would be distributed from 3 in the morning onwards.... can you believe it?!! i asked my real american colleagues, and yes, they said; people usually gather there somewhere in the late evening, to get a chance buying stuff on large discount.

crazy, those americans.... :)

here some more information on wikipedia about this shopping day....: black friday