today would be the day of irene's arrival. as said before, the media professionally hypes things up, so you never know whether it really might be dangerous. we saw that with the snowstorms; yes, there was a lot of wind, and a lot of snow, and some areas lost power; but thats only because the power cables are above-ground here, so that happens rather easily.
even though we do not have a tv, warnings about irene were hard to avoid.... what to do on the day irene would come?! no public transport, and the mall in boston was closed as well. but the news this morning was pretty laughable: "although it technically is not a hurricane anymore, it's still a big threat!! there is still the possibility of incredible wind and water damage, even though we have not seen any wind or water damage yet. The winds are very mild so far, but they can potentially still have hurricane gusts among them".
so... off we went to the mall. we still had a coupon that was valid until today, and as true dutchies we had to spend that!! ok, the rain and wind were pretty heavy at times and many branches and even some trees were down. in the mall many shops were closed, unfortunately. thus we drove on to the beach for some further entertainment; ooh! what a surprise! there were quite some people there, and several were even swimming.... here some more photos.
