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... ! :( )

It's possible!

last week i was pleasantly surprised to see that a main road in cambridge suddenly became divided in car and cycle path. this was done by just converting the 2-lane road for cars into a 1 lane. but... much needs to change before boston/cambridge can (will it, ever?) become a bike friendly city. i think attitudes from both drivers and bikers need to change (as you can see above, that car in the background is driving on the bikelane!!).

here in boston we often see bikers and tim or me usually say: "ouch, they really just dont know how to do it". people here generally dont know HOW to bike! seriously! they position themselves wrong on the street, they think they have the right of way anywhere, simply because they are on a bike (the past week i was almost knocked down by bikes twice while i was in the middle of the crosswalk). bikers are often very aggressive here and they really do not realize that they are PART of the traffic, and should work with it, not against it! and yes, sometimes a car will cut you off, and thats nasty, but dont endanger yourself more. sometimes just accept that this happens and move aside! a car is much much bigger than you and its not worth it! (conclusion after seeing several bikers screaming at cars, cutting right in front of them as they think they have the right to go first, regardless of what else is happening on the street). fact: dutch bikers break rules all the time as well, but they do it much more subtle! (generally, ofcourse, there are idiots everywhere). they run red lights, but only when possible, and usually we do not run over pedestrians.

still, even when bicyclists know how to behave properly on the road and motorists acknowledge their existence, the biggest change needed i think are separate bike lanes (i dont think helmets are the solution; see yesterdays comments). they are appearing at several streets in boston, but the problem is that they are not continuous; suddenly theres an intersection where theres nowhere to go with your bike! until i saw a youtube video about biking in the netherlands, i always thought that biking is so easy and safe in my country because it has always been like that, and cities were basically built around bikes. not so. i really urge you to watch this video, it explains very well how we eventually got to the amazing bike infrastructure we have today. like any wealthy country, cars flooded the netherlands from 1957 onwards, making biking dangerous (which used to be the main form of transportation). in 1971, when 3300 bicyclists died in traffic, people were fed up and started to protest and demand safer streets. it worked. cycling was strongly encouraged; city centers were made car free and cycle paths were constructed. an oil and economic crisis certainly also helped to get more and more people biking again.

and now... say "cycle paths" out loud. now "how the dutch got their cycle paths". now watch the video again... (did you say it out loud.. ? :D)

Ghost bike

a ghost bike is a bike that has been painted white and locked to a street sign near the site where someone was killed while riding his or her bike. a plaque mentions the name, as you can see above (i took this picture in january of this year). unfortunately, there are several such bikes in boston. and for that matter, all over the world. 

the above one is in cambridge, near MIT. on december 27, 2011, phyo was riding his bike around 8 in the evening. an oil tanker truck was turning from vassar street onto mass ave when it hit phyo. he was transported to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. he was only 23, and had obtained a bachelors degree in chemical-biological engineering in 2010. he was originally from myanmar. within days after his death, over 15,000 dollars were collected for funeral arrangements and to return phyo and his belongings to myanmar. sadly, between 2007 and 2011, polica had to respond to 55 accidents at this very intersection, 18 of them involving bikes, and 4 involving pedestrians, making it one of the most dangerous intersections in cambridge. as far as i can find, the truck driver has not been charged.

even though more people start biking, it is still not "accepted" in the us. just this week time magazine had an interesting article about the rise of biking, which unfortunately goes together with motorists who think bikes dont belong on the road; bikers literally face aggression because car drivers think they dont belong on the road! the numbers are scary too; last year, 241 pedestrians/cyclists were killed in accidents with cars in new york city, yet only 17 drivers faced criminal charges. according to the article, most police departments (in the entire country) hardly investigate car-bike or car-pedestrian accidents, unless the victim dies or the driver was under influence....

as a dutch, i love biking, and it has been my main form of transportation until moving to the us (i never even felt the need for getting a drivers license, and now i have tim to drive me around.. ;)). here, i hardly do it, exactly for the reasons above. i am terrified of all the cars (which are much bigger here), the absence of separate bike lanes, and simply the aggression of motorists. we do bike, every now and then, but i do so with great caution (albeit without helmet; those are useless i think). according to tim i do it with far too much caution. but take july 4th. a national holiday, everyone free and happy. the weather was gorgeous and we were biking to the beach on cape cod. although there were no separate bike lanes, the path was designated as being for both cars AND bikes, and signs here and there reminded cars of that (share the road!). me and tim were happily biking, while suddenly a car passed me, and a girl screamed from the window: "you're gonna die!!!" thats what she said. can you believe it? it shocked me greatly. really. why on earth would you say something like that to someone, anyone, ever? i should have wished her a happy independence day, but my anger was faster and i wished her something else..... probably she long forgot what she said. but i didnt....

i think its good ghost bikes are placed when a biker got killed in traffic. if it only reminds one motorist to be more careful and to share the road....

this is my contribution to taphophile tragics, for more tragics, go here. im not done with the biking yet, so probably some more about that tomorrow...!

Dam angels

when we were in las vegas in may, we visited the hoover dam. it was after closing time, so not much was going on. we walked around, saw the massive concrete and all the beautiful ornaments on the dam; it was built in the 1920s and 1930s, and you can see that. i thought it was really pretty. but to be honest, somehow i thought the dam itself would be even more massive and impressive. perhaps because of what ive all seen on tv of it? tim was disappointed i was not more impressed, i think... :)

but... i was very much impressed by the statues above. 2 angels. their toes all shiny (i read later thats because of all the tourists that touch the toes; its supposed to bring good luck in vegas while gambling... blablabla). this is a memorial dedicated to those who died during the construction of the dam, the sculptures (and more details on the dam) were made by oskar hansen. 

112 people died during the construction of the dam. the first being mr tierney, who drowned in 1922 while looking for an ideal spot for the dam. sadly, the last death was his son, who died exactly 13 years later, while working on the construction of the dam. in between these 2 angels there is a plaque that reads: "they died to make the desert bloom". more than 4 tons of bronze were used for these 30-feet tall statues, which were dedicated in 1935.

i had a hard time taking a good picture of them (in real they were so very beautiful!!), but i was kind of satisfied with this one... :) i would defenitely not mind going back there to see them again, but then when the water is high... (the water was very low when we were there)

Hot, hot....

.....HOT!! it is hot. its almost midnight and its still hot. sometimes i turn on the ac, but soon after i get cold, and turn it off again (its set to 76F, currently its over 85F (30C) in the apartment). 

yesterday we went to revere beach, to see the sand sculptures, as you can see above. some were really good! like the fish above, although its actually better from the side; there is another fish inside! but it was so painfully hot. yes, painful. the sand was burning my feet! indeed, i like the hot weather (so much better than the dutch summers!), but when sweat came trickling down my face even i decided that it was just a little too much.... it also made me realize that during the week i am not really aware of exactly how hot it is inside, as we spend most of the time in some airconditioned place (be it work, supermarket, cinema or public transport), and most of the time i am cold there! (and thus my bag always contains a cardigan in summer....))

today we got up too late to swim in the pool before the crowd. and then i realized i still hadnt finished the photobook i am making from our road trip in december. there are still 3 days left, but then i realized i am making the book on tims laptop and he would be leaving for a conference this very afternoon! it turned out not to be possible to transfer the half-finished book to my own laptop, and i thus spent the day making the book (in quite a bad mood!). but, i managed! its done and ordered... now i cant wait to see the result! only, i kind of looked forward to having 3 evenings of making it the prettiest photobook ever..... :( maybe i should start making one from our most recent trip... ?

Boston streets

with one step i sometimes can find my name on the streets of boston.... :)

its really late right now. so i leave it at that. good night!

Free parking!

but only for davids shoes!! we thus had to find a place elsewhere....

Another cup

as my computer is frustrating me (as usual, nowadays) i dont even want to get it out of my bag, and am just using tims. and there i have only a limited number of photos to choose from. so... another cup, taken last sunday. i think this is some electricity pole, and someone thought it was best to just stuck his/her cup there. as you can see, also this one is not empty. they usually arent empty, it seems. is it because they are too big? they realized how gross the milky ice-coffee-water actually is? or...? 

talking of milk and stuff. last night i made the easiest dessert ever, and it was very good! (we just ate the 3 i made, for the 2 of us, haha). even though i made it only once, its so simple i still remember it; over medium heat, dissolve 1/4 cup of sugar into 1/2 cup of heavy cream, add 1t vanilla extract, and if you like, a little bit of almond extract. in a small bowl, mix 1t powdered gelatin with 1T water. once the sugar is dissolved, turn off the heat and add the gelatin/water mixture. stir to dissolve. let it cool to room temperature. once cooled, stir in 1 cup of buttermilk. strain it through a mesh sieve into cups (this is enough for 3, or so it was intended... ;) ), cover them and chill them for at least 4 hours. easy! and very good! 

Water fun

there are several fountains in boston that provide a lot of fun during summer. and ofcourse a break from the high temperatures.... unfortunately, i am too old to run around like this... instead i take pictures... ;)

this is at the christian science center, close to prudential and the symphony (our original destination, but it turned out the office is closed on weekends during the summer. grrrr!!)

Family portrait

perhaps not what you would think when reading "family portrait". but to me, this was sort of a family portrait. tim and me spent some time reading these stones, figuring out "the family". it would have been nice to see an actual family portrait, but unfortunately, typing their names into google hardly gave me anything. this is in newton, at the east parish burying ground, the oldest cemetery in newton, which dates back from the 1660s. currently, there are about 400 graves, and since it was the towns only burying place for 120 years, most families living in newton before the revolution have been buried here. i guess you can consider this cemetery a bit "neglected", currently. the grass grows pretty high (although not around the plot above!), several stones were broken or toppled over, but i liked it that way. having to move the grass a little to be able to read some of the stones, i felt like a real explorer.. :)

we didnt figure out much. i photographed some of the individual stones (posted on flickr), but am now frustrated to see i did not photograph ALL the stones in this plot. the plot belongs to the reed family, with 8 or 9 stones (as you can see better here). the main characters seemed catherine and jonas reed, who had 2 daughters, 1 son and 1 adopted son. both their daughters, catherine & harriet, died at young age (28 & 20 years, in 1839 & 1841), and their son jonas at 32 in 1845. then, in 1854 catherine died, at the age of 63, followed by their adopted son george trott in 1855, at the age of 24. as you can see, it is clearly mentioned on the stone that george was adopted. i also like the inscription; "lord, he was thine and not my own. thou hast not done me wrong. i thank thee for the precious loan, afforded me so long." poor jonas survived them all but died 3 years later at 76. as you can see here, there was nobody left to write something nice on his stone.... i thought that was really sad, as all the other family members had something, anything (even though some were just "standard" lines, standard for that time, anyways). the other 2 stones belong to 2 family members, who died years later; gideon reed at 74 in 1892 and rebecca reed at 86 in 1906, but i havent been able to figure out how they were related to catherine and jonas. ofcourse, i also wonder howcome their children all died so young! perhaps it wasnt something genetic, as also their adopted son died young. i also wonder why they adopted him (and was he, really... ;) ?). but just a portrait of the family would be nice too...

well thats all i got, quite a lenghty contribution to taphophile tragics, but with more questions than answers... :)

Thats trash!!

i dont know, but im getting more and more annoyed by the hundreds of cups i see left here and there and everywhere!! theyre usually still half full at least. and its usually this gross watered down ice-coffee with lots and lots of sugar and milk. beeehhh. this morning on either side someone came to sit next to me with a cup of "something" in their hands. and it never smells like a good cup of freshly brewed REAL coffee! no, it smells sweet. beeehhh!!! why cant they just drink a normal black coffee, like grownups in the rest of the world? why does it have to come through a straw? really, i never saw more adults suck on straws than in the us of a... and ofcourse, in the other hand is a phone...

and when they are done with their far too huge cup (really, a small coffee would still be considered large or extra large in the netherlands...), they just put it wherever they happen to be at that very moment. done? lets put it down. i dont care anymore. 

it really annoys me. find a trashcan, please! carry it until you encounter one. while drinking from it it also wasnt a problem to carry it around, so just do that a little longer... pfew. that was nice. but really, i hate it!! i decided to do a little project; every time i see an abandoned cup i need to take a picture of it. dont know yet what i will do with them, perhaps a set on flickr..... :) so this will be photo umber 2. here you can see number one...

Summer evening

its hot! since days. i guess well above 30 degrees celsius (86F). sometimes theres some rain, but at some point the clouds recede and the sun is back at full force. i know not everyone likes it, but i do! we have the pool at our apartment complex so thats a great way to cool down (whenever we are allowed, ofcourse. the security murmured something the other day about "city regulations" to have it closed at 8 pm; as usual we were the last to leave, and really didnt want to. couldnt find anything about city regulations on google though...). 

evenings are lovely too. it remains warm.... so everyone is outside! this is at the boston common, yesterday evening (i just had an ice cream that i spilled all over my dress... grrr..actually, it turned out not to be the worst; later that evening almost an entire glass of beer got spilled onto my dress as well.. then it was really time to go home... ). in the front you can see the brewer fountain and behind it the state house. 

we really had a nice day, we started out with quite some swimming. as it was raining a tiny little bit, we had almost the entire place for ourselves. then some groceries and a walk through boston. eventually we got to the museum of fine arts, with free entrance as it was the first weekend of the month (with our bank card). some more walking, dinner, and eventually the ice cream and the beer... :) 

(the dress is clean again. and my shoes as well....)

Mail boxes

we saw this row of mail boxes somewhere on cape cod. to me this is very american.... 

at our apartment complex we have a mailbox in another building! its further than our apartment (when coming home from the subway), so we dont go there every day. sometimes we even go only once a week! its a tiny mailbox, so when going only once a week it can be pretty full. i really find it weird to have my mail coming in at another building, but i stopped caring about not checking it everyday....

Cape cod

so... we went to cape cod on wednesday. a popular weekend and holiday destination... yet we have been there only once before, during off season. very off season even; on thanksgiving day in 2010. it was totally deserted, but beautiful and i really enjoyed driving around there. but how different it was this time! so very green, but also rather crowded.... we brought the bikes too since we already had seen that there was a lot of paid parking, especially for beach parking (and something like 20 dollars a day again). haha, actually that was not the only reason, it was also an opportunity to bike again somewhere else than inside the gym. there were quite some people biking, too, so that made me (a little) less afraid (but i still miss separate bike lanes like in the netherlands!!!). it was nice to see that with a some biking we spared 20 dollars to park at this beach. it was soooooo very hot, and the water looked so inviting... thus, after a complicated session to put on my bikini in public (while tim was making fun of me), it was time to test the water... ugh. so very cold! and this time it was not cold like in the cold that you just have to persuade yourself to get into the water entirely, because then it actually is not cold at all. no, it remained freaking cold! but.... when out of the water it felt so good that i wanted to subject myself to the ridiculous cold again... which we did, a few times.... until it was time to get onto the bike again....

(so, i did it!! my third year in boston, and i finally got into the ocean....)

Wonderful 4th!

yesterday was the 4th of july, a federal holiday in the us since it was the day, back in 1776, when they became independent from the kingdom of great britain by adopting the declaration of independence. there are parades, and generally people spend this day outside having a bbq and watch the fireworks in the evening. this was our third independence day in the us, and (some) things have started to become "normal". sort of. i really wanted to see it all in year 1, and last year as well, but this year... naahh...hmmm.. its so crowded, the fireworks start soooo late, then you have to wait forever to get into the subway to get home, and and and... besides, tim said he wasnt interested at all in watching "those boring fireworks with all those millions of people again". we thus decided to go somewhere and to just enjoy the weather. 

the day started out with quite some rain, but when we left it was getting hot and humid again. not even halfway, i thought it would be fun to leave the highway and drive a bit on the backroads... that was fun, for the first few minutes... until we suddenly became the very last car of the 4th of july parade, as you can see above!! not that anyone was interested in us (i did dress appropriately in red, white and blue!); everyone (as usual) was leaving as soon as the last of the real parade had passed by.... and there we were, driving very, very slowly... eventually we got out and back to the highway again... :) tomorrow i show you where we went!

Deciphering headstones

oooh, i missed last weeks taphophile tragics!! i started on the post on tuesday. and on wednesday. and posted nothing on either day (and i also did not visit the other taphophiles... :( ). a new tuesday and its very late yet again, an hour after midnight....

so, just a quick post of tim and me when we are at a cemetery. i guess this is what others will see quite often, as we are reading (or trying to read) whats inscribed on the stone. normally we dont have a photographer to record our behavior, but this time my sister was present (every now and then we do drag others to cemeteries)...  this is in new york, at the graveyard surrounding the st. pauls chapel. this church was built in 1766, and is the oldest church still in use in manhattan. its just one block away from the world trade center; it survived the september 11 attacks quite well. some stones did break, and ofcourse the entire graveyard was covered in rubbish (as you can see here), but it came out relatively unharmed. most likely because of all the trees surrounding the place. it cost 300,000 dollars to restore the church and headstones, which were vacuumed and washed. i myself did not take any pictures here, we could not really read/photograph the inscription, and i just "did not see it", somehow.... (or was too lazy).

we just got back from a movie; bernie. its about an assistant funeral director (jack black; hes really good) that eventually kills one of its future clients... its based on a true story that happened in texas in 1996. we really enjoyed it!

for other taphophiles, go here.

Fishermen's wives

not far from the fishermens memorial stands the fishermens wives memorial. "it serves as a testimonial to what wives, mothers, sisters, and children of fishermen of the world have endured because their men chose to be on the water. They had no choice but to stand on rock, to be on land." dedicated by the GFWA (gloucester fishermens wives association).

on each side she has a child, and together they are looking out over the ocean. in fact, the sculptor of the fishermens memorial made a model for a sculpture honoring the fishermens wives; a woman, holding a baby, with the inscription: "they also serve who only stand and wait." another artist made a model of "the widow of the fisherman". the GFWA didnt like either, as they did not see themselves as women doing nothing but sitting and waiting until their husbands would return from the ocean. many years later they choose for the above statue. it was unveiled in 2001, and the inscription underneath the sculpture reads: "The wives, mothers, daughters and sisters of Gloucester fishermen honor the wives and families of fishermen and mariners everywhere for their faith, diligence, and fortitude."

Sunday post

not knowing what to post, i suddenly saw this picture again. since its sunday, i thought it was appropriate... this was actually in the getty center in los angeles, where we were in may.

today was yet another hot hot hot day! unfortunately i spent quite some time inside. i was so stupid to buy a coupon for making a photobook. the discount was so huge (or so it seemed, ooh how clever salesmen are, and how stupid am i!!), and i thought it nice to print our pics for once (who does that, nowadays...). i bought the stupid coupon somewhere in february, to make a nice album from our roadtrip in december (from memphis to new orleans to eventually miami). more than enough time to make something nice, i thought! well.... i have 14 days left, and only started today.... beeehhh... now i "just" have to finish it (as a dutch i ofcourse cannot go let my 35 dollars goto waste to make an album worth 115.... (see, thats why i fell for it...)).

Beach scene

today was a very hot and sunny day. how nice! we started off with some laps in the pool, and then went to gloucester again (where yesterdays photo was taken as well). this time we went for some biking in the woods. it was nice. except that i had quite some bare skin due to the heat, and didnt think of mosquitoes.... buuuuhhh!! we had brought everything; towels, lunch, bikini, sunscreen, walking shoes, water... i was so happy as it seemed for once i hadnt forgotten some essential item.... until we were suddenly surrounded by those tiny flying monsters.... it almost spoiled the fun, but then they were gone again....

it was sooo very hot! i was even contemplating going into the water at the above beach (i have never been into the ocean on this side of the country! the water just looks so dirty and usually the water is so cold!). but.... we could not find any parking..!! we had never been here before on a hot day during summer. and now we know.... parking is nearly impossible at this time of the year. whereas you can freely park during the colder months (especially on the weekend), its prohibited during summer... :(( yes, there was a paid parking lot, but it was 15 dollars!! and it was already after 4 and we didnt plan on staying for too long (and anyways, i think 15 dollars is outrageous). so... no beach/swimming for us this time (we did go here on an almost equally hot day in... march... as you can see here). and ofcourse... we got home after 8, so the pool here was closed.... 

at least tomorrow there should be another day.... and again well above 30 degrees C (90F).