Golden jacket

how can you tell this in the US and not in the netherlands? 

first there is the ATM sign in the window and the ladies' barnes & nobles bag (but the latter of course doesnt mean anything, i still use american shopping bags here). most certainly the pavement. for pedestrians the pavement never looks like this in the netherlands (unless there is some construction going on), and it very often looks like this in the USA. also, the pavement will be more elevated from the remainder of the street (i guess at least twice as high as above). then the shoes; i guess she will exchange them for something more stylish once she arrives at her destination. this is something dutch people never do, but they also dont wear as high heels as americans tend to do (but they often do wear heels, and in general i think dutch women wear more stylish shoes than american women). i actually am seriously contemplating to do as the americans do; comfy shoes for the commute, fancy shoes for the office. i will be so much faster while trying to catch a train, and my nice shoes will stay nice much longer.... but i wouldnt want my colleagues to see that i am a shoe switcher.... hmmmm..... how to solve that problem! :)

and the jacket? i dont think many dutch women would wear one like this, but it was the reason for me to take this pic!

Look around!

this was back in may 2013 in new york. the last time me and tim went to new york before he moved back to the netherlands. i stayed a month longer, and went once more with my sister. 

we had quite rainy weather! and here it was coming down really heavily.... eventually we went into a cafe and had cake, just to escape the rain (ah, and for the cake, of course...). i think they put those "look" signs on several places to warn pedestrians that they shouldnt just cross the street, but actually look as well.... here in amsterdam they spray-painted some warnings on the street as well, mostly for bicyclists, telling them they should actually stop for the red light... (however most of these signs quickly faded away, so i still never took a picture of them...)

currently, the weather in the netherlands is really bad! buuuuhhh. feels like autumn with strong winds and lots of rain. i think last weekend the apartment block behind ours lost some of their roof (parts are still hanging in the trees), so this week they placed new pallets of "roof-stuff" on those roofs. but with those strong winds again, i am afraid it will be blown off again before they can use it....

Biking restrictions

i had no clue what to post today, and then i saw this one... no! its not in the netherlands. i dont think such a restriction on bikes could be possible at all here. this one is for the boardwalk at coney island in new york.

Private property

last time me and tim were in new york, we saw this little sign on the sidewalk for the very first time. it was somewhere around times square and this is what it says; private property. permission to cross revocable at will. i had never seen such signs before and thought it was just a joke. but some googling told me that they are all around new york (and other cities too? i havent found that), and are for real! they are indicating the property line of the building, so the part of the sidewalk that belongs to the building... hahaha.

today we finally got to painting the bedroom. that was quite some work. but at least the ceiling is purple now and the walls are white....

Grand central

this was back in may, when we were in new york with the most awful weather... the first day it more or less rained non-stop! i guess thats why there were many (at least 4 when we were there) wedding shoots going on inside grand central terminal. the wedding group above was definitely the most interesting.

since a week or so i somehow got into the habit of watching "say yes to the dress". its about brides-to-be that are looking for a wedding dress in some fancy store in new york. to me its amazing what they are willing to spend on a dress; most dresses are not below 1500 dollars, and many are looking for dresses for say 5000 dollars!! (or even more...). i can only watch it when tim is not around, as he cant stand even the sound of all the screaming brides and bridesmaids and mothers and mothers in law.... haha.

Oooooohhhh rain!!

oooh, still a lot of rain... reaching almost my last week here in the states and rain is what i get.... 

buuuuuhhh... 

lets see about tomorrow....

Rain, go!!!

this was when we were in new york. the subway train was above ground and outside was something i wanted to picture. but my camera only wanted to focus on the rain drops.... :(

now its raining like crazy in boston too!! grrrrr! i am SO annoyed. i hoped for some sun and pooltime. but yesterday evening the pool was pretty chilly, and it rained the entire night! today was grey and rainy too. during the day not extremely bad, but very grey. and now... crazy rain again.... hope the sun comes out before we leave!
and while everything is totally soaked with water, the sprinkler system at our apartment complex still switches on every evening, drenching the poor plants even more. such a waste!!

The boardwalk

this is the boardwalk at coney island, new york. we were there almost 2 weeks ago and it was so very cold, windy and rainy. still, we had fun!

the lady and pink and husband (i assume) were watching what was going on in the blue building to the left. there seemed to be some kind of emergency, with an ambulance crew arriving... 

getting to coney island from new york city is easy, you just take the subway to the very end. i forgot which one. there are 2 lines, i think. it takes pretty long, but at least that means that the 2.50 subway fare is taking you real far! there are about 3 miles of sandy beaches here, but we never saw them "in use", as we never managed to be there during really warm weather (somehow it always rains when we are in coney island). i guess it can become pretty crowded then!

hurricane sandy (already 7 months ago!) damaged quite a bit of the boardwalk, especially a bit further down. so far, 270 million dollar has been spent to restore the 8 beaches of new york, and another 386 million is available in the years to come for further repairs...

Stop texting!!

good news: we sold the table today!!! jaaajjj!! maybe selling from craigslist is easier if you put a phone number there (before we didnt); today several people called. or maybe it was the lower price... :) it was actually quite low, including the 4 red chairs. but.... the guy coming to pick it up told us he had just lost his entire household in a fire..... he asked whether we had more stuff, but more or less everything is gone now. except the couch and the bed.... but the bed we will have to trash (we got it for free and it is really broken in several places), and the couch we will probably then bring to goodwill this weekend.

anyways, i didnt want to write about that! look at this traffic sign!! had never seen it before, but this we saw in brooklyn, NY, this weekend. and they are right. its so often that people are in my way, walking slowly, because they are busy looking at their screens, while walking. if you look around you in the subway, most people are on their phones doing some kind of game, texting, or facebook indeed... i always wanted to take a picture of that, but never dared. nobody seems to read anymore, these days!  i dont have a fancy phone, and dont have the urge to check it every 5 seconds... same when in the cinema, many people check their phones during the movie (very annoying!!), and almost everyone gets out their phones as soon as the movie is done. no talking with your friends that are actually there how the movie was... no, checking the phone whether friends not present have to say anything.... grrrrr.... am i getting old...?

Tim clown

before we started the horrible task of packing (its worse than i thought. beeehhh. i moved quite a few times too often during my PhD, but at least that was within one city, certainly makes things easier...), we went to say goodbye to new york. dont know whether new york was sad too, or just didnt want to give us nice weather; it was freaking cold! and raining most of the time.... :( beeehhhh. not what we expected this time of the year! this is at coney island, which was even more sad with the cold weather and most attractions closed....

today we got rid of some furniture, now we dont have lamps in the bedroom anymore... :) someone else came to pick up the espresso machine, and the lady wanting the chairs canceled at the last moment (oh, craigslist.. great for buying, not for selling), another lady picked up some other chairs, and she also took one of the plants... (yaajj! i dont want my plants ending up in the trash...). the apartment is still a giant mess, but it seems the packing is almost done... i guess the stress levels will go down a bit once the mover has taken the boxes (and approved their weight... i quite worry about that).

Bye bye.....

above a picture of the fung wah bus that has brought us to new york and back to boston quite a number of times now. going through my blog i see the first time i wrote about the fung wah was already in 2011! just a few months before i had taken the greyhound bus to montreal, and that wasnt much of a success. as it involved crazy driving, hour in traffic, annoying annoucements, too many stops in between, and expensive tickets, i thought we could just try the cheap chinatown bus (many people had warned us that whatever we do, we should never take the chinatown bus), as in fact ALL bus drivers drive like idiots. by now we have seen it so often on the road... being passed by a huge bus going well over the speed limit.

and so we did.... we quickly learned that its best to arrive on time, as you never ever want to sit in the back of the bus; thats where the toilet is (i guess thats enough explanation). we also learned that its really the cheapest and fastest way to get to new york and back. often under 4 hours, often without a pit stop (who needs that anyways when the destination is new york!!), always on time, and it was never a problem to take a bus earlier if you happened to be there and there was still space on board (try that with the other companies that require you to be there well in advance, and then just let you wait). taking the fug wah also turned out to be quite amusing at times. once, when we did stop at the mc donalds along the highway, one annoying passenger was not back within the 15 minute-limit, and our driver agreed with us passengers, and just drove off without him. another time (or was it the same?) we sat right behind the driver and while i was dozing off, i was first woken by the driver singing, quite loudly, and later eating sunflower seeds. also, they do slow down, full on the brakes, when they see a police car along the road, and yet another time, when going back to boston, the bus driver suddenly stopped. just alongside the road. walked to the back, used the restroom and drove off like crazy again.  without a word (they never ever say anything! except when they stop. "15 minute, you be back!") so yes, we took the bus numerous times, and even made it a habit to just go to new york for one day. 8 hours of chinatown bus included.....

but.... no longer. for now, the federal officials shut down fung wah entirely. a first inspection "just" took out the buses that were deemed unsafe; 3 out of 4, on a fleet of 28 (!!). that didnt deter fung wah; they just rented other buses and continued their crazy schedule of (i think) some 24 trips a day. the inspectors found badly maintained buses and cracked bus frames. pretty scary indeed. and when fung wah refused to cooperate (letting the inspectors see their safety records), their operating license was revoked entirely. buuuuuuhhhhh. it has been a while since we last were in new york......

Not real!

at first glance, you think....hmmmmm....? but no, its not real! this is somewhere along the high line in new york... must be pretty annoying having so many people walk by your window every day. taking pictures. of everything and all... including the fake man. or, especially the fake man....

Apartment building

this is in new york, but actually in the netherlands you very often see people hang their blanket (from the bed) outside their window. i always find that strange... hanging it out like that will make it dirty, no?

as we live in a corner apartment, we have a lot of windows (the reason we decided to take it; so much light!), but all windows have an (insect) screen, so when you open the window, there is still the screen that cannot move. thats pretty common here, but i find it soooo weird! what if you want to throw something out of the window? ;) stick your head out, or just get the crumbs from the tablecloth? 

Nice ad

i was lazy the past 2 days, and i still am... but here is another picture! this is from a while back, when we were in new york... (as you can see by the water tower up in the corner). i liked this ad, even though i do not like such shoes.... i think they are very american! such high heels you never see in the netherlands (or at least, thats what i think. maybe things have changed by now?), but here shoestores are filled with them. i love shoeshopping, and am often disappointed when i see a nice looking shoe, only to take it out of the box entirely, seeing that it has such an impossible heel on it....

ah well, probably better for me. saves me some money... :)

Official inauguration

obama took the official oath for his second term in the white house today....

this "election" i saw months ago on some random wall in new york, i believe around chinatown... im surprised by the colors gum apparently can have...
ah, i just looked up their website; a group of people (street artists) placed them at several locations, they were also interviewed by cnn, and at the website you see pictures of the gum elections. the idea behind it is pretty cool: it was a way to stimulate people to vote, AND to have people stick their gum on a piece of removable paper (a face, actually) instead of on the ground where it will be stuck forever...

i went out with my camera today. and when i was ready to take a picture, i realized i forgot to put my memory card back in (in the camera, that is). buuuh. again no pictures this weekend! perhaps this week... snow is in the forecast!

Feeding pigeons...

signs usually say please dont feed the birds..... this one is a bit more explicit.... :)

Not tomorrow!

another sunny picture... but this was last saturday when we were in new york. i took this photo while we were in the roosevelt island tram, aboveground! this is actually in between the car accessroads to the bridge, and (i guess) a homeless man is enjoying the sun while lying on a subway ventilation grill, completely oblivious to all the cars racing on either side of him.... tomorrow some snow is expected! here in boston at least, i dont know about new york, but i assume it will be a bit colder there too than it was last weekend. 

we just got back from the cinema, and it was cold already. we saw life of pi, in 3d. just in the cinema closest to our apartment, not in the center of boston or anything. and this was the price for 2 tickets (including the 3d glasses); 32 dollars!! 32! nowadays, if time allows, we go to 3 different supermarkets as i kind of know where what is the cheapest, to save a dollar or 2. and then we spend 32 dollars on the movies... :) ah no, actually we get discount tickets through work, and then they are 7.50 each (thats really nice!). however, since it was a 3d movie, we each had to pay 4.50 extra; so thats still a total of 24 dollars... for a movie we both did not really like.... grrrrr! (we both have read the book, i was not that impressed, tim was. then i read a review in time magazine that convinced us to go see the movie.... but i guess a movie hardly ever is better than the book)

But why?!

today it was black friday (the day just ended 5 minutes ago); the start of the christmas shopping season in the usa, and the day on which all stores give (or pretend to give) large discounts on their products. actually, it started already last night. when we drove home from the thanksgiving dinner, we passed a "big k market" (a department store, nothing special as far as i remember), where some 20 people were standing in line in front of the entrance. it was about 9. at home, i checked when the store would open; midnight!! i dont know how long they had been there already, but sitting outside, on thanksgiving (a seemingly very important holiday for americans) at 9 for a store to open at midnight just makes me wonder WHY?!

i think last year many stores opened "only" at 4 in the night, so i guess next year they might just be open on thanksgiving....  for us, it was our third black friday, and yet again we did not set foot in any store. i would have liked to observe the spectacle, but its hard to be present in such a huge crowd of people without being part of it, unless you can fly, no? tim found this video, and that actually made me happy i was not present, i would defenitely not have liked to be in such a shopping-crazy-crowd!

the sculpture was not made for black friday :) i saw it in new york, when we were there in june with my sister. its in the city hall park, until the end of this month, together with several other interesting works of art. the sculpture is named "memorial for unknown artist", by thomas schutte (here you can read more about it)

Dancing cop

always fun to see a cop directing traffic. if you shoot multiple images and watch them after each other, it looks like a weird dance on the middle of the street, sometimes.. :)

going back and forth to new york in one day is really fun, but tiring too! we got up at 4.45am on saturday, caught the subway to boston, and then had the 6.30 bus to new york, delivering us to chinatown around 11 (traffic was a bit slow yesterday), we spent the day and got the 7pm bus back to boston, getting back home just after midnight..... then the downstairs neighbors had some loud party, so we stayed up and watched some series. 

as a result; today i did hardly anything. too tired... :)

NY today

still some autumn colors today in New York! we went for a day, from boston by bus, so now im tired....

it was real warm! at some point too warm for a jacket, can you believe it?!