Soap shop

this is at downtown crossing where we got on the orange line tonight after dinner. the soap shop currently has pink led lights around all of their windows. in the netherlands that would mean something else.. or is that only when the lights are red? i find it funny and always have to think of the red light district when i see this shop now... not what the average american would like to be associated with, i guess, when going to this shop!

those soap shops have an overwhelming smell, coming towards you if you are still far away, yegh. i prefer to stay out of this shop. they have millions of different hand sanitizer; different color, scents, size etc. same for soap, room refresher, etc etc etc.... but essentially its all the same; this shop could greatly reduce its size, i would say... :D

Quick post

a quick post to make up for yesterday's lack of one...

this is kind of close to south station, i would say between the institute of contemporary art and south station. just some street thats currently rather abandoned, but it looks like they are working on getting some rather fancy apartments all around there, as you can see above. i like the location, and close to the harbor, but other than that, theres not much to do.. (yet).

i feel i am doing bad concerning posting and taking pictures... i hope both will improve soon! :) i blame the weather, and otherwise my camera (or my lack of understanding of it), thats the easiest... ;)

Church sign

another church sign since it is sunday and i am a little lazy.... 

actually i saw on friday that they changed the text, but didnt manage to get a picture of the new one yet. the new one i like better.. this one is just boring... :)

the weather was great today! no jacket needed.... finally!!

Prepared to...

.. fight? to me it looked like those machines, opposite of each other.. are.... perhaps at night, when everyone sleeps?

although not shot today, also today it was very sunny and even warm! but not at the beach where it was windy and cold, as we found out. ah well...  tonight we went to the movies. this time to Hanna. a girl is trained to fight somewhere in the forests and then is released into the "real world" to do what shes been trained for her entire life. beautifully shot; it was not just a thriller but almost art. and suspense as it was originally defined. the music was good too. its from the same director as atonement, which was very good too. but.. if you like to read, i would suggest you first read the book by ian mcewan (and then read most of his other books too..; if i would have to name a favorite writer, its most certainly him!)

anyways, i enjoyed every minute of this movie and wouldnt mind to see it again next week! only i would have named the movie, HannaH, but thats just a small detail...

Being told..

... what to do is sometimes very weird, unnecessary and even counterproductive, i think... and very weird if publicly displayed, like above. does that mean that uniformed men/women working for the T prefer to have their shirts out of their pants? and they prefer to wear other hats than uniform hats? such signs just make me wonder...

also read today that the city of boston is prohibiting "sugary drinks" on city property. no more cola, no more energy drinks etc can be sold at, for example, the boston common. sugarfree drinks however, are still allowed. are they out of their minds?! it instantly makes me wanting a coke! im wondering whether the building i work in, also is city property. every now and then, lets say 2 or 3 times a month, i go down to the cafetaria and buy myself a coke, and i enjoy that very much. they want to take that away from me? can i please decide for myself whats good and whats not?! sugarfree drinks are not healthy either! reasoning behind this: "the majority of boston residents are overweight or obese." drinks that still are allowed include water and skim milk, diet sodas, iced teas, and 100 percent juices. well... 100% juices perhaps contain even more sugar than a coke; and most vitamins are gone out of those drinks before you can drink them! i propose they also shut down all starbucks... the amount of sugar they pour into their "latte-coffees" is rather unhealthy too.

Owww cute!

another photo from the st patrick's parade. those 2 little kids were so cute! too bad that exactly at the moment i took the photo, the girl with purple hat did one step back. everyone is wearing green necklaces, that were given away by the people from the parade. sometimes they were throwing handfulls, sometmes they were throwing at persons in particular, when they were asking for it. we were not very good at getting one; only later i found one on the street...

Self contemplation...

today.... my blog exists 1 year! this was my first post, a pic of CaT (cat and tim) on a couch (and not much more) in some apartment somewhere in boston. i came up with the idea during our long and boring flight. since a few years i enjoyed taking photos and some i was using as my screensaver on my laptop. i would always be glad when colleagues came into my office, we would be talking, my screensaver would start, and they would start watching those pics, and occasionally say; oh, thats a nice photo!

then we moved and i wanted another means of showing pics, and to a greater audience than people happening to see my screensaver, and came up with the (i thought) original idea of posting one pic, one, and not more, per day. besides, the title of the post could not be more, or less, than 2 words. in the beginning i found it rather difficult to be allowed only one pic, but those were the rules i set... :) i liked that it made me think more carefully about pics i was taking; one pic should eventually have to show it all! it also made me more daring (sometimes).. i would think when getting shy; oh, i do need to take this picture "for my blog"!  never been  much interested in blogs, i discovered countless people have one. soon i found citydailyphoto; based on the concept of showing 1 pic a day of the city you live in..... 

ah well... not original, but very enjoyable, most of the times... :) too bad recently i dont have much time taking pics and rely on what i take on sundays.. too bad i so often am indecisive on what pic to pick... like today.. :) so i thought to, like last year, choose a picture taken with my laptop. this one is from nearly a year ago, at my desk in the lab....when my watch was still in one piece, and i still dared wearing it. now that it has been repaired (that took months! and quite some money.. :( , i am too afraid to drop it again, or to expose it to all the watch-unfriendly chemicals in the lab.

but... against my own rules, i also wrote far too much today!

Theme day!

i am a member of citydailyphoto for a little while now! but so far i havent had the time to really do something with that and always missed the theme days etc.... i am not entirely sure i understood how it works, but i believe its still valid to participate in april's theme day (or can you post it only at the first day of the month? the theme is "edges". and above the picture i choose.... i have had it in my "perhaps for my blog picture folder" for a while now... i took it on thanksgiving, last november, when we were in provincetown. of course we went exploring this small town a little, and found this side street that seemed quite abandoned. i guess nature will take over entirely soon (or has done so already..)!

(hmmm... i think i am already too late to participate in april's theme day...)

One year

one year ago we flew from amsterdam to boston. each with 2 packed suitcases (and quite some handluggage), and not quite knowing what to expect. how to do it all, where to live after the 3-month lease was over, where to get furniture... etc etc.

it all worked out well.... most of the times...! ;)

The trash

brought the trash out this morning. was rather full already and such a sad sight... those 2 balloons.... (and a bike, jacket and shirt). i could make an entire story out of it... :) but i leave it up to your own imagination. give the mood im in, it would just be a sad story.. 

a new day tomorrow! good night!

Dutch message?

LEEEF! ("live") somewhere in a boston street with a lot of graffiti...

Self portrait

why is it that on friday evening i am suddenly exhausted? always? we watch an episode of the big bang theory, or whatever, and halfway i fall asleep.... so, no post yesterday. :(

on top of that, i forgot to take my keys to work yesterday, and i realized when i wanted to unlock my laptop to take it home; not possible. grrrr!! its funny; i am the only one locking my laptop; all the others just have it there on their desk. but at the university in the netherlands that was really impossible, they would even steal things out of your locked desk drawer....

anyways... i thought it was time for another self portrait, yet again a shadow one! this was in charlestown, when i took this picture. we were standing under this bright lamppost where tim had parked the car and we took quite some (according to us) funny pictures... im wondering if the people in the nearby apartments saw us, and were wondering what that was all about... :)

ah, and now its april already....

Once again..

... we are having snow!! nope, thats not a joke; its still march (at least on this side of the ocean..)! just ran outside to take a picture, and brought back quite some snow in my hair... :) see the light in the apartment just at the end of the bridge? thats ours! 

just checked the forecast: "The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning for areas..." etc.. etc. its pretty white already; perhaps tomorrow everything is covered in quite a layer again? i start to finally believe the bostonians; the winter here is endless... :)

Walking home..

or rather.. walking from charlestown to north station. i normally take the shuttle, but tonight i was shown the scenic route... so pretty!! i was disappointed that the times i walked instead of taking the shuttle (perhaps 3 times, haha) i always took the route alongside the road; not much fun. too bad  i didnt have my fancy camera just now. but isnt it pretty? the zakim bridge by night, and behind it the TD garden. and as a bonus their reflection... :)

Public markings

aka graffiti..... 

this is here, in Hull, right behind a cemetery. we were just walking on the cemetery when i found a way to climb up, and suddenly we were in a fort, with an amazing view on the ocean! great historic site... but.. not so much.. it was in such a bad state, everything covered in graffiti. i was rather surprised, as i have come to understand that americans cherish anything with a little bit of history. but no, this fort was just abandoned and most likely used by local youth (ow, do i feel old, writing something like that!) to drink beer and mark the walls...

i never liked graffiti but recently i changed my mind. a little. maybe not so much about graffiti but more about advertisements that are placed everywhere around us. wherever you go, you will see billboards or smaller ads. pretty women making clear that you should buy this and this shampoo if you finally (eh..?) want nice hair, telephone companies that want your money or half naked ladies in victoria's secret underwear. do i want to see all that? not more than i want to see graffiti... i guess. and at least graffiti sometimes can be funny, while advertisements are just telling you that the products you are currently using are crap, or that you really should start to loose weight or goto the gym......

anyways, this morning there was an article in the newspaper about graffiti. apparently, in boston its not easy to spray walls. the police is always on the lookout. fines being between 500 to 5000 dollar. and... and average of up to 3 years of jail time. an average of three years?! isnt that a little too much...? a funny detail was that some artist that had his work displayed at the ICA got arrested for placing graffiti across boston city...

Catching shadows

sometimes its hard to be objective about the photos i take (or always?). here i clearly see the man pulling forward his cart with all those empty bottles and cans, and i like it.... but then i wonder... do others see that as well? now i really dont know whether thats a clear shadow of a man pulling a cart or not.... it was really sunny, as you can see, but it was quite windy and chilly.

anyways... here almost all bottles and cans (even small soda cans) have a deposit. most people dont bother to return them, so there are other people collecting them from wherever they find them. just in the corner you can see a part of a second cart as packed with refundable bottles as this one. we were on the perfectly fine sidewalk; i dont know why he choose to walk on the street... this is close to south station, where we got off yesterday to have a nice walk around a part of boston we dont visit very often. walking on leads you eventually to the ICA (institute of contemporary art) and from there we walked along the shore back to the center of boston where we found Panera already closed at 4 pm!! bugh, the financial district is really empty on a sunday afternoon....

Open door

im lazy today, so i let the church once again speak for me....
however.. i do not agree...!
you can also just drive on to boston....

Ooops, trespassing!

yesterday tim said; i found a real cool spot to take some pictures! so after he picked me up from work, we drove there, parked the car at a deserted parking lot (only for students with permit; others will be towed; ofcourse we did not have a permit), and walked on the above road. it was cool indeed; this was right underneath the big dig! above us all the cars on the many roads leading into boston. i posted several pictures while driving there already. while driving i am always amazed by the many roads crossing/passing etc each other, to eventually all lead you, from all directions, into boston. the amount of concrete is amazing, but i wouldnt call it ugly... :)

we just walked, and we were right underneath the road that gets you to this spot. we walked on, and suddenly stood right in front of another landmark: the boston sand & gravel! it was cool, but also a little scary; normally there are gates, cameras, security and signs warning you to stay away. here; nothing! until we walked back and i found this sign; i cant blame us for missing that when we rushed by the first time.... :) perhaps we are now sought for trespassing and photographing potential targets. (girl with bright green sneakers and guy with red trousers; thats hard to miss on their closed circuit television!)

Its cold!!

this was last night, from our apartment...! it lasted not very long though.... tim was somewhere in cambridge, and there was no snow at all.

tonight its cold as well. we went to the cinema. oh no... i mean, we went to the movies.... apparently people here dont say "we went to the cinema". when i said that the other day in the lab, someone said; cinema?! is that what you say over in europa? ah well... the movie was not the best. lincoln lawyer, with matthew mac-something. i dont really like that guy anyways. it was not boring, but also not very great.

Behind them

i was right behind them. and im still wondering how they looked from the front...  even more so right now, now i cannot run forward anymore to check them out... :)

its the same with science, often. only when you did the experiment, and are looking at the results, or often, even just before you analyze your results is it that you realize what you forgot to check, what you forgot to take along... etc. as with any other happening, i guess. only later, when you cant go back....

anyways... that day it was so sunny! and this morning we woke up to a bit of white on the streets, and just an hour or 2 ago there was again quite some snow. wheres spring?