Two amateurs

we took advantage of labor day weekend (an extra day off on monday), to go to acadia national park, in maine. after having seen photos of it from several friends, i was determined to go there as well. it is an island, approximately 6 hours away from boston by car. as this might well be one of the last warm weekends of the year, and just for the fun of it, we decided to go camping! we bought a cheap tent (60% discount) and off we went....

above is on the island, just before the campground. we had to stop to take in the beauty (as many other people did as well) and.... the mosquitoes. the person above is not waving to me, but trying to get rid of the enormous amount of mosquitoes. just before nightfall we were at the campground and managed to get the tent up before it was entirely dark. very dark. the campground was in a forest, and there was no light, but from the restrooms. luckily we had brought some flashlights! (although i had almost forgotten them). looking at the other campers, we were clearly amateurs, lacking fancy headlights, special outfits, airbeds and wood to build a fire. yup, an airbed might have been a better idea than our guestmattress; the ground was full of stones.... buuuhhh. and.... there were no showers. obsessed as i am with washing my hair, that was quite.... unpleasant. :) but we managed, and did not even go to the coin-op showers that were a 5-minute drive away.

but! it was great!! it was beautiful there, and the weather was perfect too. not too hot, not too cold, no rain, just thousands of mosquitos... and camping was fun too. we can, perhaps, do it again. only for a few days at a time though! however, we will always remain amateurs (even though i practiced quite a bit as a kid, with my parents; i realize now that it is quite different as an adult.. ) more photos later!

And.... back!

we were away a few days... it involved quite a drive, this weird sign (we just passed it!), not showering for some days (yegh... im so glad i just had a shower again!), absolutely no internet, my phone did not even work, and some mountain climbing again... :)

more tomorrow, now im tired!

Times square

this was in may, when we went to new york with my sister. it was crazy crowded at times square, and amidst it all was this man. then i thought; ooh, he is so old, and on times square! but then i thought; ooh, why is it weird he is there, and not that i am? i, for one, do not really like times square. too crowded, too loud, too many tourists, too much of everything. and what is old? i remember when the year 2000 was extremely far away, and i was calculating how extremely OLD i would be when we would finally get to the year 2000. and now its already 2011, and i do not feel particularly old.... :)

theme day at the dailyphotoblog was perspective this month, i hope i finally manage to participate this time! :)

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Real Americans

today i saw 3414 (if i remember correctly) people become real american citizens. one of them i know from work; thats why i was there! i thought it was so cool that i could see that.... and he was sooo proud! :) he is in the middle of above picture (more or less).

but the ceremony was a little different than i thought. in fact, it was an endless process. i did not know he was one amongst 3413 others. how could i know it was such a mass-event! but it became clear as soon as i stepped out of the subway; endless rows of very nicely dressed people, waiting to get into the TD garden (the TD garden has 19,580 seats).we got in there around 9.30. i was never in the TD garden, so that was interesting. sooo huge! but after an hour i had seen it. however, it took until 12.30 before everyone was finally seated..... ooh, and everyone looked so beautiful, especially little girls with beautiful dresses... then the ceremony began. there was some singing. some speeches, and then the oath (thats the picture above). thats when you have to swear that when required by law you will bear arms on behalf of the United States, will perform noncombatant service in the us armed forces, and will perform work of national importance under civilian direction....

ah well... it was cool that i could be present there; it was a... very american happening... ;) congratulations once again!

here a few more photos (it was hard to take pictures, we were so high up in the stadium and it was quite dark. buuuhhh)

With fish

in front of the entrance of the aquarium in boston. there was also a giant turtle.

here its so sunny now... but the nights are getting colder. soon they will close the pool.... and then one day its winter again.. brrr. but not yet...

Oratory skills

ok, just a little bit more about irene. these girls just return from the water, yesterday during the storm. eloquently speaking about nothing is an art very well studied in ancient greece and rome. i will always remember my latin teacher saying; well, and then you for example had to give a speech of 10 minutes about.... a doorknob! well..... that doorknob was irene, yesterday. in many places the tropical storm (she was downgraded from hurricane to storm) "just" caused heavy winds and rain, and thus all those reporters were desperate showing something, any tiny flood or damage she was causing. this is an excellent compilation at universal hub showing just that; both me and tim had to laugh out loud last night. or this video, where a reporter is going on and on and on about some organic matter in which he is entirely covered. he is not aware that it is actually just sewage he is talking (and sniffing/tasting) about.... HAHAHAHA! but.... many trees came down, and many people were (are?) without power etc etc, as you can read here.

buuughh, im bored by my own writings. clearly not only the reporters need some better oratory skills.. :)

good night!

Inclement (beach)weather?

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.

Hurricane workshop

i cannot longer postpone it, i also have to write about irene, the hurricane. wherever you go, irene is there in some form or another. on the door of our apartment building, warning us to get enough "supplies", use flashlights and not candles when we will no longer have electricity. on the television, the newspaper, every store.... as im not that eloquent, this is what the free newspaper metro writes: "boston is expecting to get whacked with torrential downpours, heavy winds and potential flooding". and mind you, no newspaper on monday because of irene. boston will be without public transportation tomorrow, because of irene. and because of irene the home depot gave workshops on how to prepare, as you can see above. when i took a picture, a store employee came to me and introduced himself as the manager, asking me whether i found everything i needed. when i pointed at the sign and said i found it funny, he replied: "well, you do have to take this seriously! 1000 people came to the workshop!!" to which i could only reply: "you sure made some good money then, no?"

today we went for our weekly grocery shopping, of course exactly at the moment irene started her heavy rain (she came a few hours too early!!). in no time streets were flooded. it was interesting to see that most cars seemed to be heading to the liquor stores.... luckily our favorite supermarket still had everything we needed (i had seen on the news how people were hoarding water, food, batteries.. leaving shelves empty). since 2.30 this afternoon it has been raining on and off, but forecasts say tomorrow we really might see irene, which is why all public transport is suspended and everyone is asked to stay at home. according to cnn, 1 million houses are currently without electricity.

ah well.... lets see... i just checked the hurricane survival kit-list. we got most of it, although not the babyfood, nor the battery-operated radio. we do have the batteries and the manual can opener, but not the games. ah, i do not like games anyways...

Self portrait

another self portrait! this is actually the push-button for the light of a pedestrian crossing in boston. it was so shiny, and then i realized when i zoomed enough, it was a perfect mirror... :)

of course there is a wiki for button, but please check it out yourself if interested. there is also a wiki for pedestrian crossing, and that one tells me that many buttons in some areas such as new york are actually placebo buttons designed to give pedestrians an illusion of control while the crossing signal continues its operation as programmed. hahhahaha, i think thats funny. and not surprising at all. too bad it does not only count for traffic lights...

Need some?

this is in the (gay) village in montreal. the entire street is decorated with those pink balls; it was the first i saw upon arrival by bus. it looks so nice! but taking pics was, as usual, not that easy. as in... i cant show you how it looked... grrrr!! but above a try... here a few more pics of this street.

from may to september, this street is pedestrians only, the other months of the year its open to other traffic as well.

there were several advertisements for viagra. i do not know why....

Duck extension

this evening tim and me met at the ducks in the public garden. i could sit there everyday watch the children. its so cute, and i could prove my theory that almost each kid does the same when seeing this statue; sitting on each duck (there are 8 small ones and the mother duck; above), at least one time. and the parents do the same too; grab their cameras and take as many pictures as possible. this girl put her skirt over each duck head (the park is one of the few places without hand sanitizer). tim was worried the skirt would get stuck onto the head when she was about to jump off, but it didnt.

after that we went to the hatch shell to listen to some free classical music, but it got a little chilly so we left during the break. then we went to the cinema; we saw the help. it was sad, but also very funny at times, and i really liked it.

Two ladies

underneath some weird advertisement in montreal.... im wondering whether they saw that!

Something simple

some raindrops on a green leaf.... but it took me quite a while to get i photographed! this was in montreal, where i went to visit a friend with baby, haha, so now you know why i went there. the baby is only 29 days old today.... and very cute.

the bus trip back was again not very pleasant. no dogs at the border this time, but the officers became very suspicious when one male passenger had a what appeared to be a female scarf in his bag. when asked twice whether that scarf was his (and yes, he answered it is!!), they took him to another room for further investigation. that took over an hour, after which he could just return back (so... do not bring "weird" clothes with you!). i dont think this passenger was treated very nicely, and most likely there was absolutely nothing wrong with him, and that while they have this "pledge" hanging at every US border.

more delays at the next stop, and then heavy rain slowed us even further down. i got back to boston 3 hours later than planned. grrrr!!!

tomorrow another montreal picture!

Ooh, french..

i do not speak french. i never did and i never will. and now im in montreal and its mostly in french and i have no clue what they are saying. luckily most people speak as well english as they do french. but this artwork in the village is in french. i liked it a lot! but since i couldnt read it anyways, on this pic you cant read it either. each red stick has a letter, and standing right in front of it, you can read what it says, as you can see here. luckily, there was a translation, this is what it says:"a time will come where you can express yourself freely". and then there is a "manifeste" in which it is explained, but... only in french. to see the tex you had to peek through this square, i somehow see that as a message too.. 

so.... when will this time come, when you can express yourself freely? i dont know.... :) so either someone else can tell why im in montreal, or you have to wait another day... :P

When traveling..

traveling usually involves a lot of waiting, sitting and doing nothing. today i went by bus. a 7 hour trip it was supposed to be. during the morning everything went smooth (the bus left at 7.15. that was the only thing, getting up so terribly early) and i remember at what point i was thinking; ooh, how great this is. im sitting nice and comfortable, i have a book, when i look outside the window i see all these new and often pretty places.... then the last stop before the border. the driver saying; "dont get off the bus, your new driver will be here soon". soon became an hour. "sorry, your driver is stuck at the border coming back". 2 hours... and all the while the engine was running (aarrghhh!!). another driver.... yesyes, soon we go. then, finally, the border. "get all off the bus, get all your luggage"

"where are you living? when are you going back to the netherlands? how do you know your friend? where did you meet? wait in that room and do not go to the restroom." "now you all get out, place your luggage in front of you, step back, wait". (i had no clue what was going to happen and because i am reading the hunger games, the most weird things suddenly went trough my mind) and then dogs came to check both us and the bags. "thank you. now wait here. you can stand in the shade if you want". they did this with all passengers, lined up in groups, then the bus. we just crossed the border from us to canada. funny, what people do, and other people do to prevent that, and what people then do, and.... and so on and so on.

then a small road and endless farms. so green, so pretty! but all my photos with the ugly reflection of the window. they should have washed the windows, too. then... traffic jam..... a delay of almost 4 hours, but now i am in montreal for the weekend. jeeejj. why? tell you tomorrow...

Little protestors...

... but do they know what they are protesting for?
this is in front of the public library in boston, a little while back.
just noticed that both girls have their feet positioned the same way.

Too close

biebkriebels placed this photo yesterday, so i thought to show you a similar one from san diego! when i arrived, i was, as always, looking down from my window (i prefer to have a window seat so that i can see whats going on), and the ground was approaching sooo fast! i couldnt see an airport, but i did see houses, streets, and it was all a little too close for me. it all went fine, and one of the first things sylvia asked me was how i liked the landing... as she knew ofcourse.... :)

later we were back there for the rental car, and i (also) had to be very quick to take a picture. now some wiki-facts about the airport; its the busiest single-runway commercial service airport in the us, but not in the world; thats london (and then comes san diego), with having approximately 600 arrivals and departures each day. august 16, 1928, exactly 83 years and 1 day ago, the airport was named San Diego Municipal Airport – Lindbergh Field, because San Diego was the city from which mister Lindbergh began the journey that would ultimately become the first solo transatlantic flight, in addition to being the place where his aircraft was designed, built, and tested.

besides, i am fascinated by the wall with the monkeys, no idea whether it was just decoration, or some sort of advertisement.

Girl talk

im very curious what these ladies are discussing here, but it looks important...

monday we had rain the entire day! today at least it was dry, but the sun was kind of hidden... hope tomorrow will be better again.

Yellow car

this was on some field in new hampshire. i think yellow cars make for nice pictures. when i was in california, sylvia rented a car to goto the desert and LA, and that car was also yellow! at the rental company they had all these boring colored cars, but the one sylvia got. i will show you a pic of it some other day...

Self portrait

jeeejjj! tim got back from the netherlands today... so i thought it was time for another self portrait. this one is on mount washington. i picked him up from the airport, where supposedly also mike meyers was arriving, but we did not want to wait for that... 

now im too lazy to write more, so i leave it at that!