Enjoy christmas!!

this is (again) at the boston common. the tree you see here comes from nova scotia, and is a present from their government to the people of boston. since 1971, this has been a tradition. it is in thanks and remembrance of the halifax explosion in 1917. on december 6 of that year, a french wartime ship fully loaded with explosives collided with a norwegian ship in the halifax harbour. the gigantic explosion that followed instantly killed 1900 people, and 9000 were wounded. anything, buildings, people, within 500 acres of the explosion vanished, and the explosion caused a tsunami in the harbour, causing even more damage. the city of boston quickly learned of the disaster and was the first to send help. the year after, in 1918, the people of halifax sent a tree to thank all those that helped. and as mentioned, since 1971 this has been a yearly tradition.

the tree lighting is a spectacle in itself, with a lot of performances and whatnot. we went there the first year we were in boston (together with 30,000 other people). it was so cold, we could hardly see anything and the (live) singing was not that good....needless to say, we did not go the past 2 years!  but... although sad, its good to know the story behind the tree....

and now you all should enjoy christmas!!

Holiday shopping

a shop window somehere in boston... i just dont know what the sentence on the window means "the woman prepares for the holidays". literally? the woman does all the work? (the cooking, etc), or does she prepare herself by buying this (boring) blue dress? or....? i also seem to see a moustache, at least on the doll to the left... 

anyways, we didnt do much holiday shopping. thats the advantage if you live on the other side of the ocean... ;) i did buy some shoes, yesterday. for myself. and tim bought 2 pairs. the guy at the counter asked us about our holiday shopping, and if we were almost done.... i just answered that it was, with the 3 pairs of shoes... :D

Common birds

today we walked a bit around in boston. that was pretty cold. there was a strong wind, and it was kind of grey out... brrr!! i guess still better than yesterday, when it was raining like crazy...

here the boston common again, a little further is the frog pond (that i showed you yesterday). here someone just stirred up the pigeons and they happened to fly right over me, yuck... i did what everyone would do; i used my camera for protection... ;)

Getting better

after a week (a week!!) of being sick, i can finally say im feeling better again. not entirely, but better.. defenitely much better than i felt last week friday, or the entire weekend for that matter. beeehhh.... we must have picked up a virus here or there.

anyways. no pictures at all this week, so this is one from december last year. this is the frog pond in the boston common, which i have shown you several times before, mostly in summer when little kids play there to coll off. in winter it frozen, although both last winter and so far this winter it has been too warm to be frozen by itself.... :) (im waiting for the snow!!!). here you can see the huge amount of people, waiting to get onto the ice thats being polished. i really dont get why so many people are always skating here; its so tiny! 

ah well... time for bed now, still not feeling 100% healthy...

Great weekend...

i wish i indeed was writing to tell you this has been a great, busy weekend and there was no time to update the blog; but... me and tim are both sick. buhuhuhuhuhuh. we didnt leave the apartment today and when we did yesterday for some groceries (but it turned out we both didnt want to eat for most of yesterday and today) we felt even more miserable. 

this is from last weekend when we had a nice hike somewhere not too far from our house. the skyline is the one of boston. 

now its time to go back to bed again... :(

Self portrait

as you can see behind us (perhaps) this is at the niagara falls where we were last month. it was so very cold!  for us, it was the first meeting with real cold this season. luckily i was prepared and was wearing a real winterjacket.... unlike when we were in the netherlands last week; i assumed it would be as cold as in boston, but now i remember again that the last month of the year definitely is colder in holland than here (i now clearly remember being very surprised about that the first year we were in boston; everyone had scared me with the mountains of snow that could fall here, and how very, very cold it would be and then... i didnt need my winter coat until january!). the past weekend it was really quite warm here, and monday it was almost 15 degrees! but as the week progressed, it slowly got colder and colder, i read something about a possibility of snow next week.... lets see!

Now you...

...know! arent you happy?!

this is close to the tobin bridge, leading you into boston (its the green you see in the back, otherwise i would not have known anymore where this was...)

Praying eternally....

...with a bunch of fake flowers between his arms.... i found this quite an odd stone. on the other side the names are engraved. unfortunately, i could find nothing interesting about them.
this is at a cemetery not too far from our house, with mostly italian graves (or so it seems, judging from the names, this one was no exception).
for more taphophiles, go here!

Back home!

while we already came back friday night, i was a little too lazy over the weekend to write a new blog post. while in the netherlands i did not get fully over the time difference (at midnight i felt very awake each day), back in the us im tired early in the evening! grrrrr....

on saturday we had to refill our empty fridge, and on sunday we went for a hike in the woods not too far from our apartment. i actually meant to spend some hours in the gym this weekend, but too lazy for that as well. at least we went this evening, and it was very necessary; while in the netherlands we didnt move too much and we ate a LOT! all those typical dutch things that we cannot get here in the usa..... hmmmm, it was so good. and ofcourse, the tasty typical dutch things are not the most healthy or low in calories..... 

starting november or so, until the end of the year, you will see pastry stands (i.e. "gebakkraam") like the one above. they sell "oliebollen" and thats the first thing we ate when we arrived. oliebollen literally translates into "oil balls", and thats what they are; dough, usually filled with raisins, currants and/or succade are scooped into balls, deep fried and then covered in powdered sugar. hmmmmm!!! traditionally, this is eaten at the last day of the year, and not one or 2, but many, right from the frying pan. the leftovers are eaten in the day(s) afterwards, either cold or rewarmed in the microwave. here you can find the recipe (on a lovely site featuring typically dutch recipes that i recently discovered). we ate a LOT of other stuff, for the dutch among you, these things will sound familiar and we ate them as if we hadnt eaten them for ages and wont for months to come (which is probably true); kaasbroodjes, saucijzenbroodjes, poffertjes (homemade; those you can often buy on the street as well), roze koeken, drop (ofcourse!!), fries, kroket, kaassouffle, banketstaaf, and certainly also lots of dutch bread and real dutch cheese (hmmmmm), many, many mandarins  (sooo good and they are soooo cheap, especially when compared to the us, and without the stones they almost always have here). and, and and.....! so yes, we stayed only a week and ate for 2 or 3.... whoops.... but it was just sooo very good! tomorrow i will goto the gym again, i promise....

Yikes, snow!

ofcourse, on the day we left the netherlands the weathergods decided to tell us goodbye with some snow... a few days before reporters already went crazy and on the news they were warning everyone of the upcoming chaos on the roads and the airport; everyone should just stay at home on friday to be safe! (even a little bit of snow in the netherlands is completely different from loads of snow in boston; the dutch are not used to it and/or equipped to remove it quickly and usually the entire country comes to a standstill when its covered in a layer of the white stuff).

we got up real early and there was no snow at all. but.... when i looked outside a little later, the streets were suddenly covered in a white layer, it went so fast! off we went to the airport with too much luggage (mostly dutch candy and other things "you cannot get in the us and a" in my suitcase). luckily it went smoothly (except that it was sooo slippery and i could only walk very very slowly); we even arrived too early; check-in was still closed. other travelers were less lucky; many flights going to destinations in europe were cancelled, resulting in very long rows and some upset and/or crying people. the messaging system was constantly announcing gate changes, delays and cancellations, but our flight was only slightly delayed. me? i was mostly worried that i couldnt do my blog... i wasted our free 2x 30 minutes of internet trying to upload the above photo; it did not work... :( i was so focused on that, and didnt even notice the snow had stopped, hahahahaha! at least the waiting went by quickly and off we went, to iceland from where we had a connecting flight to boston. no problems at the border here, luckily, nor at customs. they didnt find the kilo of cheese and the many packages of dutch candy... (i think half of my suitcase was filled with dutch things.. :D).

now i have time (and especially internet) to visit my fellow bloggers again!! see you soon!

Perfect roads

the clouds (the clouds here really are different from the clouds in boston, and have been depicted by many famous painters..), the windmill, the green pastures; all so very dutch!! 

also the roads; so very smooth and perfect (although i have to admit this road between utrecht and amsterdam is brand new); such a huge difference with the roads in massachusetts that are scattered with potholes and bumps and what-not. other things i notice now that i dont live here anymore; many more people smoke here (yegh), shoes are different (the model), and women often wear high heels here for everyday use, not just for going out, but the heels are less high than the ones american women wear (those are ridiculous and can only be worn when taking a cab and sitting on a bar chair the entire night, no?). its so very cold here, and the cold different from the boston-cold, its so cloudy and already at 3.30 the sun seems to go down. the sun rises much later here (i have a hard time getting up, while in boston its light at 6!), and what i really, really dislike is the fact that you have to pay to use the bathroom here. often even when you have drunk or eaten something at the department store, you still have to pay 50 eurocents for the restroom! in the us you can walk into every hotel and they are happy to show you where the restrooms are, even though you are not a guest. 

i do like the dutch language. its so cute! ofcourse, me and tim speak it at home, but its really nice to hear the girls speak it at the register and so on. we have so many nice small words that are simply absent in english.... also, here they are much friendlier, and genuinely friendly in shops when compared to the us (at least in and around boston). 

December 5

this is some very nice decoration in "de bijenkorf" in amsterdam, a department store. i guess you could compare it to nordstrom in the us. these are "zwarte pieten", or black petes, the helpers of "sinterklaas". here they climb up and down the ropes, its really nice to see. they are there every year, for as long as i can remember.  "sinterklaas" is comparable to santa claus; in fact, santa claus' origins are said to come from the dutch sinterklaas. he arrives from spain somewhere in november, and leaves on december 6th. its mainly a feast for children; you can place your shoe at the chimney, with something in it for sinterklaas' horse, and if you have been good, you get a little present or some candy. on december 5, you get some more (and bigger) presents. the zwarte pieten have black faces since they go through the chimney to get the presents into the houses (so i never understood how children living in a house without a chimney could get presents; luckily we did have one). as a child, i liked sinterklaas much more than santa claus, which we also celebrate, probably because sinterklaas takes several weeks and i got more presents... :)

every year, people are complaining about the zwarte pieten; as they are "helpers" of sinterklaas, and black on top of that, they see it as a racist feast. but, as said, their faces and hands are black because of the chimney, and i dont think that children see them as anything else than providers of candy and presents, and it really is a feast for children!! (occasionally they see them as scary as only children that behave well get presents, and parents sometimes threaten their children that if they misbehave they will be taken to spain together with sinterklaas and zwarte piet...). 

From Amsterdam

this is the dam square in amsterdam. next to me is the bike lane, next to you have the tram (you can see the wires), and then the cars. on cobblestones, not a problem if you dont wear high heels.... :D

its quite cold here, i guess a bit colder than in boston and my jacket is too thin. im surprised many dutch people still walk and bike around without hat and gloves; i think in boston everyone would be wrapped up entirely in many layers of clothes with these temperatures!

we're in the train now, and its equipped with free internet! (until next year, then you will have to pay). tomorrow is our last day, we are supposed to fly back on friday... but.... i just saw that lots of snow and wind is predicted for that day, hope it will wait until after we leave!!

Dutch splendor

we are in the netherlands for 1 week to arrange some stuff. no internet..... 

but we do take a lot of pictures! now we are sitting in a small mall in amsterdam, finally one with internet! (free wireless, as well as free public toilets, are hard to find in the netherlands... grrr!!). anyways, this is a pasture close to my parents place. we stopped and took quite some pictures.

Feeding pigeons...

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

Looks like....

... this mourning lady at the grave of edwin lister is referred to as drew barrymore by the cemetery guides of sleepy hollow, new york. hahaha. i just found that somewhere on the internet. and well yes, now that i read that i think she does look a bit like drew barrymore (an actress), no?

this is a huge grave, here you can see it entirely, so i guess this person was rich. and i guess he was, this is what i could find; edwin lister was born in england, and came as a boy with his parents to the usa. in 1887 he became president of the company agricultural chemical works, his father's company where he started to work at a young age (they grounded cattle bones into fertilizer). he improved the machinery and whatnot, and later moved the business from sleepy hollow to newark, new jersey, together with his brother. in newark he eventually died after an illness of several months. 

normally, i would now link to taphophile tragics, but unfortunately, taphophile tragics is no longer....! i do hope to continue posting cemetery pictures every now and then. the main reason i often skip posting about the cemeteries i visit is that i get caught up into reading lots and lots of stuff about the cemetery, the history of the town or the particular person. and then at some point its so late that i am too tired and/or lazy to make it into a blog... :) (as happened tonight... its almost 1 now and i read about 3 different persons on the sleepy hollow cemetery. so very interesting! but with each story i thought.. "how will i ever make this into a short blog-post?" then i found drew barrymore.... ;) )

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)

In Vermont...

..while it was still warm and green out, back in august.

now its cold! almost freezing today. we didnt do much interesting and i could not find any photo i wanted to show.... grrr (also not of the ones i took yesterday)

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)

Plymouth rock

2 years ago we drove to provincetown on thanksgiving. halfway we stopped in plymouth, where the pilgrims in 1620 landed with the mayflower from europe. in this shrine lies the rock on which the pilgrims stepped to get ashore. or so they say. yes, there is indeed a rock, but according to wikipedia the rock was not mentioned in the journals that were kept by the pilgrims. the first written reference to the rock was 121 years later..... nowadays, only 1/3 of the top part of the rock is still intact.... and you are not supposed to chip off a piece as a souvenir, as happened in the past... :D

like last year, we celebrated thanksgiving with europeans only (almost!), with a real turkey from a real american oven (not mine).... (i didnt bring pumpkin pie, as i intended to, as i made that already last week and discovered its absolutely not tasty at all!)