Blossom tree

this tree reminds me of a painting... i presume the owner of the painting knows what i am talking about! :) the area around my lab is very pretty, i defenitely will post more pics of it here...
yesterday another round of apartment viewing... pff. we saw 5, 2 were disgusting (students were living there), never ever saw something like that, not even on tv. 2 were very nice, but also very expensive. and there is a lot for us to learn: you can negotiate about the monthly rent, they prefer people that will stay there years and with good jobs (our jobs are considered very good), if you want an apt, you have to give the agency immediately the first one rent on a cheque, so negotiations can start. and.. we discovered that you can even get some discount on your rent if you will always put the trash out, or shovel snow. these are landlord responsibilities, but if you are willing to do it for them, you pay f.e. 50 dollars less rent per month (thats why nobody at our house puts out the trash! so surely we will call the landlord and tell them we want to do this stupid job in exchange for a lower rent...)

Treasure couch

This is what i wanted to post yesterday, but i had left my laptop in the lab; we went to view an apartment (yet another frustrating experience).
anyways... the beautiful couch we got for free, also harboured some treasures, we discovered. on the sides and behind the pillow there was some space, and it was stuffed with things! as you can see on the pic... there was more, like a plastic fork and other stuff that belonged in the trash... :) hahahaha. i emailed the previous owner to ask whether there was something he wanted back from this, and he sent me a pic of his son, the guilty one that enjoyed hiding stuff in the couch..! now isnt that cute!
oh, and no, we didnt find a fortune in there....

Lazy neighbours

Our house has 5 apartments, 4 trashbins, and 1 recycle bin (for paper, glass and plastic). the latter nobody uses except us. the other bins are actively filled, but nobody every puts out the trash on tuesday-night. so far, only tim did it, and otherwise it did not happen.... yegh....

Big TV

this TV is huge. and we got it entirely for free. the man who gave it away bought it in 2004 for 8000 dollars. just like that! i dont think that i am that nice..... it is not entirely sharp, but yesterday for watching the "water-news" it was good.. it is really soooo big and heavy. and i am not even interested in watching TV (but tim is)..... space-filling?

Boston water

this pic was made yesterday from the beach. every few minutes another plane was flying into Boston, and there was continuous noise- not from the water, but from the planes. i now flew twice into boston and i dont like that you are descending until very low above water, instead of ground...
today it was very hot (above 30 degrees), and we could not get a soda: there is a problem with the drinking water in boston since yesterday, we just saw it on our free tv. some pipe broke and a state of emergency has been declared by the boston mayor. you are not allowed to drink the water, unless boiled for 1 minute, and you should also not brush your teeth, or shower. if you do shower with it, you should use handsanitizer afterwards.. (that stuff is everywhere so thats no problem). they are distributing bottled water at certain points..
in fact it all seems a bit funny! (but i only drink bottled water....)

Busy day

we did a LOT today. did laundry at the laundromat one block further, seemed to work better than in the basement. then there was a yard sale.. there people put all furniture etc they dont want anymore in their yard and try to get some money for it (so we had our little queen's day rommermarkt here!). we got a beautiful table!!
then we walked really far to see an apartment that was not worth our time at all. :( most stupid thing: here they dont tell you the actual address until 30 minutes before or so (WHY?! but it seems a common thing; same will happen tomorrow). pic here was taken on the way; next to yard sales people also just put stuff outside they dont want anymore. tim tried on the free shoes (maybe another day i put a pic of that..). then we went to the Natural Museum of History (free entrance), and then we went to the beach; it was hot today!! back home we cleaned the apt, so now im exhausted....

Free furniture

this is where we needed the truck for.... i discovered the free section on Craigslist (http://boston.craigslist.org/zip/). we emailed several people. most did not answer at all, that was very disappointing. but look! we got this beautiful couch for free!! now we finally have our own couch and something in that second empty living room. we also got an enormous, really huge TV, but thats for another day to show. ah, and we got a futon (also a very weird story that deserves a pic by its own), and we drove around a LOT.... ah yes; today i worked very hard in the lab. i hope to start pipetting next week monday, finally.
dont you love the couch?! i do...! (but it was not easy to move)

Big car

we used this car today. why? i'll tell you tomorrow, now it is time for bed....

Meat consumption

saw this ad on saturday at Harvard square. even thought of going there, just to see what she has to say about such a weird topic... in the end we did not go.. instead we ate some meat!! :) we had very delicious burgers at Porter Square in the Phoenix Landing (mine was with bacon, thin slices of apple and peanut butter, yumyumyum!).
we were actually supposed to view an apartment this afternoon. but just at the very last moment the lady (with whom it was already difficult to communicate) asked whether it would be a problem if the apt would be available from July 7 instead of July 1st. well, yeah!! and i had told her so already twice. there is a lot available, but communication and coordination seems to be rather difficult...

Quite cold

I think it is not that warm. Currently, it is 4 degrees. but you see a lot of girls with very short shorts... or people without jackets, while i am shivering. i keep wondering: arent they cold?! btw, this pic was made last october, in New York, but you see legs like that all time... :)

Laundry room

due to an excess of space (never thought i would be able to say that, ever!!), we currently have a room that solely serves as laundry room.... as you can see here.. :) ok, in the walk-in closet (that is a little too small for my taste), are my clean clothes.
but, as mentioned before, i do not enjoy doing laundry here. all the black shirts are covered in dust after washing... :( tim called 2 dry-cleaners, and cleaning a shirt/blouse costs 4,95. maybe i should Fedex my delicate clothes home for washing?

Outside hairdresser

this is just outside prudential center in boston, a shopping area with a large food court. the weather was nice! what can i say about this pic? not much.., i just thought it was worth taking a picture...

Our house

this is where we live. as you can see, it is a really big house! the entire ground floor is ours, but then above there are 4 more apartments....

Social Security

2 days ago my social security card arrived!! i had to wait 2 hours at the office to get it; they were sooooo slow. when it was finally my turn, the woman just typed over the form i had filled out (very slowly) and then she asked me to check for typos. then i waited eagerly for the mail. i thought it would be a real card; the first proof i really belong to the American system now... :)) but it is just a piece of paper....:( then i thought: let me laminate it, otherwise for sure some day it will be ruined, but what does it say above? indeed, "do not laminate"... besides, you are not supposed to carry it with you, and give no one, except for example your employer the number... (below the white stripe is my number; i am a real american and do not give it out to anyone!!).

Scary basement

this is the basement. here we can do our laundry (2 dollars, to be paid in quarters so we are always saving these). in the netherlands, one wash takes 2 hours approximately, here it takes less than 15 minutes! how can anything become clean in this short amount of time? besides, the machine is so unfriendly to your clothes.. im afraid everything will be ruined soon.....
as you might see, the basement is a total mess! spiderwebs everywhere, lot of dust and, in the space next to this, a huge amount of dusty, unused stuff... :) (some we took up and cleaned!). the light is also not working there. to me it looks like a basement from a scary movie.....

waiting waiting...

i am sitting by the window and wait for the mail... fedex said my camera would be here today. so i left the lab early (package needs to be signed otherwise they take it again), and then had to wait sooo long for the bus. to speed things up, i decided to walk. then i got lost. and it was so hot and my bag was so heavy! i walked around at least an hour, mostly in bigger and smaller circles when i finally found home.... while in my street (it is very long and there were still 3 busstops to go), "my" bus passed me, actually, 2 buses later than i would have had if.. i just had had a little patience....

Harvard steam

this picture was made last October. i still didnt discover what exactly harvard steam is..... is it tha air that makes the lab soooo cold? the entire day i am sitting and reading and being cold.... :(
tim is next to me right now and really annoying so thats it for today! maybe he needs some harvard steam?

New camera

I decided for this one.. yesterday we went to 3 stores on very different locations, but it was nowhere available or 50 dollars more expensive than we had seen on the internet the night before. so first needed to spend again some time on the not so well working internet (which now has been fixed as we are sharing with one of the neighbours!!). hope it arrives soon, since a blog that is supposed to have one picture a day becomes a little boring if i am only complaining about the absence of a camera......
it comes with a lens cleaning kit! a 8 Gb memorycard and some other nice stuff... and all for much less money than i needed for my current camera.

Laptop camera

just took this pic with my laptop as.... well, it gets boring, but i really miss my camera!!! i am in the first livingroom, then there is the second (with almost nohting in it) and then the room where we eat (tim is in the door to that room), and behind that is the kitchen... the house is huge!

Blossom trees

blossom trees in our neighbourhood. so pretty! they are all around Boston, in fact. last weekend the weather was perfect, but now it is really cold and rainy....
we spend the entire day in only few shops (they are soo huge!). looked for a new camera again. then decided to buy an olympus (same brand as the broken one) with a lot of discount. they had only the show-item left which we could buy at even further discount, but..... it came without manual, battery, memory card, charger, cords or anything. so no.. we ofcourse did not buy that. oh, was i disappointed! i thought i could start taking pictures again... :(