Fancy building

yesterday we went to a "networking seminar". in fact i was not aware that the purpose of the meeting was to network, i was just interested in the topic presented. the presentation was good, however short and very much about protein structures, but i learned something new. besides, it was in a very very fancy building with extremely expensive furniture and very nice glass-walled seminar rooms. the view over the Charles river (see above) was beautiful. we were only on the first floor, so higher up would be even more perfect.
surely it was not a research building. i just discovered Microsoft is in there so i assume the space we were allowed to use was from microsoft. interestingly, i also found out that there are City rules preventing Microsoft from putting up their logo atop the building; it would ruin the beautiful skyline along the Charles river (article in boston globe)
after the seminar was done and all the free pizza (but cold) was finished, everyone left rather quickly; i dont think much networking has occurred. surely i will attend the next seminar as well, if only for the fancy building! :)

Cleaning apples

a month ago or so i posted about the apple store and everyone very busy touching all these fancy apple-design-beauties and the absence of handsanitizer. thursday we were in the cambridge side galleria (but i call it the "Malleria") to have cheesecake at the cheesecake factory. buuughh, it was too much, even without a decent dinner. anyways, when we left the shops in the malleria had just closed, and all the blue-shirted apple store employees were frantically cleaning all the ipads, ipods, ibooks!! it was really fun to see, but hard to get a decent picture.. and then they noticed me taking pictures and started to pose...
btw, i dont understand why their shirts are blue! apple green would fit soo much better and they would also stand out of the crowd more. but well... im still not an apple store manager...

People photographing (2)

it seems this is the perfect spot to picture the old state house (see previous post). im not sure it was.... didnt check... :) besides, i really wanted the old lady with the pink shirt and hat in the picture. (thats why i got the lamppost there for free.. ah well, you cannot have it all)

State house

the small cute building is the old state house. our travel guide uses such a beautiful sentence: "dwarfed by the towers of the finacial district, the old state house.. etc etc". it was built in 1713, and is the oldest public building in boston. what i like about it, is that it currently is the entrance to the subway! originally wine cellars, now function -since 1904- as a downtown subway station. upstairs there apparently is a "sound and light show" about the 1770 Boston Massacre (gezellig!).

Abandoned carts

this is completely normal here, and i HATE it. people shop. people use a cart. people put their stuff in their cars and they just leave the cart where it is. despite the many places closeby where you can bring your cart. often its windy and the carts just dance around...
why is it soooo hard just to bring it back? dont they care about their own/other people's car?! so wherever we go, there is always someone from the shop busy collecting all these carts to bring them back to the entrance. maybe people just leave them to create more jobs...?!

Kennedy library

on sunday we had a more or less random walk along the Dorchester bay. in one of our many travel guides it was said to be a nice walk, and beach. well, the beach was very shitty and looked so dirty! i think we then went the other way than our guide advised. they really made an effort to construct a nice path along the sea... closeby there is an apartment complex, the first apartment we almost rented while still in the netherlands.. luckily i read some reviews before we made a nonrefundable payment.... now we could see for ourselves, it just did not look nice there despite the nice walkway, the views remained shitty, and the beach non-existent (they have this advertisement: live by the sea, close to the T; both is NOT true!!)
walking along we stumbled upon an interesting building, which turned out to be the JFK library! from the outside it looked already interesting, from the inside it was impressive...! i am not sure whether we had to pay for this (we didnt). there was also a museum about Kennedy, but it was closed already. anyways, there was this huge glass construction, looking out over the sea, with an enormous american flag hanging from the ceiling. looking at the pictures i took i am sooo frustrated! none of them captures how it looked.... :( therefore this one, the guy in the corner was really making an effort while photographing. he placed himself in all kind of gymnastic positions... but honestly, i am not sure whether his pics were any better...

Very American

saw this sign saturday when we drove to Saugus. we especially stopped there on the way back to take a picture. its sooo huge! and soooo american!! wonder how it looks like when its dark.... i think the steak house was well visited, but we ate something at home.. :)

Nantasket beach

i have been asking tim since May to drive to Hull with me. or Nantasket, i do not entirely know where one small village starts and the other ends (like boston: i thought cambridge, somerville etc is all Boston. but NO; these are separate towns. this already led to quite some confusion. all these small towns have the same limited set of street names and it happened already that we were in street so-and-so in boston, while we were supposed to be in Roxbury..). anyways, there is a long shore drive and a nice beach. with sand instead of pebbles. and the people there are superinteresting!! :) i took quite some pics. the entire beach was full with huge families and i guess they just sit there the entire day. me and tim climbed in a lifeguard seat, and from there i perfectly could observe this large family in the front of the picture...
oh, that was a nice evening. we got a pizza (a very GOOD one) which we ate on the rocks while it started to get dark (and the musquitos came.. buuuhhh), together with a beer brought from home. but i just learned that alcohol actually is not allowed on the street/beach. luckily there was no policeman on horse wanting to be photographed...

People photographing

one of the things i like to take pictures of, is other people taking pictures... i like to photograph the entire scene, or only the photographer.
this is in a park but i am not sure of the name, it is next to the boston common (the park with the frog pond in it), and you often see these police officers on a horse. i think they are there only for show, and whisper to all kids and parents that they are available for pictures (im not sure about the whispering but i assume they do, how otherwise would anyone want to be pictured with a machoguy on a horse? (what was the joke again, Per? Ein Bull auf einem Pferd? oder so etwas?). this poor boy obviously does not want, although both his mum and dad are taking pictures.. :)

Playing lifeguard

this was saturday, at revere beach. the boy was sooo cute! he was really into his role of lifeguard. i tried to take a piture of him while he was holding his hands like binoculars, watching out over the sea, but i was too slow and got this instead, which i liked even better (too bad its not entirely sharp.. :(

on sunday we went to another beach, and there i climbed into such a seat (pretty difficult to get off!); an excellent place for people watch and taking pictures!! surely you will see more of that one day or the other... :)

Self portrait (4)

i thought it was time for another self portrait (its a double self portrait, im also in tim's glasses)
we finally bought a mirror!!!
now i know before i leave home how i look.... :)

Enormous cinema

when bringing sylvia to the airport- :( - we passed this enormous cinema. ofcourse i wanted to go there, what is more american than a HUGE cinema? (too bad we didnt discover it earlier, we actually wanted to go see a movie with sylvia, but the cinema we went to was closed due to power outage). you cannot really grasp the enormousness of the building, and the surrounding parking lot from this picture, unfortunately. but it was huge. many of the people in the cinema were also huge, btw. there was a LOT of food also. i took one picture inside, but it was crappy, and just as i was adjusting my camera to take another one, an employee came to tell me photographing was not allowed. why? "ah well, management does not want it". there was also a police officer with a gun at the entrance. i didnt ask why.
we went to see Inception. but the movie only started at 10.30 and i was rather tired already. the chairs were comfortable and the movie quite difficult to follow... thus i slept a bit.. :( i couldnt help it! besides, in the movie they sleep all the time!! :) and i liked how it ended!
also funny, people here IMMEDIATELY get up as soon as the movie is done. no contemplation while the "aftiteling" is passing by, as happens a lot, especially if you go to more "arty" movies in the netherlands. that always annoyed me, but to be rushed out of your seat while the movie is not even fully ended, is more annoying, i now know...

Revere beach

yesterday we were at Revere beach. there was a sand sculpture competition going on since a few days, and on the last evening there were fire works! the sand sculptures were nice, and the people interesting....
during our first weeks in boston, i hoped we could get an apartment at revere beach, until we went there and saw the building and the location...... the beach is quite nice, but is said to be dangerous after dark, and the neighbourhood looks awful and i can imagine it is dangerous there. but this evening it was all fine, with everyone being on the beach. as opposed to the 4th of july, we had a perfect spot, very few people around (everyone was accumulated around the sand sculptures as it was right across the fire works, but our spot was definitely much better!), and i could even take some pictures.... i liked the reflection of the fireworks on the water, and the large family sitting all together at the beach.

By boat

a picture of Boston as seen from a boat! not a pic form last night, it was too dark already, and i generally do not like night pictures of cities. this was last week, when we were on a ferry with sylvia! very cloudy... and rather heavy rain can come from them quite suddenly (luckily it happened after we left the ferry).
today its very sunny and hot, and i am in the lab. yegh... but about to leave!!

Electric six

yesterday we were on a boat. to listen to electric six, a band from Detroit. ah well, i dont know them, but tim was crazy when he founc out there were cheap tickets, and that the concert would be on a boat floating around Boston. i liked that latter part and joined, as the music is rather ... well.. whenever he sometimes had it on, i asked him to switch to something else. :)
ah well, the views of boston were nice, unfortunatly no romantic sunset, it started raining instead. it was fun to observe all the different people there. 2 were in gala-outfit; they looked rather out of place. but maybe so did i, not going crazy on their music, but rather watching the sky, the planes taking off (one came really close!!), and the lightning! this is a pic of the guitar player, right after they were done. at first he was just walking "freely", and i found that soo weird! wasnt there no one who wanted to tell him how great it was? or whatever... but just as he started to go through the crowd (to get some attention?), a girl grabbed him and they talked for a while, then i lost track of him (ah, its the one in the white shirt on the left). according to tim he looked less impressive without his guitar (maybe thats why no one spoke to him; didnt recognize him anymore?), but this is all i saw from Electric six...

Police control

when from a country where police is usually absent, or only there to give you a ticket when you cross the red light on foot, or when your bike light just stopped working because of the rain, the police in the US, as mentioned before, can be rather frightening, yet at the same time ridiculous. this morning we left our perfect apartment and walked down the perfect path leading to the subway station (this path being especially constructed for our living community). arriving at the station, there were some policemen and a notice that people at random could be subject to "search" and that refusing this could lead to "arrest". the woman in front of me was picked, we luckily werent.
its good that i lunch with some real US citizens who explain me these kind of things. this is something the Transit Police can do, because as soon as you enter the railway station, you are on their property, and thus if they feel its necessary, they can force you to open your bag for example so that they can see whats in there. similarly, the harvard police can "search" everyone present in a Harvard building, if they feel to do so. but what if you then say: "ok, i do not want to be searched, i rather leave the building/subway station, this is ridiculous"? well, then you have a problem, because people who have nothing to hide, will not refuse such a thing, and they thus have a reason to arrest you.
i find that scary.... and not enhancing my safety. but maybe you will disagree with me on that...?

Post 100

yesterday should have been post number 100, and a reason to celebrate and/or contemplate... no? instead, the neighbouring lab convinced me that unplugging a freezer diminished in size by half due to ice was a good idea. at 5 in the afternoon. then i could let it defrost overnight and in the morning i would have a clean freezer! at least they were helpful. but when the thawing began, the water started to flow. and it was not a little bit of water..... in fact, i was the only one really worrying about that water; they all said: so what? then tomorrow there is a pool. doesnt matter, right?! but i thought it did matter, and around 7 i hammered away already quite some chunks of ice, finding in there loads of eppendorf tubes and other stuff i do not want to remember. tim came to help me (my 2 colleagues long gone) and an hour hammering later we went for dinner (Panera Bread: i love it! although it is a little too much, as usual), and then we continued. i felt like being on a gletcher expedition. but i didnt enjoy it and surely the view wasnt as nice.
after ten it was when we left, the freezer still not being entirely ice-free. but now its empty and i rearranged it all, and all the old stuff, scattered over the entire thing now easily fitted on one shelf; all the other shelves left for me! jeeeeejj! now i can finally do (more) experiments.... ;)

Common sense

when dealing with "officials" here, i often have the feeling that common sense is lacking. like at the liquor store.
this billboard is at the highway leading you out of boston, next to the fenway baseball stadion. at first i could not believe it, but i think it is actually meant to be against guns. i have been reading a little about gun possession in the US, and now i feel less comfortable, i have to say. in 1997, 40% of the households in the US reported to have a gun in their home. in total, there were ~44 000 000 gun owners, which means that 25% of all adults have a gun!! every fourth person!!! 11% of them say they just (?) use it for hunting, meaning the other 90% use it for.... ? i also found a pro-gun website where they state that it is ridiculous that guns are not allowed in schools.
well, let me just have my alcohol, then....

Oranje oranje!

orange line, american flag, 2 dutch and 1 german (taking the picture) in orange... ready for the soccer match... ! and then we lost... :( ah well... maybe it was because the bright orange bag i am holding in fact is our laundry bag that says "grimy". but it is the most orange thing i possess!!!
too bad weekend is over.

Sylvia weekend

so this is why tim wanted to get martini!! he knew sylvia was coming over from San Diego.....!!! on saturday early morning, there suddenly was someone in our fancy apartment, while i was showering (tim told me i had to get up immediately for a surprise, and i had just heard him talking on the phone). and then... there was sylvia!!! jeeejjj!! we had a swim in "our" pool, we went to boston and got in a heavy rainstorm causing flooding of the subway (later another post on that), and we went to amherst to visit patrick and his wife anne!! we had a perfect dinner on their porch and when we left it was late.. when we got home, a 2 hour drive, it was even later.... :)
on sunday more sightseeing- we took a ferry-, watching the soccer game with yvonne & wouter who were here to apply for postdoc positions! saw harvard square and all, dancing & singing spanish girls in the subway (buuuuuuhhhhh... we were the only orange there), more swimming and then the weekend was gone again, it went soooo fast even though we cut back on sleep... :(
it was a great surprise!!!! :)
(and surely more pics later about everything and nothing)