South boston

this is in south boston, taken quite a while ago. just saw it again and i like it, with all those cherrypickers or whatever you call them and 2 seemingly lost musicians.... (but i guess there were just going home after the st patricks parade)

Assisted living...

when we had friends coming over last month, the first thing they said upon seeing our apartment complex was; wow, that looks like an eldery home! and when in the staircase; oh, it even smells like one.... as they are real americans, i was surprised... :) (although we agree with them, haha!).

above the trash receptacle. atually, its better nowadays, but there was a time it looked like this quite often. then we got letters from "management" that we need to put the trash INSIDE the container, not next to it. but... how to do that when its already overflowing? in summer, these things also become inhabited by raccoons who rummage around and throw out quitesome garbage (probably the stuff they dont like). there was also a warning; if they would find trash outside of the container, they would go through it, identify the person and you would get a fine of a 100 dollars (if i remember correctly). never mind the raccoons, right...? they then also put up a sign (barely visible here); "private property, no trespassing", but i doubt raccoons can read....

anyhow. the rent is pretty high and in return theres quite some nitpicking (haha, what a funny word; i hope im using it correctly, in dutch it would be "betuttelen", or "bedillen"). other than the trash; its not allowed to paint the walls of your apartment, there is a door in the apartment thats locked, behind it is the heating system (during a heavy rainstorm water once started to seep out; pretty freaky if you cannot check whats going on!! we thus had maintenance coming over just to show us that the roof was a little leaky jut above the locked door), we cannot (temporarly) leave shoes outside the door, they could block the hallway! (or anything else for that matter, not even a doormat), and today we got the rules for the pool..... there were many, many rules for the pool. i will not bore you with them.. :) but it sometimes just frustrates me so much that i really had to dedicate an entire post about it, sorry.... :) assisted living can be quite tiresome, i now know!

despite all those rules and regulations, management cannot prevent that some *sshole smokes cigars in the garage, nor that one of our bikes got stolen from the garage. yes, the garage is locked, and so was the bike.... (their reaction; oh no, how terrible! we hope you have insurance...). 

good night! (at least i can determine what time i goto bed myself, although tim is complaining that i go too late)

Wrapped up

its late and i dont have my own laptop right now... so i was going through tims pics and couldnt decide... then i saw this one of me he took in february. hahahha, i look weird!! it was so cold that day, but sunny so i hadnt really expected HOW cold. then the gloves and the jacket and the trousers and the hat were not really fitting each other.... but at least i was less cold :)

now its really getting warm here. the pool also finally opened and last night we had our first swim. it was soo nice!! 

More desert

this was close to las vegas. from afar this looked like a giant stretch of water, glistening in the sun. almost, but not entirely. and indeed, when we got closer it was just this... we saw a photoshoot going on (it was right next to the highway), and then decided we wanted to see it from closeby as well! i think this place is used for many photoshoots, doesnt it somehow look familiar? the ground cracked, nothing nearby, just the mountains in the background and the hot sun above you.

i found it a little scary to drive there, somehow i expected it to end at some point. or that we would disappear into the ground as it could not hold us... but that all didnt happen!! :)

im just very amazed by the desert and the numerous forms it can take on..... wouldnt mind to go again and explore a little more...

Dying thirsty

when we were in las vegas, i wanted to go see a cemetery there. i found one relatively close to the strip that has been listed on the national register of historic places since 2006. it opened in 1914. but, when we arrived there we both find it a rather sad and ugly cemetery, with lots of fake flowers... i didnt even want to take a picture...

instead, i show you the grave of sergeant clark, born in canada in 1844. in 1862, he joined the new york infantry, actively serving in, and surviving, the civil war. after being shot in the hand and contracting typhoid fever, he was honorably discharged on march 6, 1863 as a sergeant of the new york calvary. he then emigrated to southern california. years later, while traveling from bakersfield to salt lake city on a buckboard (a carriage), he stopped in the valley of fire, tied his horse to the back of the wagon and wandered around, possibly looking for water.  eventually, he crawled under his buckboard and died, presumably from thirst, several days before his body was found on june 30, 1915. his grave is at the spot where his body was found, and simply says "clark". i got the information from the marker that is on the parking spot next to the road. to be honest, i did not walk up to his grave. it was so immensely hot, we had gotten out of the car for various photo opportunities already and at this point i was just too lazy....! but just imagine, we crossed the desert in an air conditioned car, with 2 gallons of water and even some ice (from the ice machine in the hotel), on a paved road. with enough food, directions and whatnot.... while sergeant clark survived war, being shot and typhoid, was brave enough to cross the desert without any of that and then died of dehydration....

for other taphophiles, go here!

LA sunset

we enjoyed the sunset on venice beach in los angeles, on saturday......

now its monday and we spent the entire day getting back home again.... we had a great time and im not done with showing you pictures of it just yet.. :)

at the airport i could not take our spray bottle of deodorant. it was too big. aarrrghhhh!! at boston airport the officer was very nice. i had not even taken out the toiletries. he did that for me and deemed it all harmless. in san diego the lady did not like the bottle. it was too big. "oh, they allowed it in boston? they shouldnt have. its too big." "but we imported it from europe, and its a brand new bottle!!" (deodorant is one of the things i have not been able to find a good american subsitute. i think there is none and thus we get it from the netherlands, haha) "well, its too big". and there it went, into the trash.... :( had it been 2 smaller spray bottles; no problem. really. grrrr....

ever since a recent south park episode where they install "toilet security", which they call the TSA, i think of them like the toilet security administration (instead of transportation). my goodness, they can be so anal!! (pardon my language). once an officer complained because the plastic bag i had my toiletries in was double the allowed size; even though i had filled it only halfway and had folded it. "but im not taking too much, right?" "thats right, but the bag is too big". "i folded it, essentially its half a bag". "the bag is too big, next time bring the right size bag". problem ofcourse starts with the stupid airlines that ask for a fee for checking bags; ofcourse now most people only bring carry-on, leading to all this nonsense. then at the gate its always the same story: "this flight is fully booked, space is limited, we will not to check-in bags, it wont fit, but now its free of charge". blablablabla... flying is becoming more and more complicated...

enough ranting, we had a great time! :)

Getty center

yesterday, saturday, we drove from san diego to los angeles to visit the getty center. sylvia and me had gone there last year already, but i was so impressed that tim had to see it too! it was very bright and sunny, a perfect day for some more hours in the car... ;) 

the getty center is situated on a hill and from many balconies from the 4 (or 3?) floor building you have an incredible view of los angeles and the ocean. it was built in 1997 and cost only 1.3 billion dollars.... it is a huge museum with lots of art, but just the building itself is already very impressive. the entrance fee is just 15 dollars per car regardless of the number of people... but well... mister getty owned 2 billion dollars at the time of his death, in 1976. we went to a photo exhibition of the work from herb ritts, an american fashion photographer who often shot in black and white. his photos really made an impression on me. you can take pictures of the human body, or you can make art of it.... and that is what he did.....so, if you are around los angeles; definitely go see the museum itself, as well as the exhibition! other than that, we walked around a bit aimlessly, which is not bad at all in this museum (just frustrating that we always seem to get lost in any museum...)

above, to the right you can see tim and sylvia enjoying the view.... the view from the terrace was endless yesterday, the sky was so clear, as opposed to last year when we were there.

Scary part....

this is from friday, when driving from las vegas to san diego. many parts were through the desert, and we didnt see that many other cars. it was very windy. very windy! what you see here is sand!! at first it was kind of funny, all that sand blowing around. we first saw it from a distance, huge clouds of sand.... but suddenly we were in the middle of it. at one point we literally could not see anything anymore, like sudden heavy fog.... but then of sand. i was really scared! perhaps the scenery was beautiful, but we could see only a few meters, at most. i think i took this picture while driving, but we also got out of the car, because tim "wanted to expeience it". result; sand everywhere. the car got a fine layer too (on the inside), and even after a thorough shower i still feel not all the sand is gone.

but aside from the 2 or 3 times that the sand was taking literally all sight, it was pretty cool, and something i never experienced before!

Driving.... driving...

today we got up early. and then drove. and drove some more. and even more... 

it was amazing. beautiful, ugly, sad, abandoned, funny, scary, impressive..... and then we arrived in san diego and are staying for the weekend with our friend sylvia!!

i guess i have a picture (many, actually) going with each adjective. but not now... time for bed!

Endless desert

on wednesday we drove to the valley of fire, a state park, some 50 miles from las vegas in the mojave desert. red sandstone formations, formed from great shifting sand dunes during the age of dinosaurs gave the park its name. from endless rows of lot machines we drove into an everchanging, endless landscape that was just stunning... i took so many pictures! both while driving and when walking around. all were not as good as seeing it in reality....  :( i had a hard time choosing a picture, but settled for one that shows the red sandstones and the wideness/endlessness of the park... we spent many hours here and stopped at all the "photogenic points" (nicely indicated with signs, hahahaha). it was sooo hot! i guess we both drank 2 liters of water and still could drink some more..

its really funny to see things in real that, upon seeing them, you realize you have seen several times before, in pictures, advertisements or movies.... yet all those things, also vegas itself, are different, no matter how often you saw them portrayed on tv or described in novels, as you need to see them for yourselves!!

What happens...

... in vegas (yes, it seemed not too difficult to figure out where we are!), of course needs to be reported here!

we decided after nearly 5 months it was time for another little trip. we came to realize that we are now in the us, and better make sure we see something of it while we are there! on tuesday we wandered around a bit on the strip. there are many escalators which i found ridiculous at first, but proved to be nice when your feet are sore and the heat is driving you mad... wiki just tells me that the strip is 4.2 miles (6.8 km) long, and houses 15 (!!) of the 25 most largest hotels in the world, with a total of more than 62,000 rooms..... as everyone knows, all those hotels are in ridiculous themes, so there is venice, new york, a pyramid, the eiffel tower.... (i was just missing something dutch, but a windmill is probably not "classy" enough to make it unclassy in las vegas). above is the lobby in ceasar's palace (guess what the theme is there!), and in the back you see its casino. its all huge, and the gambling halls are all even bigger, and kind of dark. without clocks, but with many ashtrays. beeehhhh. the smell of cigarettes everywhere is mixed with the smell of fried food and perfume. yes, perfume. every place we wandered through smelled different. but all awful attacks on my nose. our hotel does not have a casino, but its lobby is probably the smelliest of all, it made me feel a little nauseous and my nose hurt when we had to wait some minutes before check-in (im very curious how much and how they spray their "scent" around everyday).

i have been thinking about "las vegas" since we got here. i have some simple rudimentary theories as to why it is here, haha. maybe i will share those thoughts. maybe not... its not for me, but interesting to see! a little depressing at times too, i think. seeing endless rows of slot machines, and mostly somewhat older people behind them. just you and the machine. is it really that much fun...?
 (we tried one "game". 10 dollars. somehow we made 11 of it. then on to another machine, and it was all gone in less than 5 minutes. more than enough money wasted for a real dutch person... :D !)

Guess where....

... we currently are!

yesterday, tuesday, we got up real early, to goto the airport at 6, and then flew to a place where its really very hot.... :)

more tomorrow!

Expressing emotions...

guess at what kind of cemetery this picture was taken....... this stone belongs to Iko, who lived from 1991 till 2004.

yes, at a pet cemetery! this is the pine ridge pet cemetery in dedham, a little south of boston. i found it accidentally, while searching for cemeteries in the neighborhood. no clue what to expect we went there. all stones were alike, but their texts differed greatly. what most of them had in common, was a great display of emotions. tim said he was deeply moved. he was laughing, too. but then i realized he really was. and he was right. there was sooo much more emotion expressed about these lost pets than i ever saw on any cemetery for people!! something i am always looking for, but hardly ever find.

why is it that it is so much easier to say something sweet about your pet than about your husband? wife? father, mother? etc...? 

it really made me wonder..... let me think a little more before i pose a conlcusion! :)

here some more pictures of this cemetery. unfortunately we could only visit the new section. there is also an old section (with graves from the early 1900s!!) further up the hill (thats probably prettier), but the cemetery was right next to an animal shelter that just started renovation and the old part was not accessible.

and here are my fellow taphophiles!!

Officer cupcake

whenever something, whatever work has to be done on a public street (or on the road) that disturbs (or could potentially disturb) traffic (cars, bikes, pedestrians), a policeman is placed there to oversee it all. always. no exception. and often its completely useless! they just watch the workers do their job. or stare at their shoes. or their phone. or pretend to regulate the traffic. or they are just chatting with the workers. almost never it seems useful that they are standing there. even, they take up space and make it even harder to pass the work area! (or sometimes its really no problem that some work is being done, if it hadnt been for the police car thats taking up a lot of space on the road). 

i thought this useless use of officers happened everywhere in the us, but i recently learned that thats not the case! pfew! it differs per state....

(and im amazed i could spend so many words on that. i actually wanted to post about something else, but i couldnt find the words and thus settled for this older picture)

A message...

... on the outside of an abandoned building we visited this weekend. the place was really abandoned and nature had done a very good job at taking over. the buildings almost seemed part of the green grass and trees.... and then suddenly i saw this message somewhere stuck onto a window, which reminded me that someday there were many people there. 

currently i have a huge amount of photos i want to post. but its all so unorganized, and i dont know where to start...! problem right there; i should just start organizing. but theres always something else to do... (like going to yet another great location to increase my photo collection even more, or baking a typical dutch pie i suddenly craved, but took hours to complete (it was something like this; something you will never find around here!!)).

and i do agree; lets make smoking history! i really, really hate for example that most people who smoke dont like to do it in their own home. fine. but then they do it outside, underneath our window. so that it enters our apartment. beeehh. or the person that smokes cigars in the garage underneath the apartments. really, why?! if you dont want it in your own house, why bother other people with it?!

Beach ball

today was such a nice day! very sunny, not too warm.... but i was mostly inside.

lets see about tomorrow!, its supposed to be very good! one more week and the pool at our apartment complex will be opened again... somehow all apartment complexes around here open their pools during memorial day weekend, and they ALL say that right now "they are still figuring out the chemicals and stuff.."

Ugly building

i pass by this building very often. its in boston (here), and its extremely ugly, creepy, neglected, fenced, huge and seemingly empty. it is in the same style as the city hall of boston, built in the brutalist style that i showed you earlier. i have tried several times now to capture its ugliness in its entirety, but didnt manage, its just too big! so, just a detail for this time..... it is still in use, although you wouldnt say that, as many of the stairs etc are fenced off.... the department of unemployment assistance is housed there (a reason to try to never become unemployed right there), as well as various other government services. 

it has many creepy corners and stairs and what not, so homeless people often use it (especially in winter) to sleep/sit/do whatever there. and now i just read on wikipedia that, although constructed in the beginning of the 70s, it was never completed...

Rain, rain...

...& rain. the past 3 days we had quite some rain. its not too cold, during the night its even too warm, sometimes. ah well, the weekend was really warm, with no rain at all!

above is in new york, a while back already (i think it was in october?), when it suddenly started raining during a protest (it  was the slut walk protest, actually). real new yorkers often tell everyone, whether you want to hear it or not, that new yorkers wear black, black and nothing but black. even their umbrellas. i think thats just bullcrap.... just like any other place, there are people who are dressed in all black, but there are also some that like colors, as you can see here. besides, dont most people have a black coat, just because its easiest and fits with anything else you wear.. ?

Person P46

yesterday i showed you a picture of the last remaining building of the metropolitan state hospital in waltham, which closed in 1992. we were there the last weekend of april. one evening, when i planned to post a picture of it here, and i was looking up some info on the history of the hospital, i stumbled upon a blog that showed its cemetery! cemetery?! we had walked around the grounds quite a bit, but we didnt see a cemetery.... but the mere fact that there was a cemetery associated with the hospital meant that we had to go back and find it, which is what we did last saturday.... even with the directions printed, we had a hard time finding it, we went wrong twice (really, really wrong), before we finally found it; the metfern cemetery. its almost 3/4 of a mile away from the hospital grounds, in the middle of the woods...
above you see one of the "gravestones". P 46. thats it. thats the grave for a person. no name. just a number, and either a P or a C in front of it. P meaning the person was protestant, and a C for Catholic. they were separated on either side of the grassy field (more pics here on my flickr account). some of the markers were toppled over, some were overgrown and others were unreadable. imagine that. you die in a psychiatric hospital, and then you are buried as a number. in fact, between 1880 and 1946 people from the metropolitan state hospital and the fernald school (an institution for people with developmental disabilities) were buried at the mount feake cemetery without ANY individual marker, so this individual number can be seen as an "improvement", which is how they buried their patients from 1949-1979; approximately 300 patients are buried here like this. my questions; why did this occur at another, their own, cemetery? and what happened after 1979? are there any records of the names of the people belonging to these numbers?! 1979 is not that long ago; did they really think this was the way to do it, even just 30 years ago?!! (this is just a subset of my questions...)

as you can see in my set on flickr, it is now sort of clear that that open spot in the middle of the woods is a cemetery, but that didnt seem to be the case originally as you can see here in a picture taken in 2004. moreover, when construction began for the fancy apartments that replaced the hospital, workers were unaware of the cemetery and made part of it a road to be used for heavy construction equipment.... 

im glad there are many blogs etc swimming around on the internet, telling us about these cemeteries (there are more, and i will use another tuesday to show you), so that they still will be visited from time to time.....

for more taphophilia, go here!

Psychiatric hospital

2 weeks back we went to waltham. for a certain supermarket. as i thought it was too much of a drive for just a supermarket (some 30 minutes), i googled around a bit to see whether there is anything interesting to see in waltham. i then found that the above building is on the "national register of historic places" AND is abandoned... so i had to check that out. well... it used to be the administration building of the metropolitan state hospital, built in 1927. built as an enormous complex, with many different buildings on 330 acres of land, it housed the mentally ill. in 1992, it closed, in line with the state's policy to close mental hospitals to cut costs and to move patients into private care. this hospital is located in a rural area, with lots of woods around it. there is not much to be found on wikipedia about it, aside from the sad story that one patient murdered another in 1978, and kept several of her teeth as a souvenir. some other sites mention the place is haunted, since the patients were treated very badly, often.

here you can see how huge the complex was. underground all those buildings were connected by tunnels, so that staff and patients could get to other buildings easily during winter, etc. in 2007, all those buildings were demolished and an apartment complex was built. i think i read somewhere that they did use the foundations for some of the buildings. now you can live on the grounds of a former psychiatric hospital for "just" 1800 dollars a month (1-bedroom). 

i dont understand why they left the building like this. if it is a building of "historic interest", why do they leave it all boarded up? the entrance full of graffiti? it makes its sad past even worse, i think...

if interested in some pictures from the insides of the buildings in abandoned state, click here, and tomorrow i will show you some more pictures of this place.