Armour boys

yesterday i was too lazy to post, so tim did... :) that was his picture and text, and this is my picture. we like to photograph in different colors..... the pictures were taken over 2 years ago, in lincoln, massachusetts. it was at the de cordova museum, and the soldier you saw yesterday is part of a 5-piece installation named "armour boys" by laura ford, a british sculptor. in the above picture you can see 3 of them, including the one you saw in close up yesterday. (to the far right you see tim and his father). it is no longer on view at the museum grounds, i just saw on the website. 

but... the sculpture references child soldiers and the practice of sending men and women, in the prime of their youth, to fight and potentially die in battle. the artist herself cites a film depicting the death of a Palestinian child as inspiration for armour boys, and is sensitive to the fact that children are all-too-often the unfortunate casualties of war (you can read it all here).

i do miss going to this museum! their exhibitions changed often and the sculpture park was very nice too....

Self portrait

a self portrait in worcester this sunday, after we had put the truck in storage. this is in front of the train station. it was really pretty and so huge! the hall inside was pretty too, and very empty. the entire place was airconditioned and quite cold (especially when compared to the outside temperatures), must cost a lot of money to keep it that cool.

i had brought my balloon, which was the only way we could capture the entire station from where we were standing... ;) i just came to realize that balloons are a nice, cheap alternative to flowers; a bit too late as in 3 weeks i can buy cheap flowers again in the netherlands! probably i am a weirdo, but the past weeks i had 2 inflatable pink heart balloons in the living room, and now i have this silver one... so pretty! for sale at the dollar store..... im probably the only adult buying them to decorate my living room....

Bye car!!

today we said goodbye to the car we were happily driving the past 3 years. or rather, that tim was driving since i dont have a license... (since a few months i have a learners permit, but... well... i will not be able to obtain an american license anytime soon... buuhhhh.. :( ). it belongs to tims parents and it made our life quite a bit easier... we had absolutely no trouble obtaining furniture, as it all was just thrown in the back of this huge car! we had no trouble getting groceries either... (theres no supermarket in walking distance of our apartment. and we got used to doing shopping only once a week, or less. very undutch! there i used to go whenever i was cooking dinner, just a little walk from my apartment). i got used to climbing in this huge thing, and very much enjoyed the royal view above everyone else.... and of course, it made me feel like a real american, sitting in a real american truck!!

thats why yesterday was so stressful; we HAD to get rid of the couch, even if it meant secretly throwing it in a dumpster somewhere, anywhere.... (i found out normally the dump we brought it to is not open on saturday, and we were there not that long before closing time. pfew..). today we got up early and drove the car to its storage, an hour away. when we had it storage ready (tim did most of the work, lucky me, it was so very hot again), we got a cab to the nearest train station, and had our very first train ride in the usa.... :) as it is sunday, the train was going only 3 times, over the entire day!! if we had missed it, we would have had to wait some 4 hours!! (thats also rather different from the netherlands!). it took forever to get back into boston, but it was actually quite relaxing to sit in the very slowly moving train for 1.5 hours....

bye bye car, we will certainly miss you!

Tree face

today we went out exploring for a bit. someone had carved a face in a dead tree.... i hadnt seen it at first, but then i did, and it was a little scary... especially given the location.. (an abandoned state hospital, closed since 2003; you can visit the grounds during the day, but all the buildings are boarded up and nature is slowly overgrowing everything. some other time i should post some more pics!)

Sacred & Profane

yesterday we made a little trip into new hampshire. we hadnt driven around boston for the longest time! first we drove to manchester, to the currier museum where we had free entrance with our bank of america card. they have quite a big collection of dutch paintings from the 1600 and 1700s.... while driving back home we drove through goffstown and passed the above bookshop. that as quite interesting! the owner was just leaving, but opened the shop again just for us.... tim asked why the books were sacred and profane, and he told us that approximately half the books are religious in nature and the other half not...

and well, today we went to the museum of fine arts for free (again with our bank card.. :)), where they had an exhibition of drawings by michelangelo, named "sacred and profane"! half of them were of the human body, and the other half were architectural drawings. that was quite interesting, especially to think that those drawings are 500 years old!! 

Giant sign

i thought it would be interesting to see what kind of photos i was taking 2 or 3 years back. so i went to the folder of 2011, and looked up what pictures i had for april 18... living in the us for 3 years made us used to certain things. things i before thought were so odd, different, or just unknown to us.... when i look back, i see why i took certain photos, but also realize that nowadays i dont really see that anymore, or it doesnt strike me as interesting... (the number of photos i am taking in/around boston has also decreased quite a bit)

take giant signs, you dont see that in the netherlands. billboards, yes, but giant signs, sometimes bigger than the place the sign is for? no. here is one, taken april 18, 2011. we have driven past this sign so very often. its on our way into boston, and i dont really see it anymore... , but i like the hamburger-eating-man! we have never been to this place, but at yelp it gets quite good reviews, and it seems to be a place you go to after a night out. there is no seating, and everything is a little old and dirty... (thats another thing, by the way, americans really like to give their opinion about everything. they write entire reviews on restaurants, bars, products... )

Breakheart reservation

this is not too far from our apartment, just a 10-minute drive or something. its called the breakheart reservation and we sometimes go there for a walk. its really pretty there, in any season and quite big. there are many trails, and you can easily spend hours hiking. 

once it was a native american camp site, but early european settlers cut down the original pine trees for crops and to prevent surprise attacks from the native americans. during the civil war it was used as a training field for soldiers, who found the place very remote and dull. they named it camp breakheart hill (still cannot figure out why exactly that name, but well...)

Evening sky

earlier this evening we had quite an interesting pattern of clouds, as you can see.... looks almost fake! our days are longer again, we already changed the clocks last weekend, while the netherlands only changes them at the end of this month.

Fish-eye view!

we went to the beach for a bit today. it was a bit chilly, but not too bad.... we walked and i got to test this cool new lens tim got me. yaaaajjj!!!!

the snow is mostly gone (except at the places where they piled it up), and im wondering if we will get more this season. i dont think so, but you never know....

Woods! Closed!

it has been raining. all day. lots and lots of rain. had it been a little colder (as was expected earlier), then it would have been snow... but no, we got rain... :(((

so, i looked at some summer pictures, and found this one again, its somewhere around gloucester. yep... in the us of a the woods can be closed. hahahhahaha!

Christmas angel?

yesterday afternoon we went for a hike in the woods not too far from our place. the path we walked had several trees that were decorated with christmas stuff! in a way it was a bit weird, especially this angel, which looked kind of scary to me... especially from up close...

tomorrow we leave for a small trip! we booked it only yesterday, so we havent quite figured out yet how/where and what... our flight is at 7 in the morning, so we have to get up real early... somehow i have this obsession that the day before a trip (be it a week or more) i need to have the entire house clean. so thats what i mostly did today (and tim as well); cleaning... well, yes, i know it was christmas (we woke up to some snow! but it wasnt much and it didnt last...); i just cant help it. i like the thought of having a neat place to come home to, and i like to think while away that at home everything is in perfect order (i guess i have a little ocd.... ). ah well.. only didnt leave me much time for packing my suitcase.. hope i didnt forget anything....

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.... ;) )

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!)

Thanksgiving migration

i believe today most real americans traveled to someplace else in the usa to get where they want to be to celebrate thanksgiving, tomorrow! as you know, most americans stuff a turkey and then bake it in the oven for several hours. 

the above sign is somewhere close to plymouth, where the settlers first got off the mayflower into the new world in 1620, and the origin of the first thanksgiving, most likely (as you can read here). had never seen a turkey crossing sign before, so i took a picture while we drove by (i already missed the alligator sign in florida, and the "dont-pick-up-hitchhikers-this-is-an-active-prison-area" in new hampshire).

when i was back in europe in september, i was "shocked" by the small ovens people have there! after almost 3 years and lots of baking, i really got used to the big american oven (i guess its big because it has to fit an entire turkey once a year?!), and dont really see it as big anymore at all (unlike when we just got here), maybe i should bring one back to the netherlands.. (an oven, not a turkey!)

Golden skyscraper

im still impressed by skyscrapers, every now and then. this one was in toronto, where we went when we were in canada anyways to see the niagara falls. 

Grave post

after sunday's apple picking, we passed by a cemetery and decided to check it out. i could see the older section in the back, and just wanted to skip the newer part until i saw the above unusual grave. this is the grave of erin elizabeth goddard. she was only 17 when she died in a car accident. this is all i could find about her, from the find a grave website: Miss Goddard was a senior at Westford Academy, where she was a cheerleader and captain of the Senior Girls Powder Puff Team. She also played on the academy softball team and was active in Students Against Driving Drunk. She once worked in the Lowell summer youth employment program at Westford Town Hall." the only other thing i could find is that the westford academy has a "erin elizabeth goddard memorial award", which is given to a graduating senior pursuing further study in english.

the note she holds in her hands says: "friends" erin goddard. my love for all them they may never see. but it does exist and i insist that they'll forever be a part of me." i wonder whether she wrote that, and whether that is her handwriting....  the stone, the note, everything makes me wonder about this girl.... [after a comment, which you can read below, from erin's mother, here is a link to a youtube video of erin. and indeed, she did wrote the note, and that is her handwriting]

after taking a few pictures, we went back to the car and i already felt a bit uncomfortable as there was once again a policecar driving around (i tell you, if you need police assistance, go to your local cemetery, thats probably where they are hanging out). he came driving by, and just like in the movies, he stopped, opened his window, making tim do the same. he then asked whether we knew her. tim said no, and i was afraid he would send us away/get mad/do whatever crazy unexpected thing cops do in bad movies. but he just started rambling that he knew the person mowing the grass at the cemetery, and that that person experienced some weird things, "ghosts and stuff, you know". and that it was very sad, such a young girl, and that there was another young girl a bit further..... :( he completely ruined my mood, and we just left after that, did not even check out the old section!

for a listing of the other taphophiles, go here!

How American!

while driving around boston (which is, i have to say it again, so very beautiful at this time of the year) i saw this house somewhere along the road. i think it was close to plymouth. the porch (i want a porch too!!), the chairs on it, so very american!! the size of the house, ofcourse. the power cable, haha. the flag. and the round banner-shaped flag, whatever that is; its beyond ugly anyways, and you see it adorning so many porches, windows, whatnot around here! and often rather faded by the sun.... still a pretty house... i guess i would just change the colors to something less patriotic, loose the flags, but mostly enjoy the space. i bet there is a big kitchen in it, too. a large back yard..... quite different from our small apartment....

PYO apples

thats pick your own apples!! and as you can see here, thats what we did today, finally! there were golden and red delicious apple trees, mcintosh (dislike them very much, so we stayed away from those) and cortland trees. good we tried some while picking; the golden delicious turned out to be best. we both got a bag and although it seemed small we got a LOT of apples.... only after we were more or less done, we found the tree with the ladder, haha, but most branches were low enough to get the apples out without help. moreover, its almost end of season, and it seemed many of the best apples already had fallen down; we just had to pick them up.

and so... this afternoon i sliced and peeled and cut apple after apple after apple.... first for some fruit leather (thats in the ovem now, i wonder if it really will dry out as the recipe says), then a large pot of chunky apple sauce (not bad!), and... now we still have a lot of apples... dutch apple pie, maybe? we also have cranberries left from last weeks adventure, maybe some cranberry-apple cobbler? (i think cobbler is something really american, at least thats how it sounds to me...). hmmm, maybe an apple for lunch tomorrow?

Fall colors!

fall colors are definitely here! so pretty! 

today it was mostly rainy, but its quite warm. i think the entire week it wasnt cold at all (i already dont remember anymore). tonight i made a pie with some fresh cranberries, and its so good... if i manage to get a decent picture (if i get one before its finished, its going fast.. ;) ), i will let you know the recipe! (got it from a dutch magazine, brought it with me when we moved to boston, and never got to actually making it).

Curious headstone

this saturday we drove to carver to see the cranberry harvest. since we were a little too early, we stopped at a cemetery just before our destination, alongside the road. its the union cemetery, and if you look at it on google maps, you can see its surrounded by cranberry fields... :)

i noticed this stone because of the image on the top. it reminded me of the statue of liberty, and doesnt seem religious at all! this is the grave of peleg barrows, who lived into his 95th year! thats really old, considering he was born in 1708. all i could find about him was that his wife, hopestill darling barrows, is buried next to him (but i missed her grave); she died in 1793, being 83 years old. furthermore, peleg was one of 11 children! both his father and grandfather, who was born in 1639, were born in the usa. peleg served as a Private in Capt. Jon Bridgham's Company, Col. Cotton's Massachusetts regiment, and  he had 3 children.

but what about the image? the statue of lberty was way past his time, dedicated in 1886. but... lady liberty is representing libertas, the roman goddess of freedom, so then i tried to find something on the symbolism of lady liberty's crown. the crown represents the hope that liberty will spread across the 7 continents and 7 oceans, which are represented by the 7 rays of the statue's crown. but... thats not it; the crown (if that is what it is) on the grave has 8 rays! :( i do notice that the rays are not uniformly arranged; perhaps the mason started on the right, spacing them less, than on the left...?

perhaps it means something totally different! if you know, please enlighten me... !

here you can find the other taphophiles.