Somewhere along...

the road from massachusetts to vermont, yesterday! i guess it was at the border with new hampshire, still in massachusetts... 

i took many crappy pics but i hope to find some nice ones in the coming days. we had fun driving, anyways!! and saw a lot of beautiful/interesting/weird/ugly/very very american sights...

Back again!

we were out the past 2 nights! we went to the white mountains in new hampshire. no internet, no phone.... just..... eehmmm... rain... :) and very hot and humid weather. and some more rain. and beautiful scenery, disappearing in the fog.... as you can see above!

it was fun, but now im tired so more tomorrow!

Utterly indecisive....

indecisive as to which picture to post, from which cemetery, which grave, what to write.... grrrr.

eventually i choose this angel. i think it is absolutely gorgeous. it is in the holy cross cemetery in malden, not too far from our apartment. in fact, we biked there (the route was something like this, with some sidestreets here and there). our first bike ride on the streets this year! there are some 3 or 4 cemeteries close to each other in this area. i actually intended to go to another one, but my internal gps system was not working very well, and we ended up on this one. it was huge! rows and rows and rows of stones that were more or less the same shape, either black, brown or grey. only on the sides were some more elaborate stones, like the one above, perhaps placed there so that everyone can see them easily when driving by (most other visitors were by car). on the back of this stone is the family name, but i could not find anything about them on the internet, unfortunately. its the bertagna family, the first person buried in 1932, the last in 2001. 

the holy cross cemetery is a catholic cemetery, and most names sounded italian to me. one of the actors from the movie the godfather is buried at this cemetery too, but i think without knowing at least approximately where his stone is located, it will be impossible to find.. anyways, i never saw this movie and am more interested in what i just happen to stumble upon (preferrably something beautiful or something weird, haha...)

i really didnt know how to capture the beauty of this angel. and i also didnt know which pic showed it best, i.e. none does; i settled for this one. i placed 4 more on flickr, which you can see here.

for more taphophiles, go here!

Blossom snow!!

have you ever been surrounded by so many blossom trees that their branches formed a beautiful roof? i had not, until yesterday! as the wind blew lightly through the trees, pink snow was everywhere.... the cherry blossoms in the brooklyn botanic garden where at their peak so we went to see them... we had been wanting to go to new york since a few weeks, and reading about these blossoms was the nudge we needed to finally really get some bus tickets... we decided to do another 1-day new york trip, like we did in december. at 4.15 the alarm went off, and at 6.15 we were in the chinatown bus to new york! jeeejjj! before 11 we were in the botanic garden, and for whatever reason we did not have to pay the 10 dollar entrance fee... (when we left everyone did have to pay, we were lucky once again). it was soooo beautiful! and there were sooooo many people. and kids. and cameras.... and flowers, ofcourse. it was the perfect place for people watch... and i took a lot of pics..

after that we went to see some other stuff in new york, which i will show you soon, probably! when we got home around 11.30 last night we were too exhausted to do anything and also today will be a pretty slow day... :)

The flowers

and here are THE flowers i was allowed to snatch from a table after wednesday's dinner... arent they pretty?! or actually, tim had to take it off the table, it was so heavy!! but then i proudly carried it most of the way home. 

and they fill our entire apartment with their fragrance... nice!

Blossom trees!

all around, and in, boston blossom trees are in full bloom, or about to.... its very pretty! this is at the cemetery behind our house..

perhaps tomorrow we should walk around boston, before they loose all their pretty flowers again. surely they are blooming earlier than last year, but if i remember correctly, april 1st it was still snowing...

Cadillac mountain

the highest mountain on acadia is mount cadillac, with its elevation of 1528 feet (470 m). having climbed mount washington (1912 m), we denominated ourselves mountain climbing professionals ;) being able to do any other mountain in the area. we choose a trail, but as parking was very limited, we were forced to start on another trail, a difficult one. steep it was. and tiring. and difficult at times, but... now we were professionals, so no complaining! at the end it became rock climbing again, but the trail was better marked than at mount washington, and less difficult. except at one point, where i really couldnt get myself up; tim had to help me. luckily 2 ladies watching me, said it was because i do not have real hiking boots, whereas tim does... :) by then, tim yet again was carrying my bag. stupid as i am, i again walked up a mountain with a real lady-shoulder-bag; absolutely useless when you try to climb some rocks (yes, i promise, i will use a backpack next time!). it was hot, it was tiring, i was sweaty, and i could only think of this; there are no showers at the campground (repeat 100 times), yegh.... but it was very pretty, although it became a little foggy, just at the moment we reached the summit. this time we did walk down; in total it took us about 4 hours (whereas mt washington was 5,5 hrs just one way!)

so, this mountain used to be called green mountain (green it was), but in 1918 it was renamed cadillac mountain, after mister cadillac (the cars were also named after him), a french explorer and weirdo, if you read wikipedia. apparently, this mountain sees the sun first of the entire usa. but only during fall and winter, so i dont quite understand why seeing "the nation's first sunrise" is a popular activity among visitors of acadia. 

here on flickr a few more pics.

Two amateurs

we took advantage of labor day weekend (an extra day off on monday), to go to acadia national park, in maine. after having seen photos of it from several friends, i was determined to go there as well. it is an island, approximately 6 hours away from boston by car. as this might well be one of the last warm weekends of the year, and just for the fun of it, we decided to go camping! we bought a cheap tent (60% discount) and off we went....

above is on the island, just before the campground. we had to stop to take in the beauty (as many other people did as well) and.... the mosquitoes. the person above is not waving to me, but trying to get rid of the enormous amount of mosquitoes. just before nightfall we were at the campground and managed to get the tent up before it was entirely dark. very dark. the campground was in a forest, and there was no light, but from the restrooms. luckily we had brought some flashlights! (although i had almost forgotten them). looking at the other campers, we were clearly amateurs, lacking fancy headlights, special outfits, airbeds and wood to build a fire. yup, an airbed might have been a better idea than our guestmattress; the ground was full of stones.... buuuhhh. and.... there were no showers. obsessed as i am with washing my hair, that was quite.... unpleasant. :) but we managed, and did not even go to the coin-op showers that were a 5-minute drive away.

but! it was great!! it was beautiful there, and the weather was perfect too. not too hot, not too cold, no rain, just thousands of mosquitos... and camping was fun too. we can, perhaps, do it again. only for a few days at a time though! however, we will always remain amateurs (even though i practiced quite a bit as a kid, with my parents; i realize now that it is quite different as an adult.. ) more photos later!

Something simple

some raindrops on a green leaf.... but it took me quite a while to get i photographed! this was in montreal, where i went to visit a friend with baby, haha, so now you know why i went there. the baby is only 29 days old today.... and very cute.

the bus trip back was again not very pleasant. no dogs at the border this time, but the officers became very suspicious when one male passenger had a what appeared to be a female scarf in his bag. when asked twice whether that scarf was his (and yes, he answered it is!!), they took him to another room for further investigation. that took over an hour, after which he could just return back (so... do not bring "weird" clothes with you!). i dont think this passenger was treated very nicely, and most likely there was absolutely nothing wrong with him, and that while they have this "pledge" hanging at every US border.

more delays at the next stop, and then heavy rain slowed us even further down. i got back to boston 3 hours later than planned. grrrr!!!

tomorrow another montreal picture!

Mountain angels

on sunday we finally went to mount washington in new hampshire! i had been wanting to go there since a while now, but it is quite far (3 hrs by car). so, we got up early, and arrived down at the mountain around 11.30. it is 6,288 ft, or 1912 m high, the highest peak in this part of the us, and famous for dangerously erratic weather (wikipedia). the weather was perfect, sunny with only a few clouds. i had put on my most sporty outfit and my ugly running shoes. yep, we would walk up that mountain; a 4,4 mile hike! i decided to take tims camera bag taking all the lenses we have, and tim carried a backpack with food, water, extra jackets etc. the first part was fun and all. the path so rocky, but very doable. halfway, or rather, what we thought was halfway, we had lunch. unfortunately, we could not find the place where we supposedly could fill our waterbottle. not so nice, as we would have drank less.... soon after that, the path became more rocky, and considerably steeper. but still, doable. up, up, up we went. getting more and more tired. but the views were beautiful and the weather nice. and we saw so many people, also rather old people, so why wouldnt we be able to do this? at some point, while we thought we were really almost there, we drank all the water! and the path was getting more and more difficult. at some point, there were only rocks, and it was really steep. and i was tired, and we got  past the treeline and we were up so high and the sun was shining and i never did something like this before.... i was getting nasty with tim.... and why did i bring that stupid camera bag?!!

luckily, our fist mountain angel arrived! you can see her here. she was training and had an extra bottle of water, entirely for us!! that was great, and we got some courage again.... then we climbed up rock after rock for another 45 minutes, before we finally reached the summit. we took all the required pictures, including this one. in total, it took us nearly 5.5 hours!! all the while, i was telling tim that i was not going to walk back that path again... however... taking the train or shuttlebus back down would be 45 dollars per person!! we did not even bring that much money! lucky us, once again, we could drive down with a family that visited the mountain for the first time with their kids, 20 years after they had visited it together for the first time.... what would we be doing in 20 years?

so, we had a great day, but certainly it would have been less nice without these people that helped us out! thank you, once again!

more photos of our adventure? here!

Zoomed in

a blossom! with the new lens... i think that lens is magic!

good night, or morning, or afternoon... :)

Blossoms, finally!

this is what i was waiting for.... and now i finally got a picture! isnt it pretty? tim showed me last night some pictures he took of those trees with his phone, and i could only answer; "so, you were just watching this without taking me there?! i want to see it toooo!!!" especially since before you know it, all flowers are gone again and only green trees are left. we went there today; its just opposite the building where he works....

we also drove through somerville, where we lived the first three months exactly a year ago, as there are a lot of blossom trees as well. just, so pretty!!

ah, and tim got a new lens for the big fancy camera, surely you will see some pics through that lens the coming days...
(click on the pic to see it entirely; i just wanted the flowers as big as possible)

Walking home..

or rather.. walking from charlestown to north station. i normally take the shuttle, but tonight i was shown the scenic route... so pretty!! i was disappointed that the times i walked instead of taking the shuttle (perhaps 3 times, haha) i always took the route alongside the road; not much fun. too bad  i didnt have my fancy camera just now. but isnt it pretty? the zakim bridge by night, and behind it the TD garden. and as a bonus their reflection... :)

City lights

in charlestown just an hour or two ago, at the ferry dock where (during the day) you can take the ferry to boston for $1,70. we took a lot of pics. some crappy, some nice... it was kind of foggy.
and now.. as every friday, im very tired... good night!

Boston skyline

on sunday we drove around; the final destination was Hull, but we werent in a hurry to get there. underway we stopped and walked around on this peninsula, from where we had a nice view on boston. unfortunately the trees are a bit blocking the excellent view of boston ;) on the right you see downtown boston, more to the left is the hancock tower, and next to it, to the far left, prudential center. it was beautifully sunny (as so often is the case here!!), but freezing cold....

While driving

yesterday we drove to my parent's place (the tree mystery has not been solved yet), and instead of taking the highway, we took the side roads; it gives you a beautiful view of the netherlands. you drive by beautiful enormous houses, sometimes a castle, the loosdrechtse plassen... pretty pretty pretty!

above not my parent's place... :D but house trompenburgh, located in 's graveland. originally built in 1654, but destroyed by the french and rebuilt between 1675-1684. taken while driving by. every first sunday of the month between april and october you can visit this place. so that would be another point in my travel guide: dont stay in amsterdam, but rent a car (or go by bike!), avoid the highway ("snelweg") and enjoy the view....

Utrecht mirror

this mirror is on the tolsteegsingel in utrecht. the street goes along the water and it all is soo pretty there! the houses, the water, simply everything... with the snow even the mirror becomes worthwhile... :)

it has hardly snowed since we arrived on saturday; most of the snow fell just before... (buuuh, i missed that!), but it has been freezing since, so the snow is everywhere, as for whatever reason nothing is being undertaken to remove it from the streets. most people are just biking as if there is no snow... i keep being amazed and tim keeps telling me that i talk like an 80-year-old, all those people are dutch after all, and know how to bike... :)

So beautiful

today we were at the airport again; this time to say bye to a friend of tim's, and to get his car keys. as his car was close to utrecht, we went there and i marveled at the beauty of this city!! the entire time i lived there i realized how pretty it is, but after being gone and seeing it again i could only think; it truly is a beautiful city. with or without snow!of course not much changed while we were gone, but my favorite sandwich shop (that i discovered only 2 months before we left) was gone... :( we were already imagining which one we would take and then sneak into the place with the view. buuuuhhhh!!

even though none of the small roads was cleared of snow, sooo many people were biking! i am always terrified and probably because of that i usually slip and (almost) fall. roads are on either side of this gracht ("canal") and in the right corner you see the Dom.... you can see its beauty from sooo many angles while walking through the city.... :)

So tired....

..today. absolutely no energy for any blogwriting. so just this peaceful picture. its the jamaica pond in jamaica plain.

Just pretty

due to a lack of time.. just a pretty picture... :)

this is in nahant. dont know if i wrote this before, but the road towards nahant is really cool, its basically just the road, and on both sides there is water. from one side you have a nice view on boston and the airport (planes flying in and out constantly), on the other side (above) just ocean. first time we went there it was already dark, and we hoped to see shooting stars.. it was meteor evening, but it was soooo cloudy we didnt see any. but when going there, i saw all those planes so close, and i saw this road that just looked like a runway... and for a few seconds i thought we somehow ended up on the runway of the airport.... luckily not so...

i like the light in this pic.. and i think a house there gives you a magnificent view...