Homeland security

homeland security.... i think thats a very funny term, and something you probably will only see in america. what other country assumes that naturally anyone knows what "the homeland" is? if this car drives to canada, would it provide homeland security to the canadians...? :)

i have a list of things i still want to see, do or photograph while still here. this i can now cross off my list.. its funny how you see some things every so often and always think; hmm, i should take a picture of that! but before you know, 3 years have passed and you still think that.... 

wikipedia just told me that "homeland security" is "an American umbrella term referring to the national effort to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States, reduce the vulnerability of the U.S. to terrorism, and minimize the damage from attacks that do occur". the term came into use after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

my sister arrived today from the netherlands and to protect the homeland, she had to wait in a very long line, proving she is not of any harm to this country. i knew the plane had landed, and waited, waited, waited... i guess some 1.5 hour. when it was finally her turn, the guy protecting his homeland asked her very important questions like "what are you doing here, how much money did you bring, do you have a creditcard, where does your sister work, what is her status (really??!! he meant whether i am allowed to work here, but still... grrr), what kind of work do you do? and the weirdest of them all; why is your sister (thats me) not married to her boyfriend (that would be tim)? really...?!! really?! she answered that she didnt know.... hahahaha. and after that, he finally let her go without another word. i dont know how i would have reacted to that question. these "homeland" officers really tend to piss me off, and i often have to make the greatest effort not to show how awfully annoying i find them. i guess they do it on purpose. just because they can...

anyways, i feel a lot safer now. i think my sister wont be a threat to the homeland.... 

But why?!

today it was black friday (the day just ended 5 minutes ago); the start of the christmas shopping season in the usa, and the day on which all stores give (or pretend to give) large discounts on their products. actually, it started already last night. when we drove home from the thanksgiving dinner, we passed a "big k market" (a department store, nothing special as far as i remember), where some 20 people were standing in line in front of the entrance. it was about 9. at home, i checked when the store would open; midnight!! i dont know how long they had been there already, but sitting outside, on thanksgiving (a seemingly very important holiday for americans) at 9 for a store to open at midnight just makes me wonder WHY?!

i think last year many stores opened "only" at 4 in the night, so i guess next year they might just be open on thanksgiving....  for us, it was our third black friday, and yet again we did not set foot in any store. i would have liked to observe the spectacle, but its hard to be present in such a huge crowd of people without being part of it, unless you can fly, no? tim found this video, and that actually made me happy i was not present, i would defenitely not have liked to be in such a shopping-crazy-crowd!

the sculpture was not made for black friday :) i saw it in new york, when we were there in june with my sister. its in the city hall park, until the end of this month, together with several other interesting works of art. the sculpture is named "memorial for unknown artist", by thomas schutte (here you can read more about it)

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!)

Blue sky!

behind all those clouds there is a very blue sky!

we watched the outcome of the elections tonight. sort of. the enormous tv was on mute and we played some game. of all the people present, only 2 (out of 11, i think) were real americans and allowed to vote! i learned that when you vote, you get a sticker that says "i voted". and real americans really wear that sticker. i find that very interesting, and cute too! like when you did you did some task well, at school.... also, cnn said obama was "the winner", as if it literally was a race, and obama was fastest (shouldnt it be "elected"?). here you can see how much money each candidate raised and spent on the elections. its really incredible. imagine what could have been done with all that money.... (instead of all those negative ads about each other)!

anyways..., now its really late and obama still did not give his speech, maybe its time for bed and watch it later.....

Presidential debate

tonight was the first presidential debate between obama and romney. i was so very curious and really wanted to see it! im not that interested in politics, but now that we are living in the us and the elections are getting closer, i start to get interested. living here on a simple visa of course does not give me any right; im not allowed to vote; only real americans are (i.e. also on a green card voting is not one of your rights, at least not for national elections; local elections depend on the state you live in).

as we dont have a tv, and its more fun to watch the debate with (at least one) real american, we were going to watch it in a friend's apartment. jeeejjj! that would be fun! as superhealthy people (when did that happen?!), we first went home to go to the gym and have a healthy homemade meal (im into soups now, even though i never liked soup!), with homemade bread made in my beautiful birthday present (a heavy cast-iron pan, which also doubles as weight to train my arms...). unfortunately already in the gym, before dinner (so it wasnt my cooking!!), i didnt feel good... and it didnt get better... :( so i had to stay home while tim went to watch the debate with everyone else. at least, as opposed to the olympics, i found youtube live-streamed the event, so i could watch it too.

bbuuuuugghhh! let me just say i was bored, most likely because i had to listen to all that mumbling by myself, without getting immediate comments/explanations from a real american... ;) 

above is somewhere in massachusetts. i dont know what kind of building it was (i remember i thought it was some sort of public building, like an office or something...), but i thought it was funny to see 2 different opinions there.... 

Real swimmers!

here are some real swimmers in the swedish sea!! it was 2 days ago, somewhere around 6 in the evening. it was not cold, but not warm either, some 20 degrees C at most... i had some time to observe them and it was so different from what you would see in the us! firstly, people arrived by bike, alone or together. just left their bike unlocked and walked to the water, undressed and went in. no toe dipping, not scared of the cold! hoppa! no lifeguard either, and no millions signs saying that you can or cannot swim, or when the "water closes" (in the us the water or the forest or the park or whatever usually closes after sunset). after swimming people just dried themselves and took off their swimsuits, something you also would never see in the us, as ofcourse you cannot show any skin...

im at the airport now. i enjoyed my practical baby-course... yesterday i got to feed the baby, and saw how she was bathed... im fully prepared now... ;)  but as i think its sometimes already a burden to carry my camera everywhere, i think its still too early for babies...

Local eatery

we had "dinner" in vermont. after the cemetery, we walked further on the main street until we hit this eatery a little before the center of the town. we had seen it already when driving by, and i had decided we should eat there... it seemed well visited, and eating was outside. could it be more american?! the other option was a bit further down the road; some posh looking house and a sign "fine dining". well, i preferred the eatery! 

moreover, i was extremely interested in the locals. but i was afraid taking pictures too obviously, and thus had put my camera on the table (the unsharp lower part of the picture). 

the food? we had burgers, shared one order of fries and a drink; it was 20 dollars!! i somehow really thought it would be good, and then it wasnt.... :( the fries looked like they had been fried already 7 times. at least. we didnt finish them....

ah well, i enjoyed observing the locals.... ;)

Some shopping

this is the "gateway center", a place with some shops not too far from our house. there is a huge, gigantic parking lot, and several shops. every so many miles, you find such a shopping center here in the us. often you can only get to them by car. the shops are more or less the same, and they are huge. i always wonder how so many shops, the same shops, can coexist so close to each other. usually there is a "home depot", which sells everything for your do it yourself (DIY as they call that here) home improvement and construction (like a dutch "gamma", but then 10 times bigger). there is a paper store, for all your office needs, also enormous, an enormous toy store, a crafts store (we were there this weekend for the first time; my goodness, i didnt know that they could fill such an enormous store with... well... that kind of stuff), and usually there is a target, a retail store. perhaps comparable to the dutch "V&D", but ofcourse much bigger. then there are some (cheaper) shoe/sport or clothing stores. and i really cannot stop wondering how this is sustainable. within a not too big radius we have a few of these malls, all with the same stores. especially their size is very weird for a dutch... :) even our supermarkets arent this big, or numerous (i also imagine that the tiny size of all stores in the netherlands must be a shock for americans! haha.... also, dont expect to buy your stuff in as large quantities as you can here; most beverages (milk, orange juice, etc) are sold at a max of 1 ltr per bottle, shampoo and stuff is in at least 2 times smaller bottles than here, and i guess double the price etc etc.).

anyways. we sometimes goto target, although we never need anything. and then we come out having bought all kinds of stuff. or the shoe store (although not the above one, im a fan of DSW; shoes can be so deceivingly cheap there! i cant go there too often, as i always buy a new pair of shoes. even after more than 2 years in the us, i still tend to think in dutch/european prices when it comes to clothing and shoes, and its soooo much more cheaper here!!). this time (sunday) i got some clothes; a trouser, a shirt and a dress, together for just 30 dollars..... :)

Very american

to me, this row of houses looks very american. the little fenced off yards, the wooden houses with a porch, the electricity wires...., the fire hydrant.... just as you sometimes see in the movies as well. 

the first 3 months we lived in somerville in such a house (but even bigger, it was divided in several apartments), with a front and back porch. i really liked to look around in that neighborhood. often there were yard sales in the weekend, where people just dump out all of the stuff they dont want anymore in their yard, and sell it for little money (some of our furniture we bought there). currently, no porch and no yard sales. i guess management would go crazy if we would dump out all our stuff trying to sell it to our neighbours... ;) and i guess none of our neighbours would want to buy anything. what does happen every now and then is that people put stuff out in the hallway, with a note that you can take it. although i find it  the ultimate form of laziness, i also profited from it; we now have a fancy set of wine glasses, a water boiler, a popcorn maker (i dont know why i tookt that one), a nice glass dome for pies (how do you call that? in dutch it would be a "taartstolp") and a side table.... thats also very american, i dont think dutch would just give stuff away that easily if they also could get money for it.. :), and at least they would want to get credit for it, not just leaving it in the hall anonymously until someone secretly takes it away.... 

Still amateurs...

we thought it was nice to go camping again (our first time was last year in acadia, maine, in september). as shown yesterday, we went to the white mountains this time. with all the crazy hot and humid weather, we didnt factor in the possibility of rain. somehow. even though every now and then we had quite the downpours here in boston... we left friday afternoon, just when it started to rain heavily! it was a 2.5 hour drive to our campsite, but there was some traffic. and rain! heavy, heavy rain that didnt seem like it would stop anytime soon. buuuhh... we found a walmart to buy some tarp, as many others did before us; most of it was sold out already. then to the dollar store (where everything really is 1 dollar, i like that store.. :) ), for some more cheap handy stuff. and yep, it was still raining when we reached the camping. luckily not as heavily, but enough to make everything wet. tim hung up the first tarp (i gave the occasional comment while watching), and then we put up the tent without getting too wet. like last year, another camper came over to ask whether we needed any help. it makes me wonder; do we look that amateurish or is it the "happy camper etiquette" that i dont know yet...? he also mentioned it was the 8th time he was there, on the same spot........ we got up the second tarp to stay dry during dinner and tim made a fire; not easy when its raining.... 

unfortunately, we were too late with booking the camp site and thus the next day we had to move all our crap and set up again 2 sites further, and thats what you see above... :) isnt it a wonder of fine engineering? (the tarps, i mean). right behind is the river, which we heard the entire night (quite soothing). this time we put the tarp right above the fireplace; nothing burned down and building a fire was quite a bit easier! also the second day we had quite some rain. everything was muddy and wet, and nothing wanted to get dry.... :( i could only think of how i would throw everything in the washing machine when back home again (i dont like dirt..., just because of that i will never reach the "real camper status", im sure...). 

so... it was fun! and extremely interesting to observe the real american campers. my goodness! so many chairs (whatever they do, americans always bring a foldable chair)! and tents! and an american flag here and there (as if we dont know where we are...), partylights around the tent or RV or whatever..., food, food, food, and more electrical appliances than we have in our kitchen at home.... :) i guess im fine with remaining an amateur....

Visitation stones

just a quick post today. this was at a cemetery we visited back in march, when it was still cold out (most days). i have yet to look up where exactly this cemetery is. its located directly next to the highway and you really have to know its there (we knew approximately, so that was a bit scary to get off when you suddenly see it, but the only entrance is directly from the highway. the cemetery itself was rather boring. not too old, it seemed, and most stones had the same shape and just the names, hardly any text. (perhaps next week i show you a grave, if i can find an interesting one).

as it is a jewish cemetery, many gravestones were topped with visitation stones. i just looked up why those stones are left on graves. most likely this is a custom from earlier times, when bodies were put into the ground, covered with some dirt, and then on top of that large stones would be placed in order to prevent wild animals from destroying the remains. whenever people would visit the grave, they would continue to place stones. both to keep the remains protected as well as to build up "the memory" of the person buried. nowadays bodies dont need to be protected from animals anymore as they are buried better, but leaving stones became a custom. there could also be another explanation, as you can read here.

this cemetery provides such small pebbles for visitors to place on graves; they are in the box above. this box, and its text to me represent exactly whats wrong with the us of a. they spell out what potentially perhaps possibly might go wrong when you place larger stones than the ones they provide. really?! i continue to be amazed that americans put up with this kind of nonsense. same with not allowing people under 21, or people who cannot prove that they are 21 with an official document, to drink alcohol (or even enter a cafe where alcohol is present). and while americans put up with this (or the fact that they cannot drink alcohol while sitting in a park or having a bbq somewhere at the beach (if thats even allowed, usually its not)), they do sue the government for making the purchase of health insurance mandatory, since "that goes against their freedom", and "that is exactly what this country is founded on". hmmm, i could go on and on about this. better leave it at this for now... :)

tim is back from his conference, but i guess he didnt see yesterdays post yet, so maybe i should tell him i did miss him... :)

more taphophilia here!!

Magazine stress

above all magazines from a 1 year science subscription. how proud i was when i signed up for this, it was so cheap, a special for poor postdocs like me. i imagined myself reading many scientific articles, not necessarily related to my own topic, and finally not from my screen as i used to do, but from the real thing. perhaps in the subway, or at the pool.....  ofcourse, that didnt happen. the magazines came in every week, and i hardly ever looked at them. worse; i also stopped looking at it online as i used to do once a week, "since i now was receiving the hard copy"... at least i was wise enough to cancel my subscription after one year (yet they continue to send me mail and emails to please come back. grrrr). and just a few months ago we finally decided to also trash the magazines. it was a huge pile in our (for that) too small apartment. but before that, i decided to throw them all on the ground and jump on them for a bit (i do not always behave as a 30-year-old). then we realized many covers are actually really beautiful, and tim ripped them all off, they are still ling around somewhere....

nowadays i do have a subscription to time magazine, which was actually because of this post. i discovered that the artwork i had photographed once was a cover for time magazine, and on their website i saw that a subscription is real cheap. i instantly felt more american upon ordering it... :) moreover, finally i would learn everything about american politics, what they think about europe, and what-not... then.... there was a groupon-action for newsweek, another magazine similar to time; one year, 52 issues, for just 10 dollars. as a real dutch i couldnt leave such an incredible deal, and thus ordered that one as well. and guess what?! now i suffer from "magazine stress". those magazines keep coming in every week, and although i read in the subway to work and in the gym, i cannot keep up. i am now 1.5 issue behind with time, and even 3 or 4 with newsweek (somehow i feel i have to read those things from beginning to end, and wow, do i learn a lot! (i do prefer time over newsweek)). so theres the dilemma; should i just not read them when too far behind? at some point its not relevant anymore anyways (like about republican candidates, theres only one left by now, but i somewhere still have an issue on... eehm, whats his name again...?). 

ah well, i guess i should be happy my current distress just concerns magazines that keep coming in at a relentless pace....

Heat advisory

today it was HOT. really hot. it was hot already this morning and it just got hotter and hotter. i guess it was around 36 C (little less than 100F?) and a little humid. but well, i was inside and didnt notice much. until i stepped outside into a hot blanket.... ah well, we went to the pool for a bit (and when not swimming it even became a little chilly!), and then out to dinner, as the mayor of boston sent out a heat advisory that we ofcourse obeyed exactly. one of the points is; "avoid cooking".

a quote: "Mayor Thomas M. Menino has issued a heat advisory reminding residents to stay safe and healthy during this first stretch of hot summer weather.  Mayor Menino and the Boston Public Health Commission are urging residents to stay hydrated and in shaded or air conditioned areas whenever possible. Residents can cool off at several Boston Parks Department water spray features throughout the city and in air conditioned community centers." (note that mister mayor menino personally warns us here!) and: "everyone should remember to limit their activities during very hot weather, drink plenty of fluids, and avoid beverages that contain caffeine or alcohol.  When outdoors, limit strenuous activity, wear sunscreen and loose, light-colored clothing, and rest often in cool, shady areas. Additional measures to beat the heat include avoiding cooking, taking cool showers or baths, and staying in air conditioned areas whenever possible." (stolen from the boston city website). unfortunately, it doesnt tell us where to get our food when avoiding to cook (or did he mean it literally?!). luckily we do not yet have a ban on large sodas as proposed in new york, but i presume that next to our assisted living, heat advisories and soda bans, we soon also will be told (and checked) when we have to go to bed.... but surely i will be having trouble sleeping, even more so now that its hot and will stay hot for at least tomorrow... 

above pic was taken at the hoover dam, which we visited while in las vegas.

Wedding chapel

many people asked us, after coming back from las vegas, whether we got married. well, we didnt.... if it even had been an option, it wasnt after i saw the chapels. it was all just so sad! placed a long busy roads, with a cheesy motel attached to it... beehhhh. here you can see one. its not even pretty!

but.. according to wikipedia, las vegas is the "marriage capital of the world". getting a marriage license is very easy, and costs very little, and thus many couples get married here ( i read somewhere 120.000 marriages/ year, that is more than 300 weddings per day!! i just calculated it 3 times as i couldnt believe more than 600 people get married each day in vegas.... we sure didnt see any happy couples coming out of wedding chapels...)

apparently, there are even drive-thru weddings in las vegas... can you believe it??!! here is the link (check the costs of different packages they offer... named "fast, faster and fastest" the "fastest" is the cheapest... is this the speed with whih you drive...??). you can also be married by an elvis impersonator... here a list of some "famous" people that got married in vegas (how many are still married..?!), and here the website for the above wedding chapel, because... forever starts now.... (ugh!)

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)

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 !)

My muscles...

....can you see them? have you heard about them? does it help if i just straighten my back and flap my arms around like a monkey? do you see them now??! perhaps you understand what i mean...

sometimes here in the gym at our apartment you see guys like this as well. sometimes, when im trying to lift some weights or biking really hard, tim is walking around like that. or pretending to lift some very heavy weights while maintaining the "real cool guy with huge muscles" posture. what else can i do than laugh? well, sometimes it annoys me, or i am embarrassed and/or afraid that the guys who seriously walk around like this are offended... one of them even runs like this on the treadmill, haha... sure, im not used to anything. before coming to the us, i had never been in a "gym", and surely didnt work out there myself... nowadays i dare to go alone (in the beginning i would only go when tim went).

yep, another with the blossom trees. were they working out or just showing off..?

Wedding shoot

whenever i see a wedding shoot going on i get excited. i like to take some pics too. but not the standard ones the real, professional photographer is taking.... this one seemed like a real fancy one! i have often wondered about the clothes for the bridesmaids. who pays that? who chooses the dresses? so i asked some real americans and they told me that sometimes the bride let them decide, "just" tells them the kind of fabric and/or color. or she chooses, or all of them together. often all the dresses are the same, as above. but the bridesmaids themselves pay for them...

when we were wathing (and photographing) the wedding spectacle a security guard ask everyone not to do so. "since they paid for their privacy". they were in the brooklyn botanic garden. on a saturday. while the blossom trees were in full bloom. so... what privacy?! i just looked up, a shoot, for up to 20 people, costs 300 dollars (thats for the botanic garden, and ofcourse does not include the costs of the photographer and so on...), is 45 minutes and comes with a security guard to enforce time limit and to make sure the session is not "disrupted". ah well, by then i had taken my shots... :)

Hershey kisses

ooh, hershey kisses, how beautiful are they! their form, the silver wrapping, and the cute piece of paper sticking out saying hersheys... in 2004, i was in the usa for the very first time. when going back, i brought 2 big bags of hershey kisses. they were so pretty, and i was sure my parents would love them. months later most of them were still lying around. from the outside still pretty... but now i knew how they were tasting; literally disgusting!! this wasnt chocolate!!

but when i saw them a few weeks back on a grave on the hull village cemetery, next to this adorable angel, i almost wanted to run to the store and buy me a bag... then i remembered their taste again...

so.... i googled "why is hershey chocolate so disgusting?" i was not expecting any answer, but i often google weird questions to be surprised by the (sometimes very useful) answers google gives me. to me, hershey kisses taste ok at first, but then suddenly it tastes like something is not quite right... going to downright disgusting. apparently, im not the only one.... and now i know why; the hershey recipe uses milk that has gone sour (i.e. has gone bad (instead of using buttermilk or cocoa butter)) in their recipe, making it taste.. well yes... like vomit...

i guess most real americans might not taste the vomit, as they are used to eating this chocolate (its like feeding someone something with a weird/distinct flavor from a very early age... you do get used to that..). but no more hershey kisses for me! :)

Forgotten drinks

to me, it seems that americans cannot go anywhere without holding some sort of beverage or another in their hands. im not sure how much they drink of it, however. they always seem pretty full, is it more of an accessory than a drink? americans tend to forget it everywhere, as soon as they put it down, somehere, anywhere really, they forget all about it. and thus you see cups with all sorts of drinks standing around everywhere. literally. on the street, in the subway, on some shelf in a shop... one time a guy even forgot his in the overhead compartment in the airplane. until i told him to please take it...

just this sunday we had lunch at some tiny tiny bakery in boston, there were only 6 seats or so. but we managed to get 2. the sandwich and croissant were sooooo good! on top of that, the coffee was yum too. but it came in..... paper cups. my delicious macchiato, and only a horrible wooden stirrer to enjoy the milk foam... :( buuuuhhh! why do even the nicest of places serve coffee in paper cups? (the bread at least was on a real plate).

ah well... above you see a bubble tea, somewhere in chinatown. i tried a sip of bubble tea only once, and thought it was disgusting... so i do understand someone left that behind... :) (just click the link if you want to know what wikipedia has to say about bubble tea!)