Jan1st 2013

one year ago, on jan 1st 2013, we visited the grand canyon. it was cold. it was sunny. but really very cold. it was slippery (tim fell a few times, making me even more uncomfortable, standing there without a safety railing. but all for the picture, right?! now im just wondering what on earth i was wearing, but well...). most importantly, it was absolutely stunning. it was so impressive staring into these depths..... the entire roadtrip was amazing. just like the one we made the year before, when we spent new year in miami, after having driven through tennessee, mississippi, louisiana and florida. or our last trip, on the usa west coast.... 

this year we kept it simple, being back in the netherlands we stayed home on new years eve. tim had to work and came home only well after 8pm. we had dinner, watched some netflix (we still watch the american one), and waited till midnight. our lovely (not really) neighbours shot some fireworks from their balcony right underneath ours and kept me awake most of the night. really, aside from that, we had a nice evening! today, the first day of 2014 no grand canyon, but we did bike into amsterdam. visited a museum and took some pictures in the city. not too bad at all. but ok, a road trip would have been better... :)

so... thats my photo of the year for this months theme day!

(Un)fortunately no....

....white christmas this year! unless the weather suddenly changes drastically. its been windy and today especially very rainy. beeeehhhhh.... 

3 years ago, december 2010, we were back in the netherlands after having moved to boston that april. while there wasnt any snow in boston yet (i was anxiously waiting to get to see some real snow, as i had never seen in my life), we did get snow when we were back in the netherlands during christmas! actually, the snow had fallen before we came, but it remained so cold for the 10 or so days that the fallen snow stayed on the ground... we saw it turn into ice (there were quite some problems removing it), creating dangerous, slippery roads. but look how pretty it is! outside the city, a white farm, of course the tree lined raod again.... frozen ditches....

today is the longest night!! meaning from tomorrow on the days get longer again. yaaaayyy!!

What spring?!

today started out cold! and guess what, it just started snowing again.... most of the ground is already covered, so perhaps tomorrow it will look like this again?

definitely no real signs of spring yet here in boston....

Last week

another picture from last week. to the right you see the orange line station where we always get on the train. quite some snow!! and today it almost felt like spring....

Some snow...

last thursday it was snowing the entire day, but as it wasnt cld enough, nothing stayed on the ground. overnight it got cold, and we woke up to quite a layer of snow on friday. when we got to work they already had been busy for hours to get the roads clear, as you can see here. but... crossing streets is always messy; all the snow from the roads gets piled up, and as a pedestrian you just have to climb over it, and often sink deep into it. as you cant see where the pavement stops and starts, you might even sink deeper and you really have to be careful.... during the day it warmed up a bit, and this pile of snow became a slushy-mess. yuck!! so high waterproof boots are really a must!!

over the weekend it got warmer, and in no time all the snow has melted again... now we got quite some rain, so i still get to wear my boots.. :D

Snow man!!

this is a picture of tim in the snow after the blizzard. now 2 weeks ago. tim thought it funny to jump into some snow, and well... i took the picture when i almost entirely disappeared in it... :)

the piles of snow are still alongside the roads everywhere. not white at all anymore, and melted partially, but still, so much snow had fallen during that blizzard that its still lying around!

now its snowing again, the entire weekend we had mostly rain, and only now, when its dark, its finally sticking to the trees. so very pretty!

lets see if the coming week i can get into the blogging routine again. the past week i obviously was not....

More snow!

well, this is from last weekend, after the blizzard.... normally there is a road between the 2 traffic cones, but not last weekend...... we got some more snow today, very strong winds, and its very cold! in fact, its so unpleasant that we decided to stay home. we baked bread, cooked, watched some soap series. nothing special... somehow its now 1 at night and really time for bed! hope this time i can sleep despite the crazy winds....

Removing snow

this is the main street in our apartment complex, sunday afternoon. as mentioned, the snowplowing crew started their work when the snow just started coming down, they worked when the storm was at its height (the harsh wind blowing snow in your face wasnt the most fun part when we walked around friday night to "experience the storm"), they were still working when we went to sleep around 1 in the night.... i dont know whether they worked through the night, but i do know they were already working while we were just waking up.... they worked the entire saturday, sunday, and this evening i saw the bulldozer still being operated. our complex has 550 apartments, not small, but not huge either. imagine the amounts of snow and the huge amount of work being done so that we could just open the front door and walk around without sinking deep into the snow. one of the perks of apartment living, not having to shovel yourselves!! :) the least thing i could do was baking a cake for the crew, but then we broke the cake in 2 (it didnt want to come out of the bundt pan in one piece), so i baked another one..... not much work compared to what the shovellers did!

above they were removing the huge mountains of snow they had made the day before. it was loaded into the truck, and moved to the little snowfarm at the end of our complex; i guess that himalaya of snow will be there for quite a while, even though it was relatively warm today and yesterday (and even raining today). because of all the salt and other bad chemicals, the snow cannot just be dumped into the ocean, as was being done years ago. so... its piled up high, and being a pedestrian can be quite difficult... :) you have to check were you can cross the street, is there a gap on the other side too, or do i have to climb the snow? and as its melting, large, deep, muddy, salty puddles have formed. but no! im not complaining, the snow was great and now i get to wear my real snowboots that are meant to sink into the mess and still keep my feet dry!! 

ah, and, something really important; it was officially a blizzard. the national weather service said so. the past days this wasnt certain yet, so i am glad it is a fact now...... ;)

Cleared roads

no public transport this morning, and we were lazy anyways..... ..... later this morning the MBTA announced that they would resume a little bit of service from 2 this afternoon. however.... and i quote their message directly; "Unless necessary, customers are encouraged to stay home and use service sparingly." that little sentence just made me laugh all day. use it sparingly? are they checking whether you really need to take the subway or its just for fun...? ah well, as said, we were lazy, and just cleaned our apartment a bit, sorted stuff out, etc, and then went for another snow-walk. as you can see here, the main roads are clear again (after hours and hours of work), but for pedestrians that wasnt the case everywhere. here there was some sort of path to the right, but there was still enough snow left to make  for quite a tiring walk. at some places, the sidewalk wasnt cleared at all and we had to walk on the streets. not much fun, cars just sped by without even looking at us..... on  the news i saw that 1also in boston the main roads are mostly clear again, but the side streets, where people actually live and have parked their car, arent, so they still cant go anywhere.
we just wanted to have a walk on the cemetery but, although it was being plowed, turned out to be closed, and so we just went home again.... 

Epic blizzard

yep, thats me, enjoying the snow!!! never saw so much snow in my life, and i enjoyed it, very much!!

according to cnn, the blizzard was huge, but not as historic as they were reporting it could be before it happened. but to us, it was all those words. epic, historic, fun, amazing!! the only discomfort i experienced was a quite sleepless night. the wind was going crazy around our apartment, and i just could not sleep.... we did not loose power, nothing bad happened, so for us it was really only fun. while we got up, the snow-removal-team was already working hard again removing all snow (it took them the entire day). as public transport was suspended also today for the entire day, we just spent the entire day outside around our place. my goodness, there was so much snow!! just down the street is a park, and thats where we did some sledding as you can see above. there was no snow-removal in the park, and trudging through knee-deep (or deeper, at places) snow is really tiring, i found out! finally, finally, my winterjacket and boots were put to good use. i bought both after our first winter here in boston, and then never really needed them.... 

public transportation is suspended tomorrow as well, which is too bad, as i would have liked to go into boston and have a look at the city in white... but driving is allowed again (from 4pm on friday until 4pm today driving was not allowed, due to the weather. only emergency workers, snow removers etc were allowed on the road). i guess we will just stay around the house and enjoy the snow a little more before its gone again....

Snorkel parka!!

when i woke up this morning and (of course) immediately looked outside there was no snow. and it wasnt snowing.... i have to say, i was a bit disappointment (my colleagues too, i found out later...). anyways, we got ready for work. just the morning, as it was already announced that public transport would be suspended in the afternoon. while we got to the lab, some snow started falling, but just tiny flocks....

above you see tim in the jacket we bought him yesterday at the local thriftstore. i guess its aptly named "snorkel parka", hahahahhaha! when we got home in the afternoon there was still not that much snow, and it wasnt much of a storm either. "is it coming, or what?" we were saying to each other....  i guess around 6 the snow started to come down faster, and the wind was picking up too. it got dark, we went to the gym, had dinner, blablablblablbla.... and i guess now we are in the real storm. we went for a "stroll" around our apartment complex around 9.30 this evening.... what a snow!! there was at least a foot of snow, and with the strong winds blowing it into your face.... tim was very happy with his snorkel parka, blocking most of it out! we made a round, and when coming back, all our footsteps had already been erased by more snow.... and while we were just hopping around, having fun, a snowplowing crew was working very hard to remove the snow (i guess if they dont keep up, it will be very hard to remove it all tomorrow). i felt so bad for them, some just boys, and many of them not even wearing a decent jacket..... they were also going through the streets with a huge bulldozer, uilding an enormous mountain of snow right in front of some apartments; when we walked by it was almost up to the second floor! (american second floor, in the netherlands that would be the first floor). im glad we are not living there, everytime they were throwing on more snow i would be afraid the mountain would collapse into our home....

so... im curious how the world will look tomorrow. i hope we wont loose power... according to the news many people did already, and here the lights flicker every now and then.... now its time for to sleep! good night!

It's coming......

so.... the weathermen are more and more sure that the snow is really coming tomorrow. and lots of it. flights have been cancelled, schools in boston are closed, the subway will stop running in the afternoon and apparently cars should be off the road by noon.... above a picture of the first snowstorm we experienced, on jan 12, 2011. this is the boston common, after a night of strong winds and lots of snow, clean-up had started long before we got out of bed, and when we arrived here, while it was still snowing, people were just having fun.....

tims wintercoat broke just this week (the zipper), so we went to the thrift store and got him a very decent jacket that surely will keep him warm and dry. we also went to the supermarket for some milk (but forgot the yoghurt). all salad was gone, almost all meat, most chips (it wasnt me!!), most fruit, and.. there was hardly any milk anymore... luckily tim found some, so we now have our milk, eggs and bread....

all the people from the news are going crazy and keep calling this storm epic, historic, huge.... and nothing has happened yet... i hope they still have some words left after the event. at cnn they were talking about the possibility of 38 inches of snow, if i calculated correctly, that would be 1 meter of snow!! really??! wow.... i hope we have enough milk...... 

A blizzard...?

yesyes, i was complaining about the little amount of snow we got last sunday as well as yesterday. and today all everyone could talk about is the huge amounts of snow we might get this friday/saturday. wherever i was, the question was the same; have you heard? the snow, friday?! well yes.... a snowstorm, a blizzard even, might visit us this friday, bringing huge amounts of snow. possibly "breaking all records", "potentially historic". superlative onto superlative... lets see.... i hope it will just b a lot of snow, but not a lot of mess... its good that its supposed to start friday evening so that we have the weekend to enjoy the snow or recover from it.

apparently, people already started preparing, bread isles at supermarkets are being emptied. i guess we are good. we havent seen the bread isle in many months!! one night tim had to do some work and i was so very bored.... but baking yet another cake would require us to spend every free hour we have in the gym, so i decided to try and bake a bread for a change. the dough was so very sticky! tim had no clue what i was doing, until i asked him at some point to please release me from "the dough".  i remember how he was laughing when he saw what i was doing, not knowing what exactly it was i was trying to make there... somehow that dough did become a bread, and i was soooooo very proud!! just somewhat later i got a sourdough starter (a truly amazing gift!!) from a friend, i bought all kinds of flours, seeds, nuts and this book. and well... since then we never bought bread again. i am not afraid of the dough anymore and tim does not have to release me from it... and (usually) every saturday we now have fresh bread, straight from the oven. a crispy-crunchy crust, some butter...... worth every bit of time and effort, yummm!! (above the sourdough bread with sunflower, sesame and flax-seeds we had last saturday). so yes, breadwise we are ready for the snowstorm.......

Pretty white!

to me this seems to be in a forest somewhere far away, but in fact its just the ditch next to our apartment. its pretty in fall and when snowing.... but can be quite ugly too at times! its interesting how much the water level can differ....we had some snow yesterday again, but today it wasnt that cold and its melting away... :(

our apartment complex changed owners very suddenly around august last year. we were informed after it had become a fact, just as we were informed that from that moment on dogs were allowed in the complex. nowadays whenever we walk the stairs (or someone else),open our door, or sometimes it seems even when we breathe inside our own home the neighbour's tiny dog barks like he is squeezed by paris hilton (or something like that). tim got into the habit of barking back (very convincingly), so i guess they think we are doglovers too..... theres more to complain about, but lets leave that for another time... ;)

White road

well, this morning was disappointing; hardly any snow!! maintenance did clear the paths this morning starting at 5 am, but there wasnt much to clear. salt however was distributed throughout boston per the weatherforecast; lots of snow and lots of cold. yes, it was cold, but instead of snow, we walked on quite a thick layer of salt....

so.. a photo from our holiday. this was somewhere in new mexico, where we drove through some snow. here the entire road was covered! luckily there werent many cars and it wasnt slippery....

Freeze alert

while yesterday it was pretty warm (above 10C for sure), today started out quite cold. predictions are temperatures wont get above 0C (i guess thats 32F). and.... we started this evening with some light snow! 2-3 feet some weathermen say for tomorrow.... so, above another picture of our first snowstorm in the usa, january 2011. we got up and before they could clear the paths we "walked" through the snow at our apartment complex. we literally were in it till our knees! it was so cool!! (and cold!).

today we even got a "freeze alert" from our apartment management (weather forecasts say it will be well below 0C, maybe even -15C some nights this week). we are supposed to keep our thermostat at 60F to prevent freezing of the plumbing. every now and then our apartment gets to 50F (10C, during the night or when we have been away), and well yes, then we switch on the heating. but keeping it permanently on 60F (15C) seems a bit too much for me? i dont think we need that to keep the plumbing from freezing... we are even supposed to let the office know if nighbours are away, so that they can "protect their home". what do they do? they go in and switch on the heating without permission? i think thats a little odd....  well... lets see whats going to happen. we now at least know that management is not responsible for any disaster in our apartment....

Actual snow...!!

this morning we woke up to some sound. some machine going around outside. as we live in an apartment complex where every little piece of grass is manicured meticulously, we very often wake up to one machine or another (i especially dislike it when they blow the leaves away from 6am in the morning). then tim suddenly said; hey, isnt that the machine for snow removal? as i didnt expect snow, i didnt even bother to get up and look out of the window. until i woke up again and was curious about that machine; the trees are leafless since a while! and wow, there was all this snow!! and it was still snowing! a real layer of snow, with the trees all pretty and such. what a nice surprise!

so, along with my laptop i dragged my camera to work, to take some pictures along the way. this is right out of north station; canal street, which is lined with some pubs and lunchplaces that generally give me a sad feeling. except for the trees in summer... or like this!! from home to the subway we could still walk on a nice layer of snow, but right in boston that had melted away at most places already. and before lunch the trees had lost most of their snow... :( its much too warm! but... i had my nice surprise this morning and it was all white and pretty and since its melting away right now we dont have to deal with the dirty part of snow, when its walked on, and salted and melted a little and frozen again......

so yaayyy!!

Snowy Boston....

nope, this is not a recent photo, but one from our first winter in boston; january 2011. there was sooo much snow! i was just looking at the pictures i took then, and it was even more than i remembered. i enjoyed everything of it; the snowstorms during the night with the wind slamming around our apartment, and the snow just falling, and falling and falling. and me? waking up every so many hours to check "the progress". getting outside in the morning in a perfectly white and silent world... we had several snowstorms 2 years ago, and while people were complaining and saying it was not normal, i thought we would get something similar last year...? but then we didnt, so i hoped it would happen this year....? so far not... but lets see.... tomorrow some snow is expected, but as its not freezing, i guess there will be rain too. but the next night it will be freezing cold.... so... perhaps next week...??! i want to go out and take pictures! right now the weather is actually a bit depressing. its grey and not cold. but not warm either. just grey and boring.... 

above is right outside the public garden in boston; the commonwealth avenue mall, which is lined pretty trees on both sides, and many statues in the middle. i have some photos of those... perhaps i should go find them for another post...

Just awesome!

im not often using the word awesome, i dont think i can pronounce it quite american enough, but you wont know that when i write it down, right? :) today was awesome! i think we had the best vistas so far, and we already had seen so many beautiful sights... the weather helped too, beautiful cloud formations and the sun was often present as well.

we woke up early this morning (im still on boston time, 2 hours earlier), had a not too bad breakfast, and we were greeted by beautiful surroundings. unfortunately we had driven the last hour in the dark the day before, but it was nice to see that the strip of motels and neon signs was actually in between enormous mountains. it almost made the walmart across the street pretty... ;) we avoided the highway again and drove westwards; we got high up in the mountains, where we remained for most part of the trip. around 7000 feet (2 km!). and yes, we got snow too.... quite some snow. the road was entirely white at some parts, and just cleared at others. luckily there werent many cars and it all went smoothly. we stopped quite often to take in the stunning views; one of them above, in the magdalena mountains, new mexico. eventually we hit arizona. we spent quite a while in a shop with western wear (!!) and i bought some boots (we actually went for tim, haha). the snowy roads were behind us, and the road ahead was straight and empty; tim decided i had to drive again, and so i did, for quite a while. i now know how to drive straight, but anything else means panic....

we wanted to drive through the petrified forest (with yes, petrified wood, lots and lots of it), but unfortunately they decided the snow made for unsafe conditions and we had to turn around... ah well, the other road was awesome too. for the last bit we got onto the real highway with lots of cars (the old route 66), and now we are in flagstaff for the night.... (its freaking cold, -8C, 17F)

the new year just started; so happy new year!! more tomorrow, and can you guess where we are headed?

Falling ice

last year i noticed that when it snows a lot, a lot of snow builds up on the roofs, and every now and then quite large chunks can suddenly fall down due to melting, refreezing etc.. so many buildings have signs around their entrances warning you for falling ice. this year these signs have not been necessary, or hardly. but last week we saw one somewhere in downtown boston. on a very sunny, almost springlike day. someone put a bag of ice next to it, still half full with ice cubes, which i found very funny..... but why? and what was there first? the sign or the bag? and when it was melted... did they remove the sign.. ?

thursday night we actually had a little more snow than wednesday night. but still very little. perhaps an inch (a few centimeters)? yet the management of our apartment complex apparently thought we do need snowfree walkways. and thus the maintenance team woke me up with their shovels scraping the paths around our apartment, removing the tiny bit of snow.... at 4.30 in the morning! i was quite annoyed, especially because it was sooo not necessary.... (or did someone place bags of ice everywhere..?)