hurricane and halloween

We made it safely through the hurricane. Thankfully it didn't turn out to be too bad here, although it was incredibly stormy. The whole city was more or less shut down so the three of us stayed in following the news, cooking, playing, and looking out the window. I thought Alex' comment in the previous post about nothing better than sitting around the house, watching wild weather exploding safely outside, and confidently knowing you've got plenty of pie, was excellent advice, so we woke up and made apple pie! We were afraid power would go out, but luckily that didn't happen. It's fun how such out of the ordinary events bring you closer to the people that live around you. We had neighbors knocking on our door to check if we owned the car that was stuck underneath the fallen tree that was dangling on top of some power lines (we didn't), and another neighbor came to borrow an egg. Everybody was stuck at home and had plenty of time to chat.

Today we've been celebrating Halloween, or I guess it's been building up over the last couple of days with monster cup cakes and jack o'lanterns. I couldn't figure out the trick or treating part though. I didn't know if Silja was too young, so I ended up sending an email to the organizers of a local city-organized event explaining we are these Halloween-clueless Europeans and would it be appropriate for a toddler? I got a long email back explaining it would be everything between tiny babies in costumes to grand parents partaking in the event, and we should please show up and join the fun. So we went trick or treating with lots of other big and small kids and parents and dogs down the local main street, and the highlight was clearly the police station that had someone dressed up as dogs. Silja kept petting and following the bull dog and didn't want to leave him. I guess the highlight for the rest of us has been eating some of all that candy she got...
Happy Halloween!

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head of the charles

We went to see the Head of the Charles Regatta last weekend with rowing boats going up and down the Charles River. It had been raining and lightning like it was the end of the world during the night, but then it cleared up in the morning and was such a pretty day with fall colors and rowing boats on the river. 

At the moment we are trying to figure out to what degree to prepare for hurricane Sandy. Massachusetts has declared a state of emergency, and our electricity company and Harvard have sent emails about the importance of stocking up on water, flash lights, food, and medicine if needed. Apparently the power might go out for several days. The whole scenario is completely foreign to a Dane and an Icelander, and I suppose quite unusual for the locals here too. Fingers crossed it won't be too bad for this region or for all those further south.

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the cape

When you live in Boston, you hear a lot about "the Cape", which seems to be the desired vacation spot for the Bostonians. A couple of weekends ago we finally made it to the long sandy beaches and the little New England villages, and I totally get the hype of Cape Cod. It was such a neat place, and we MUST go back next summer, although I can only imagine it is then jampacked with overheated city people.

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foliage and pumpkins

It seems like every other weather forecast at the moment brings the latest on the foliage situation around New England -- the region is famed for fall leaf viewing, and just about now is apparently the time to go on scenic drives around this corner of New England. We have slowly seen the transition from green to red, yellow and brown. There is still a lot of green, but still it's oh so pretty.

We spent the weekend walking through parts of downtown Boston and driving up to the Topsfield Fair to meet up with friends. The agricultural fair was very American with country music and fried food (including fried chocolate bars), but hot cider (much better than pumpkin spiced coffee!) lots of pumpkins plus a temperature drop of 10 degrees made it feel very fall'ish. Today I got the sore throat to prove my lack of appropriate fall clothing. 

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