Guus Bosman

My afternoon appointment was in downtown Manhattan, about 50 minutes by bicycle from our mid-town office.

It was a little intimidating at first, but it was a lot of fun to see the new infrastructure along Broadway. Long stretches of that street have nice, bike-friendly intersections and clear bike lanes. Closer to downtown things become more chaotic -- there were a lot of cars parked where protected bike lanes could be built. But that's the Dutchman in my talking -- the American in me is quite impressed with what has been achieved so far.

Using the Citibike was interesting too. In the beginning the saddle was a little wobbly but I managed to tighten it up. New York is nice and flat so that helped.

My trip took 52 minutes, cost $6 and was 6.5 miles.

Sasha made бухтички for breakfast today. The word бухтички is very similar to буквички and that caused some funny confusion.

Adrian overheard us talking about what we're going to do, and he asked: "papa, gaan jullie letters maken?"

Later when they were on the table, Adrian asked again: "kun je daar mee leren?"

Leo and Adrian went to pre-K for the first time today. Their first visit was 1 hour long, from 9.30 am to 10.30 am. We brought them, hand in hand.

We had told them in the morning (which was a hectic morning since Nora has a cold), and they reacted quite well.

When it was time to put their boots on, Adrian said goodbye to his toys: "Dag, ik ga naar school, ik ga leren lezen".

Leo, while talking, had some doubt. "Papa ik ben nog niet helemaal groot". I agreed but explained that there were kids at school that needed Leo's help. That worked, and he said he was going to teach them how to "een ei met de schil snijden".

The drop-off involved some tears from both of them but was quick and efficient.

An hour later we picked them up. Adrian: "het was heel leuk op school!" "Er was ook een helper en die vroeg iets maar dat wist ik niet" (he couldn't understand her). When we were outside, a girl looked out of the window of Adrian's class and waived at him. He waived back.

Leo had a more difficult time. Jean explained that he had cried for quite a bit, but afterwards calmed down so we gave him some more time and picked him up a little later.

Later Adrian shared that he had made a tower ("welke kleur? blauw!" -- de toren is roze haha). He also said: "Juf Leslie zegt dat ik nooit met de boerderij mag spelen!" -- de boerderij is aantrekkelijk maar wordt gebruikt om te leren lezen.

A big milestone today -- Nora left for Taylor elementary today, where she will start first grade.

We all woke up early, except Nora, who was calm and happy.

Below is also a picture of Nora learning about the lockers -- this is from a tweet from the school.