Guus Bosman

Jaap and Mieke left yesterday morning from Dulles airport.

Obviously, we arrived there very early and the check-in line was short. Everything went well except that the airline clerk almost forgot to take out my parent's I-94 papers. That would have been inconvenient. Jaap and Mieke were flying with KLM/North West, and when we arrived at Dulles we saw that some of the maintenance personel of Nortwest was on strike. There were other people working instead of the strikers, so the airline could keep on flying.

We had coffee together, and after an hour or so I took the bus back to Rosslyn. It was sad to say goodbye, we had had a couple of very nice weeks together.

Today, Sunday, was a very happy day: I went to Dulles airport again to pick up Sasha. She's been with her parents the last few weeks and her plane arrived around 2 o'clock from Milan, Italy. It's wonderful to be together again.

There is a lot of renovation going on in our apartment building, after the severe leak damage that occured when somebody broke a sprinkler outlet.

Today a large crane was installed next to the apartment building. Our building is over twenty floors, and it's a huge crane. To set up the main crane a secondary crane was necessary.

Jaap took some very nice pictures. Jaap & Mieke are leaving soon -- they'll take a cab at 12:30 o'clock. Their flight is around 17:00 o'clock, so there's plenty of time.

Yesterday evening we went out for dinner for work with a guest from Puerto Rico. We went to see the Capitol, and when I was there I remembered that my parents were planning to watch the concert that was being held there. I couldn't find them in the audience though -- would have been nice to surprise them there. Later they told me that they had changed there plans and went somewhere else.

We went for dinner in Georgetown, in Cafe Milano, a very nice Italian restaurant. I had the La Scala pizza, with arugula, an nice and interesting ingredient for a pizza. It was a fun evening. At a table behind us was Mr. Greenspan, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Friday evening when I came home from work I was welcomed by a lot of people on our balcony: Jerry and Marjolein arrived, They made a trip through the U.S., which they started in Arlington a few weeks ago. It's great to see them.

We went for an American dinner, hamburgers with fries. Of course we tried the spicy chicken wings, the pictures that we took in the restaurant got lost, unfortunately. Later we went for drinks to Four Courts, an Irish bar. We got a table, and enjoyed Guiness and Amber beer. A band was playing, and we joined the sing-along and stayed till very late.