Guus Bosman

Saturday morning Jaap, Mieke and I went shopping in Wieringerwerf and Middenmeer. We got some really delicious Dutch cheese from the market, and Jaap and I bought some extra memory for our server. I installed it later and the server now has 1 GB of fairly fast RAM (before it had 512MB).

Ettie and Gerben came to Middenmeer also, and we had nice chats. In the afternoon I went to see Bianca and Patricia, and when I came back with had coffee with home-made Dutch apple pie -- delicious!

In the late afternoon the guests started arriving; many of my friends came over to Middenmeer and we had a great time together. We went to bed really late, and the alarm went off at 5.00 am to leave for the airport. Rob joined us and at 7.00 am we arrived at Schiphol.

My cousin Paula is in Jaipur, India now, where she'll be staying for about four months.

She has a website where she writes about her adventures in her typical up-beat style. I met her at Amsterdam Centraal Station last week, when she was getting ready for the final preparations and a shopping day in Maastricht.

The weather is much better than in Oslo where she stayed last year around this time.

Last Sunday, after walking along the Thames for an hour or so I arrived at the London Eye.

I'd been reading about the Millennium projects for many years (The Economist was not always enthusiastic about the execution and costs of the projects), and I was looking forward to seeing the Eye.

I bought a ticket and went for a 30 minute ride in the 440 ft high wheel. It was a nice, slow ride, with great views of the buildings of parliament and the London City.

So Thursday we were in Amsterdam.

For lunch Jaap recommended La Place, a restaurant in the V&D department store. The one in Haarlem is good, but this one was even better. The restaurant has a huge selection of fresh food, sandwiches, coffee etc. I had the roomkaas on a sandwich, which is a sort of cream cheese with fresh herbs. The restaurant is beautiful and has a unique blend of the old Amsterdam canal house facades with a modern, open glass architecture.

After lunch we returned to the museum, and since there was so much to see we decided to skip the Rijksmuseum for today. Next time!

We woke up a little before 5.00 am this morning.

A rather short night, with the party we had last night. The party was great, we had a lot of fun.

Thursday morning we took a 9.00 o'clock train from Hoorn, the nearest city to my parent's town Middenmeer.

There are a couple of new shops at the trainstation and we bought a cup of coffee in one of the new ones. The gentleman serving was very slow and mumbling under his breath "what was it that I was doing again?" but the coffee was great. The train was crowded but we managed to get a seat.

Yesterday Jaap, Mieke and I spent the day in Amsterdam and we had a great time. Such a beautiful city!

We spent most of our day in the Amsterdam Historical Museum. Now leaving for shopping, Amsterdam and Velsen-Noord.

I saw so many people today, it was great.

In the morning I visited Alrik and saw their home for the first time. Jaap and I went for a walk to my mother's school, and when we came back home the three of us went to Heerenveen.

We went to my grandmother's home where I met Ettie and Gerben, and we had a good time. We went for dinner (Chino-Indonesian cuisine), I saw Ettie & Gerben's new home and we closed the day with a cup of tea at their apartment in Leeuwarden.

I am now in Middenmeer!

I left our office at 3.30 pm today and took a cab to Paddington train station. Traffic was fairly heavy already (it must be really bad during rush hour) and it took more than 30 minutes to get to the station.

From there I took the Heathrow Express and it was less than 20 minutes to the airport. It took a while to check in: there were long lanes and there was some hassle because my bags were 10 pounds heavier than the allowance. In the end I didn't have to pay a surcharge and around 6.45 pm we left for Amsterdam!

I am taking a few days off and I'm staying with my parents in Middenmeer. Jaap and Mieke came to pick me up from the airport and it was great to see them again. For dinner I had sandwich with Dutch cheese and a Grimbergen beer.

I went for a walk in the area around the hotel, and had a terribly unhealthy but authentic lunch. I had an "English breakfast" which includes beans, bacon, sausage, eggs and something fried that tasted good but I don't know the name of.

I checked into the hotel -- a cute room with a tiny bed. I plan to go out for walk along the river in a while and I realize that I don't have a large selection of clothes to wear for this weather. I brought shorts and sandals...