Guus Bosman

Yesterday we went to a "dumpling party" to celebrate the Chinese New Year organized by Bonnie and Emily.

It was a fun evening, and it was interesting to see how dumplings are made (I stirred a big pan with stuffing). Ingredients included a lot of finely cut cabbage, pork, some shrimp, garlic, ginger and an egg. The dumplings were boiled for 10 to 15 minutes and the result was delicious.

The party was in Emily's place which is a few minutes walking from our house and was nice to be able to go to a party by foot. New Year in China and Taiwan is a big event -- our office in Taiwan is pretty much closed for a couple of days.

Time for some down time this weekend after a nice but busy week, with performance reviews and other things.

Yesterday morning I ran some errants in the morning, and went for a walk in Umstead Park afterwards. It wasn't as cold as last week and it was great to be outdoors.

I had lunch sitting on a rock overlooking the trail and a creek in the sun.

We saw Office Space, the movie, for the first time in years. Last time we saw it we were living in the Netherlands, when I was not so familiar with a typical U.S. office environment. It was even better this time, with so many famous quotes and scenes ("what is WRONG with you people?!").

Yesterday I worked from home. The weather has turned bad, and the weather forecast included ice and sleet and I didn't want to drive 25 miles in that.

Wednesday night I worked on our taxes, and like last year I used an online service, TurboTax, to file. Since we moved last year I had to fill in 3 tax different declarations: one for the federal taxes, one for Virginia and one for North Carolina. TurboTax made filling them in a lot easier, and their advices on deductions (for example for our moving costs) made a big difference.

Last night we went to Emily to celebrate her birthday and it was a fun evening.

On January 18th there was a big storm in the Netherlands, and it damaged the huisje near Tibor and Janneke's home in IJburg, Amsterdam.

The official name of the huisje is the Piet Hein Eek Huis. It was originally built as an ecological house for the Floriade exhibition in the Netherlands and placed on IJburg later. Tibor and Janneke together with their neighbors made sure the huisje stayed on IJburg as a place for social events.

Here is a movie of the damage that the storm did to the house. There is also a movie on the transfer of the huisje to the people in IJburg a while ago.

Let's hope the huisje will be repaired soon!

Last December Sasha and I made a trip from Bulgaria to Hungary, where we visited our friends Daniel, Erika and Martijn.

Daniel and Erika bought a new house a year ago and it was great to see their new place. Martijn had the same idea as we did to visit Hungary between Christmas and New Year's so this was a nice opportunity for all of us to meet.

When we arrived at Daniel & Erika's place Erika had cooked a delicious dinner and we spent our time talking and we had a very good time.

We stayed one night in Szolnok. It was short (never long enough!) but it was great to meet in person; much better than by phone or online. We left the next day around 3.00 pm to Budapest, and while we were planning to meet the next morning, that didn't work out due to a sudden illness.

Still, it was a very nice visit. Some pictures of our visit to Szolnok.

On the 2nd last day of 2006 we went to Plovdiv to see Vladi and meet his girlfriend Irina for the first time.

We went to the Vienska Salon in the main street in Plovdiv. We had coffee and it was nice to spend time together and chat.

We are back in the US, and slowly but surely getting adjusted to our regular live again.

The trip from Perushtitsa to Durham took 24 hours, and we arrived Sunday night around 10.30 pm at RDU airport. We picked up the car and made a quick stop at the supermarket for some essentials and we were home around midnight. Since then it took a couple of days to get adjusted to the time difference.

It's strange to realize that we visited the Red Church only a week ago.

Just before Christmas Svetlio and Tsetsa came to Plovdiv. We met in the Vienska Salon, a cafe (сладкарница) in Vienna style in the main street of the city.

It was good to see them again; the last time I met them was 3 years ago.

We are still in Perushtitsa, Bulgaria and we've had a great time the last two weeks. Jonathan and Irena are back in New Jersey now, Sasha and I will travel back to Durham on Sunday.

After New Year's Eve we've been to Plovdiv, and explored Perushtitsa. It's a very old city, with a lot of history and I'm enjoying it. This afternoon I went to the museum, in the morning Milan, Sasha and I went to the Red Church -- later more about all that.

From Perushtitsa, Bulgaria we wish you a very happy 2007!

It's 12:44 am and Bulgaria is now officially part of the European Union -- double reason for celebrations therefore.